As the team rode the elevator down to the Crypt Level of the Library, Flynn briefed them on its history.
"Whenever possible, the earthly remains of every mortal Librarian and every mortal Guardian are brought back to the Library," he said quietly. "Some are buried, some are entombed, some are cremated—whatever their wish was, if it was possible to fulfill it, it was done."
"Every Librarian and Guardian?" asked Eve doubtfully. "How many are there?"
"One hundred fifty-five Librarians, one hundred and ten Guardians."
"Whoa…" breathed the current Guardian. "But you said only mortal Librarians and Guardians are in the Crypt; what about immortal ones, like Judson and Charlene?" Flynn shook his head somberly.
"Immortals can only leave this plane through the Library's Magic Mirror when their time comes," he explained. He glanced uneasily at his wife. "It'll be the same for us when our time comes."
"What about…?" she murmured, flicking her eyes at the three other Librarians.
"They'll have places here, in the Crypt. With all the other Librarians. If they leave anything behind to bury, that is."
"You know, we're standing right here," interrupted Ezekiel, looking askance at the elder Librarian and Guardian. "We can totally hear you!"
"What about Jenkins?" asked Cassandra, her voice strained. "He's immortal; wouldn't he have to pass through the Mirror, too? Like Charlene did, if he was going to…" She nervously dropped her eyes, unable to finish her sentence. She quickly looked up again.
"I mean, if he's not…gone, then why would he be here?" The elevator jolted to a halt and the doors slid silently apart.
"That's the question," answered Flynn crisply as he stepped out of the elevator and into the Crypt. "And we're about to find out the answer!"
Everyone trailed quietly behind him. The Crypt was a gigantic space, with a ceiling so high that it couldn't be seen from the ground. Laid out before them in two long lines that flanked a wide central aisle sat scores of huge sarcophagi, each made of black granite. Each sarcophagus bore a large bronze plaque that identified the Librarian inside it, along with their age, their years of service, and a brief listing of their major accomplishments. Torches set in the gray and white marble walls of the chamber illuminated dozens more bronze plaques that marked the final resting places of those Librarians and Guardians who had been cremated. As they walked down the main aisle, their footsteps echoed loudly in the still room.
"Flynn, where do we start looking for Jenkins?" whispered Eve, awestruck by the somber, uncomfortable surroundings.
"I'm not sure," he said casually, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the absolute silence of the Crypt. Eve hunched her shoulders and grimaced.
"Not so loud!" she hissed. Carsen gave her a quizzical look.
"What? But what do you mean, Eve?" he asked, doing his best Boris Karloff impression. "Afraid the dead will hear you and rise from their tombs to take you away with them to the Land of the Dead?" He made claws with his fingers and pretended to grab the Guardian. As she swatted his hands away, Cassandra whirled around to glare at them.
"Really?" she snapped angrily, on the verge of tears. "Can we not even take the death of a loved one seriously around here?" Flynn instantly let go of Eve.
"Sorry, Cassandra," he said contritely. "You're right, I'm sorry." Eve nodded in agreement.
"So where do we start looking?" Baird asked, her tone all business now.
"I say we split up," said Jake. "This place is huge. If we split up, each of us take a section, we'll find Jenkins a lot faster."
"Agreed," said Eve. "Everyone take a different direction and keep your eyes peeled. If you find something, give a shout or send a text. Cassandra, you stick with me since you don't have your phone with you."
They set off in four different directions, each of them quickly examining the plaques and checking the names engraved on them as they began the search for their missing friend.
Two hours later, the two women paused and leaned against one of the massive black sarcophagi to rest their feet. They hadn't found anything with Jenkins's name on it, and they had reached the end of the vast burial chamber. They hadn't heard anything from any of the men, either.
"I hate to say it, Cassandra, but I don't think he's here after all," murmured Eve as she stretched one tired leg and then the other.
"I'm kinda glad in a way," answered the Librarian uneasily. "I hate the thought of Jenkins being in a place like this." She looked around at the massive tombs surrounding them and the wall that she knew was filled with ashes.
