LAST WEEK: Renna’s witch training is off to a sluggish start in a house full of squawking birds. Naturally, she jumps at the chance to do some self-study at a magical library, once they can get the key from a mistrustful house cleaner and his ghostly niece.
Read the previous installment here. See all installments here.
“Waitron, there’s a feather in my tea.”
Job gave Renna a look across the table that showed they didn’t appreciate her joke as much as she had appreciated making it. “Cheers. It’s our secret ingredient.”
The two of them were seated at a small corner table of Gibson’s café, where Job was currently working part-time. It appeared their host’s adoration for the avian race extended into his business as well, to create a unique dining experience that was half eatery and half menagerie. No less than a dozen birds were free to mingle with the patrons of the establishment in ways that made one wonder if Gibson had cast a spell to keep all the health inspectors away. Not to say the place was dirty in any respect—he seemed to save all his cleaning for the café, rather than his house—but surely having animals in a food service setting was asking for all kinds of legal trouble. Despite that, the shop managed to capture a sizable clientele that enjoyed taking meals with the birds, to the point where the feathered company was a bigger draw than the menu.
Job had been working afternoon shifts for the past two days here, and had left Renna a long list of exercises to practice, which of course included more meditation. She tried her best, and while there had been some meager progress on her end, it still felt like a process of sucking applesauce through a straw. Most times she was distracted, wondering if there wasn’t a more intuitive way for her to learn.
Job had rung the house that morning, asking Renna to come down to the café—Shane had finally found the key, so they had access to the library at last.
“Did you happen to see Sera there?” Renna asked Job, twirling the ornate brass key between her fingers.
Job shook their head. “Shane said she was out with those girls that Gibson mentioned earlier. Apparently they’re twins; I think I saw them here yesterday, actually. They both had a very … dark sense of fashion.”
Renna raised her eyebrow and tried to translate what that might mean in teenager terms. “So like … punk? Goths? Hipsters?”
Job shrugged. “I’m not enough of a fashionista to put a label on anyone else, but they wore plenty of black. A little bit like your style, actually.”
This surprised Renna, who tried to comprehend what her “style” was to other people. She had never tried going for a particular aesthetic; she just wore what she liked without too much forethought about it. Inglenook was definitely not a place to be judged by one’s clothes. But she also had to admit that she did have a strong preference for darker colors; she had gone through a phase of swearing off pink and all its pastel consorts in fifth grade, and was just recently recovering from that gender-rebellious frame of mind.
“In any case,” Job continued, “when I was getting the key from him, Shane said some things about Sera that caught my attention. I originally thought his brother was the cause of his wariness and skepticism towards anything magical, like the library, but it appears that he’s had some very firsthand experiences with Sera.”
Renna perked up at this. “Things like … Hexings?”
Job shook their head. “I can’t say for sure. He told me there were several times when strange things happened—though to be fair, from his account I deduced that he had been particularly inebriated during many of these moments. He said that Sera’s personality would change drastically in an instant, along with other phenomena that could easily be attributed to spirit activity, or magic.”
A chill slithered its way up Renna’s spine. “What would cause something like that?”
Job’s snowy eyes had darkened. “There are many possibilities, and I don’t like most of them. My mind went to spiritual possession first, however. One doesn’t have to know how to use magic to be possessed—one’s mind must simply be open to the imperative force of some other bodiless being. But even then, overriding a human’s consciousness against their will is next to impossible; that’s why we don’t hear stories about possessions every single day. A rare few supernatural entities are capable of truly ‘taking over’ a person’s mind through force.”
“You think it’s something that dangerous?” Renna asked, a bit breathlessly.
“There are far too many possibilities to make any assumptions at this point. Like I said before, Shane’s account is already terribly suspect. But I think it’s safe to say that the girl does have some connection to the world of The Craft. And by extension, the twins who are keeping company with her do as well. Our best course of action is to get into the library, do what we need to, and continue on our way with as little involvement or trouble as possible.”
