Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.
This story would be nothing without my amazing beta-team, Jadsmama and Ladysharkey1.
Decided to update a day early to make up for my update-fail of last week (I was in Rome on a field trip with forty seventeen year olds).
Legacy: 1. Law. a gift of property, especially personal property, as money, by will; a bequest. 2. anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor: the legacy of ancient Rome. 3. an applicant to or student at a school that was attended by his or her parent. 4. Obsolete. the office, function, or commission of a legate.
Legacy
Standing in front of my new place of work, the urge to go in had never been smaller. In fact, I had to summen every ounce of strength I had not to run away back to my own little unassuming room with my tail between my legs, dive under the covers and just forget this happened.
What had I been thinking, assuming I would ever fit in at the Volturi Institute? It was too grand for a little, unsightly thing like me.
I would never belong here.
Still, knowing what lay behind the scary façade was enough to make me take my first, shaky step up the marble stairs leading to the ornate front door. The prospect of finding out more about the artists whose short life had fascinated me enough to follow his footsteps halfway around the world–twice–made me bolder than I would have been, had there not been such a prize awaiting me. Employees and visitors were already spilling in through the doors as I cautiously followed in their wake, constantly expecting someone to appear in front of me and tell me there had been a terrible mistake. After all, it couldn't possibly be that I was meant to work at a place like this, fulfilling a lifelong dream, right?
Because that would mean that maybe I was meant to be happy after all.
"B-Bella Swan," I announced at the front desk, the genteel, perfectly coifed woman sitting behind it immediately breaking out into a wide smile I couldn't have possibly caused.
"I'll just call Esme and tell her you're here," she answered with a beaming, friendly smile. "I'll get you a temporary badge that will get you through security until Esme can set you up with your own security pass. Now, if you'd like to go through security and take a seat of there, I'm sure she'll only be a minute." She smiled, motioning over for me to take a seat in one of the club chairs on the other side of the security desk.
The whole place seemed rather palatial; the huge foyer covered with ornate fresco's on the wall depicting early Medieval pastoral scenes from Italy as the three-colored marble on the floor followed an intricate, almost maze-like pattern.
It was…beyond surreal but the most dreamlike thing about it was that I seemed to be the only who noticed as others raced by on their way to the reading room or the offices up the marble staircase without even so much as stopping to take a glance at the amazing art that surrounded them.
"It's unbelievable, isn't it?" I was shocked out of my reverie as a middle-aged woman suddenly appeared in front of me, smiling benevolently as her eyes followed my gaze. "I remember the first time I walked in here as if it were yesterday, even though it's almost twenty years ago now." She chuckled, blushing slightly as her eyes reverted back to me. "As much as you will start to take it for granted after a couple of months; it's still nice to see that amazement through the eyes of someone new. I'm Esme McCarty, by the way."
"The chief of archival services," I muttered, my nerves suddenly getting the best of me as I barely managed to produce a clammy hand for her to shake. "I-I'm Isabella Swan… Bella? I think we spoke on the phone."
I half expected her to fire me on the spot, or at least laugh in my face, but instead of disdain and displeasure, she didn't seem to have noticed her newest employee was a complete idiot. Instead, she just smiled and motioned for me to follow her. "You are going to love it here, Bella," she spoke over her shoulder as she directed me to the main staircase. "Let's get you settled in."
As Esme guided me up the stairs and through the maze of offices I was sure I was going to get lost in at some point, while she told me about the history of the place; how it used to be an all-girls private finishing school. The place went bankrupt during the Great Depression and stood vacant and neglected until Aro Volturi's grandfather bought it to turn it into what it was today. Initially it had been the idea to open a research institute that documented the complete history of immigrants coming into the city but when that soon turned out to be nearly undoable, the family decided to focus on Dutch and Italian immigrants instead, covering the two nationalities that made up the family.
"And it's like that to this day," Esme finished as I went through the stack of forms I needed to complete for my employment, "with a member of the Volturi family still at the helm, even though he spends more time out of office than in, these days." She looked over some of the forms I'd already completed before her eyes connected with mine again. "You'll meet him this afternoon at the official handover."
