In Deep
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 19
Leaving the book stacks, though not before tossing another dirty scowl at the piles of books needing to be rehomed after some kid's prank, Mrs. Skrollman lead them back to where the long, semi-circular librarian's counter was that they'd passed earlier. They stood by and quietly waited for her to push through the counter-high, half door and make her way over to where her computer and desk chair were.
“Is there something the matter with your hand, dear?” she asked peering at the way Elspeth kept shaking her hand.
Startling by the unexpected question as she hadn't even realized what she'd been doing, Elsepth fumbled for an answer. “What? Oh, no, it just seems to have a bad case of pins and needles for some reason.”
An uncomfortable amount of staring and a contemplative 'hmm' later, the librarian turned her attention instead to the computer in from of her.
“Now, the break-ins was it?” she asked without looking at them as she tapped furiously away on her keyboard.
“Yes,” Derek said, “they started just a few weeks ago.” He stopped talking and his face pulled into a disdainful sneer as he added, “Mrs. Hythe is somehow convinced that I'm responsible for them.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Skrollman said, shaking her head and tutting, “well I suppose then that that explains your interest in them. Though, if you're looking to find out what she may have reported to the Council about you, I'm afraid I won't be able to help you there. All such reports are kept private except at the Director's discretion.”
“Director?” Elspeth asked, suddenly feeling very confused by all this talk of councils.
Derek surprised her by being the first to answer. “There's a sort of hierarchy among librarians similar to within a library system where you have pages, clerks, assistant librarians, librarians, and so forth.”
“Yes, but there is more to it than that,” Mrs. Skrollman said, piping up from where her eyes were still glued to her ancient computer screen. “You see, there are also different types of librarians each with their own magical specialty and set of skills. You'll find out more, Elspeth, when you start your page training.”
“Page training?”
The somewhat eccentric librarian chuckled warmly at the nervous squeak in Elspeth's voice. “It's nothing to worry about, my dear. Mostly just heavy instruction about all the dos and don'ts of librarians, but there'll also be some exercises in the different library disciplines so we can establish just what sort of librarian you are, as well as, test the strength of your particular class of magic. Mrs. Hythe, for example, is a Reference Librarian, but –”
“I thought she was a Managing Librarian?” Elspeth interrupted, her head spinning to keep up.
“What? Oh, no, Regional Managing Librarian is merely her title and, well, her position in librarian society, but Reference Librarian is her librarian class. She's an absolute bloodhound when it comes to tracking down information, let me tell you! It's true magic in every sense of the word. Now, Edwin Grimmlich on the other hand, he's more of a Field Librarian. Specifically, he's a Collector. Although he's largely retired now, but he was one of the foremost Collectors out there! Even if he did tend to, ahem, go off book.”
Elspeth frowned, still struggling to sort everything out. She had heard him call himself that once though during that phone call she'd overheard a portion of only a few days before he disappeared.
“What exactly is it that a Collector does?”
“Ah! Just a moment, here we are,” the older woman said, half-muttering to herself before, finally, pulling her eyes off her computer to look at Elspeth and Derek. Pushing her glasses back up which had started to slip down her nose once again, she answered her. “A Collector is who does most of the Council's grunt work. After a Reference Librarian has done all the research to magically and logically track down whose books, among all the authors out there, are giving trouble, it is a Collector that is tasked with locating the earliest existing copy of that book. Sometimes, it's unclear which book is the source of the disturbance and so they'll get a list of books that they have to hunt down and hand off to a Curator who is then able to determine which one is the root cause and help assess what needs to be done from there. It's also usually the Collector's that will handle more of the day-to-day interactions with the Unseen carrying out whatever tasks get handed down to them by their Managing Librarian. There are other types too, Archivists and Bookbinders namely, though both are rare enough that Collectors and Curators have had to be trained up to preform some of their basic skills in order to maintain order. Bookbinders especially, I can't recall the last time I actually heard about a Bookbinder. Not one that's still living anyway. There'll be a new Archivist every couple of years or so, but I think it's been decades, possibly longer, since there was a Bookbinder found.”
“How so?” Derek asked, leaning forward against the counter with great interest.
