Episode 5: The Shared Narrative We Agree To Believe, Chapter 1
"We have to talk to my parents again," Cassandra sighed, her breath catching. "I'll go. I think they owe me an explanation after this."
Jenkins pulled a face and was about to speak when Stone cut across him with an offer to accompany the distraught redhead. He took a breath and began again, but this time it was Flynn who beat him to it.
"I would quite like to have a word with Professor and Doctor Cillian too, actually," said the Senior Librarian thoughtfully, watching Cassandra the same way a microbiologist might watch a Petri dish. "I'd be more able to find out just how much they know, perhaps."
"Speaking of what they know," added Eve, cutting off Jenkins' third attempt to break into the conversation, "do you think they know you suspect them?"
"If they did they gave no sign of it," shrugged Stone. "We just told them both that Cassie's Dad, John, had been knocked out and rambled a bit as he was coming round. That he might have concussion and that we thought he'd been hallucinating a bit. We left him in the... well, in the presence of his wife, and then we left. We did say we'd come back at a better time though."
"And by 'we', he means 'he'," quipped Cassandra dryly, her ever expressive eyes betraying just how much she looked forward to the promised visit.
"Let's leave it a little," suggested Eve. "I don't know about you, but I'm more than a little worried they switched out one of the artefacts and none of us noticed."
"She's right," nodded Charlene. "We know now that we need to keep an eye on Cassandra's parents, and we will do, but what we don't know is what other damage those snakes did to our inventory. We don't even know when the switch was made! For all we know, they could have been gradually replacing items in that warehouse for months before we ever came across it. Well, you, I suppose. That's another story I've yet to be told in detail."
"I detailed the position of every item I removed from those boxes," mused da Vinci. "The list should be in my workroom. I included notes on those that reacted, either well or badly, to their new positions in case of future rearrangements. I shall return with it rapidamente."
"Bring it to the main Library floor," Eve called after him. "We'll meet you there."
Jenkins raised a finger and opened his mouth again to speak, but the others had already turned towards the door. All except one. Behind the old man, Ezekiel's voice broke through the descending silence.
"What is it?" Jones enquired, all hints of joviality or jest gone from his voice. "Something's worrying you."
"You have been worrying me for months now," grumbled the Caretaker. "It never bothered you then. Why should my worrying over someone else bother you now?"
"That's not fair," he young man pointed out, with a sick feeling in his gut that contradicted his words even as he spoke them.
"You say that so often," sniffed Jenkins. "I wonder what your basis for comparison is?"
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"I don't think it would the best idea for you to visit the Cillians," said Eve, drawing Flynn to one side when they reached the ark of the covenant. "Not at first anyway. Let Cassandra and Stone go on their own for now. This is personal for her, and painful."
"Are you saying I'm not a supportive boss, darling?" Flynn enquired, throwing his wife a charming smile at the endearment.
"No, dear," responded the Colonel. "Just suggesting how you could be a better one. You try, Flynn, but when was the last time you actually led a team? Properly, I mean, and alternate universes don't count. You've been letting them work autonomously until now, and they're good at it. Let them take the lead in this and be there if they need you. They'll let you know when they do."
"They didn't when our silicate oracle in there announced the end of the world was nigh," he reminded her.
"They had good reason not to and they've done just fine without us," she pointed out.
"Una lista, as promised," called out da Vinci, waving the rolled up article above his head as he joined them. "There is a rather extensive number of items. Where would you wish to begin?"
"Best begin at the beginning," replied Flynn, holding out his hand for the list. He took the roll of pages and flicked through them. His eyebrows rose. "Was there really that much?"
Eve removed the sheaf of papers from his hands and started distributing them amongst the gathered team members, pairing them up as she went. "Stone, Cassandra: you take the first four pages. Charlene and Leo, you take the next. Flynn and I will take these four. That leaves the last four for..."
"I think I'm capable of working alone by now," cut in Jenkins.
"I don't recall saying you weren't," smiled the Colonel, squaring her shoulders and turning to the knight. "But we don't know what damage has been done or what we're going to find, so we work in pairs on this. Clear?"
Jenkins narrowed his eyes her. "Crystal."
They set out into the depths of the library, papers in hand, each pair gradually turning down a different aisle of bookshelves and display cabinets. Flynn and Eve were the first to separate, heading down the central aisle with the rest, past Midas and the Spear of Destiny, past Tesla's death ray, and John Logie Baird's first television, until they reached a long display headed by an Incan death mask. They turned down between the walls of displayed items and stacked scrolls, resting neatly in their diamond shaped shelves. Flynn's fingers dancing through the air as he counted off the relics. Before they had traversed a third of the full length of the aisle, he had found the first item on their list.
"Montezuma's Knife of Death. One traditional sacrificial knife, Aztec," he recounted, pulling on a pair of gloves before lifting the item off its stand. "Chalcedony blade, turquoise and shell encrusted wooden handle depicting an eagle warrior. It was used to cut out the hearts of warrior prisoners, captured during battles, to sacrifice them to the sun god. Probably more used by the priests than Montezuma, but the big names get all the credit in History. The Aztecs believed that any warrior properly sacrificed would ascend to the heavens to become an eagle warrior, a guardian of the sun god."
"Please tell me we don't have to cut anyone's heart out to find out if it's the real one," said Eve, reminding her husband of the purpose of their visit.
