[Closed] A Book to the Dead

[Lilanee Kuleda]

65th Roalis, 2719
BRUNNHOLD LIBRARY| MORNING

Lilanee blinked at the Incumbent, just as she blinked at Ezre, and back again.

Alone? Why the clocking hell did the politician need alone time with the Hoxian?

“I—of course Incumbent! I would—uh—we can…” She listened to Ezre talk, nodding affirmatively and adjusting her straps on her satchel with one hand. They could take the garden, and the girls would take the Library. Divide and conquer. Out of nowhere, the youngest of the peculiar group burst out with her fervent desire to come with them, still, and in fact to the library. Lilanee turned her blue gaze on Madeline and beamed, snapping her book shut and tucking it under her arm.

“To the Library then, Miss Gosselin!” She agreed with a sharp nod, giving the dark eyed boy one last look that held all manner of volumes, before turning on her heel and walking towards the wing that housed the standard student accessible library.

“You were very good back there Madeline.” Lilanee said after some time, clutching her notebook to her chest and walking with purposeful strides, but not too fast. Just fast enough that it mattered to keep up. She pushed her glasses up her nose and kept her gaze on the grass ahead of them.

“I couldn’t help but notice though, the way you…speak. Is there anything the matter?” The ninth form smiled, looking over a the girl for a second before turning back to the path they followed across the courtyard towards the Library.

“I’ve been sixteen once before too, and Brunnhold isn’t always the easiest place to settle into. Sometimes the other kids are really impossible, I mean truly. Other times, they can be the nicest people ever. If you’re having any trouble with anyone, you can tell myself or Ezre, and we can raise it to the Headmistress anonymously if you require.” Smiling again, the Hessean shrugged.

“Just saying, if you should need anything like that, we can definitely help.” She would stop talking for the moment then, either allowing Madeline to add her two tallies, or to stroll in companionable silence till they reached the Library doors. Lilanee would grasp the handle of the first one, tugging it widely open for the younger girl to enter first, before following behind her.

“I love it here.” The red head whispered as the door closed behind them, letting her gaze lift upwards to scan over the towers of bookshelves that filled the room, turning slowly as they walked under the chandelier in the entrance hall, smiling as she looked back down at Maddie. Turning to face the front again, she approached the front desk and beamed at Rosie Opkins.

“Good morning Rosie, I hope you’re marvelous this fine day! I was wondering, perhaps, if you would happen to know where Miss Wentworth might be working at present?” Rosie Opkins blinked slowly at Lilanee, managing what might have been the most disinterested stare in all of Brunnholdian history. She swung her gaze slowly to Madeline, as if to say, ‘really’?, her face a mask of pure boredem. Finally, she rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, waving towards the right hand side of the lower floor.

“She’s usually down the back, in the non-fiction between F and J.” It was all the help they were going to get, and after staring at each other for a few more seconds, Lilanee nodded and looked at Madeline.

“Right. Okay….this way I guess?” The older student would lead the quiet march across the hardwood floor and into the depths of the booklined aisles. They found F, and started there, moving through one end to the other, the tall shelves standing over them like silent watchers. Miss Wentworth wasn’t in F, or G, or H, but when they reached I they saw a woman with a book trolley, one old leatherbound tome in her hand as the opposite hand brushed over the spines of the musty books on the shelf.

She was an older woman, in her late forties by the lines on her face and the grey strands in her black hair. Anaxi, by the look of her, with her hair pulled into a gentle but function bun and dark framed spectacles on her nose. A thin silver chain went through the arms and around her neck, so she could take them off and they would hang there till required again. Her yellow eyes scanned over books, head tilted slightly so she could look through the bottom of her lenses, mouthing the titles silently as she looked for the appropriate place to insert the book.

“Miss Wentworth? Jasmine Wentworth?” The woman paused her review of the spines, turning her same downward gaze on the two students with all the professionalism of her profession.

“Yesssss? Though I hope you aren’t in the habit of addressing people by their first name young lady. Highly improper.” Looking between the girls, she raised a salt and pepper brow.

“Do I know you? Can I help you?” The older library assistant asked cautiously, not quite sure whether she really wanted to engage with them. It was getting close to morning tea break, and she was ever so aware Professor Hulle took her tea around this time. They were both avid readers of The Sergeants Calling, a weekly novella that was printed in the Kingsway Post, involving an intrepid and dashing Seventen Sergeant and his detective work in Vianda—a fictional city based off their own. The newest release had seen Miss Vrzk, the stunning but mysterious Hoxian diplomat burst into his office pleading for his protection from the elusive Miraan Marauders, and everyone was a buzz with the tension that was obviously palatable between the two main characters just as the episode ended! She needed to debrief and gossip as to what next week would bring, and Hulle would be just as eager.

