“Well, I don’t want you to be bored this second time,” she answers with a light of a smile on her voice as she trails her eyes onto the list given to her and then to the row of books there. “This time around, you must find something that will interest you if you’re so sure that you want to be a successful archaeologist like your father.”
“Sha, you don’t need to scold me about it,” I tell her with a strained smile. I pout, looking away to appear interested on the trail of books present. Most of the titles by the spine are written in a language that I can’t even understand. “You know that to be an archaeologist is just a dream for me. It’s like I’ll ever be one.”
“I don’t think that it will just remain to be a dream, you know?” she inquires as she takes one book from the shelf, checking off the first book on her list. She turns to me the next second with a serious expression. “You don’t even know what’s going to happen in the future, after all.”
“What I am telling is that… you know how clumsy I am. Have you ever heard an archaeologist who is as clumsy as me? And one who attracts danger than luck?”
“Well, we’re passed half the day already and you’re still not bumping into any clumsiness yet, Eira.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Might I remind you about what happened during breakfast?”
“You know that the guys in our class are jerks. The coffee stain on that shirt will be removed with proper washing,” she murmurs.
“It’s a good thing that I didn’t received any burns and I’ve managed to remove the smell from my hair.” I take a strand of my short and shaggy hair to take a sniff of it, ensuring that I indeed successfully removed the smell from the incident during breakfast. “But we’re still not over with it. That train…”
“We still manage to make it here early. Nothing to worry that we missed the train when you tripped during our chase. It was my fault that I urged you to run for us to catch it up.”
“And during the ID surrender?”
Shannon sighs heavily as she smiles at me. “Well, enough with this. It’s still not the end of the day. Surely, something good’s about to happen today. That’s for sure. So… look on at this shelves of rare books. Perhaps something will catch your interest in order to lessen my guilt that I dragged you to boredom.”
“Alright, alright. I’m going to search for one,” I remark, fixing my glasses again.
She smiles at me, much brighter than earlier that it is not an exaggeration to say how blinding it is. “Then, for us to avoid further damage or whatsoever, you come along with me. The next book is on the other shelf there. We walk slowly so that you can also leisurely pick a book of your liking. And who knows, perhaps it is not only Ancient Egypt that will interest me but also others? Not to mention that these are truly rare and antique materials, if I’m to be honest.”
“Yes,” I agree, trailing the shelf with curious eyes as I try to read the titles by the spine of the books. Majority of them were written in Old English than those of other languages from eastern or southern Europe. I don’t think that there will be some books that will interest me at all, if this is the case. Not to mention that since these books are already labeled to be ‘rare’… I don’t think that I have the right to even touch these books with my clumsy hands. “The rarer they are, the scarier I am about having to be near them.”
“Come on. You’ll surely do fine. The antiqueness of them will surely make you be much extra careful, Eira,” she says, hugging that thick book she had first recovered that is very visibly an old and ancient one; given the thick hardcover of its binding and everything leather that suggests the many years it had overcame to survive in this time to still be used than to be preserved in some fine glass under a museum.
“I don’t think that it is enough to make me be at ease. Your words only make me wish to cower being a hermit where there is no way that I’ll do damage to anything as important as these ones.”
“Stop with the melodrama. It doesn’t suit you, you know? You’re much more of a fighter than this. And I am speaking with all honesty, even though I know that this is not the right place for us to talk about this. Given that this is a library. And not just any library, but this is…”
Suddenly, Shannon’s words start to fade away to the point that I am no longer listening and I find myself stopping right at the newest shelf that we come across to. This shelf at the farthest side from where most of the desks in the reading room are. This one at the far corner from the main entrance; and the one much greatly away from those who’ve gathered to read on here. Well, to be honest, I will not stop walking and listening on if my eyes haven’t catch sight of a peculiar book among the already odd bunch.
It is not at all different compared to the others. The way of the binding resembles those of old books on the shelf with it. It doesn’t have a title that is explicitly weird; but it is the only book that doesn’t have any words on its spine at all. Not to mention that when its surrounding books, or the population of all others had shown decay of history, this respective one appears completely new.
In short, this very book that catch my eyes is undeniably weird. The oddest one in the already rare ones.
“Eira?” I hear Shannon calling out to catch my attention. I hear her footsteps drawing closer back to where I am standing, transfix at the sight alone of the book’s spine. The worry and curiosity on her voice had been much more evident when she is finally standing next to me, asking, “Eira, what is it about? Have you found one that interests you?”
“Probably,” I mumble.
“Probably?” she asks, turning to me with a raised eyebrow and then back to the numerous books on the shelf. She is trying to figure out which one from all of them had made me stopped.
“It’s just that… This book.” I reach out to take the book from the shelf. I try all I can not to quiver and panic, the common reflexes that I do have that are all associated to my clumsiness as Mum usually tells me. I easily hook the book’s top away, sliding it effortlessly from the shelf. I turn the book to face its cover to see what I’m not expecting at all.
