The overly elaborate phrasing of the book followed Jamie into sleep, phrases circling in his mind in a repetitive loop. They started to fade as he drifted into dreams. In his dreams he found himself standing at the open pocket door that divided the study from the library. He was facing the desk in the study.
Jamie scanned the study, somehow knowing it was a dream, but
not quite a dream. There was a snap to
the air, like an electric tingle of sorts.
It reminded him of the basement jet before it sent him images of a long
dead Keeper or dreams of Albe’s teachings that had been sequestered away and
had finally worked their way to the surface of his mind. He frowned, thinking
something was different though. He stepped into the study , his eyes drawn to
the desk. On the surface of the desk he
saw his notebook, complete with the list he had begun to make before Burr’s
arrival.
“Why would my notebook show up in a dream of the past?” he
mused. He blinked in surprise as he
noticed an additional bullet point had been added to his list. “Study human
magic,” had been added to the list, several books, listed alphabetically by
author were placed below the bullet point.
The handwriting was not his, but it looked oddly familiar.
“I don’ understand why you couldn’t just leave well enough
alone,” Jamie heard a voice say. He turned
in surprise to face the library. In the
library, a fire was burning merrily in the grate and he could see the tumble of
his sneakers where they lay forgotten beneath the chair he had been reading in earlier. Once again he had kicked them off as he read
and abandoned them, despite reminding himself to be neater. He knew Del was his housekeeper but her felt
strange about leaving a mess for the brownie.
The thick tome he had been attempting to plow through, was
no longer on the side table where he had left it. That was not the only change, however. Sitting in the chair he favored was a man
with neatly combed hair, mutton chop sideburns wearing an old fashioned
suit. Or most of one anyway. His jacket was flded over the back of the
chair and his sleeves had been rolled up to his fore arms. In one hand he held a brandy snifter, from
which he would periodically sip.
Across from him sitting in what Jamie liked to think of as
the guest chair, was a man similarly clothed.
He was however clean shaven, with a head of hair that looked like it was
beginning to thin. A pair of wire rimmed
glasses was perched on his nose. His eyebrow was lifted as he stared at the
other man.
“You know very well why I couldn’t just leave well enough
alone, Edwin,” The spectacled man replied, neither man seeming to notice Jamie
as he took a few steps towards them. As
he neared, Jamie noticed that the man with the spectacles held the pretentious
tome and was slowly flipping through the pages, occasionally leaving a marker
behind as if to mark a passage. He shook
his head in disgust. “Clearly this is the first time this book has ever been
opened,” he told Edwin. “The pages are still clipped together from the
printers. I can’t believe you didn’t at
least look it over.”
Edwin smiled. “You know I find it pointless, Reginald.” Edwin took a sip of his brandy and then
chuckled to myself. “I mean Reggie,” he
said. Reginald looked up from the book.
“I find that name to be a bit too familiar,” Reginald
replied stiffly. “And we’ll see how smug
you are when the boy starts referring to you as Eddie.”
Edwin waved the comment off indulgently. “Times change, old friend. It will hardly
affect my standing in the social pages,” Edwin replied. “Besides, we’re all
family aren’t we? At least that’s what you keep reminding me.”
“Nice to hear you acknowledge it, although one would never
have guessed from the state of the family tree now would we? One would, if so
inclined, believe you were ashamed of the connection.” Reginald replied
stiffly.
“Now Reginald,” Edwin began, his good humor fading. “You know why that was done. You know why it had to be done.”
Reginald sighed and looked back to the book. “Just as you know why this needs to be done.”
“The Keepers have no need to communicate with each other. Each functions independently. I see no need
to bother learning to use the visilore. It is a waste of time.” Edwin replied
somewhat crossly.
“In our time perhaps.
But as you pointed out, Eddie,
times change,” Reginald replied. Edwin acknowledged
the point with a lift of his glass.
Jamie took another step closer. “I don’t suppose you would
care to just tell me how to use the visilore?” Jamie asked. Neither man gave any sign that they heard
him. “Hello?” Edwin continued to sip his
brandy while Reginald continued to mark pages.
