by Casey White
“Don’t just stand here,” Jean said. He snapped back to awareness, lifting his head. She was watching him from the corner of her eye, a smile playing at her lips. “Take a seat.”
She set the mask she’d held down with a clatter, crossing to the far side of the room. “Today was a lot. Sorry about that.”
“I-I’m fine,” Daniel stammered, easing onto a stool. He clasped his hands around the wooden seat, hunching his shoulders higher. “I wasn’t scared at all.”
“Oh, I know,” Jean said with a laugh. “You’re a brave one. Got to be, as my apprentice.”
“Yeah,” he said. His spirits lifted at the warmth in her voice, the affection. Her apprentice.
A drawer slammed shut behind him. He twisted his head around, trying to get eyes on what she was doing, but Jean walked back to the table before he could.
She spread something across the table - paper, he thought - and then dropped a mass of faintly-slimy grey down onto it. A scent filled the air, like dirt and water and long-dead plants.
Clay. She’d grabbed a hunk of clay. He watched her shuck off her heavy leather coat, dropping it onto the table farther down, and roll up the sleeves of her shirt.
“Well,” she said, taking the clay in hand. Over and over, she pressed the ball of her hand into it, working it out. “I hope you’re getting a handle on things. This calm won’t last forever.”
His pulse quickened. “Jean?”
Not that he was stupid. The Library was massive, and only Jean and him lived here. That seemed...wrong. He didn’t know why it was wrong, since that was how it’d always been, but...
Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could see things. Other people, other shapes. People his own age. They filled the space around him like ants in a hive, running and laughing and calling. Their voices hung on the edges of his thoughts, more than a dream but less than a memory.
Daniel didn’t know how, but he did know there was something more out there.
“Alexandria,” Jean said, letting her eyes rise to the walls around them. “She’s a big place.”
“...Yeah?” he ventured, growing more confused by the second.
“She’s got all the knowledge you could ever want,” Jean said, turning the clay over and beginning again. “Only, with just the two of us?” She shook her head. “It’s not enough. She’ll get bored. Itchy.”
“What do you mean-”
“The Library wants to be read,” Jean said, looking up. Her hands never stopped their movement, working the clay into a smooth, flat oval. “That’s its purpose. It’s why it exists. And our duty as Librarians is to enable that.”
Daniel fell quiet, his fingers tightening against the stool. Something in Jean’s voice had shifted - this had become a lesson, right when he least expected it. “And...the guests?” he said, unable to hold himself back.
Jean chuckled. “Right. Very good.” She wet her lips, eyes fixed on the clay. “I said the dreamers come looking for answers. They’re...sort of the direct line, you might say. They need answers, so they come looking. But they’re not fully here.”
“They’re ghosts,” Daniel muttered, his mood souring.
She laughed harder, at that. “Well, yes. In a way. Oh, don’t be all caught up in superstitious nonsense now. The dreamers might be the departed, but they’re not evil, and it’s...better than nothing. But they’re not enough either.” Her hand lifted from the clay long enough to slap the tabletop. The sound of flesh striking wood echoed across the studio. “So we arrange for visitors to come - to really come. All of them, all of their mind. Not just the needy part of them.”
“Guests,” Daniel said.
“Right,” Jean said. She reached out, grabbing a wooden roller from a rack ahead. “I closed the doors while you were learning, Daniel. You needed time to acclimate. But...I can’t keep Alexandria locked forever. We have prior obligations, visitors who have been waiting patiently. Besides.” Her smile twisted into a smirk. “Alexandria will get impatient if we delay much longer.”
“S-So there will be more people,” Daniel said, feeling as though the ground was dropping away from underneath him. Repeating after her was about all he could manage with his mind racing to keep up. “Visitors.”
“That’s what I said, yes.” Jean played the roller across the clay, her green eyes intense. Without looking, she reached out, picking something up off the table - a bit of metal, shaped like-
Like his own face, Daniel realized, shivering. It was him staring back up at Jean, stony-faced and impassive.