The book is bounded in red leather. Unexpected for a book printed all the way back in history. There’s still no title on its surface, not even a hint of the author or whatsoever. It seems like it is just newly covered with leather, obscuring the original binding to preserve it still. But that will be a backlash for the other rare books here. The only other imprint on the cover is the golden silhouette of the familiar Welsh dragon with a crown on its head all the while embracing a sword. Framing the cover of the book is an intricate filigree design, making everything else weird.
“That’s an odd one you’ve got there,” Shannon comments next to me. “No title. Not even the author’s name on the cover. It is a great mockery, you know? Try opening it. Perhaps the title and the author’s name are inside it.”
“Y-Yes.” Leveling the book on my hand, ensuring that I have a tight grip of it on my own, I slowly open it to reveal the first page. My displeasure and disappointment in finding out the title of this book and even its author heightens much more when the thing written on the first page is a cursive writing of a language that is incredibly foreign to me.
My parents had been interested with other languages that I try my best to catch up with them. They’ve asked me to study one after another since they’ve ensured that I’m already good with my English, Scottish and Welsh. They continue on hiring tutors until recently to oversee my learning of other languages that even require a different form of writing system to the Latin phonetics. And that’s surely what makes me disappointed with this book among all; since for me who’ve been a polyglot myself, this is my very first time to see such writing form.
To top it all, the writing had been on script. A weird writing system, and a weird combination of symbols if they are really letters to begin with. There are less spaces in between each word, and there are even written notes of the same writing system on the margins.
I am starting to wonder if there had been someone who’ve already worked on decoding this one.
The part of me who’ve been a born archaeologist for scenarios such as this makes me giddy. It makes me wish to ponder onto this strangeness on my own. For some reasons, this book’s existence makes me be interested to quench my boredom as I wait on for Shannon as she takes the rest of the hours busy with the collection regarding the antiquity of Ancient Egypt.
As I skim onto the writings on the already old and faded yellow paper, knowing too well how fragile they are just by looking at them without even touching to feel the history that this book has in order to remain this intact, I freeze… as I notice the familiar sense and shiver on my bones like that one of earlier when I and Shannon had been on the Main Reading Room. The same feeling that I have when I take in the consideration that it appears as if someone is watching us… me.
“I’ve finally found you, my girl.”
The voice that seems to have been whispered by my ear forces me to look to the side, away from the row of books next to me, and then behind me. Trying to find the direction where that feeling and sound comes from. I am trying to keep myself grounded, wishing that I am not shaking so badly and that the book I have on my hold will remain firmly there before I cause some fault all due to my nervousness.
“I finally found you.”
Before I realize what is happening, I am already falling backwards. The book no longer on my hold as I try to catch my own fall. At the moment that I am sitting on the floor, I realize that everyone else in the room had turned to my direction. Based on their expressions, I’ve surely done something that made them turn their attention to me.
This is embarrassing. But… that voice and this feeling of being watched…
“Eira!” Shannon calls out, immediately kneeling next to me as she places back the book she’d earlier recovered beside her. She leans closer to me, worry absolutely visible on her green eyes. “Eira, are you alright?”
“I…” I struggle to say something, just as the dread and coldness on my bones slowly dissipates. Yet, the haunting feeling of someone always watching, someone right there to send chills in my nerves, and that voice that I’ve heard too closely… it will not even go away that I can sense how badly I am shivering in fear.
I hear a sigh from an elderly man, clearly disappointed. “Do you even know how valuable every book there is in here? These books are rare and unique. Perhaps the only one of their kind left in the world, if ever there were others. Since the loss of the Great Library of Alexandria, the knowledge regarding history are too hard to be acquired once more.”
When he draws closer to the shelf just next to me, I realize that he had been holding that very book without a name. he is returning that respective book back to its place on the shelf, clearly intent of not allowing me to take another glance of its odd writings. Given his uniform, I will say that he is one of the head librarians here.
“I-I’m sorry,” I mumble, biting my lower lip in embarrassment.
“If you’re to search for another series of books from this section, I advise you to take extra precautions,” he warns the two of us, but I can feel his eyes heavily on me. As if he can see right through me that I am more of a danger to these books than all of the collections here combined to rain down on me. As if the word ‘clumsy’ is written above my head in neon lights. “The books here are way beyond your age, young ladies. Also, keep your reactions to yourself, and kindly observe silence.”
“We’re very sorry, sir,” Shannon continues apologizing. “We’ll keep ourselves reminded of that rule.”
The man’s dark eyes, through the thick-lenses of his round glasses, settle on to me as if he is analyzing me from head to toe. The frown he has didn’t disappear, making me wonder if he is looking at me in disgust or whatsoever. I’ll say that he hates me; and my clumsiness had earned a spot at that as well. He slowly turns to look at Shannon next before saying, “Young lady, I suggest that your friend needs some rest. She seems completely shaken.”
I gulp in hard, decoding his words that he is telling us to back off and leave this library. I know that this is a wrong idea for Shannon to drag me along with this, given how my day started with a series of misfortunes already.
I am to speak up to tell him that I am fine and I will not dare try to make another stunt like this again, but Shannon, with a very visible concerned look on her face, as if she herself is guilty of what happened, resigns, “Yes, sir. I am sorry about what a scandal our behavior had caused.”
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