“You couldn’t have at least broken the corner connections to
make me think you had bothered to read the book that is the culmination of my
life’s work?” Reginald asked crossly. Jamie was now close enough to reach out
and touch Edwin’s shoulder. He found
himself unaccountably afraid. Goosebumps
broke out on his arms and he fought the urge to rub them as he extended his hand
forward. His hand passed straight through Edwin’s shoulder as though he were
not even there. Jamie pulled his hand back quickly.
His hand felt icy and tingly as though he had spent far too
long outside in the cold without gloves and was only now beginning to
thaw. He rubbed his hand as his flesh
warmed up and started to ache.
“I did quite well without magic of my own,” Edwin told
Reginald, giving no indication that he had felt Jamie’s hand move through him
at all. Jamie took a step back.
“But you had the magic of others to rely on,” Reginald
pointed out, still marking random pages. “And while you didn’t need the…shall
we say overt magic that is like my own, you have used the magic of your office
often enough. I dare say if you had a larger degree of magic in your blood you
would find some way to make it useful.
You are quite adept at making excellent use of whatever tool comes to
your hand.”
“My dear Reginald,” Edwin said with a laugh. “Was that
actually a compliment?”
“Credit where credit is due,” Reginald replied, cracking a
smile for the first time.
“Very well,” Edwin said.
“I suppose giving the boy another tool he can use if the need strikes
would not go amiss.”
“So glad you agree to see reason,” Reginald replied. “This
time.”
Jamie blinked and realized that the two men were growing
indistinct. Before, he could see the texture of their clothing and could almost
smell the air cream Edwin used to slick his hair in place. To his eyes they looked solid and undeniably
real. Now, he could nearly see through them.
They were fading, even as he watched, slowly moving to shadows, even
though he could still hear them good naturedly bickering over who saw reason
and when. Their voices remained a moment after their images had faded, as
though he were listening around a corner to two people walking away from him.
Gradually even that died off and Jamie was left alone in the library. All at
once the fire died out. Jamie shivered
and woke, finding himself alone in his bed.
Jamie sat up in bed and looked around the room. He glanced
at the clock and realized it was barely four in the morning. Normally that would be far too early for him
to rise, but he knew he wasn’t going to be getting back to sleep any time soon.
Resigned to the early start to the day, and still turning the not quite dream
over in his mind, Jamie got up, took a quick shower and dressed in faded jeans
and a long sleeved t-shirt. He slipped
on a thick pair of woolen socks he found in his dresser drawer. The socks were unfamiliar to him but he had
noticed that as the weather outside grew colder, more and more knitted items
were appearing. Socks, scarves, gloves
and sweaters had all started showing up in his dresser drawer. Del had looked
uncommonly pleased whenever Jamie donned one of the new items so he didn’t
question their arrival too closely.
Thus dressed, Jamie opened his door. Remembering previous early mornings, Jamie
glanced down the hall before stepping out of his room. For a second, his eyes rested on the closed
door to Albe’s bedroom. The door
remained closed, no ominous sounds emanating from the room behind it. Jamie
relaxed and stepped into the hall. He walked to the study, reminding himself
that House’s defenses were all operational.
While he mentally accepted this safety, the memory of the giant boulder
splintering Albe’s bed still left him wary.
In the study, Jamie pressed the button for the lights and
blinked in the sudden glare as they came to life. He looked around the room, noticing that
nothing was out of place. He walked over
to his desk and found his notebook had been closed. Jamie frowned, not able to remember if he had
closed the notebook earlier or not. He
reached out and flipped the pages to his makeshift to do list. There, just as he had seen in his dream, was
the additional bullet point, complete with booklist below.
“Well that answers that,” Jamie said. “Not just a dream then.” He thought of
the book Reginald had been marking and, notebook still in hand, he
walked over to the library. The book was
as he had left it, closed and sitting on the side table. However, even from where he stood a few feet
away, Jamie could see various markers protruding from the closed book. He set his notebook down on the table and
picked up the book. He opened it to the
first marker and saw that on that page a few paragraphs seemed to glow as
though they were highlighted with light rather than a pen. Unsurprisingly, he
found a mention of the visilore in the first sentence of the highlighted text.
“Not exactly a subtle hint,” Jamie said. “But I suppose I
know what I’ll be doing until breakfast at least.” Jamie took the book and his notebook back to
the desk in the study. He opened the notebook
to a fresh page, took a pen out of the drawer and began to make notes as he
read through the marked passages.
No comments:
Post a Comment