Lectures, Libraries, and Licorice
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 18
“Isulf?” Derek hissed, making Elspeth gulp at the feral look in his eyes. “What business did an emissary of the Winter Court have with you?”
She squirmed a little in her seat under the way his eyes bore into hers and hesitated for fear the storm in his eyes would break loose. Through the car windows, Elspeth saw it darkening outside and could hear how the wind had picked up. That's odd, the forecast didn't say anything about storms today.
“Elspeth.”
The sound of her name being called, along with the low rumble of thunder snapped her out of her momentary daze. Her eyes left the window behind him to focus again on Derek.
“He wanted to show me something,” she said at last, picking her words carefully.
Derek's eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Someplace that shouldn't exist.”
“I need more than that, Elspeth,” he huffed, “Isulf Correntin is the Knight-General of the Winter Court, the Winter Queen's right hand. He doesn't just go sightseeing with humans. Where did he take you?”
“He failed to mention that part,” she muttered before chewing on her lip.
Perhaps it was out of old habits and fear of being disbelieved and laughed at, but Elspeth was reluctant to voice what had happened since he had left her. You did say you would need a lot of help. Perhaps he could be part of it. A voice, her more reasonable half, whispered in her mind. Yes, but Derek? She whispered back. True, he had been showing himself to be more than the bully and tormentor she knew, but could she really trust him? Has he given you reason not to since finding out what he is?
Elspeth sighed. Fine, I'll give him a chance. As usual, the logical little corner of her mind was right. He hadn't. In fact, he'd given her just the opposite and even before she'd finally learned the truth. For reasons she still didn't understand, when he thought she might be in danger, he chose to keep watch over her instead of leaving her to face whatever danger existed alone.
“To a realm outside of ours,” she answered with some reticence, watching his face closely as she did.
As expected, Elspeth watched as his brows drew together in uncertainty. She braced herself for the ridiculing laugh, except, it never came.
“But there are no other realms beyond ours,” he replied, “unless, that is, you count that of an author's imagination, but that isn't a place one can actually visit save beyond reading and one's own mind's eye.”
“There is now,” she said, her shoulders lifting in a shrug, “one at least and it's causing a great deal of concern among the Courts apparently. Isulf came to ask for my help.”
Derek snorted, a derogatory sound that was full of contempt. “Asking for help is another thing foreign to Isulf Corentin. He does as he pleases without a single care for the consequences. If he's 'asking' for help there's undoubtedly a ca –”
“I agreed,” Elspeth said suddenly, interrupting his rant against the other fae. I wonder just what their issue with each other is anyway?
Outside, the wind which had been making the car shake a little stopped as Derek clamped his mouth shut. It didn't get any lighter though, in fact, it actually darkened until it almost looked like night had fallen early.
“Let me get this straight,” he said slowly, his voice almost quavering as he spoke, “a fae that you've never met before comes up to you wanting to show you something and you just let him? And then enter into some sort of agreement to help him? Of all –”
Though he cut himself short, Elspeth heard the emotion in his voice. He wasn't just angry, though there was certainly plenty of that, there was also a note of hurt in his voice as he spoke that felt like a knife to her heart as she heard it.
She watched him close his eyes and take a couple of deep breaths to regain a poorly fashioned similitude of his usually unflappable appearance.
“I didn't let him do anything,” she shot back, feeling her irritation at Isulf's high-handed approach rising up again inside her, “he came up behind me and, next thing I knew, there was a black glove over my mouth keeping me from screaming and the world was dissolving into a grey glow. When the glow vanished, we were standing knee deep in snow in the middle of a forest.”
His eyes popped back open with a deadly glare and Elspeth heard the tinkling of small pellets of hale against the hood of the car. A thought teased at the edges of her mind at the odd change in weather, but it was quickly chased into the furthest corners of her mind when, in a low hiss, he began speaking again.
“He abducted you and yet you still agreed to help him?”
“After trying to run away and getting turned into a human popsicle from the waist down,” she said drolly with a roll of her eyes, though she shivered at the memory. Even after the ice had receded, it had taken some time for the unnatural cold of the fae's magic to leave her body. “And the agreement to help only came after getting a full explanation.”