"He has spent so much of his life cooped up inside the Library; I think that if ever did die, he would want to be buried someplace outside, someplace beautiful, someplace open and sunny. Or be cremated and have his ashes scattered someplace where the wind can carry him up into the sky, like a bird, free." Her voice caught in her throat and she dropped her head, quickly wiping a tear from her eye as she began to sniffle. "He would hate it here! It's so dark and depressing and...!"
"He's not dead, Cassandra," Eve reminded her earnestly. "If he had died, you would've felt it, remember? Remember what he said? Not even Time can separate a Sealed couple, remember that?" Cassandra nodded and pulled herself together.
"Yeah, I remember," she said, her tears gone. "You're right. I can't feel any emotions or sensations or anything like that coming from him, but I can feel that he's still alive; I just wish I could feel where he is! Why would the magic mirror say that he's here if he really isn't?" Before Baird could say anything, her phone dinged, alerting her that she received a text message. She quickly dug the phone out of her pocket.
"Fingers crossed," she said, glancing at the Librarian before looking down at the screen. A smile lit up the Guardian's face.
"It's Jake," she said, becoming excited. "He's found something! Let's go!"
The pair raced back towards the elevator, calling Jake's name as they ran. He called back, guiding everyone to his location, a distant corner behind the row of granite tombs. Ezekiel was already there with the historian as Eve, Flynn and Cassandra ran up to them. Jake grinned at them happily.
"Got 'im!" he barked, his eyes glowing. "Check it out!" He turned and pointed to the stone floor behind him. The lighting in the corner was dim, but they were just able to make out a large rectangular slab of gray stone that blended in almost perfectly with its surroundings. Jake raised his phone up and turned on its flashlight, flooding the dark corner with light. Incised into the stone rectangle was a circle. Inside of the circle was a stylized design depicting a long feather quill pen crossed over a rolled up scroll. A flame hovered in the triangular space immediately above the point where the quill and the scroll crossed each other. Jake looked up at the others proudly.
"It's his seal!" he said. "The official seal of the Caretaker of the Library! I've seen Jenkins use it on some of his business correspondence. And since Jenkins is the only Caretaker that the Library's ever had..."
"Jenkins must be buried here!" breathed Flynn, his own excitement building. He saw Cassandra cover her mouth with shaking hands as she stared at the stone marker, and he put a damper on his enthusiasm. Carsen looked over at Stone and Jones.
"Jacob, Ezekiel—we're going to need some tools. Sledgehammers, pickaxes, rope, crowbars." As the two young men ran off to fetch the items, Flynn turned his attention to Cassandra.
"Cassandra, if you'd rather not be here for this..." he started, but her head snapped up at once to glare defiantly at him.
"I'm staying!" she said, her tone brooking no further argument.
Within half an hour, Jake and Ezekiel were jumping off of the elevator and clumsily pounding their way back to the gravesite, their arms full of heavy digging tools, rope and grappling hooks. Eve and Flynn went to meet them, with Eve taking the large coil of rope and a pick from Jones, while Flynn took a shovel and crowbars from Stone. Flynn dropped the tools onto the floor with an ear-shattering clatter and went to take the pickaxe from Eve.
"Wait!" yelled Jake, and the others turned to look at him. The historian knelt down next to the large slab and began to examine it closely, running his fingers along the seam where it met the stone flooring. He grunted with satisfaction and stood up. "I had an idea while me and Jones were gettin' the stuff. The stone's not mortared or cemented into place; it's just a big slab of stone restin' on a lip built into the floor. I think we should try to pry it up first, before we try the picks or sledgehammers." He looked around at the small group as he spoke.
"We start hittin' that thing with picks or hammers, chunks of it are gonna go flyin' all over the place," he explained. "I've been hit with debris like that before, and it's no picnic. I brought some pry-bars; I say we try those first. If that doesn't work, then we switch to the hammers and picks."
"Good call, Stone," agreed Flynn, letting the pickaxe in his hands drop to floor next to him. "Let me have a pry-bar."
The three men each grabbed one of the long iron bars and took a side, with Flynn on one long side of the stone while Jake and Ezekiel each took one short end of the rectangle. They worked the flat ends of their pry-bars into the seam of the slab, and when all three were ready, Flynn gave a nod.