The annoyance was there in her field, dancing around the edges, brimming with impatience.

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Morning, 65 Roalis, 2719
Brunnhold Library

Madeleine hadn’t thought Ezre’s joke about her and the library staff was very funny; it had hurt, somewhere in her chest, and it had almost been enough to convince her that this was a bad idea - all of it - that she should just go home, back to her room and her books and her dancing -

But Ezre and Lilanee didn’t laugh or argue or say she couldn’t come or even say she could come but in a way that made her feel like she wasn’t supposed to. Ezre even smiled at her, although Madeleine wasn’t entirely sure why. Lilanee was actually smiling too, and then - Madeleine realized that she herself was smiling too. It spread through her slowly, warm, and she was still smiling when she grabbed hold of her satchel and trotted after Lilanee, hurrying for a few steps to catch the older girl and her longer legs.

Madeleine brightened a little when Lilanee said she’d done well, but - her face sank, slowly, when Lilanee asked if something was wrong. The way she spoke? Madeleine’s eyes widened, and she stared at Lilanee. What was wrong with the way she spoke? It was just - just speaking, wasn’t it?

Madeleine tried, frantically to think back. Had she used a bad word? No, no she couldn’t have. Was it that she had called the passive Mister Yost? But so had everyone else - it wasn’t fair - or did Lilanee mean -

Madeleine couldn’t think what she might be referring to.

Lilanee offered to help, and Madeleine almost thought she might cry. Whatever was wrong with her speech was so bad Lilanee thought she needed to go to the headmistress about it, and Madeleine still had no idea what she was talking about. She had started talking about other students and being sixteen, and Madeleine just didn’t - was whatever wrong with her something that was wrong with a lot of people? Was this another thing nobody had told her about?

Madeleine nodded, mutely, feeling as if her throat had closed up. She wanted to correct Lilanee about her age - she wasn’t sixteen, not yet - but she didn’t. She was almost sixteen, anyway. She was practically sixteen, so really it wasn’t like she needed to correct Lilanee.

The worst part was that it seemed like Lilanee was really trying to be nice, like she was really trying to help. Madeleine clutched her satchel tightly to her chest, and glanced at the other redhead, her chest rising and falling a little harder.

Could she... ask?

No, Madeleine thought. No, she couldn’t - she couldn’t - except she wanted to know. She was doing something wrong, that was clear, and she didn’t know what. Maybe everyone else knew; maybe that was part of why they were always laughing at her.

Maybe - maybe Lilanee could help. She could explain what Madeleine had said wrong, so she wouldn’t do it again. Madeleine was sure knowing would hurt, but it would be better than always doing everything wrong, wouldn’t it? She peeled sideways at Lilanee. She had offered to help, Madeleine told herself, so it was okay to ask.

“What did I -“ Madeleine’s voice emerged as half a squeak, and she swallowed, hard, and tried again. “W-what did I say wrong?” She asked, tentatively, glancing at Lilanee, and then back down at the ground. Her shoulders hunched up, and she waited, still walking along side the other student.

They reached the library eventually, one way or another.

“I love it too,” Madeleine whispered back, and then wondered if maybe it would have been better not to say anything. Lilanee probably didn’t care what she thought.

Madeleine stared wide eyed at Rosie when they reached the front desk, and her eyes widened a little more when Rosie turned to look at her. She followed her gaze to Lilanee, and eventually Lilanee looked back at Madeleine, and let them off into the shelves.

Miss Wentworth did not look happy to see them. Not at all. At the brush of annoyance in her field - Madeleine was not very good at recognizing things in fields but she knew what annoyance felt like - Madeleine doetoed her field in, anxious tendrils seeping out from her, their pale color almost invisible amidst the shelves. She thought Lilanee would say something, but she didn’t and - Lilanee had said she had done well before, hadn’t she?

Madeleine very, very badly wanted to do well again.

“Sorry, Miss Wentworth,” Madeleine said, and she glanced sideways at Lilanee, and then back at the librarian. Slowly she straightened up, shyly. “We’re - I mean - I’m - doing a project? I mean, I’m Miss Gosselin and this is Miss Kuleda and we are doing a project. Or - I am and Miss Kuleda is helping me. On the history of the East Garden. Would you - we heard you could help us. Please?”

Madeleine held there, a little wide-eyed, conscious of the rising of hot red color on her cheeks, the blush she could feel on the back of her neck too. It wasn’t a lie, she told herself, virtuously. Everything she had said was true. Mostly true. She rubbed weakly at her cheek with one hand.

[Lilanee Kuleda]

65th Roalis, 2719
BRUNNHOLD LIBRARY| MORNING

"W-what did I say wrong?”