While Renna was right there with Job in wanting to avoid potential dangers, especially of the magical variety, she felt a bit let down at the prospect of avoiding Sera and the others. If they did happen to be witches as well, and were around her age, perhaps they could give her some advice for her own training. Even better, she might make some friends who she could talk to about the world of magic, in which she still felt very small and unsure.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Job’s question put a leg out to trip her wandering thoughts.
“Sorry, about what?”
“That for everyone’s peace of mind, we shouldn’t stray from our objective and stick our noses into places they don’t belong. I don’t think I have to explain to you how much worse curiosity can be when you’re dealing with magic.”
Renna decoded Job’s message in her head as ‘For their peace of mind, she should be following their directions and not causing them grief.’ Irritating as it was, she could understand their concerns, and promised to stick to the plan.
“As much as I’d like to accompany you, I need to finish my shift here and you need to have as much time in the library as you can, so you’re on your own for this afternoon.” Job slid a couple folded-up papers across the table towards Renna. “Getting there and getting in should both be easy processes, but I’ve laid out everything here just in case. I’ve even anticipated some potential difficulties you may encounter and wrote out solutions for them.”
Renna put the papers along with the key into the pocket of her letterman jacket. “Yep, so long as none of them involve timetables or foreign currency …”
“Very funny. Now get going, I’ve got coffee cups to refill.”
***
The bronze key swung its head about in the lock, allowing the wrought iron gates to part before Renna. Her boots slid over the large cobblestones, many of which had been displaced by great ruptures of weeds and rooting vermin. The lackluster lawn-care did little to detract from the silent majesty of the house itself, however. Ebon’Tourelle, the name plaque proudly displayed on the outer gate, was a towering display of Victorian architecture. Old Money had once put up and eventually stopped keeping it up, but the building had still aged with the dignified grace of a widowed duchess. It even had a literal tower, or a tourelle as some might know it, which inspired part of the house’s title. It was home to no people now, only thousands upon thousands of books that Mister Morris and unknown others had collected over past decades. And somewhere in there were texts that would supposedly help the young Renna grow as a witch.
Every step closer she took to the aged, sagging porch made Renna less confident about finding anything of value inside without Job, but at the same time it felt good to be persuing her path in an independent manner. Renna had spent plenty of time in libraries before this; she had even been an unofficial assistant of sorts when large tour groups of young children swamped the resources of the kindly older library staff. She had plenty of time; surely she would be able to find something that would give her some direction.
After a bit of jiggling, the front door yielded to the key as well, and Renna stepped into a massive front room. She had been expecting a layout more similar to the cozy, crowded mess of hallways and rooms of Inglenook, but this expansive hall opened up straight to the top floor. Balconies wrapped around the walls above, featuring rows of doors that led to deeper parts of the house.
The vast space remained empty only while looking up; the floor belonged to the books. Books in piles, stacks and slides, jammed in bookcases, decorating desks, making staircases on top of staircases, piled up on windowsills so high the sun would set at four o’clock inside. The sheer volume of volumes flabbergasted Renna, and it was only magnified by the chaotic ways they had all been crammed into the space. It felt like someone had once built a very humble and orderly library here, which had suffered a violent death when another library came crashing into it. It was almost enough to make Renna turn back and tell Job that the key regrettably hadn’t worked, but that would only waylay her problems.
Once she abandoned her expectation of finding anything useful, by effort or luck, in any short amount of time, Renna began to appreciate the sensation of being surrounded by so many books. She wondered how many of them had been read, how many times, or at all. Some books seemed to have been abandoned mid-sentence, their poor spines propped open for years awaiting their reader’s return. She ran her fingers along the titles, watching them slip from English to French to Italian to languages too obscure for her to have heard of. She picked through the pages of old diaries, memoirs, encyclopedias, reference texts, picture books and even a few magazines whose pictures still lacked color.