"Okay, on 'three'," he said, adjusting his grip on the bar. "One. Two. Three!"
They all pushed down on their bars at once, struggling to get more leverage as the massive stone began to rise. Eve rushed to help Flynn with his bar and Cassandra ran over to help Ezekiel. The stone rose higher and all three bars slipped further beneath the stone; as soon as it was high enough, they stopped and eased the pry-bars down until the slab were just high enough to allow Ezekiel to place grappling hooks into place. The four Librarians and their Guardian then took hold of the ropes, and together they pulled the heavy stone up and back. It toppled over and slammed to the floor with a deafening boom, vibrating the floor sharply beneath their feet and shattering into several large pieces. Dust flew up from the floor and hung in the air as the team coughed and waved their hands in front of themselves to try and clear it. Cassandra dropped the rope in her hand and rushed to the edge of the large opening in the floor and threw herself down next to it. The others were right behind her.
"Jenkins?!" she cried, peering into the dim opening. As the dust settled, she could make out the lines of a plain, rectangular wooden box about four feet down, a thin layer of dust coating its surface. Jacob, standing right behind her, put a hand on her shoulder as he looked down into the opened grave.
"Hang on a minute, Cass," he murmured as he pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. He pointed the beam into the hole and leaned over the anxious mathematician to get a better look.
"Wood looks solid," he muttered. "No signs of any kind of decay." Cassandra shivered at the image his words called to mind.
"Hey! Look at that!" Stone suddenly said, aiming his light to the side of the coffin. Metal glinted dully in the glaring beam. "This grave can't be more than three feet deep. And it looks like they used chains to lower him down, then left 'em there in place."
"Because Judson and Charlene knew that we would need to raise it out again!" said Flynn eagerly and slapped Jake's shoulder. "That's a good sign! Otherwise they would've dug a deeper grave and used rope, as was customary in the early Twentieth Century when burying a dead body." Cassandra turned to look at him in disbelief. He smiled back at her.
"Don't you see, Cassandra? This confirms that—despite all outward appearances—Jenkins isn't dead!" he said, a grin on his weathered face. He looked around at the others. "Let's fish out the ends of those chains and haul him out!"
They all flopped onto their bellies and located the four ends of the two long chains on which the coffin rested. As they got back to their feet, Flynn looked over at Cassandra.
"Cassandra, we'll do the lifting," he said while the others wrapped the chains around their arms and hands in preparation. "As soon as the box is clear of the grave, give it a good hard push toward the floor to get it started; we can finish pulling it away from the opening from there." Cassandra nodded and took a position at one end of the grave. Flynn looked at the others, each with one manning one end of the chains.
"One, two, three—pull!"
All three men and Eve groaned as they struggled to lift the heavy box, the links of the chains biting into their hands and straining their muscles. Cassandra watched closely, and the moment the box was clear, she rushed at it, shoving it as hard as she could with a loud cry. The others moved with her, and there was a shout of triumph from everyone as one end of the box scraped to a halt on the floor of the Crypt. Working as a team, they quickly maneuvered the clumsy box completely onto the floor and safely away from the hole. As the others dropped the chains and rubbed their painful hands and arms, Cassandra ran over to the coffin and stared down at it, her eyes wide. She stretched out her hand to gingerly touch the dusty box.
"I can't believe he's in there," she whispered. "I can't believe he's been here the whole time, for over a hundred years..." Eve went over to the pile of tools and grabbed a pair of crowbars.
"Not for long!" she said in determination. She tossed a crowbar to Jake. "Stone, with me!" The Librarian caught the iron bar and, giving it a couple of spins in his hand, he went to stand at one end of the box while Baird stood at the other end, on the same side. He nodded at the Guardian.
"Let's do it!" he growled, and immediately jammed one end of his crowbar beneath the lid. Eve followed suit. As they forced the lid up, the wood screeched in protest as each nail was jerked free of the coffin. Within five minutes, the lid was off. Jake and Eve lifted it and pushed it back from the coffin, allowing it to fall to floor on the other side of the box. Guardian and Librarian stood back and gazed down into the coffin, the others crowding around them. Inside was a tall figure, covered head to toe by a sheet of plain muslin cloth. Eve turned to Cassandra. The young woman was gaping, wide-eyed, into the coffin, her face white as snow.
