Chapter One
The first thing you have to know is that I did not ask for any of this to occur. I just wanted to finish my paper. And no, I am not crazy; this really did happen.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Penelope Waters. I am a second year (almost third year!) undergraduate student at an university in Boston (good luck guessing, there's like five of those in a ten mile radius). My major is history. Yes, I know. History. That boring class you hated in high school; that major that leads to no employment outside of academia. The thing is, however, I do want to be an academic. A career filled with seeking knowledge on and analyzing the lives of those who lived centuries ago? Writing research articles, maybe even a book? Being able to lecture others about my favorite subject? Sounds great to me. That is why I was actually excited to write the fifteen-page research essay on a topic of our choosing my medieval history professor assigned us. Great, I thought. Preparation for my senior thesis. All I have to do is not procrastinate and follow the suggested timeline.
So of course I procrastinated like any self-respecting undergrad. As much as I love history, I had other obligations. Two of my other classes also assigned research papers, I had work, German vocabulary to study, and I still needed to watch the new season of House of Cards (my brother kept texting me about it and threatened to send me spoilers). The most I had done was gather books on my topic and watch a BBC documentary (I pretended it was research). Suddenly there was a month left in the semester, and two and a half weeks until the paper's deadline. Plenty of time right? Nope, not when you need to gather enough information to fill fifteen pages and also write those pages.
Thus I found myself steadily typing away on my laptop in the library, surrounded by a mess of open books and a couple closed ones. Those closed books were ones that looked useful when I looked them up on the catalog and thumbed through the index. However, when I opened the book to the chapter I wanted, the chapter was written in another language. This is odd, I had mused. It doesn't look like Middle English. Not German. Not Latin. I've never even seen this alphabet before today. I even took the book to show to the research librarian on the first floor of the library, but she could not make it out either.
Anyway, the flow of students waxed and waned into my secluded part of the library. The occupation of the desks near me eventually reached a fixed point of three other students as the evening progressed. They too left around ten pm. I really wanted to join their group. I had been working for a straight five hours at that point, and I wanted to go back to my dorm and watch Netflix until I fell asleep. Taking another sip of my second coffee, I thought, One more hour, girl. You can do this. One more hour.
I sighed, flipping through pages detailing the governing of England during Richard I Lionheart's reign. I wrote some notes, and unfortunately managed to smudge my previous notes on the Great Revolt of 1173. Damn. Why do I write in pencil again? Being the sometimes irrational person I am, I felt like crying about the smudging (though the words were still clear enough to read). The stress was eating at my nerves. I would never finish in time. I loved my topic, but the sources for it were limited. Yes, Penelope, that sounds fascinating. I look forward to reading your paper, my professor had said. It felt like I was grasping at straws for good sources. Damn the twelfth century and its lack of literacy and poor record-keeping. Ugh.
Slamming the book closed, I stood up from my chair. I reached for the closed book again, the one with the strange alphabet. According to its index, it possessed information I could really use to finish my research. Maybe if I looked at the chapter again I'll recognize the language and can go from there. I went to the chapter and laid the book flat on the table, next to my laptop. I analyzed the language, willing myself to see an umlaut or a thorn or an ash or something that I knew. I did not, and neither did several subsequent Google searches. Putting the book down yet again, I decided that a quick walk to the DA section of the book stacks would calm me down. Who knows, I could might even find something that could be of use to me upon a fifth perusal of the section. I should just search through the Consortium's website instead of willing something to appear. Had I stuck around longer, I would have noticed a faint glow emitting from the runes of the book.
As luck would have it, I found a volume on twelfth century women with a good introduction. I brought it back to my table feeling more relaxed. I sat back down at the table and opened my laptop. My eyes slid toward the time. 11:30pm! That much time really passed? I need to get back to my room; I have class tomorrow. Stuffing my laptop and my research books into my backpack (including the one with the weird runes, I would figure it out!) and holding the new volume to check out at Circulation downstairs, I left the library and stepped into the sidewalk illuminated by streetlights. It was cool outside, not cold. We finally made it out of freezing temperatures, which meant spring in my book. Welcome to Boston, where the seasons are winter, Paul Revere's sweaty armpit, winter, and colder winter.
