An electric silence filled the room.
“For a man who deals in secret codes, Lybrarian Della Porta has precious little ability to keep his mouth shut!” Phillip said at last.
“I think, for now,” said Hypatia, “it’s best that the staff keeps that piece of information to itself.”
• • •
“It’s true. Someone will die,” Dorrie said later to Ebba and Marcus as she banged things around rather violently in her bedroom, supposedly to tidy up. She’d hurried through the empty den after her meeting with Hypatia, slammed the door, and hadn’t ventured out since. Now she threw herself back down on her pillow. “But they wouldn’t tell me who. How am I supposed to keep going to practicums and watching over those idiotic anti-suffragists while we all just wait to see who we’ve managed to push in front of a train?”
She had dreaded emerging from her room for dinner and had even briefly considered visiting the Inky Pot instead of the Sharpened Quill, but after she heard the den was empty, she at last consented to go with Ebba and Marcus. They stopped at the Celsus to check their mailboxes. Dorrie found a note from Savi telling her he was back and inviting her for a lesson in the Gymnasium courtyard during the dinner hour.
When she burst into the courtyard a few minutes later and saw him coming through another door, she threw her arms around him so hard, he nearly fell over.
“I’ll have to bring a picnic more often,” he said, setting down a basketful of cheese and apples. “Here,” he said, handing over her lost sword. “Mistress Daraney found it in the sailboat wreck. Hypatia told me what happened.” His tilted her chin to look in her eyes. “How do you fare?”
His simple question undid Dorrie. The tears she’d held back since she’d faced Mr. Biggs came. She wept and told him everything. When she got to the part about Mr. Biggs forcing her to fill the Vox Mortis vial, wrathful fires appeared in his eyes.
Dorrie swallowed down one last shuddering sob. “When I was in the sailboat and aiming for the knot, I was sure I would hit the mark because I needed to, because I was in such trouble.” Dorrie looked up at Savi. “But I did miss.”
“Oh, Dorothea,” said Savi, “only in storybooks does a perfectly exquisite crisis guarantee a perfectly executed victory over the circumstances.”
Dorrie wiped her eyes, her shoulders sagging. “And then in the water, I just panicked. It was awful. I couldn’t make any choices. I couldn’t tell my arms and legs what to do. I just failed.”
“We lybrarians play games with very high stakes,” said Savi. “And Fear is…always in the mix.”
“But how do you get rid of it?”
Savi raised an eyebrow at her. “Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with Fear. She didn’t want to do that. Fear seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and Fear stood on the other.”
Dorrie found herself listening intently.
“The warrior was feeling very small,” said Savi, “…and Fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward Fear, prostrated herself three times, and asked, ‘May I have permission to go into battle with you?’ Fear said, ‘Thank you for showing me so much respect by asking permission.’ Then the young warrior said, ‘How can I defeat you?’”
“And what did Fear say?”
“I was getting to that,” Savi said peevishly. He cleared his throat. “Fear replied, ‘My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.’ In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat Fear.”
Dorrie stared at Savi, impressed. “You should write that down.”
Savi hauled the sand-filled glove to its apex. “Pema Chodron already did. I memorized it out of When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. A book from your wheren actually. Lybrarian Davis gave it to me.” He cocked his head. “Where did she say she borrowed it from? Something absurd-sounding. Ah, yes, from the ‘self-help section.’ Anyway, I thought you might find the idea useful.”
Dorrie stood and faced the glove. “Is all that what you do when you’re afraid?”
“Me?” said Savi. “Oh, no. I like to imagine myself already dead before I go into a situation where I might die. Then I feel I have nothing to lose. It steadies my nerves.”
He let the glove drop, and Dorrie lunged at it.
Dorrie spent the following week on edge, sure that at any moment, the news would come of Torquemada’s rise to greater power and a death of one of the Library’s own. But during announcements the day after Mr. Biggs’s escape, Mistress Wu, her back ramrod straight and her eyes flashing, had insisted that even in the face of Mr. Biggs escape, practicums and apprenticeships were to go on as usual.