"Cassandra," she said quietly. "You want me to..?"
"No!" she said hoarsely, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes were still locked on the shrouded figure. "I want to do this." Scarcely breathing, her heart thudding almost painfully in her chest, the young Librarian knelt down and reached out a trembling hand, slowly at first. She hesitated for a moment just as she was about to touch the fabric, then quickly seized the edge of the shroud to yank it back, uncovering the face of the body inside the coffin before the muslin fell from her fingers.
Lying inside the box was Jenkins, whole and unharmed, with no sign of the horrible injuries she had been told awaited him in 1912. He had a peaceful look on his face, his forearms resting over his stomach. He was neatly dressed in a black, three-piece Edwardian wool suit, with a crisp white tab-collared shirt and a neck tie of emerald-green silk. A long, snow-white beard nearly covered his entire chest, and his silver hair, also having continued to grow over the long decades, was now much longer, longer even that Cassandra's hair. She noticed, too, that his fingernails were also grown long, almost like claws on his ivory hands. The Caretaker looked for all the world like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle.
"Jenkins?" Cassandra whispered, scarcely able to believe that she was actually seeing him again. As the reality quickly sank in, she became almost dizzy with ecstasy.
"Jenkins!" she cried, and threw herself onto him, her hands somehow finding their way around his body and holding onto him tightly, gently shaking him. "Jenkins! Jenkins!" She closed her eyes as she pressed her face against his chest, tears quickly forming, repeating his name over and over.
"It's me, sweetheart! It's Cassandra! You're home now! We made it! We're safe!" Above her, the others watched silently, each flooded with emotions of their own.
After a few minutes, Cassandra pushed herself upright again. Why wasn't he awake? Why wasn't he moving? She brushed his still face with one hand. His cheek was cold and dry. Suddenly, her euphoria evaporated and was replaced by an icy, leaden fear. She spun around to look up at Flynn, her damp eyes wild.
"Flynn! Something's wrong!" she said, panic mounting. "Why isn't he waking up?!" Eve reached down to gently pull Cassandra up and put her arm around the Librarian.
"Eve! Why isn't he waking up?!" Cassandra cried again pitifully, her face the very image of despair.
"I don't know, Cassandra," Baird answered quietly, trying to keep the increasingly distraught woman calm. She looked pleadingly over at her husband. "Flynn...?"
Concerned, Carsen knelt beside the box and began to examine its interior and the Caretaker's body for any clues.
"It must be a spell of some kind," he offered, forcing reassurance into his voice. "I'm sure Judson and Charlene included instructions or a clue as to what they used or something; they knew that we would need that information to revive Jenkins!" He stuck his hand into the bare wooden coffin and began to feel along the sides. After a few seconds, his fingers touched something round and solid.
"A-HA!" he shouted. He wrapped his fingers around the object and pulled it out, holding it high into the air in triumph: An apple with skin the color of fresh blood, absolutely flawless except for one bite that had been taken out of it, the apple's flesh still snowy white. As soon as he saw it, Flynn's face fell, his expression one of shocked dismay.
"Oh, no! NO! NO!"
"What is it?" demanded Jacob.
"A poisoned apple," Flynn said, his voice flat.
"A poisoned apple!" gasped Eve with a mixture of confusion and horror. "How? Jenkins is immortal, poisons can't kill him!"
"Regular poisons, no," answered Flynn weakly. "But this is a magical artifact, with magical poison."
"But…he's not dead!" protested Cassandra weakly, looking around at the others. "I…I can feel it! Through our Sealing! He's alive!"
"But asleep," continued Carsen, getting to his feet. "If he was mortal, he would be dead right now. As an immortal, the poison can't kill him, but it can still affect him by making him fall into a sort of magically-induced coma." He looked up and toward Cassandra, his eyes full of sadness.