“Well, there just haven't been any new ones discovered,” she replied stumbling for an answer, “I mean, it's possible there could have been others and they simply failed to pass the test, poor things, but there's no way we can know tha –
Derek shook his head. “No, I mean how is it that Bookbinders and Archivists are so important for keeping order?”
Mrs. Skrollman stiffened a bit before squirming about a little in her seat and it made Elspeth wonder if, perhaps, the librarian that looked like she was still stuck in the 1950s from the way she did her hair and the style of her glasses had said more than she was supposed to about the inner workings of the librarians.
“Ah, did I say that?” she said, acting surprised, “what I meant was –”
“I'll make it three weeks of licorice.”
The librarian's hazel eyes practically lit up as she pursed her lips tightly and bit at her bottom one. Her eyes darted to the front of the library and the door that hadn't budged since Derek and Elspeth had gone through it.
Elspeth smothered a laugh at the way she looked down her long, hawkish nose at them with such predatory intensity. While Derek may not have been able to charm Mrs. Skrollman, he certainly knew how to play her.
“You see,” she said lowly, leaning forward so they could still hear her, “if a particular world or, if the librarian is skilled enough, even just a part of a world that an author created is proving to be too dangerous to leave running loose, with or without restrictions, it takes a Bookbinder or Archivist to permanently bind them and their magic. A Collector or Curator can do in a pinch, but any bindings they perform are only temporary and will eventually wear off and the whole thing repeated. They're also much more limited as to the type of bindings their magic can do.”
Elspeth cast a quizzical look at Derek over the way tensed when Mrs. Skrollman talked about bindings and made a mental note to ask him more about them later. Although she was insanely curious to know more, they had gotten off track of Derek's original question and it wouldn't do to miss all of her classes. Even apart from getting marked down in class for the absence, someone else was bound to notice and she really didn't want to risk that someone being Kieran given that they shared their fifth period algebra class with him. Before she could steer them back on track though, Derek was talking again.
“It sounds as though Bookbinders and Archivists are almost interchangeable,” he said, his expression now schooled to be practically blank. If it weren't for the way she'd seen him stiffen just moments before, she would have thought him bored and uncaring about the matter.
Mrs. Skrollman hesitated for a brief second before choosing her words carefully.
“Nearly,” she said, drawing the word out, “and there are certainly those that would argue that an Archivist is merely a more narrowly focused Bookbinder, but there are a few minute differences. However, unless it was your intention all along to get us all into a great deal of trouble, I think it would be best to get back to the task at hand. You might be able to charm our principle, Mr. Crosworth, but Mrs. Hythe is bound to hear about you skipping classes and that's a conversation I'd rather not be part of if she finds out you were here during that time.”
Elspeth stiffened at the smirk she saw playing on Derek's upturned lips and the way his eyes danced dangerously. To her immense relief though, he didn't push it, but, instead, tilted his head in a deep nod of acknowledgment to the librarian's warning.
“Fair enough,” he said, still smiling in that eerie way of his, “now, just what do you have for us?”
Shaking her head and muttering about the boldness of kids these days, she turned her head to look back at her screen. “There's not a great deal to tell, but, according to the email bulletin that the Director blasted following an emergency meeting of the Library Council over the weekend, they believe that the incidents are not just random burglaries like the police are thinking. It's their belief that whoever is behind them is searching for something in particular and that is why, as of yet, nothing has been reported stolen. Although, depending on the nature of what they're looking for, it's entirely possible it wouldn't be reported anyway so as to avoid any unwanted questions.”
“Is there any mention of who or what they suspect is behind them?” Derek asked.
Her left hand tapping its long, painted nails against the wood surface of the desk, her other hand deftly used the roller-button of her mouse to scroll down whatever it was she was looking at on her carefully turned away screen.
“I'm afraid not,” she said with a shake of her head, “it's mostly just a list of the reported break-ins with a summary of when and where it happened.”
“Can we get a print out of the list where the break-ins have occurred?” Elspeth asked, getting a rare look of surprise from Derek which he quickly schooled.