The walk back to my building was largely uneventful. However, there was one incident involving another student pointing at my backpack and waving her hands. Her mouth was moving, but I did not hear what she was saying because my earbuds were in place. I moved to remove them so I could ask her to repeat herself, but her eyes went wide and she ran off. I slid my bag off my shoulders to look at it, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just the same houndstooth pattern. Weird.
When I arrived at my building, it was 11:50pm. I was quite happy that I lived in a single this semester. This way no one was disturbed by my comings and goings at all hours. My normal roommate, Ashley, was studying abroad in Ireland this semester. She would have definitely woken up by the sound of me coming in at midnight and getting ready for bed. God knows why, she always went for the eight AMs and nine AMs, meaning that she stuck to a normal sleep schedule.
I swiped my Student ID card through the gate things (I never figured out what they were properly called) and flashed my card toward the security guard. He gave me a nod, and I proceeded toward the elevators. Fortunately for my exhausted state, an elevator was already on the first floor. I walked into it and pressed the button for the ninth floor. As the machine carried me toward my floor, I thought some more about Ashley. She would have gotten a kick out of that weird incident with that student. I hope she's having fun in Dublin. Isn't it early morning there?
The elevator dinged, and I left the elevator. I walked toward my corner room, dragging my feet. Withdrawing my key from my coat pocket, I unlocked the wooden door and turned on the ceiling light. Wow, I really look exhausted, I thought upon glancing my reflection in the mirror. The bags under my eyes were quite prominent, my pimples unfortunately redder than usual, and I definitely had hat-hair under my beanie. Shaking my head, I dumped my backpack onto the desk chair and laid my coat over the back of said chair. I removed all the books from the backpack, putting them next to the scarf I was knitting on my desk, and set my laptop to charge. I was so tempted just to sleep in my clothes and in my contacts, but nagging voices sounding suspiciously like my mother and my optometrist told me to change. Since the voices wouldn't leave me alone, I donned my pajamas and made a trip to the bathroom to take out my contacts. It was 12:30am by the time I crawled into bed. I set my phone alarm for nine am (thank God for noon classes) and fell asleep, dreaming of knights and castles and crowns.
Two whole hours before my alarm buzzed, I woke up to the sound of angry voices. What the hell?
"Sacre bleu, I cannot believe what that book has done to my hair! Angleterre, why must you always try to cast such ridiculous spells! They never work!"
"Excuse me you bloody frog, I happen to be an excellent magician! It's not my fault we were stuck in that bloody book! I told America not to touch my collection, but did he listen? Of course not, the git never listens to anything I have to say anymore!"
"C'mon Iggy, how was I supposed to know we'd end up trapped? It was all glowly and looked super awesome! Where are we anyway? Look at all these books! Medieval Mothering, England Without Richard, Letters of English Queens, Le Morte D'Arthur, A Feast for Crows! Are we still in your library, Iggy?"
"Guys, please calm down. There's someone here besides us... She looks like she's sleeping..."
Well, at least one of the voices noticed. There shouldn't be anyone else in this room besides me. Maybe I'm dreaming. I wonder, if I went back to sleep, would they go away?
"Maybe she knows where we are!" the third voice yelled enthusiastically.
There goes that plan. I groaned and sat up in bed. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I reached for my glasses on the nearby bookshelf. I put them on and blinked. The digital clock flashed an unholy 7:00 AM. Early morning sunlight filtered through the closed blinds, illuminating four blond guys standing around my desk. They were definitely not there when I went to sleep.
"Who are you, and what the hell are you doing in my room?" I demanded angrily at the four strangers. This is going to be a long day.