And as the lybrarians continued with their attempts to track Mr. Biggs, go on they did. Dorrie, who wanted only to be left alone to brood on how she might still help stop the Foundation, found that desire nearly impossible to fulfill.
For one thing, with Fatima’s help, Marcus had finally earned the money he needed from the Inky Pot’s patrons. Every time he saw Dorrie, he bugged her about needing her help to get back to Athens to pay Kalliope. Dorrie had put him off repeatedly, unable to even consider stealing the Archivist’s skipkey again. Instead, one morning, after taking a deep breath, she explained to the Archivist about Marcus’s attempt to assist Timotheus and then asked him if he’d take Marcus back to Athens. The Archivist had looked gobstopped but for some reason had found Dorrie’s description of their adventure with Aristotle so funny that after he was done wheezing, he’d agreed, and then his face had turned serious. “I owe you at least a keyhand escort to Athens. I’m truly sorry my wandering down to the beach cost you so much.”
Not wanting to talk about it again, Dorrie had shifted the conversation to her mission in England and the plans she and Ebba had made for another stakeout. The Archivist had been very sympathetic to Dorrie’s fear that the newspaper thief might turn out to be Annie.
One lunchtime not long after, Dorrie and Ebba slipped into the Scooby-Doo Library to find that not only had Spinoza slopped all the painstakingly gathered seawater from his tub onto the floor, but he had also managed to flop himself out of it.
“He’s getting too big to keep here,” Ebba said, her face pinched with worry.
“We could release him down in the cove,” said Dorrie carefully, not sure how Ebba would take it.
Ebba pulled the seal into her lap and scratched below his little ear holes. “I’d love that, but there aren’t any other monk seals around here. He’d be all alone.” She looked at Dorrie. “Do you think the Archivist would let Spinoza loose in the Athens harbor when he takes Marcus?”
The Archivist had agreed to Ebba’s request as well, and the next Saturday morning, Ebba and Dorrie saw them all off at the Tyre archway, Ebba giving Spinoza five separate final nuzzles and choking back tears. When Marcus slammed into Dorrie’s bedroom many hours later, he looked anything but triumphant.
“What is it?” Dorrie demanded. “Didn’t Kalliope write the oration?”
“Oh, she wrote it,” said Marcus, yanking a piece of papyrus out of his satchel.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“When I handed it to Timotheus, he went white as a chiton. He told me that unless he’s playing music, he sometimes gets paralyzing stage fright. Just the thought of delivering the oration made him almost pass out.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Kalliope says you can have someone else speak on your behalf in the
courts if you’re too ill to stand up.” He looked over the papyrus. “I told Timotheus I’d do it.”
At her first Staying Afloat practicum after Mr. Biggs’s escape, Mistress Daraney decided to make use of the brisk wind and give a sailing lesson. Dorrie and Millie were told to share a boat. Dorrie hadn’t spoken to Millie since their eyes had met in the den when Izel had told the apprentices how Torquemada’s power would grow if the crux mission was reversed.
Silently, they pushed their boat over the sand, into the surf, and over the first few low breakers. But when the first real wave bubbled around Dorrie’s waist, she tensed and stopped moving forward.
“Keep pushing,” came Millie’s annoyed voice, “or we’re going to get clobbered by the next one.”
Dorrie looked up. It wasn’t even a particularly big wave, but her mouth went dry. There was no time for figuring out where Fear was standing, let alone bowing to it respectfully. She did what it told her and stumbled out of the water, leaving Millie to manage the boat. Without Dorrie to help steady it, a wave hit it broadside, nearly capsizing it.
“What are you doing?” shouted Millie.
“I’m sorry, I’m not…I’m not feeling well,” Dorrie said, retreating up the beach as the next wave brought the boat crashing back to shore.
At the next practicum, her legs again refused to take her any farther than the waist-high water. She’d had to tell Mistress Daraney that she was still feeling ill and spent the rest of the practicum sitting on the beach working on knots while the others sailed beneath a gloriously blue sky.