"That's the other part of the original 'Snow White' story. The Lady Katharina used dark magic to cause an apple tree to grow in the family's garden, a tree that produced highly poisoned apples naturally and for which there was no earthly antidote. When the apples ripened, Katharina disguised herself as an old woman and tricked Margaretha into eating one. The poison was so concentrated that the poor girl died before she could even chew. When the Library learned what had happened, the Librarian came and removed the tree. It's been in the Heart of the Library ever since." He dropped his gaze and focused on the apple in his hand.
"You said there was no earthly antidote; that means there's a magical one? So…then…we can wake him up, right?" said Cassandra, her voice desperate. "How do we do that?" Flynn glanced up a moment, but couldn't look her in the eyes for long. He looked back at the apple and shrugged awkwardly.
"I don't know, Cassandra," he finally confessed. "No one has touched the apples or the tree since it was brought to the Library. I don't know how to counteract it. Or even if…it can be counteracted." He looked down, unable to meet her grief-filled eyes.
"We…might never be able to wake him up, Cassandra. That might be why Charlene and Judson put him here in the Crypt…"
"NO! NO, Flynn!" yelled Cassandra angrily, her strength finally crumbling under the stress of being so close to reunification with her beloved Jenkins and then having that hope snatched away. "There has to be something in the Library somewhere that can help! Charlene and Judson wouldn't just put him to sleep and bury him alive if it wasn't reversible somehow!"
"Perhaps...this was all Jenkins's idea," murmured Carsen. "Maybe he realized there was no way back for him, so he..." Baird's head whipped around to stare at her husband in amazement.
"Jenkins did not commit suicide, Flynn!" she hissed angrily. It was too much for Cassandra to bear.
"NO!" Cassandra shrieked, then threw herself onto Jenkins's deathly-still body, her wan face resting against his cool cheek, her arms clutching him as best they could, and broke into sobs of frustration and despair. "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" The others could do nothing except watch, helpless to comfort her. Ezekiel, standing the closest to her, finally went to kneel down beside Cassandra and put an arm around her quaking shoulders.
"Don't worry, Cassandra, we'll find a way," he murmured gently. "We'll bring him back, I promise!"
"We all promise!" growled Jacob, angrily wiping a threatening tear away before shooting Flynn and look filled with daggers. Cassandra raised her head so she could look at Jenkins through tear-blurred eyes. She stroked his cheek tenderly as her head drooped in remorse and began to wail.
"I'm so sorry, Jenkins! This is all my fault!" she lamented miserably. "I'm so sorry!"
The Librarian lowered her head to gently kiss Jenkins. A large tear slipped from her eye and splashed onto the sleeping man's lips. As she kissed him, the tear slowly seeped its way between Jenkins's lips and into his mouth.
A few seconds later, everyone jumped and shrieked, startled, as the Caretaker, his eyes still closed, suddenly sucked in a huge lungful of air. Cassandra screamed and scrambled backwards, her wet eyes wide with fright. Jenkins exhaled and immediately drew in another deep ragged breath. His eyelids fluttered, then slowly cracked open, blinked rapidly against the nearby torchlight. He felt around with slow, clumsy hands, his overgrown nails scraping over the wood of the coffin until they found the edges of the box, then he slowly, painfully pulled himself upright, gasping loudly for breath. Cassandra, frozen in shock, continued to stare at him, while the others took an involuntary step backwards as they gaped in disbelief. Jenkins sleepily rubbed his eyes with his knuckles as his breathing evened.
"Jenkins?" Cassandra whispered, her blue eyes staring, her trembling hands flying up to her mouth. "Omigod—Jenkins?!"
The immortal's head turned at the sound of her voice. His dark eyes flew wide as he recognized the blurry outline of his treasured Librarian.
"Cassandra?" he croaked, his vocal chords raspy after over a century of disuse. A small smile came to his lips as he looked up and his eyes swept the tiny group of stunned, but familiar, faces surrounding him before he lowered his head and reached out to take one of her hands. He saw his own hand and its talon-like nails and he hesitated for a moment, but he couldn't keep himself from touching her.
"Here you are!" he said, trying to sound lighthearted, but his scratchy voice and welling eyes betrayed his true emotions. "I'm sorry I missed you in 1912, my love, but…well...things didn't quite go as I had planned them."