“Young lady, while against my better judgment I have indulged your and Derek's curiosity about the break-ins, I really don't believe that either of you should be going poking about any further,” the librarian said giving Elspeth a stern look. “He is hardly in good standing with the Library Council and you, pardon my bluntness, are entirely out of your depth with absolutely no training at all.”
Wouldn't be the first time, she muttered silently to herself, thinking about Isulf's appeal for help. She didn't think telling her that though would do her any favours as she couldn't imagine Mrs. Skrollman keeping her tongue for all the licorice in the world. No, she would almost certainly feel obligated to report it to Mrs. Hythe and where would that get them?
“My parents are antique dealers,” she said instead with a shrug, “I've been to a great many markets, specialty stores, and even tagged along to see people's private collections. Call it curiosity to see if I know any of them.”
Mrs. Skrollman's eyes narrowed behind her outrageous looking purple-rimmed cat's eye glasses. “I somehow doubt that that is your only reason.”
Panicking slightly, Elspeth opened her mouth to say more, but was stopped by the librarian raising a wrinkled hand at her and shaking her head.
“No, no,” she said in a rush, “don't tell me. I don't want to know. The less I know, the less I have to hold back from Mrs. Hythe.”
With a hand still raised, she turned her head back to the computer and made a few quick clicks of her mouse. The library printer soon jumped to life with it's whirling and clicking and generally sounding like it was going to fall apart at any moment before settling into its steady rhythm of mechanical stuttering as it slowly shot out one piece of paper and then another.
“Oh, don't do that,” Mrs. Skrollman scolded when the machine stopped printing only halfway through. With a huff and a closed fist, she gave the ornery old piece of technology a good thump and it started up again.
Whipping the pages out of the tray once it had finally finished, she held them out to Elspeth before snatching it back just as her fingers were about to touch the edges.
“I hope you realize you're wading into the deep end of the dictionary without any quotation device to save you,” she said, looking sternly down her long nose and uttering the most absurd thing Elsepth had ever heard. And yet, despite the oddness of it, she understood her perfectly. If she got into trouble, she would have nothing to fall back on to dig herself out of it.
Nothing except a fae, she barely suppressed the groan that thought brought with it. Here she was trusting the word of, not just one, but two fae that they would help her. The one race that, in all of her books, was universally warned against putting your trust in and she'd now done it twice.
Swallowing all her rising doubts about if she'd made the right choice, Elspeth held out a hand for the piece of paper. “I know.”
“And, if Mrs. Hythe should find you with this, it wasn't me that gave it to you.”
“I won't breath a word.”
“Alright then, here you go. And it'll be thirty cents for the print out,” Mrs. Skrollman said as she handed over the paper and then held out an open hand.
Derek gave the librarian a funny look and Elspeth had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. In spite of being the one to ask for it, it wasn't to Elspeth that Mrs. Skrollman was soliciting payment from, but Derek.
“What?” Mrs. Skrollman added, “library rules are library rules and all print outs are ten cents per page. It helps cover the cost of new toner and paper.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I'm aware of that, but is it not generally the one responsible for the print that must pay for it?”
“Indeed so, and, as I've deemed you responsible for this entire visit, that naturally falls on you,” her tone chipper as she replied.
Realizing that he was not going to win this one, Derek shook his head with an exasperated, if amused, sigh and, with a snap of his fingers, produced three dimes and placed them in her expectant hand. Then, pushing back from the desk, he started to saunter away.
“Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Corvelle?” the librarian called out to her him.
Though he never turned around, the smile in his voice was obvious to anyone with ears as he kept on walking. “Not at all, Mrs. Skrollman. Check the extra book return box you keep under the counter.”
~...~...~...~...~...~
“Licorice? Really?” Elsepth asked when she caught back up with him out in the hall. “You bribe her with licorice?”
“I wouldn't call it that. Bribe is such an ugly word,” Derek said quietly as they walked the student forsaken corridors.
She didn't think twice as she followed him around a bend in the hall, not really looking where he was leading them. “Oh? What would you call it then?”
He smiled that infamous smile of his that always spelled troubled. “Compensation for her troubles.”
“Unbelievable,” she said under her breath with a shake of her head and a half-laugh. “Well, at least it wasn't Turkish Delight.”