Reports from 399 BCE came in daily with the depressing news that Mr. Biggs was still at large. Disappointingly, Dorrie also learned that Critius’s empty house had been thoroughly examined and that no vials had been found. Dorrie used the bad news to fuel the aiming practice, which she now forced herself to do every morning before breakfast. Kenzo was thrilled to work the lever for the price of a bout at the end of each session.
Thrusting her rapier toward the glove, Dorrie often imagined it was Mr. Biggs. Especially when she remembered what it had felt like to have the Vox Mortis vial pressed against her chest. She shuddered at random moments whenever she remembered that she had once drunk its awful contents voluntarily.
As she hatched and discarded absurd plans for going out into Athens, 399 BCE to track down Biggs herself, Dorrie watched the blackness of her thumbnail continue its retreat.
One day in the Scooby-Doo Library as Marcus paged madly through a book on how to give a Greek oration and Dorrie took another practice lunge with her sword at the jiggling skeleton’s breastbone, Ebba emitted the kind of quiet huh that commanded instant attention.
Dorrie met her eyes as she looked up from True Spine-Tingling Ghost Stories from around the World.
“Remember how you said that all of Mr. Biggs’s nails turned black when he drank the Vox Mortis?”
“Can’t forget,” said Dorrie.
“Well, look at this.” She held up the open book.
Dorrie and Marcus peered at it. One page held words and the other an illustration. The illustration was of a dark cave mouth in a forbidding-looking wall of rock. It showed a skeleton inside the cave. The last bits of bone on each of the skeleton’s fingers had been drawn black against the gray-green wall so that he looked to be sporting bear claws.
“The story’s called ‘The Cave of the Black-Fingered Skeleton,’” said Ebba. “It’s all about this cave in Mali, so of course I was interested. It’s in the desert near Timbuktu, and nobody will go near it.” She flipped forward a page and began to read. “‘Even today, local people avoid this cave. Many treasure-seekers have abandoned efforts to explore it, telling stories of being driven off by a skeleton with black finger bones. The local griots—the storytellers—say a dark light emanates from the cave.’”
Ebba looked from Marcus to Dorrie. “You think we should tell the lybrarians about this?”
Marcus grabbed the book and held it up for inspection. “The title of the book is True Spine-Tingling Ghost Stories from around the World. Why would anything in it correspond to reality?”
Chapter 21
A Modest Proposal
At last, Dorrie and Ebba again headed for London to begrudgingly conduct their second stakeout and—with a good deal more enthusiasm—to achieve a second objective.
They had checked out two of the warmest coats the circulation desk possessed, as well as burlap sacks in which to carry the painstakingly printed copies of the Suffragette.
The London keyhand had raised his eyebrows when Dorrie and Ebba showed up at the archway with the valise and the bulging sacks, but again, he ferried them through the archway with no questions asked.
Despite the danger Mr. Biggs and the Foundation posed—or maybe because of it—Dorrie felt a giddy pleasure at the thought of putting the newspapers in Annie’s hands. Ebba seemed to share her mood. Straining beneath the weight of the sacks, they went straight to McAndrews Laundry.
“Annie’s in at noon,” Daisy said, stirring a steaming vat of bluish water.
They asked her if they could leave the sacks for her.
“What is this, a post office?” Daisy complained, but she allowed it.
The League’s headquarters was bustling when they arrived. Lady Agnes and the Countess of Ilchester were getting ready to lead a delegation to a meeting at Parliament, where they’d been invited to argue against the idea of legalizing the vote for women. There were packets of information to assemble and rosettes to affix to the lapels of coats.
“Uncle Cromer has made it possible,” Lady Agnes said proudly as she wafted around the room. She’d insisted that Ebba and Dorrie stay in her wake to assist her once she thought of something useful to do.
Ebba and Dorrie only escaped when one of the anti-suffrage sashes being ironed by a maid burst into flames, and they hurried away from Lady Agnes to help prop open doors and raise windows to get rid of the smoke.
