In the Face of Failure
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 39
The next few days were more of the same – test after test with Elspeth showing minimal signs of the magic that lay buried inside of her. It was there, she could feel it humming just beneath the surface, but now that they were trying to coax it forward it stubbornly refused to budge.
She’d preformed a little better during the Collector test where Director Penrathe and Mrs. Skrollman had hidden books all across town and sent her on a merry old chase for them, but had scored a time still well below the minimum threshold for a level I Collector. Unsurprisingly, the worst had been for Digital Librarian – an emerging classification of librarian proving remarkably successful in the tracking and isolation of digital catalysts whose magical worlds were misbehaving. According to Director Penrathe, the classification wasn’t well understood yet as it seemed to be comprised of a mishmash of Collectors, Reference Librarians, and even the odd Curator, so testing for it was highly inaccurate at this point. The only commonality that they’d found for it thus far was that all Digital Librarians appeared to be split-discipline though not all split-discipline librarians showed an aptitude for digital media and Elspeth, though she could work it as well as anyone else her age, had a less than cordial attitude towards technology. It was useful and it was necessary, at least to a degree, but she was very much an analog girl at heart – a symptom, perhaps, of being daily surrounded by the remnants of bygone eras and finding them much more pleasing than cold modernity.
After failing yet another magical skills test, Elspeth slid off the raised office chair she’d parked in front of the library’s catalog computer. She didn’t even raise her head as she trudged by internal compass towards the exit, stopping only when a gentle hand landed on her arm.
“Don’t despair, Elspeth,” Mrs. Skrollman said with a gentleness so soft it sounded foreign on the feisty librarian. “Librarian magic isn’t the same for everyone, even within the same class, it doesn’t mean that yours is too weak to be classified. We just haven’t found the right test to bring it out yet.”
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“It’s useless!” Elspeth cried, falling back against the fortress of pillows Niamh had constructed.
Finding her bed too cramped of a space for all of them, her friend had actually, in an act declared a miracle by Niamh’s mother who’d even taken photographs to commemorate the event and threatened to share them on social media for the world to know, cleared her floor of the teeter towers of books in order to smother it in what surely must be every outlandish pillow, cushion, and blanket in the whole of New England. It was a ridiculous sight – like a nest made from sequins, eyelash yarn, fake fur, and fuzzy blanket in all colours under the sun – but at least it was comfortable even if it did look like a Lisa Frank explosion.
She stared blankly at the ceiling not even reacting as she usually did to the poster Niamh had hidden up there, teasing her about being a bigger geek that Elspeth was. A huff that might have been more of a growl ripped from her. “We’ve been over every book in the list at least five times now and we’re no closer to figuring out which one our burglar is after!”
“What about the new ones I told you about yesterday?” Farren asked propped up against his own wall of psychedelic plush. “Do they follow the same pattern as the original list?”
It was Derek that answered. “Of course they do and we already checked. Nothing stands out from the books they purchased either.”
The glower that had been permanently etched on Farren’s face since Derek had poofed in unannounced and immediately taken up residence of the floor space closest to Elspeth deepened at the response. “And just when did you have time to check that?” he rumbled through clenched teeth.
Elspeth rolled her eyes. Her brother hadn’t forgotten that awkward moment in her room less than a week ago when he’d walked in on something, well, on something that she’d been trying really, really hard to pretend hadn’t happened. Not that that was proving to be at all successful with the silent warfare that had resumed between the two. When asked about it by Niamh, all Elspeth could managed was a grumbled ‘don’t ask.’ She prayed that the rush of heat she’d felt in her cheeks hadn’t painted the words she couldn’t articulate clear across her face.
Derek merely smiled that slow smile of his. “Why last night, of course. I came right after Elspeth texted me. If you’re worried that that sword happy sister of yours might have seen us, you needn’t, we were quite alone and very quiet.”
Both Farren and Keiran reacted to that, jumping to their feet only to slip and a fuzzy blanket when they went to lunge at him and winding up flailing in a tangled mess. Derek snickered while Niamh openly cackled from her own perch on her bed.
Crack!
“Ow!” Derek rubbed the back of his head. “That’s the second time you’ve done that.”
“That’s the second time you’ve deserved it,” Elspeth retorted not even noticing the gobsmacked looks on their companions’ faces, “at least this time it wasn’t your face. Now stop antagonizing my brother or it will be.”