He raised a dark eyebrow at her. “Which was?”
With a quick nibble on her lip, she took a deep breath and launched into a full explanation of everything Isulf had said and shown her after they'd teleported to the other realm. He listened impassively to all of it and she was struck with how he could so quickly go from volatile to unreadable in the blink of an eye like a summer storm that blew up for one brief moment of intensity to just vanish back into clear blue skies like it had never been there.
She watched him anxiously when she'd finished her recount and he hadn't made even the slightest peep or twitch of an errant eyebrow.
“I...,” she swallowed and tried again, “I know we aren't exactly friends, but I could use your help if you're willing to give it.”
He frowned and his eyes seemed to lose some of their vividness, but, before she could make sense of it, it vanished and they were back to how they normally were – no storm or dancing gleam in sight – and outside, too, the sky was brightening up. “Of course I'll help.”
The tension that she'd been feeling since before she'd even arrived at school that morning drained out of her and gratitude filled her eyes. After the last few days she probably should have expected it, but that Derek would so easily agree to help was such a foreign experience for her. Before she could thank him though, he was talking again.
“There is one thing bothering me though,” Derek said flatly, his frown deepening, “if all Isulf wanted was your help, why send the mngwa after you?”
Elspeth winced as he asked the one thing she was hoping he wouldn't.
“He didn't,” she confessed, heaving a heavy sigh as she did. “Someone else sent the mngwa.”
~...~...~...~...~...~
He had walked the first block with her, answering a few questions that had sprung to Elspeth's mind, when he stopped suddenly.
“This is where I must leave you,” Isulf said.
“Why?”
“I don't think he would be very pleased to see me with you,” he replied enigmatically, a smirk on his face that said he was tempted to stay regardless of whatever 'he' might think. She also had to wonder just who this 'he' was that he was referring to, though she had her suspicions. “I am also expected to give a full report to my queen. Perhaps she'll have some new information herself that I can share with you at our next meeting.”
Isulf turned to go back the direction they'd just come from.
“Wait!” Elspeth cried, a thought popping into her head.
He paused and looked back at her, a pale eyebrow raised in question.
“Why send the mngwa after me if all you wanted was my help?” she asked.
“It wasn't me who sent it.”
“But back at the school you said I should have listened when Derek tried to warn me,” Elspeth insisted.
“Yes, because any warning from a fae is not to be taken lightly, Courtless or otherwise,” Isulf replied, “but that does not mean that his warning was about me. I've kept tabs on you off-and-on since Mr. Grimmlich vanished, but I sent no mngwa after you. It would hardly do anyone any good to make you the overgrown cat's new favorite chew toy. Besides which, I am a winter fae, a mngwa is not going to be overly fond of my company. Summer Court they'll tolerate if their belly is already full, but rarely Winter. Watch your back, Elspeth MacGearney. If a mngwa has indeed caught your scent it's not likely you've seen the last of it.”
~...~...~...~...~...~
Elspeth rubbed her eyes, her homework beside her on the bed, abandoned for the night after a futile effort to concentrate. Gathering it all up and depositing it on the floor, she snuggled down under her bed covers and reached up to turn off the lamp post beside her bed – not a full-sized one of course, but a regular floor lamp that had been fashioned to resemble the lamp post from Narnia, over their parent's ill at ease feelings about it, Farren had given it to her two years ago for Christmas. Her fingers froze as they grazed the small, metal knob that would plunge her into near darkness leaving only the light from the glow-in-dark paint that she'd used on parts of her bedroom mural to give off their eerie glow. Pulling back her hand, she twisted around the bed to pull out the book she'd carefully stowed away out of sight underneath her pillow.
In awe anew every time she held it, Elspeth let her fingers drift across the gilded letters in a gentle caress before carefully peeled back the cover of the book and, mindful of the title page and the book's other front matter, sifted through the pages until she came to the one she was after. Searching for one in particular that she knew had to be there somewhere, she ran her finger down the long list of names that, if any of her family were to catch her looking at, would earn her a look of concern and possibly another visit or two with the white coats.