At last, the leaders of the League were ready to sally forth.
Mrs. Richardson, who wasn’t going, looked as relieved as Dorrie and Ebba to be getting rid of the lot of them. She shooed Dorrie and Ebba toward their coats. “Go have a lovely lunch.”
Eager to make sure the newspapers had gotten into Annie’s hands, Dorrie and Ebba hurriedly buttoned up.
“Wherever is Mr. Sacks-Sandbottom?” said Lady Agnes, her voice querulous.
“He hasn’t returned from his speaking engagement at the Jameson Club,” said Mrs. Richardson.
“But what about Lord Cromer’s letter? It has to be delivered to the editor of the Times. I told Mr. Sacks-Sandbottom that quite clearly.” Lady Agnes fussed with her hat. “The letter is a tour de force. Lord Cromer let me read it last night. He demonstrates quite inarguably that Mrs. Pankhurst and her brethren are not political prisoners as they claim but hysterical criminal maniacs that Mother England must care for as such.”
She gave Dorrie, Ebba, and Mrs. Richardson a sly conspiratorial look, which made Dorrie want to step on her toes.
“Lord Cromer is great friends with the editor of the Times. He got the editor’s word that the newspaper won’t be printing a thing Mrs. Pankhurst has to say.” She fluffed her fur collar. “And even if those outragers do manage to print another edition of the Suffragette, it will do them no good. Uncle has convinced the Home Office to make it illegal for newsagents to sell it. Isn’t that brilliant?”
Dorrie and Ebba exchanged horrified looks as Mrs. Richardson put on her own coat.
“Lady Agnes!” called the countess from outside. “Our driver is blocking traffic. We really must go.”
Lady Agnes turned her eyes on Dorrie and Ebba. “Be dears and drop off Uncle’s letter for us, will you? The Times office is right across the park. The address is on the envelope. I put it in the cash box on Mr. Sacks-Sandbottom’s desk. Thank you ever so much.” Without waiting for an ans
wer, she swept out onto the sidewalk. “Oh, Mrs. Richardson,” she called from outside. “Perhaps you could—”
“Coming,” said Mrs. Richardson. She gave Dorrie and Ebba a forbearing smile. “I think I’ll go out for a nice, quiet lunch myself. I’ll be back to let you in at two o’clock. Just close the door behind you when you leave.”
“Oh, they’re despicable!” Dorrie said as she and Ebba pushed open the door to Mr. Sacks-Sandbottom’s office. It was frigid, nobody having closed the window since the ironing mishap.
“Get the letter and we’ll run to tell Annie,” said Ebba.
Dorrie ran to the desk and flipped open the lid of the cash box. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. Just as she picked up Lord Cromer’s letter, a forceful gust of wind from the window swirled through the room, its mischievous fingers sending a pile of bank notes swooping and tumbling through the air like a flock of escaped birds.
Dorrie found herself spinning around and snatching at the bills. It was Ebba who thought to slam the window shut. The bills drifted to the floor.
“Oh, that’s not good,” said Dorrie.
Madly, she and Ebba swept around the room, raking paper money off the floor and the desk and from on top of a file cabinet and every other inconvenient place the bills had sought out as their final resting places.
Suddenly, Dorrie heard voices out in the main room. She and Ebba froze on their knees behind the big wooden desk, bills clutched against their chests. One of the voices belonged to Mr. Sacks-Sandbottom.
Remembering how he had accused Ebba of taking Lady Whitcomb’s necklace, Dorrie had a very clear vision of the kind of thoughts that would cross his mind if he came into the room and saw them there.
Ebba must have experienced a similar vision, because after she slammed the cashbox lid closed, they made simultaneous dives for the space beneath the desk. They heard footsteps and the door to the office closing.
“You are my agent. My family has entrusted this business to you,” said a woman’s voice. “Now where are our bottles? You said the delivery would arrive weeks ago.”
The Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks Page 20