His smile this time was a genuine one, warm and amused, even in the face of her threat.
“As you wish,” he said with bow and a flourish of his hand which, as it stretched out towards the center of the room shot burst of green and orange light in the direction of the still tangled heap that was her brother and friend.
Both let out a screech their sisters were sure to tease them for for months to come when the blast of swirling magic began to wrap and whirl around them growing faster with every nanosecond. Elspeth shielded her face with her arms as the brightness grew and was just opening her mouth to yell at Derek again when it suddenly stopped.
Breathing hard, she slowly lowered her arms and opened her eyes. She blinked a few times to clear the spots from her vision and frowned to find nothing amiss. In fact, it was less an amiss as Kieran and Farren were now standing wide-eyed in the middle of the room instead of lying on the floor in a jumble.
“Th-thank you… I think,” a stunned Farren muttered.
An equally stunned Kieran nodded beside him before collapsing back down on the pillow enshrined floor.
The room fell quiet after that. It wasn’t often that Derek so openly displayed his magic, other than teleporting that is which he did with such a frequency Elspeth was convinced he did it just to watch the way the others jumped – a guess that was supported by the way she’d caught his lips curling up into a silent laugh more than once at their reaction.
“Well,” Niamh exclaimed, hands clapping against her knees, “as entertaining as that all was, it doesn’t help us any. Maybe it’s time to consider that they aren’t after a book at all. I mean, your parents deal in more than books and, so far, they’re the only connection we can be certain of.”
Her shoulders sagged and Elspeth dropped her gaze to the floor. Not even Atlas of myth could hold the weight of dejection and frustration that she felt pressing down upon her. “I’m not sure what to think anymore. I’ve failed every librarian test so far in my training, maybe I’ve failed in this too.”
Without another word, Elspeth launched herself off the floor and bolted for the door not caring that she’d left her laptop and flashdrive buried between two cushions on the bedroom floor. Farren and Derek reacted as one at the hasty exit, each making moves to follow her, but, being closest to the door, it was Kieran that won that contest running out only half a second behind her.
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Letting out a shaky breath, Elspeth ducked her head and hugged her knees to keep from hitting the sharp, wooden corner that she knew lurked nearby her head yet she couldn’t see for the darkness around her. Though there was a part of her would have kept on running, Elspeth was much more in charge of her impulses than the last time she’d felt the urge to flee. Instead, she’d run to her favorite hiding hole from when they were much younger and given to playing hide-and-seek for hours in the old Colonial – the awkward, dusty, little space under the stairs up to the attic that the O’Rourke’s used for storage now and again though little could fit though child-size door.
Elspeth closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but coughed on all the dust that clogged the air. She’d seen it floating in the air in the few thin streams of light that filtered down from the cracks in the stairs above her.
“You’re being ridiculous, Els,” she scolded herself, muttering at the volume of a mouse. Still, she stayed where she was and watched the spider crawling on the ground in front of her. The twins would have shrieked at the sight, but Elspeth didn’t think the eight-legged friends were so bad, after all, there were worse creatures to have around than spiders if they weren’t of the dangerous kind.
She flinched when the door swung open robbing her of the dark her eyes and just finished adjusting to and Kieran bent double to duck his head inside.
He smiled softly when his eyes landed on her, but she could see the concern shining in his eyes and etched in the worry lines of his face that he didn’t bother to conceal. “I thought I’d find ya here.”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a resigned shrug. “It just got too much.”
“I know, Els, but you needn’t run like that,” Kieran replied softly, his accent a touch stronger like it always got when emotions were high, “you about gave Farren a heart attack leavin’ as you did.” He paused and she could read indecision and conflict in the way the furrow of his brow deepened when he pursed his lips. She would have laughed, too, at the exasperated sigh he gave next were it not for the words that followed. “That fae of yours too as loath as I am to admit it.”
Despite her guilt of the first, Elspeth rolled her eyes at the second. “He’s not my fae.”
It earned her a raised brow and skeptical look from Kieran. “No? Could have fooled me.”
Elspeth blushed against her will. “Kieran…”
“No, no, I don’t want to know,” he cut her off though what she was going to say next she really didn’t know herself as the words sort of dried up on her tongue. “Just know this, if he hurts you, he’ll get more than my fist to his face. No one messes with my sisters like that.”