She stared at the leather-bound volumes, each barely distinguishable from the next due to the sallowing effects of time, and recalled a particular scene in The Great Gatsby. The main character had been dallying in Gatsby’s library, which Renna now imagined similar to this one, albeit more well-managed, and had found another partygoer called Owl-Eyes, whose only interest was remarking upon the fact that all the books he opened had words in them, and had not been just blank volumes that were put there simply to fill out the shelves. Renna felt she understood Owl-Eyes’ sense of wonder better now, trying to imagine that these countless books all held words and meaning on every page. It would take more than a few lifetimes to read it all.
And as Renna turned about slowly, trying to take it all into her imagination, she was suddenly the protagonist Nick Carraway—and someone else was Owl-Eyes, staring down at her from the top of a bookshelf nearby.
The initial shock she received sent her flying from memoirs of the Roaring Twenties all the way to the end of World War II. One hand clutched at the end of a bookshelf, the other at her racing heart, as she watched the surprise visitor lower herself down from her vantage point onto the floor. “Sorry to scare you like that. I didn’t mean to,” came her humble, sleepy voice.
“S’alright, only got scared half to death, I think.” Recognizing her now, Renna couldn’t help being reminded of an earlier surprise appearance; Serafine shuffled over to a seat-high pile of books and positioned herself there, watching as Renna slowly stopped hyperventilating. The girl was about Renna’s age. She wore a pair of heavy overalls, and her hair was tied in long loops of braids that bounced about her neck and shoulders. Her face still had the same gentle features that had stuck with Renna before, when leaving Mister Morris’ house. But now, up close, Renna could see the dark circles under the girl’s eyes, and a slouching posture that indicated an insomniac kind of tiredness. Sera’s somber, placid persona contrasted with the patchwork of dried paint that popped out against her clothes and dark skin. She had the appearance of an artist who had been up for weeks trying to finish their magnum opus.
“You’re … Sera, aren’t you? Ah, sorry, I’m Renna. Which maybe you already knew.” Efforts to regain her composure had jumbled Renna’s manners a bit.
Sera gave her a weak but genuine smile. “That’s right. And I’ve seen you before. When you came by Mister Morris’s house. And then I saw you come here. To the library. So I thought it would be a good chance to meet you.”
“Well, next time feel free to call out or something. I can’t believe you can be so quiet in this creaky old house.”
“Sorry. Again.” Sera twirled one of her braids around her fingers. “I guess I’m so used to this house. That I know where all the creaks are. I like coming here to read. And just to pass the time. But I guess I haven’t been here in a while. Because I’ve been with Noita and Czaronica so much.”
The twins, Renna presumed. “Who are they, exactly?”
“My new friends. They’re quite nice. In different ways. Czaronica can be loud and aggressive. But she’s good at talking to people. Noita is quieter. I think she’s a good listener. And they balance each other out well.”
Well, now at least she might be able to tell them apart if they ever met, Renna thought. “I see. So when did you meet them?”
“They came to town a few weeks ago. I guess they were looking for a friend too. They’re both kind of strange sometimes. But I know they’re nice too. Because they’ve done so much to help control my Craft.”
Renna’s eyes widened, as the words Sera spoke lit up her mind. Just hearing the girl mention The Craft had confirmed so many theories and suspicions. Sera had noticed Renna’s reaction too. “That’s what they called it. Are you involved with The Craft too?”
“I’m … not really sure,” Renna admitted. “I guess I’m trying to learn it. I have a teacher—the stylish-looking person who I was with at the house—but I don’t know. I’m not really … getting it.”
Hearing this, Sera gave her another sleepy smile and even laughed a bit. “I think I know what you mean. They keep telling me what to do. But they don’t explain how to do it very well. I know they’re speaking English. But I feel like there’s a double meaning behind every word.”
“Yes, totally!” Renna nearly shouted at her. “Sorry! Sorry, I’m just so glad someone else understands. Like, I keep doing everything Job tells me to do, and just when I think I’m getting it, they’re all like, oh no, you’re not connected with the flow, and excuse me, but how can you even tell that! When they just said that connection with the flow or whatever is a unique relationship for every person, and hey, if you really can tell that I’m not doing it right, maybe you could at least teach me how to ‘see’ the flow so I can know what I’m doing wrong!” At this point in her rant, Renna had to stop and catch her breath.