Derek chuckled beside her. “Wrong book. Also, I tried. She can't stand the stuff and calls it 'jellied perfume'.”
It was only when she saw the signs for the gym and the hall where all the teachers and principle had their offices that she realized he'd not lead them back the direction they'd come.
“Um, shouldn't we be getting to class now?” Elspeth asked, wincing when she saw that the clock now read 8:35. They'd missed their entire first class and, by now, should have been finding their seats for the next one.
“Only if you're not interested in finding who's really behind these break-ins,” Derek replied, “You are interested aren't you?”
“Of course I am,”
“Then trust me, there's no teacher on either of our schedule's today that I can't handle,” he assured her.
“It's not the teacher's I'm worried about,” she muttered, her thoughts going to her already overly concerned friend. She didn't know how much longer she could hold of an interrogation by Kieran, but getting found out that she'd skipped classes, and with Derek no less, was sure to accelerate that inevitable timeline.
She frowned when he lead them down yet another eerily deserted hall. While everyone was supposed to be in or on their way too classes by now, Elspeth had thought that they might at least have run into Mrs. Fickleton or one of the other hall monitors that always seemed to be lurking around the next corner just when you wanted to avoid them most. Instead though, she hadn't seen hide nor hair of anyone since she'd first arrived apart from their impromptu visit to see Mrs. Skrollman.
“No, I didn't charm or otherwise enchant them,” Derek said out of the blue, startling Elspeth.
“How –” she started to say before shaking her head, “no, never mind, I don't want to know.”
Derek chuckled beside her. “It's nothing as nefarious as what your mind is telling you. You have a very suspicious nature and, when it comes to me at least, you're not all that subtle about showing it. It couldn't have been more clear what you were thinking if there had been a neon sign above your head.”
“So you're saying it's just dumb luck we haven't gotten caught yet?” An auburn eyebrow raised at the dubious claim.
When they came to another crossroad of halls, he stopped and grinned at her. It was a wide, brilliant grin that would have had many of the girls in their school feeling all weak at the knees and moon-eyed, but, to Elspeth made him look about as trustworthy as the Cheshire cat. Her eyes narrowed at his gleaming ones and she waited for whatever impish thought had entered his mind to come out.
“Oh, it's anything but, luck,” he purred dangerously, “I happen to have their routine memorized so we've been just ahead of them this whole time. Although, had things taken any longer with Mrs. Skrollman, it might have gotten a little hairy. We barely missed getting caught by Mrs. Fickleton back there. Now, before we nearly get caught again, let's go.”
Not waiting for any response, he took the hall perpendicular to the one they were on leaving Elspeth to stare after him. Past him, she could see the large, glass windows that made up the front of the school. His strange, circuitous route had taken them back out to the main entrance by way of avoiding, not just the hall monitors, but also also the specific halls where their classes were on.
With a groan and a quick prayer that she wouldn't come to regret her decision, Elspeth set off after him.
~...~...~...~...~...~
“You better have us back here before fifth period,” she grumbled watching the school get smaller and smaller in the side-view mirror.
“Why so worried?” Derek asked, “Neither of us has Mrs. Hythe today so we're not likely to have to fend off her wrath until tomorrow and, as I've already stated, I can handle the others.”
“And can you handle Kieran when he comes after us for an explanation? He's bound to notice us missing and put two-and-two together and come up with five.”
Beside her, a smirk played on his lips and she knew in an instant that she'd chosen the wrong wording to use.
“You'd think for being in an algebra class that his math would be better,” he said cheekily, his eyes dancing with mirth as he kept them glued on the road in front of them, and, for a second, she was tempted to ask if he was any relation to Shakespeare's Puck.
Instead the red portion of her auburn hair rose to the occasion and got the better of her.
“Perhaps this is all just another game to you, but, for me, it is anything but,” she snapped, feeling suddenly vexed by how casual he was being everything. “You don't have a brother and two friends breathing down your neck for answers you can't give them or a sister that is just one phone call away from bringing in the funny farm and the hug-me jacket.”
The tires squealed as, without warning, Derek jerked on the wheel to pull over and then slammed on the breaks. Outside was filled with the sounds of everyday life in Hydendale, but it was all muffled by the deafening quiet inside of the car.