I nodded; my throat suddenly very dry as I was reminded of my first official duty as an employee of the Volturi Institute. And here I was thinking a researcher would be stuck behind a desk somewhere in a quiet corner with nothing but ancient documents to keep her company.
Today was a big day in the history of this archive, though. After all, how often did a private and relatively small institute like this get the opportunity to acquire the complete and untouched archives of a legend? That was a big deal, which meant it shouldn't have surprised me to find out the chairman himself wanted to make sure all these priceless documents were in safe hands.
"So, now that we have all the boring old stuff covered," Esme concluded as she handed me my employee ID and a small information packet, "how about we get you settled into your office before I give you the grand tour?"
I smiled; eager to find out where I would be spending most days I wasn't stuck in class. "Do you have many people working here?"
"I guess that depends on what you see as many," Esme answered with a slight shrug as she guided me back through the long passageway that had offices along both sides, our footsteps completely muffled by the thick Persian carpets. "Nowadays I'm sorry to say most of the people working here are involved in security." She shook her head in utter disgust, a move I could only mirror as I remembered some of the things I'd seen in the archives in Amsterdam and Leiden with people defacing centuries-old documents with ballpoint pens or sometimes even trying to sneak something out of the research room and steal them. "Apart from security, there're the people manning the desks in the research room and the library and, of course, Shelley and Claire who man the front desk. And then, of course, there are the eleven or so guys and girls upstairs, management included."
"Eleven?" I didn't know why but somehow the prospect of only having to get used to ten other people to interact with on a daily basis was a huge relief to me. I could do ten. At least, I thought I could.
Esme, though, must have interpreted my relief as surprise. "I know!" she chuckled. "It seems like such a small number for such a big research facility but mostly the people who seek us out come here with a very fixed plan and they usually manage to fend for themselves without further assistance. Upstairs, we mostly work on research projects put in front of us by the government or companies and individuals wanting to track down their ancestry or the heritage of the building they're housed in."
She paused, coming to a standstill in front of one of the many identical wooden doors. "This is the Dutch Room," she explained, her hand closing around the door handle. "It will be your home for as long as you choose to remain with us, and the biggest perk is that seeing as it is the smallest, you only have to share it with one other employee."
"Jasper, isn't it?" I guessed, remembering something from my phone interview and the information they'd e-mailed me after I'd gotten the job.
Esme nodded as she opened the door. "I'm sure you two will get along great."
The first thing that hit me when I entered the smallish office was the complete and utter state of chaos it seemed to be in; boxes of all sorts of sizes occupied almost every available bit of floor space, leaving virtually no room to maneuver as we walked the maze to a little clearing where two desks sat relative unscathed by the madness, one of which occupied by a man as you will find them very often in places like these: shy, geeky with longish, slightly unkempt hair that was obviously dyed pitch black, huge glasses, and a t-shirt that revealed a penchant for heavy metal.
At least this was familiar territory and just for that, I liked him already.
"Care to explain what's going on?" Esme asked while looking rather amused by the state the office was in as she turned her attention back to me. "I can assure you the place is usually much more organized and less cluttered."
"It would have been," the guy–Jasper–muttered frustrated, "if those assholes back at the Van Leyden place hadn't completely jumped us by moving the transfer of most of Johannes' library to this morning instead of tomorrow."
"This is the stuff from the Van Leyden home?" Esme's eyes grew frantic as she looked over the boxes, trying to find some sort of organization to them, I would guess.
"Yep," Jasper nodded solemnly, "and from what I've seen so far, none of them are labeled and it looks like they just shoved all of those books in there without stopping to think about their value." He huffed, pushing his glasses back up his nose before brushing a few strands of hair that had fallen out of his ponytail back behind his ear. "I guess we should count ourselves lucky they didn't just throw them all into a box and carted the whole collection to us!"
"If anything, Jasper is always very vocal and open about what he thinks," Esme chuckled, smiling a bit like an embarrassed mother, "even when, from a business point of view, that might not be the most professional thing to do."
Only then, as Esme addressed me, did Jasper acknowledge me, his lanky frame leaning back in his office chair as he gently put the book he had been assessing back on his desk. "You're the new girl, right?"