“You’re still learning, and that’s good,” she said. “Time moves differently in these walls from the outside world, but even with that, this will be a challenge. You’ll have to pick up on this quickly, if you’re to continue on after I’m gone.”
After she was gone? The uneasy fear in his gut tripled. What did that mean? She’d never left before, not since...not since he arrived. His mind raced back, trying to count how long it’d been the two of them in the Library’s halls. Months. Years. It was all he could remember. “Where are you-”
“But if we’re going to have others wandering the wings, you’ll have to be a Librarian,” Jean said. “A proper one, identity and all. You need a name and a mask.”
“A...A m-mask?” Daniel squeaked. He looked back to the edge of the table, where that black porcelain shape waited. Jean’s show of pottery skills...didn’t seem so random, anymore. “But I’ve never seen you with that before.”
“Doesn’t really matter when it’s just Librarians inside the place,” Jean said, giving her head a quick shake. “We know each other. That’s just how it works, since I was the one to give you...regardless. You know who I am, and that’s fine.” She flashed Daniel a sidelong grin. “But the rest of them? You have to be careful, Daniel.”
There it was again - she was smiling, as happy and amused as ever, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. They were too dark, too pinched.
“Okay,” Daniel said, fighting with his doubts. “So...”
She sighed, then, lifting her hands from the clay. A bowl of water lay at the table’s edge. She dunked them into it, scrubbing furiously.
And then she reached for her mask, pulling it closer so that they could both see.
“This Library, this home of ours, it’s magic,” she said.
Daniel bobbed his head in a nod. “I-I know that.”
“These books contain everything a person could want to know.” Her eyes tightened further. “Everything.”
“I know that too,” Daniel mumbled.
She reached out, swatting at the tip of his nose. “Listen to me, kid. Ours isn’t the only magic out there, you know.”
He didn’t know that. He froze, his fidgeting coming to an abrupt halt. “W-What?”
“Just what I said,” Jean said, arching an eyebrow. “The universe doesn’t often produce one miracle alone, totally bereft of reason or replication. Alexandria is miraculous, yes.”
The lanterns overhead burned a little brighter, and the smell of the clay sweetened imperceptibly.
“But the reality is that her magic is not unique,” Jean said, unperturbed. “Or, at least, not in that such magic exists. There are others out there, made in her image.”
“Where?” Daniel said, his brow furrowing. “Who? Who are you saying-”
“Right,” Jean murmured, soft enough to be right on the edge of his hearing. Her shoulders slumped, her hands slowing. “It’s...There’s a big world out there, Daniel, all waiting to be found.” She smiled, but it was bittersweet. “You’ll see it soon enough. I promise.”
“What’s wro-”
“But those people exist outside. People with gifts that let them...do things. Much like we can do things in here,” Jean said, lifting her fingers from the clay momentarily. An ember sparked over one fingernail, shaping itself into a tiny rose. “The information we have here? They’d like it very much. And even besides for them, there will always be someone wanting Alexandria’s secr
ets.”
The walls pressed in around them. Daniel huddled lower in his seat, his eyes wide. He’d...never thought of it like that before. If there were other people out there, if they weren’t alone, then-
“It’s all right,” she said, pausing again to smile in his direction. “We’re safe. I promise.”
“Can they get in?” he said, his voice small.
Relief washed over him as she shook her head. “No. We...there’s a system. No one gets in the Library without our approval, Daniel. No mages. Ever. You must be careful of that.” Her hand pressed down against the tabletop. “But even if they should get inside...the Library will not provide information on magic to one of their kind. If it did...” She pressed her lips together tightly, her eyes darkening. “They’d never give up.”
She’d paused, waiting. Right. Daniel nodded slowly, still quivering in his seat.
“Breathe,” she said, a bit of humor returning to her voice. “I’m not saying this to terrify you, Daniel. Just to prepare you. That’s why we’re here today.”
He swallowed hard, nodding toward the clay. “Masks.”