"Er, no," Flynn admitted, much to his wife's relief, "but we do need the blood of a warrior. If it really is the knife of death, as soon as the blood of a true warrior touches the blade, it should shine like the sun."
Eve groaned and rolled up her sleeve. "Is there any chance this is going to turn me into an eagle?"
"Not that I know of," shrugged Flynn.
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"Are you planning on doing all of this in silence?" Ezekiel enquired, trailing along behind Jenkins as they made their way through the fairy tale section of the Library. "Well, silence on your end, anyway. I can talk the hind legs off a donkey whether you answer me or not. I mean, it's not that you were ever particularly chatty. Not where terse and laconic would suffice. But even they require some form of communication." He paused and watched the back of the old man's snowy head for some sign of reply. When none was forthcoming, he winced, then went on as subtly as a battering ram. "You're going to have to talk to me sometime. Even if it's just to tell me what we're looking for, or what we've found, or, you know, the usual 'Mr Jones, do not touch that', or 'put that back very carefully'. Or one of those endearing insults we've all come to know and love."
Jenkins stopped by a spinning wheel so suddenly that Jones almost cannoned into the back of him. The Caretaker removed a small, flashing device from an inner jacket pocket and pointed it at the wheel. He nodded at the readout on the device, then replaced it in his pocket and ticked an item off the list.
Ezekiel Jones paused at the spinning wheel to examine it more closely. He was just reaching out a hand to the item when the words "Mr Jones, do not touch that!" floated back along the aisle to him.
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Charlene and da Vinci made their way into the large collections annex. The veritable giants of legend towered around them. Apathetic in the extreme, Charlene glanced at the items on their list and turned towards the stairs.
Da Vinci skipped ahead of her and offered her his arm. "Mi permetta, mia bella!"
Charlene paused to look distrustingly at the proffered limb. "I'll manage."
"I do remember exactly where I placed each item," Leonardo reminded her. "If you would just tell me which one we are looking for first, I am certain I could guide you to it directly."
"Newton's first telescope," replied the erstwhile receptionist, "and I'll still manage."
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Stone and Cassandra turned down the avenue of artefacts that marked the beginning of the Long Gallery. While, in some Tudor mansions, the term may have been used to describe overhanging balconies or even slightly larger than usual rooms devoted to the display of the decorative arts, in the Library, the term took of a more literal meaning. Much more literal.
Paintings, sculptures, sketches and potsherds lined up into a guard of honour as they passed. Occasionally, Cassandra would spot something she vaguely recognised as such-and-such, by so-and-so, but for the most part she trailed along in her faux fiancé's wake.
"Nearly there," muttered Stone, murmuring the names of the artists sotto voce as they proceeded. "Here. Escher, M. C., Maurits Cornelis, Dutch mathematical artist. Item entitled "Convex and Concave", nineteen fifty five."
"Oh-kay," frowned Cassandra, peering at the picture. "Woah! Oh, okay, it just switched perspective. Is it supposed to do that?"
"Darlin' every version of this picture does that," grinned Jacob. "What they don't do is this. Watch."
He drew her back a step and pulled a coin out of his pocket, then flicked the coin at the famous lithograph. With a barely audible pop, it began rolling down a flight of steps in the picture.
"I'm guessing that means it's working?" Cassie enquired, entangling her fingers with his but keeping her eyes fixed on the impossible progress of the coin.
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Ezekiel Jones was starting to find it difficult to keep up with Jenkins. They, or Jenkins, at least, had ticked off half the items on the first page of their list, and the dearth of conversation was starting to get to Jones. Maybe he hadn't listened before. Maybe he had been pigheaded and selfish. Now he had questions, though. Questions he really needed the answers to. Questions only two people he knew could answer. One of them he didn't dare ask. The other was doing a fabulous job of ignoring him. When the erstwhile knight stopped at another item on their list, he decided to bite the bullet and speak up. Jenkins ticked the item off their list and turned to move on.
"I know about Flora," Ezekiel blurted out.
Jenkins froze.
With the taller man's back to him, Ezekiel had no way of knowing what emotions may or may not have been betrayed by Jenkins' face. Part of him wished he had spoken while the man was still half turned towards him at the last relic.
"What do you know?" Jenkins intoned slowly, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"I know she's the original Cailleach, the granddaughter of the fairy princess," replied the young man. "I know she's the source of Dunvegan's power, and that that power is now passing to Seonaidh. I know that she's dying. And I know that you loved her."
"You know nothing, Ezekiel Jones," murmured the old man.
"Don't I?" Ezekiel pushed.
Jenkins white head bobbed from side to side. "You know Flora's origin, that much is true. And she is dying. As for her power passing to your girlfriend, no. The power in Seonaidh is her own, just as the power in Flora is her own, and will die with her. No what is passing between them now is the burden. The responsibility. They are the human link to the Fae worlds. One of them anyway. Such links, bound by blood, are few and far between. Dunvegan is much more than a simple repository for a collection of Celtic clan curiosities. The Cailleach is much more than just it's guardian."
"But you were in love with her once, weren't you," pressed Ezekiel, sure now that he understood his mentor's adamant stance on his own relationship with Seonaidh.
"No," replied the knight simply.
"No?" Ezekiel's brow wrinkled.
"No," repeated Jenkins. "I was not in love with Flora once... I still am."