“Wow, I never knew there were so many mythological creatures beginning with 'M',” she muttered, blinking away the sleep that threatened to overtake her as she continued to scan the list. At last though, her finger landed on the one name she was looking for: Mngwa Page 569.
Quickly but carefully turning the delicate old pages of the book, Elspeth turned to the page listed where she was greeted by an intricate illustration of the creature. Even on the page the vivid yellow eyes caused a shiver to run down her spine as she looked into them. Every detail of the painting was a perfect match to the cat that still stalked Elspeth's dreams at night. She thumbed through the pages until she saw the name of the next creature emblazoned at the top of another page complete with it's own illustration.
“Guess there isn't a great deal to say about it,” she sighed when she saw how few pages were dedicated to the great cat. “Still, better than nothing I suppose. 'Knowledge is power' and all that.”
Determined to learn at least something more about the cat someone had unleashed on her, she flipped back to the page she had marked out and began to read.
~...~...~...~...~...~
As he had the last two days, Farren once again insisted on dropping Elspeth off at school before continuing on to his work at the Hydendale Herald. He was unusually quiet as they drove, not even bringing up her moment of radio silence Derek had cleverly arranged the day before. She had expected him to be all over her once her phone was back within reception and she saw just how long she and Derek had talked for after school, but, apart from the short barrage of messages shortly after school had let out asking where she was and why she wasn't answering, she hadn't heard a thing from him after replying. He'd been oddly quiet during dinner also, not that one got the opportunity to say much anyway when Aiden got going. The quiet was really starting to eat at Elspeth's nerves when they reached the school and he pulled up to the curb.
“I get off work early today,” Farren said, making Elspeth jump at the break in the silence, “I'll be by to pick you up when school lets out.”
Her heart sank at his tone, all heavy like his words had turned to lead and his tongue was having trouble lifting them, and how he wouldn't even look at her as he spoke, just stared straight ahead of them.
“Thanks, but that's really not – ”
“I'll be here,” he interrupted forcefully as he finally turned away from the window to look her in the eyes.
She swallowed when she saw the way that his jaw was taut and his blue eyes hard as stone. “Okay.”
Her hand on the door latch, she hesitated a moment to look back at her brother. The tension that was rolling off of him was as powerful as straight line winds and soon had her scurrying out of the car to find shelter from it.
She stood there with her feet glued to the cement and watched as her brother sped off, tires squealing just a little before readjusting her backpack and turning to slog towards the school.
~...~...~...~...~...~
With a twinge of guilt, Elspeth noted the time on clock at the end of the hall. She was early again and by a good half-hour. Well, at least this time I can blame Farren having to be at work a little earlier today. She thought as she remembered the accusations Niamh had flung at her earlier.
Sluggishly, she made her way to where her locker was, thankful at least that arriving earlier came with the benefit of avoiding most of the students that had taken up ridiculing her as one of their favorite pastimes. The few students she did see were also those more interested in studying than in heckling who they thought to be a reality-confused girl. She smiled and nodded a greeting to the young Asian girl, an exchange student from Japan – Akane she thought her name was, that had just started there that school year. The girl with her long, black hair all streaked with brilliant red highlights smiled back before quickly turning back to her open locker.
A movement catching her attention, Elspeth paused to stare at the girl's back. A frown crossing her face as she watched how her skirt swished ever so slightly even though she was standing still. Her eyes narrowed before widening suddenly when she spotted a flash of red from under her skirt. Was that.... Before she could finish the thought, she saw it again – the distinct, if hard to spot, swishing of the red and white fur of a fox's tail. She likely would have stared at it longer, but, just then, Akane finished with her locker and the harsh clang of the door banging shut startled Elspeth from her stupour in time to quickly look away and resume her walking before she got caught staring.