“Correct. A mask.” Jean inclined her head toward the clay and the form. “When there are guests in the Library, we have to disguise ourselves. Don’t show anything - not even your hair. Not even your skin, if you can avoid it. Give them as little as possible to identify you with. Your name?” She chuckled mirthlessly. “That’s for us, not them. You’ll need a Librarian name, to go with your mask.”
“O-Oh.” Daniel lifted himself higher, bracing his feet off the rungs of the stool. His eyes were glued to the mask, the one she’d set down. Her mask. “Do you have one? What’s yours?”
“Curious?” she said, leering. She reached over, though, pulling it to them.
When she dropped it into his hands, he clutched it close. Tiny black feathers spotted the clay, etched into the smooth surface one line at a time. And just like before, a stone-grey beak jutted from the front.
“My name is Crow,” Jean said, her tone softening. “That’s...what I’ve always gone by. Librarians choose animals, mostly. Easier to make a mask out of.” She snorted. “Less likely for visitors to treat you like an inanimate object, there to cater to their every whim.”
He nodded, still drinking in the elegant curves and shapes dotting the mask. It was lovely, the equal to any of the sculptures he’d wandered past in Alexandria’s halls.
“Take a moment,” she said, more softly. “It’s an important decision. The name will be yours for life.”
Again, he nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. A name? An animal? How was he supposed to pick, just like that?
He could be a lion, big and brave. Jean said Librarians were supposed to be brave, after all. He grinned, picturing himself with a mane of red fur swathing his head.
Or a dragon! He waggled his fingers, remembering the way Jean shot sparks at him so easily. Strong and imposing - and magical.
His eyes drifted to Jean’s mask, though.
Crow. Crows were birds. He’d seen them in books and on his computer, even if he’d never seen one fly into the Library’s courtyard. Jean was a bird. He stared at the mask mulishly, his thoughts whirling. If Jean was a bird, he wanted to be a bird too.
A bird...
His eyelids drooped, and for a moment, he saw it again - a dream, a fragment of...something more.
He saw the room stretch out before him, lined with bookshelves so like the ones in Alexandria, only cheaper. Even from where he sat, cross-legged in a circle with people his own size, he could see they were plastic and cheap metal, not carved wood and stone.
A poster hung from the ceiling tiles overhead, bright and vivid even in the muted, faded colors of his mind’s eye. There was a bird there too, cartoonish and round. Books were piled up under its wings, and it smiled down at him with a wink and a cheery saying he couldn’t quite remember.
“An owl,” he heard himself say.
“An owl?” Jean said. He blinked, and the long-distant library was replaced with the studio. Her eyes were on his, shrewd and assessing. “That’s your choice?”
Daniel hesitated again, but something about it felt right. It was a bird, and it was...it was his. It was right. He nodded. “I think so. Yeah.”
She waggled an eyebrow at him. “Are you copying me?”
His face flushed, but she only laughed. “An owl, eh?” Jean said, leaning back in her seat. Her eyes rose to the ceiling, her lips pursing again. “That was a symbol of Athena, back in the days of her cult. It’s old.”
“Is it?” Daniel said, perking up.
She nodded. “Goes back for ages. Normally, the owl is shown as a symbol of knowledge. Wisdom, learning, all that. And, uh...”
“And?” Daniel prompted, leaning closer. A smile spread across his face.
She winced, shrugging one shoulder halfheartedly. “Occasionally it’s used as a sign of bad luck.”
His eagerness turned to ash in an instant. “O-Oh. That’s bad. I didn’t- I can-”
“It’s fine,” Jean said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, Daniel. There have been Owls before, in the records. You’re not the first to take that name on.” She rolled her eyes at the chagrin that passed over his face. “And that’s not a bad thing either. Settle down.”
“Okay,” Daniel mumbled, squirming in his seat.
Jean leaned forward, letting go of him to reach across the table, and he quieted. She picked out tools one after another - metal blades and needles, with wooden paddles. None of which he recognized, of course.