“That sounds like Czaronica. I think she just likes to yell. Noita is more patient in explaining. But even then. It’s not much help. But I don’t think it’s their fault. I think magic is just a difficult thing to learn in general.”
Renna’s fire cooled off a bit. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. I know Job’s trying their best, which makes me feel all the more crappy about not being able to do what they’re trying to explain. But I guess I am making progress … Just not in a way that feels natural, or … well, enjoyable for me. I’ve always loved learning, and learning how to use magic sounds amazing! But I’ve always been really good at learning stuff I’m interested in. I don’t know why this is so different. That’s why I came to this library in the first place,” she said, gesturing around. “Job told me to come study here, but I was just really hoping I could find a resource that would help me figure stuff out.”
“Hmmmm …” Sera trailed off, and Renna kept the silence for a bit, as she was unsure if the girl was making agreeable noises or was thinking up a reply.
“Why don’t we ask the librarians then?”
“Beg pardon? Librarians? There’s other people here?”
Sera nodded slowly. She seemed to do everything slowly. However, she didn’t seem restrained or encumbered in her movements; each heavy motion had purpose, with no room for waste, not because she had to, but because that was how Sera wanted to be in the world. “There are, but they’re not people.”
“You’ve lost me again.”
“I think it would be better if you saw for yourself.” Sera turned away from her and started walking down an aisle of books, and Renna instinctively followed. Even Sera’s back was streaked and dotted with paint, from her black braids to her black rubber boots that hid underneath the wide cuffs of her overalls.
Renna’s new acquaintance brought her to the outer wall of the room and followed the baseboard, leading up a staircase to one of the many imposing oak doors on the second-floor gallery. Sera pulled a paint-stained flashlight out of her pocket before opening the door and ushering Renna through. Renna found the narrow hallways she had been expecting earlier, and they were, of course, crammed with books, enough to make it feel like they were spelunking rather than walking through a house. After slipping over prose and nearly being buried by metaphors, the girls reached another door. The nameplate on it was, ironically, “The Library.”
Sera once again motioned for Renna to take the lead. She stepped into a room that was significantly smaller than the front room but looked as though it contained almost as many books. The shelves that lined the walls were buried at least two rows deep, constraining the non-literary portion of the space to a humble office. A large wooden desk tried to hold some territory against the thousands of volumes, but it had very nearly vanished under piles of pages and prints. Sera shone her beam of light ceiling-ward, which got caught in a glass chandelier and scattered all about the room.
Renna turned to her and whispered, “Is … the librarian behind all those books?”
Sera shook her head (slowly) and whispered back, “They’re on top of them. See?”
Renna looked up and beheld four cats that had soundlessly crested different summits of the literary mountain before them. They curled their paws and tails daintily around themselves and gazed down at the two intruding patrons. Renna would have assumed that any cats that got in here were strays, but there was something about these felines that got her skin prickling with cold tingles. Never before this moment had she been so confident that what she felt was truly the presence of “The Craft.” Their eyes caught the little jewels of light from the chandelier and held them captive, to twitch and twinkle within their darkness. The stares the cats gave them felt uncomfortably sentient; they were not only watching, they were knowing; contemplating; judging. Renna wouldn’t have been completely astonished if they had started speaking English at that moment. But they remained silent, and the eerie, otherworldly atmosphere persisted.
Sera stepped up to Renna’s side. “Don’t worry. Anne la Donneuse taught me how to deal with them.” She put Renna on flashlight duty and moved forward. Renna was about to ask who Anne la something was, but Sera’s hand caught her attention first, as she accepted the light from it. There was more paint on it now than she remembered. It looked like Sera had tried to block Jackson Pollock from making one of his masterpieces, but he only used the colors pink and yellow.