She laughed at the familiar threat. “You know you aren’t actually my brother right?” she teased with a smile.
Though she couldn’t see it from the way he was bent down to poke his head through the door, she was sure he shrugged at that.
“Ya well, doesn’t matter, we’ve sort of adopted you,” Kieran retorted, “you, Elspeth Grace MacGearney, are an honourary O’Rourke whether you like it or not. It’s all official, there’s even a plaque or there will be as soon as I ask Da to make it. Now, how about we go back before my neck gets locked in this position, aye?”
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There was still just that slight bite in the night air as Elspeth sat out on the porch with one knee pulled up close to her chest while the other lay flat against the wooden planks. It was dark out, but the light from the porch lamps was sufficient enough for her to sketch by and she needed to lose herself in her sketchbook. It had been days since she’d last drawn anything, not since her page training had begun, and she was feeling rather out of sorts because of it. Sketching had always helped her to think and take out her fears and anxieties on the blank page instead of succumbing to a total meltdown of overwrought emotion and, with failure after failure, she needed that calming affect now.
After another couple of fruitless hours sitting on Niamh’s floor and enough tea to float away on, it was Farren that had eventually called it to an end when he saw the toll that getting nowhere was continuing to take on Elspeth. So, with promises to keep them in the loop on any new developments or thought bunnies, he’d taken her home and, with Maelyn out on a date, successfully evaded any interrogation as to the cause of Elspeth’s melancholic mood.
As her pencil flew across the page though she could feel all the stress lifting from her. She didn’t have a reference, but her subject was something so familiar that she could draw it purely by memory and much love – Mr. Grimmlich. Oh, how she missed him and the way that his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled!
A tear fell unbidden on her sketch of his face. Where are you, Mr. Grimmlich? Why did you just vanish like that?
She sighed and picked up her kneaded eraser from her lap when the sound of the porch door closing made her hand jerk.
“I managed to save you something to eat before the savages got it all,” Farren said as he slid down to sit beside her and held out a tray.
It was takeout, of course, being terrible at cooking and strictly forbidden from any sort of culinary exercise after his attempt to impress a girl resulted in a minor kitchen fire from having a burner up too high for the low smoke oil in the pan. There hadn’t been any real damage, just a lot of smoke, tall flames, and screaming from a terrified girlfriend who was too traumatized to go on another date with him afterwards. However, it wasn’t something that he would ever be allowed to live down given that the reason he hadn’t been paying attention to the burner was because he was too busy juggling peppers.
“May I see?” he asked, gesturing to the sketchbook braced against her knee.
Her hand tightened around the pages of the book as old habits reared their ugly heads. Slowly though, she loosened her grip and, securing the loose pages, handed it to him without a word before nervously picking at her food while he flipped with great care through the pages of the well-worn journal she’d guarded so carefully.
There was awe shinning in his eyes when he handed it back to her. “These are beautiful, Els. Have you really seen all of these?”
“Many of them,” she admitted shyly, “some are just my own imaginings, but a lot were based on what I’d actually seen before I started blocking them out.”
Farren starred in contemplation at the half-finished sketch of the bookstore owner that was so dear to his sister. “This library director, has he been able to learn anything new about your friend?”
With half an egg roll sticking out of her mouth, Elspeth’s eyes dropped to her lap and, finishing her bite, she shook her head. No news. No ideas. No closer to finding out what had happened to him. Just one more way I’ve failed, her throat constricting at the thought as her eyes began to sting.
Fingers appeared under her chin and gently raised her head before an arm wrapped around her in a hug. “Hey, none of that,” her brother whispered his chin resting on her head, “I know you’re worried about him, but you have to stop feeling like you’re to blame because he hasn’t been found yet. Maybe he doesn’t want to be found. Did you ever think of that?”
Pressed into Farren’s shoulder which was starting to feel a little soggy from the tears that had slipped past her tenuous control, her brows kit together in a frown. No, she hadn’t considered that. But if Mr. Grimmlich left not wanting to be found, then that changed everything. The memory of a phone call she had only heard one side of played over in her mind. Who had he been talking to? Surely someone that knew about this world Elspeth had suddenly found herself a part of, but were they another librarian or perhaps a fae since the mention of Courts had been made. Her heart raced. She needed to know who was on the other end of that phone call.
“Farren,” Elspeth asked pulling back, “you wouldn’t happen to know a way to trace a phone call would you?”