With a scream of pure joy, Cassandra launched herself at him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, repeating his name again and again. She hid her face against his chest and wept freely. She could feel his heart beating wildly under her forehead, loud and strong, and it filled with indescribable happiness. She breathed deeply and smelled the familiar, comforting scent that only Jenkins possessed. She could hardly believe that the whole ordeal was finally over, that she finally had her knight back, safe and whole. She cried so hard that soon her small body began to shake, and her shrieks became little more than strangled croaks.
Jenkins flung his long arms around Cassandra and pulled her tightly to him. He dragged her into the box so that she was sitting on his lap, her legs dangling over its side. He buried his face in her hair, his eyes squeezed almost painfully shut. He hoarsely whispered her name as he held her, tears slipping from beneath his lids and down his cheeks to mingle with her red locks. One of his large hands slid up to rest on the back of her head as he moved his head to kiss her, the side of her head first, then a trail over her forehead and nose, until he finally found her tear-stained mouth. He kissed her deeply, passionately, tasting the salt of her tears on her lips, tiny whimpers of ecstasy sounding in both of their throats. His heart filled to bursting with happiness at finally being reunited with his precious Cassandra, that he finally had her back, safe and sound. His dizzying joy overwhelmed him so much that he thought he might actually faint.
Jenkins felt her small body trembling against him. He broke their kiss and leaned back so that he could see her, his hands moving to tenderly hold her beautiful, tear-stained face between them. He looked into her ocean-blue eyes, felt the love she had for him through their bond—a love so powerful that it had literally transversed Time itself.
"I love you, Cassandra," he whispered. As inadequate as they were to express what he was feeling at that moment, they were the only words he could think of to say to her. Cassandra's face crumpled as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
"I love you, too!" she whispered back, then threw herself into his arms again.
Eve clutched Flynn's are, overcome with emotion. "True love's kiss!" she murmured. Flynn looked over at her and snorted.
"Nonsense!" he said, to his wife's astonishment. "A mere kiss is unable to break the spell of the apple's magic-that's just in the fairy tale!" He leaned forward and began to lecture the others. "You see, it's more likely that Cassandra's tears contain the chemical compounds that make up the physical manifestation of her love for Jenkins—phynylethylamine, dopamine, seratonin, oxcytocin, endorphins. Combined-and enhanced by the magic of their Sealing-her tears became a sort of 'molotov cocktail' that destroyed the magically-enhanced chemical compounds in the apple that are the physical manifestation of the hatred and evil of Lady Katharina, which were then infused into the apple tree and then, in turn, in its fruit! If there was no Sealing between these two, I doubt Cassandra could've awakened Jenkins no matter how many times she kissed him!" Eve turned to look at her husband.
"Or, Flynn, maybe it's just a case of 'true love's kiss' conquers all'?" she countered stubbornly. Flynn grinned and nodded as he slipped his arm around her waist.
Above them, Flynn, Eve, Ezekiel and Jacob stood silently and watched the emotional reunion. Flynn and Eve didn't even try to hide their own tears as they held hands and beamed with happiness for their friends and for having their family back, intact. Jacob fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot and scratching the back of his head and neck, furiously blinking back the tears that came to his eyes and trying to clear his throat of the large lump that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Ezekiel watched the proceedings with his arms crossed, all of his weight resting on one foot, hiding his own feelings of happiness and relief behind a carefully cultivated expression of boredom as he gazed distractedly around the crypt until the emotionally-charged atmosphere seemed to finally ease up a little. Then the thief stood up straight and looked down at Jenkins and Cassandra.
"Oi! You two!" he said loudly, sounding greatly put upon. "Get a room, why don't you!"
Jake turned and punched the Aussie's shoulder, grateful to finally have something to punch. Eve glared at the thief, while Flynn, oblivious, continued to look down at the happy pair. Jenkins and Cassandra, however, only laughed and held each other even more tightly. Flynn knelt and put his arms around the couple.
"Welcome home, you two!" he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. Eve, Jake and Ezekiel quickly followed suit, until everyone was enveloped in a tight embrace, their hearts full of joy at finally having everyone safely home.