Without any more distractions, she at last made it to her locker and, after a quick couple of turns of the combination lock, pulled open the locker door. Elspeth's smile turned downwards as she took in the bareness of her locker. Walking through the halls, she'd caught glimpses of the insides to many of her fellow student's lockers and they were almost all at least somewhat adorned with pictures or artwork or some such thing that made the barren space more personal, but not so with hers. Hers was as bland and lifeless as it had been from the day it came out of the factory. There were no drawings, no photos of friends or family, no stickers or magnetic letters that spelled out her name or some message she wanted to leave herself at the back of her locker, nothing save for a pile of some of her school books and spare supplies.
It hadn't always been so blank. Once, when she'd first moved up to the school from Hydendale's combined middle and elementary schools, Elspeth had been excited about moving to a new school and being one step closer to graduating and thought to personalize her locker with her own drawings. Only a few days later though, they all came down after the first poorly disguised snicker from the girl on the other side of her. She had left it blank ever since and never again dared to show even the slightest piece of herself through the fleeting glimpse of an open locker.
It was a decision she'd made with a great ache, but had, over time, hardened herself too. Every now and then, however, the emptiness that came along with her carefully crafted walls that only came down around a few – very select – people seemed to close in on her. Now was one of those moments.
Shaking herself out of her melancholy, Elspeth started to reach into her locker when, letting out a startled yelp, she suddenly pulled it back as a hand reached around to slam the door shut. Craning her head around, she jumped to see Derek standing so closely behind her, his green eyes sparkling brightly with unvoiced mirth at her reaction.
“Must you sneak up on me?” she said with an annoyed glare, though the bite in her voice was much less than it would have been just a few days ago.
“But the squeals you make are so delightful.”
Her eyes narrowed into unamused, venomous slits as she contemplated what manner of revenge would be most effective, and satisfactory, against a fae.
His smile twitched. “Not to mention the glare you give.”
Stomping down the urge to have a spontaneous twitch that might cause her foot to suddenly try to occupy the same space as one of Derek's own, she tried to ignore his latest test of her self-control with statements that she really didn't know what to do with and ploughed ahead with another question.
“Is there a reason that you've decided to invade my space and annoy me?” she asked testily, “Because, if there isn't, I really ought to warn you –”
“Yes, actually,” he said, breaking into her threat.
Elspeth's mouth snapped shut as she blinked at him in surprise. She hadn't actually expected him to have a reason beyond his obvious enjoyment of toying with her. While his quips at her sanity may have stopped, his need to get a rise out of her certainly hadn't. They'd merely changed in tactic taking on an edge what left her feeling very, very confused, as if she weren't conflicted enough already where Derek was concerned.
In the dangerous position of being equal parts apprehensive and curious, Elspeth heard herself talking before she could put a guard on her tongue. “Which is?”
Her felt her eyes widen as the question slipped off her tongue, but she couldn't speak fast enough to retract it.
His eyes brightened as if it were Christmas and Elspeth's question was his present.
“Come with me and you'll find out,” he said, a smile on his face that she knew she shouldn't trust.
She looked back at her closed locker to see his hand had left its place holding the door shut and was now extended, palm up, towards her.
“I don't know. Class –”
“Doesn't start for almost half-an-hour,” Derek said, overriding her weak attempt to reject his invitation. “So what do you say, Elspeth. Take a leap of faith?”
Worrying on her bottom lip, she stared at the offered hand before looking back at him again. He didn't say a word as she studied his face, looking for any hint of guile, but she could find none. What she did find, she didn't quite know what to do with. The impish glee that she was so used to had largely faded from his eyes, though she could still see a little of it shining from behind, and, in its place, all she could see was earnest pleading as she considered her response.
She must have been quiet for too long as his green eyes began to fade, their light giving way to despondent resignation. The hurt she briefly saw reflected back at her before neatly being tucked away behind layers of cold indifference she could see building gnawed at her.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see his hand beginning to drop back to his side. This is a really bad id –
“Okay,” she said suddenly, breaking off her own internal warning at the same time that her hand lurched forward to grab a hold of his retracting one. Ignoring, once again, the strange jolt she felt whenever they touched.