Sera was a few feet from the desk now, her heavily colored hand outstretched. One of the cats climbed down to her; it was a gangly tortoiseshell with a conspicuous black patch on its face, giving a strong impression that it was wearing a monocle. Renna could hear Sera saying something under her breath, but it was too mumbled to make out clearly. The cat sniffed at and then took something from Sera’s outstretched hand, making a quick retreat back up the book mountain. The other cats came to meet it, and they gathered round like a council (or a staff meeting) to examine what they had been given.
Sera returned to Renna, who had a hard time making up her mind which question she wanted to ask most. “What did you give them?”
“An offering. They won’t work for free, you know.”
“What was it?”
“A particular brand of sardine.”
Renna could confirm that through smell as Sera reached out to take the flashlight back. “What’s the brand got to do with it?”
“So they know what you’re looking for. But it’s not just sardines. Cuttlefish will get you the hard sciences. Liver is for most pre-Roman law and philosophy. Camembert cheese will lead you to some beautiful fresco collections.”
“How in the world do you know what’s what? How do you get more specific than that?”
Sera turned her gaze back to the cats, who were still deliberating. “I suppose that’s the work of The Craft. Or they’re just very good librarians.”
They were interrupted by a meow from above. All the cats were staring at them again, and another of the pack leapt down the books and sidled over. This was not the monocle-cat, but it had a mesmerizing pattern along its black and silver back, almost resembling a maze or a map of some kind. It gave a cursory rub against Renna’s leg, and then scurried out the room. Sera started after it and Renna followed.
The cat had no issues navigating the landscape of books; thankfully it deigned to slow down every once in a while so the girls could catch up. They were led back into the spacious main room and up some stairs to another heavy door, which their guide had somehow opened before they arrived. They found the cat inside, sitting and washing itself atop of a short stack of books in front of a shelf that stretched floor to ceiling. Renna and Sera drew close, and Renna’s heart leapt as she looked at some of their spines. “High Magik in Medieval Turkey.” “The Spells of the Visigoths.” “Mana and Matter: A Weaver’s Guide.”
“This is it. This is it!” Renna was so excited she began to shake Sera’s shoulder. “Sorry! I’m just so excited, I can finally have answers!”
Sera seemed unprepared for the sudden involuntary movement, but she reached out and tried to mimic Renna, tugging mildly on her jacket sleeve. “You did it. This is wonderful. I’m so glad.” The lack of elated inflection in her voice might have come off as sarcastic or uncaring to others, but when Renna looked at Sera, she could tell that she really meant it. Underneath her tired lids, the painted girl’s dark eyes glowed with warmth and her own kind of quiet jubilation.
“Sera, thank you so much! You’re a life-saver!” Renna gave her a one-armed hug and then turned to the cat, who had been patiently waiting out her outburst. “And you too! You’re the best cat I’ve ever met! And probably the best librarian too!” The cat blithely mewed away the praise and strutted over to the door, disappearing around the threshold with a flick of its tail.
“Do you know what time it is?” asked Sera, casting a look at the late afternoon sunlight coming through the window.
Renna pulled back her jacket sleeve and checked her slap-bracelet watch. “Little past five now.”
“Hmmm. I have to go. But. Will you come back? I’d like to hang out again. If you’re okay with that.”
“Of course I’m okay! I would love that! Please!” Renna was practically bouncing up and down by this point. “I’m probably gonna be here like all day tomorrow trying to read through this stuff. Come find me any time!”
Even after Sera had said her goodbyes and left, Renna could barely concentrate on any of the books she was trying to read. Not only had she hopefully found some real help with magic, but also a real friend whom she could talk to without worrying about being interrupted to “try again” or “sharpen her focus.” Maybe once Job heard about how other students like her had similar troubles, they wouldn’t be so quick to criticize. Renna then remembered Job’s strongly-insinuated concerns about Sera, and the people she was connected to…
Then again, maybe Job didn’t have to know after all.
Hear the author read this week’s installment in the video below:
MetaStellar fiction editor Geordie Morse works primarily as a personal language coach, developing curricula and working with clients remotely. His first book, Renna's Crossing, is out now. His various other projects are cataloged on his site Arnamantle.