I nodded, forcing myself forward as we both did that awkward thing shy people do when they really didn't want to shake hands but know they should because it's the polite thing to do and all that. "I'm Bella Swan."
"You lived in Leiden for a couple of years, right? To study history?" Jasper's eyes had a bit of jealous glimmer to them that made me slightly nervous and very uncomfortable as I nodded. But it was gone as soon as it came as he motioned at the desk across from his. "Good. It's about damn time we have someone here who can even out all the Italian cackle in the room next door. Kan ik ook eindelijk weer eens Nederlands praten met iemand die weet waar ik het over heb!"
I giggled. "Yeah, it will be nice to be able to speak Dutch on a regular basis," I answered in English, as much for Esme's sake–who probably didn't have an idea of what Jasper had been saying–as for mine. "So, do you need help with those?" I motioned over at the huge pile of books sitting on his desk, contents of one of those boxes I assumed.
"Yes, please," he nodded, immediately placing some of the books from his desk onto what I assumed would be my workspace.
"How about I deliver Bella here again after I'd given her the tour of the building and you can go and whine all about James then?" Esme intervened. "And please…give the girl some room to breathe and some reassurance that we aren't all socially inept grumps here or you may lose your new Dutch speaking buddy sooner rather than later."
I gave Jasper as reassuring a smile as I could muster as I followed Esme back out the door, neglecting to tell her I had 'socially inept' down to a 'T' as I listened to her as she opened doors and introduced me to a whole lot of people whose names I was sure I was going to forget before I was out of the door. Apart from Jasper and me, who were basically Team Netherlands, there were four researchers in the Italian section, as well as two employees focusing on restoration and conservation of the documents; one of whom–Alice–managing to sneak her way into my more permanent memory seeing as she looked pretty much like an updated version of the absinthe fairy.
Bypassing security (in fact: a lot of my tour was focused on how to do just that) we made our way back down the stairs, with Esme telling me something more about my two bosses. Aro Volturi and Marcus Hemming were partners in business as well as in life, though according to Esme, chances were I wouldn't actually meet them face to face for some time as they worked outside of the office.
Esme more than made up for their lack of physical presence, acting more like a proud mom displaying the exploits of her kids than the third-and-often-first-in-command of one of the most prestigious private research facilities in town.
I loved it.
It made me feel like home, even when my home was thousands of miles away.
By the time I made it back upstairs to my new desk, it was almost lunch time; a couple of colleagues whose names I'd already forgotten milling around in the corridor waiting for others as they chatted about the unexpected dump of library books that morning.
"You have your work cut out for you, Bella!" an older man–I believe he was called Alessandro or something–chuckled in my direction as I quickly ducked into the more quiet and still book-packed room. My new colleagues seemed nice but that didn't mean I felt safe enough to be up for interacting with them. Nope, it would probably be a couple of weeks before I would be able to lower my defenses a little, and even then…
That made me so angry sometimes knowing that part of me–the spontaneous part–would probably forever ruined by what he did. Not that I'd ever been a laid back, go-with-the-flow kind of girl before but at least I had been able to react somewhat naturally when people I didn't know started to speak to me. Nowadays, all I could see was the danger in letting strangers get close.
"You're back!" Jasper's voice sounded from behind a fresh pile of books, his hands immediately starting to push a similarly impressively stack towards my side of the desk. "Time to get to work, new girl."
"Hit me!" I grinned, eagerness overtaking my natural shyness as I relished in the prospect of touching books that had once belonged to Johannes; books that had been touched by the maestro's hands. "What do you need me to do?"
"This is just the boring 'mass-production' stuff we need to get out of the way before we can get to the really interesting stuff that's still back at the Van Leyden home," Jasper explained. "As far as I know–and hope, by the way–these boxes only contain the contents of the Van Leyden library. The contents of Johannes' study will be packed and shipped by own specialists, starting as soon as we've got this group done."
I nodded. "So you want me to catalogue them?"
"Some of them, yes," Jasper answered. "I need you to filter out the Dutch books and check them against our database to see if we already have a copy of that work on our shelves–in which case we just can't afford to keep them, since we're very pressed for space." He waited, his eyes briefly glancing up to see if I was still catching on. "The rejected books will all go to libraries or will be sold to specialized stores but not, of course, before we check the covers to see if they contain notes or inscriptions that link them to Johannes."