Elspeth's arms snaked around to hug herself awkwardly as she sat watching the way Derek's hands had tightened around the stirring wheel. Swallowing hard, she chanced a glance up at his face and it would have sent her scrambling for the door handle but for the way his right hand flew from the wheel to catch her wrist – setting off a whole new round of pins and needles up her arm where his fingers brushed against her skin. His eyes were still fixed on the windshield even when he finally broke silence.
“This isn't a game, Elspeth. Not to me, not anymore, and, in truth, it stopped being one some time ago,” his voice low and shaky after he'd taken a few deep breaths and unclenched his jaw which had been set as tightly as a steel trap.
She held her peace and just watched him with wide, frightened eyes and waited for him to continue as he took another faltering breath. Though, even if she had wished to say anything, she wasn't sure that her tongue remembered how to work just then anyway. It felt like some trick of alchemy had transformed the member into a piece of lead too heavy to lift.
“I know I have no one to blame but myself for your distrust, but know this now, Elsepth,” Derek said, turning at last to look at her. Fear, or was it anticipation, grew inside of her as she held his gaze. It was the same fiery determination that she'd glimpsed back at Mrs. Hythe's office that had sent her running. Only, this time, there was nowhere to run too. “Before this is over, I will earn it. And we're here by the way.”
Elspeth, still reeling from Derek's startling statement and struggling to make sense of it, blinked in shock at the abrupt change in topic. “Wait, what?”
“I said we're here,” Derek repeated, nodding his head to something out the window next to her while smiling ever so slightly at the frazzled girl beside him.
Mumbling something about emotional yo-yos that was likely as equally unintelligible to his ears as it was to her own, Elspeth pried her eyes away from Derek and focused on what he had indicated out the window. Her throat tightened even as some of the tension left her body. There, standing tall before her and looking woefully neglected with its lack of lights and the 'closed' sign on the door, was Mr. Grimmlich's bookstore.
She felt the air shift around her and, though she could still feel his fingers clasped around it, the pressure on her wrist began to ease until it disappeared entirely. A split second later, Derek was standing beside the car and opening the door for her. Still finding it difficult to know what to say, she mouthed a quiet 'thank you' and stepped out of the car.
“I assume you still have the key?” Derek asked, closing the locks of his car with a flick of his hand.
“Mmmhmm.”
“Good. I doubt our intruders will be back quite yet so this is the perfect place for us to go over the print out Mrs. Skrollman extorted money for,” he said heading towards the store.
A smile quirked on Elspeth's face. “What happened to 'compensation for her troubles'?” she teased drawing a snort from Derek. “Being a gentlemen then? Or, well, gentlefae really. She had a point you know. I may have asked for the print outs, but it was because of you that we were there in the first place.”
“Will it help your opinion of me if I agree?”
The fervour and note of hopefulness in his voice made her freeze as she reached for the old skeleton key she'd taken to wearing around her neck for safekeeping. Why does my opinion of him matter so much to him? It never seemed to before.
With her tongue tied into knots and suddenly feeling very aware of their close proximity, she chose not to respond. Quickly slipping the chain from off her neck, she blew the displaced strands of hair off her face and fumbled to unlock the door before bolting to get inside and put some much needed distance between them. Not even pausing to enjoy the familiar scent of old books, she headed off as if on auto-pilot for her usual place at the back corner of the store. It was only when she heard the door jingling shut behind her and the lights she'd forgotten about coming on that she knew Derek had also made his way inside.
She didn't make it very far before she was forced to pause her mad march. Standing just a few feet into Mr. Grimmlich's book jungle with her hand tightly gripping the edge of a bookshelf that looked to be about as old as the building itself and breathing hard, Elspeth listened to the quiet creak of floorboards behind her that halted shortly after she did. She swallowed hard and stared straight ahead of her.
“I can't promise you'll succeed,” she said her voice shaking as she called back to where she knew Derek was purposefully holding back, “but you can try.”
A warm chuckle filled the room as if it came from everywhere instead of just a few feet behind her. And his voice, a promise that rang in her ears and echoed as clear as a bell in her mind.
“Oh, I'll succeed, Elspeth. You can count on that.”