It was Derek's turn to be surprised and she smiled inside to see the momentary glimmer of wonder mixed with genuine happiness that shown on his face before being quickly schooled away behind an enigmatic smile of satisfaction.
“Then let's go.”
“Where are we going?”
His smile widened just a touch as he seemed to be remembering something.
“Probably the last place you'd expect,” he replied with a smirk in his voice, taking off down the hall with Elspeth in tow, “the school library.”
~...~...~...~...~...~
Relief coursed through Elspeth when she saw the sign for the library coming into view down the hall. As much as she was burning with curiosity to know what on earth Derek was up to, it was actually the opportunity to hide from the curious looks she and Derek had garnered over their joined hands that had her happy to see the library.
“Why exactly are we here?” she asked when he dropped her hand in order to hold the door open for her.
Walking through, she glanced about. Apart from the cafeteria, the library was easily the largest part of the school boasting a collection that was larger than some from the public libraries of Hydendale's neighbors. Even for a library though, it felt awfully quiet and still with not a soul in sight.
“To speak to someone,” Derek said as he, too, looked about the vast, deserted space.
“But there doesn't seem to be anyone here yet.”
“Oh, she's here alright,” he said, still scanning the stacks and windowed walls of the private study rooms that ran along one side of the library, opposite of the computer lab. “C'mon, follow me.”
Having already come this far, she shook her head and sprinted to catch up with him before he disappeared into the forest of bookshelves. She walked side-by-side with him, her hand somehow finding itself in his once more, and looked about for whom she assumed Derek was looking for. At just past seven in the morning, she could only imagine one person being in the library – Mrs. Lydia Skrollman, the school librarian.
Turning her head to-and-fro to look down each of the aisles in search of Mrs. Skrollman, Elspeth's fingers itched to reach out when they walked by the new book section and she spied some recent additions baring the spine stickers for young adult fantasy. With great reluctance, she pulled her eyes away from shelves that called out to her and continued looking around for the oddly elusive librarian.
“You know, as no one else seems to be here, you could just call for her,” Elspeth whispered as they passed, yet another row of books with no sign of the librarian.
“Only if you like to live dangerously,” he replied, speaking just as quietly as Elspeth had, “librarians of all kinds it seems have a remarkable intolerance of noise above a certain level and some creative punishments for violators. I really wouldn't risk her wrath, if I were you. The last student who did so was tasked with scraping off all the chewing gum from underneath the cafeteria furniture.”
The acrid taste of bile rose up in her throat making her cough. She'd seen the underside of the cafeteria benches before and they were utterly disgusting. It was a wonder the health department hadn't made the school take them out and burn them. Being forced to clean off all the gum, and other sticky substances that Elspeth didn't wish to try and identify, was something she thought should be considered 'cruel and unusual punishment,' but it was unlikely to ever happen being that it appeared to be the teachers' most effective threat.
“I hope they gave them a hazmat to wear,” she said feeling nauseated just by thinking of it..
“It took them almost a month,” Derek added with a shudder of his own.
With the fear of sharing that poor student's fate, Elspeth and Derek continued to wander through the library, looking down this aisle and that until Elspeth was sure her head was going to fall off if he turned it any more. From where she was standing, with nonfiction from 800 to 899.912 on her left and general fiction Tr-We on her right, she could see the library's clock high up on the hall in front of them at the very back of the library. She swallowed nervously when she saw it read 7:26 and they still hadn't found Mrs. Skrollman yet.
“We're going to be late for class if we're here much longer, why don't we –” her voice dropped of when she heard the wheels of a cart squeak and the quiet, but very annoyed, muttering coming from one of the aisle's up ahead of them.
“Mrs. Skrollman?” Derek called out, careful to keep his voice to an acceptable level of volume.
“I'm down here,” the librarian panted out, huffing and puffing like she'd just run a marathon.
Continuing on just one aisle more, they found the elderly, willow wisp of a librarian sitting on her knees in front of bare metal shelves with a cart full of books on one side of her and surrounded by piles of heavy, hardbacked geography and history books all over the floor.
“When I find out who's idea it was to reverse the order of an entire row of bookshelves, they'll think that cleaning the cafeteria is a picnic after I'm through with them!” the lady huffed.