"Because we want to keep those, right?" I grinned; my fingers already drumming against the cover of a thick, leather bound volume in their eagerness to get started.
Jasper nodded, quickly hopping up from behind his desk to show me the ropes through the institute's computer database system before we set to work to the mellow tones of In the Land of Shadows, Johannes van Leyden's one and only masterpiece. It seemed a fitting soundtrack to the unraveling of his life; a life still cloaked in so many secrets that it had held historians and musicians from all over the world captive in an almost maniacal fascination with the artist and his work for almost a century.
I was no exception.
In life, Johannes van Leyden had already been a slightly elusive, very secretive person and not even his untimely death in the trenches at the Somme had changed that, since his family had always refused to speak or open their home to researchers or members of the press.
Until now.
"You're a true 'Leydiaan', aren't you?" Jasper noted after we'd worked side by side in companionable silence for a while.
"I guess so," I nodded, smiling at the nickname given to those who studied the master's life and work. "Though I don't really go as far as some do."
"You mean you don't investigate his works to look for hidden messages?" Jasper snorted.
Before I could answer, the door opened to reveal two women; one being the strange and slightly scary Alice from Conservation and Repairs, the other a girl I believe was named Bree, who worked in one of the public rooms downstairs.
"Looks like neither of you will be joining us for lunch, huh?" Alice remarked, eying the boxes as she bit her lip in apparent disappointment. "Too bad, but I'll make sure I'll bring you guys something nice from the corner bakery."
"T-thanks, Alice!" In my own fascination with the almost fairy like creature, I hadn't taken in the reaction Jasper had to the arrival of our visitors–which appeared to be rather fierce.
Whether she heard him or not, Alice was already on her way, leaving a blushing Jasper behind, much to the amusement of the other female visitor. "Just ask her out, already!" Bree scolded him. "You've been crushing on the girl for months, Jazz, and I'm pretty sure she's been doing the same."
"I'm not right for her." My heart broke as Jasper hung his head in disappointment, his hair masking the forlorn expression on his face that was so nakedly apparent in his words. "She deserves to be with a guy who's cool and able to hold a conversation without stammering like a fucking idiot."
"Now why don't you let her be the judge of that?" Bree countered, her head shaking from side to side as if she already realized she was fighting a lost battle. If anything, us geeks could always be counted on to be stubborn to a fault. "I'll bring you back a turkey sub."
"Thanks, Bree," Jasper muttered, his whole being screaming 'don't talk about this' as he turned his attention back to his books.
I was only too glad to give him what he wanted, my attention already back on the fresh pile of books stacked on my desk as the adagio leading up to one of the most famous areas of the opera swelled, the heart wrenching emotion of the cellos grabbing me by the throat just like the first time I'd heard it.
My hands rifled absentmindedly through a beautifully bound volume of Virgil's Aeneid as I thought about the brilliance of a man's mind to be able to come up with a musical piece as intricate and complex as 'Oh, now I have truly seen the land of the shadows'; a song capturing all it meant to have your heart broken and your life in ruins. It was almost impossible that a man who could detail all those deep felt emotions into musical score without ever having experienced them himself and yet, as far as we knew, Johannes van Leyden had led a relatively loveless life until he met the woman he married, about a year before he died. And he had remained with her until the end.
There was no indication that he had ever had his heart broken the way his two protagonists had or experienced the hopelessness Coraline-
Wait a minute…
My thoughts stopped as my hands came across something foreign, right around the chapter in the Aeneid where Aeneas sails away from Carthage, leaving a heartbroken Dido behind to plan her suicide.
A letter.
My heart raced as my shaky hands pulled the fragile leaf from the pages, the gloves making my movements slightly clumsy as I folded it open to reveal a neat and unfamiliar script.
A woman's handwriting.
Only one glance at the contents of the letter, dated the eleventh of October 1915, was enough to make me gasp, my hands almost dropping the letter as the realization of just how big my discovery was started to take hold. "J-Jasper?" My voice sounded like something that didn't belong to me, my eyes unable to leave the small folio for even a minute. "I…I think I've found something."
Thoughts?