She certainly seemed to be familiar with them, as she began shaping and carving the clay around the form. “About the rest...do you understand, Daniel?”
“About staying hidden?” he said. She nodded. “Yeah. I think. I don’t want them coming here. Bad people. So I just have to wear this, right?”
“Right,” she said, curling her blade around the outline of another feather. “You have to mind what you say, too. And wear your overcoat. And-”
“I get it,” he groaned, slumping lower.
She laughed, but there was a reservation to the sound. “Good. Just...remember that much. And hand me that.” She pointed to another implement.
Daniel hurried to grab it, passing it over. She murmured her thanks, leaning back over the mask. “Now, watch closely. I’ll show you how, but next time you’ll be on your own.”
On his own?
Why?
Again, the warning bells went off in his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not when she was smiling faintly, her face bent over and framed by her hair.
He couldn’t ask, and so he sat, waiting, and watched her work.
* * * * *
Unlike the rest of the building, the entrance of the Library was lined with grand, open windows. Daniel shifted from foot to foot, following behind Jean.
Behind Crow, he corrected himself. She’d donned her coat before she woke him, with heavy leather falling almost to her knees and a hood pulled up until not even a wisp of hair poked through. Her mask went underneath, buckled in securely.
She glanced down at him, her steps slowing. “Well?”
Right. Right. He fumbled at his hip. She’d shown him how to strap his mask to his coat there, conveniently carried around in case the need arose. The buckle caught under his nervous, unsure fingers. Another pull and a tug, and it came free.
Before he could press it to his face, though, Daniel slowed. The mask glowed in his hands, all brilliant whites and soft, tawny browns. She’d called it a barn owl, when she handed it to him. She’d even put lenses in the eyes, dark circles of glass that’d obscure even the slightest trace of him from sight. She’d thought of everything.
The world went black as he turned the mask over, pressing it to his face.
And then it all came back, surging into color and light as the mask’s padding brushed his skin. Owl exhaled, listening to the air whistling through the mask’s slit.
“
Buckle it in, kid. Don’t just sit there staring,” Crow said, crossing to him with a groan. She crouched before him, tugging his hood higher and grabbing for the straps.
He rocked back on his heels, listening as she explained it. Now and again, he nodded, feeling the unfamiliar weight hanging from his face.
Another moment, another breath, and she stood, stretching. “G-Good. Okay, then. Keep that snug, from now on. Got it?”
“Yeah,” he said, starting to grin before remembering she couldn’t see it. “I got it.”
“You’d better.” She turned on her heel, squaring off against the Library’s massive double-doors. They rose half again as tall as her, inlaid with silver and gold in intricate whorls and loops.
A keyring jingled at her side. She pulled it free, grabbing at one without so much as glancing down. Into the keyhole it went.
Crow turned the key. Owl’s head came up, his eyes widening as something in the front wall shifted. With a groan, some sort of mechanism came to life.
It settled with a hollow, heavy clunk, and the world went quiet again.
She pulled the key loose, then twisted back to face him. “There. That’s it. So, let’s-”
“That’s it?” he spluttered, blinking wildly.
“That’s it,” she said. He could hear her fighting to keep from laughing. “Really, it’s not that big a deal. You’ve got to empty the cart of new arrivals still, don’t you?”
He screwed up his face, disappointment flaring anew. “Y-Yeah, but I-”
“Get to it, then. If you finish that, I’ll show you some new tricks out in the practice ring.”
Well, in that case...He bobbed his head eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. She always had the best spells, the most creative and intricate shows of light and magic. Afternoons like that were way better than her throwing fireballs at him for hours on end.
No sooner had he taken his first steps toward the door, though, when he heard it - a click.
Like a latch coming open.
Owl froze, panic building hot and fast in his chest. The door was opening. People? Here? But they’d only just opened Alexandria. Were they the bad people Jean had mentioned? Hurriedly, he shook his head. Not Jean. Crow. If he slipped up, she could- They might find her and they’d-