“Mrs. Skrollman?” Elspeth said, squeaking like a mouse.
The silver-haired woman raised her head and adjusted her purple-rimmed glasses.
“Ah, Derek. Elspeth. I must say that you two are the last students I expected to see here at this time. Especially looking so, um, close?” she said, raising an eyebrow at their still joined hands.
Though Derek hardly seemed bothered by her observation, Elspeth turned bright red and quickly hid her hands behind her back when Derek released it. It was Derek that spoke first, completely skipping over her last remark and getting straight to the point. Something that Elspeth was also particularly interested in as she was still utterly clueless what they were doing there.
She tensed when she saw Derek paste on one of his best smiles, one very similar to the smile he'd worn when he'd charmed Mr. Lornwithe just a couple days ago, and take a step forward.
“Mrs. Skrollman,” he started, his voice as smooth as butter, “there have been some odd happenings around town and I, well, Elspeth and I, were wondering what you might have heard about them?”
Mrs. Skrollman sat up a little straighter and gave the fae an unimpressed stare.
“Mr. Corvelle,” she said firmly, slowly drawing out his name in with perfect enunciation, “your charms may work with the public librarian, but they do not work with me. I thought you understood this by now.”
Elspeth glanced uneasily between the two, but her curiosity was piqued by the odd way in which Mrs. Skrollman and emphasized charms. Derek, however was quite undeterred and, to her surprise and undying suspicion, his smile only grew wider and more brilliant.
“Why, Mrs. Skrollman, I would never attempt to use such persuasion on you,” Derek replied and Elspeth swore that honey could not have been any sweeter than the Derek's tone in that moment.
“Shouldn't the two of you be in class right about now?”
“Well, yes, act –” Elspeth started to say, speaking up for the first time since they'd found Mrs. Skrollman.
“Of course we should, but I would think the Library Council would be more interested in figuring out who's been breaking into libraries – not to mention every antique store in town and the surrounding area, bookstores, and even homes of private collectors,” he flippantly replied, never once taking his eyes off of the stern librarian.
If he'd been hoping for a reaction, then he was not disappointed. No sooner had the words left his mouth than the frail looking librarian was leaping to her feet with all the agility and grace of an experienced ballerina and across the haphazard stacks of books waiting to be reorganized on the correct shelves. Grabbing hold of Derek's arm, the spritely woman looked around wildly and dragged him further into the stacks; leaving Elspeth to follow along behind them.
“Derek Corvelle, even you ought to know better than to speak of such things so boldly and especially publicly,” she heard Mrs. Skrollman scold him as she quietly walked towards them, stopping just a few feet away near the end of the aisle the librarian had hauled Derek off to.
“It's okay, Mrs. Skrollman,” Elspeth piped up from behind them, making her turn around. Smiling weakly at the librarian, the pain of being left in the dark resurfacing a touch, she added, “if you're worried about me, that cat's already out of the bag.”
The librarian relaxed a little at her words and returned Elspeth's sad smile with one of her own.
“I am very relieved to hear that, my dear,” she said, before fixing a scowl on Derek, “but young Derek here still ought to know better. Not to mention skipping class will stand neither of you in good graces with the school.”
“I just want to know what the Council has found out about the break-ins,” Derek replied, “and I'm not worried about the school, I can easily enough talk Elspeth and myself out of any trouble.”
“Library business is just that, library business.”
Derek smiled slyly. “Even for a week's supply of the finest black licorice?”
Mrs. Skrollman pursed her lips, but not before Elspeth saw the librarian wet them first. She narrowed her eyes at Derek, but he didn't bat an eye and kept on smiling with Elspeth watching on with something akin between astonishment and the desire to laugh over the decidedly odd turn the exchange had taken.
“A month.”
“Two week's.”
“Done,” the sweet-toothed librarian said before checking to make sure that they were still alone. Satisfied that they were, she turned her attention back to Derek and gravely added, “but, if Mrs. Hythe comes asking, you didn't hear any of this from me.”