Lilanee looked at the girl, blinking for a moment as though completely lost on what to say. She stammered to find her thoughts.

“I uh, nothing? Nothing! You’ve said nothing wrong Maddie you just sound so…so sad?” The ninth form frowned.

“I’ve been sad at Brunnhold too. Some of the other kids are so awful I just want to…oh I don’t know…whack them over the head with my biggest text book. But I don’t, because that is terribly inappropriate.” The red head said in all seriousness, though she did smile slightly at the girl. Adjusting her glasses, Lilanee shrugged.

“It’s hard sometimes, when you’re a little bit different from the others. Maybe you look different, or sound different, or you’re a little louder or a little smarter, whatever. The point is that anyone who stands out seems to be frightening to the rest of the students, and instead of being logical and looking forward to new experiences, they try to cut down the one who stands out.” As they reached the library steps, the older girl offered a warmer smile.

“I’m just saying if you need a friend, we’re here.” Not willing to accidentally upset the younger girl any further, Lilanee entered the building, expressing her fondness without shame. Her blue eyes traced back to Madeline when she whispered a reply, and the Hessean grinned in return.

It was, however, difficult to maintain the smile when Rosie clocking Opkins was so gosh darn unhelpful. Lilanee was happy to be rid of her, only to be confounded again by the reaction of Miss Wentworth.

Was everyone in a bad mood today?

Thank the Circle for Madeline’s voice, the sixth form seemingly having far more impact on Jasmine than Lilanee had. The red haired teenager pressed her lips together and waited patiently, quite aware of when the situation called for her to clamp it.

Miss Wentworth adjusted her glasses, frowning as the auburn haired child muddled her way through her words.

“If it’s on Static conversation, I don’t really know anything that your professors can’t teach you. And if it’s about the silly rumor on the chroves in the kitchens I can tell you for certain that is poppyco—”

”…On the history of the East Garden. Would you - we heard you could help us. Please?”

Jasmine Wentworth froze, her voice caught in her throat. Her face turned sickly white and her eyes went a little wider. Her mouth opened for a moment, as though she would reply, then snapped shut. Clearing her throat, she shook her head tersely.

"I don't want to talk about the East Garden. Whoever told you to see me was wrong, okay? I'm not..." Her yellow eyes darted into the darkest corners of the suddenly oppressive library, and it was obvious she was scared. The older woman swallowed hard and looked between the students.

"I'm not going to be drawn into silly tales again." She was very scared now, covering it with another adjustment of her glasses and turning her eyes back to her books. Silence fell heavily between them for a moment, and Lilanee couldn’t help herself. She had to say something.

“Miss Wentworth, are you aware that a student was caught in the East Garden earlier this season? She entered the garden on a dare, and something happened to her. Something awful, I fear. The school isn’t doing anything to clarify what exactly and we—” Jasmine was staring at the books, her eyes wide and hands trembling slightly.

“We shouldn’t talk here. Come, to the quiet room. It’s well lit. And there’s no water.” It was an odd remark, but it was clear the shaken woman was very serious, her field barely controlled where it was tucked closely against her. Collecting her things, she led the way to the room, waiting for the girls to enter before closing the door.

“I thought this was all done with. That student must have been either brave or stupid to have stayed long enough for her to ask for help." The black haired woman laughed without mirth.

"I was stupid." Swallowing, she clasped her hands together.

“Who sent you, was it Yost? What did he say to you exactly?"

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Morning, 65 Roalis, 2719
Brunnhold Library

Lilanee had stared at her, when she asked, and made some strange stammering noises, and Madeleine had regretted it immediately, with a visceral weight in her chest and the prickle of tears at the corner of her eyes. She shouldn’t have asked, Madeleine thought, and she was sorry she had, sorry she’d made a mistake, again, because she really did think Lilanee had meant well. It didn’t feel like the other girl was making fun of her, even though Madeleine had been wrong before.

Lilanee answered, finally, then, and it wasn’t what Madeleine expected. She looked back up at the other girl, and she smiled back a little bit when Lilanee smiled at her, although she wasn’t quite sure why. She had nodded a little when Lilanee said it was inappropriate to hit people over the head with a textbook, but she had smiled too, and she had felt the strangest urge to giggle. She was sure it was wrong.

Madeleine looked down again when Lilanee called her a ‘bit different,’ though, and the little smile faded. She didn’t know what to say, not at all. Anyone who stands out, she thought, and she clutched the strap against her chest tighter. She peeked at Lilanee, and she was smiling again, but Madeleine didn’t smile, and she didn’t say anything either, not until she confessed that she, too, liked the library.

She didn’t know what to make of it – of any of it. Was Lilanee saying she was… a bit different? That she stood out? Madeleine didn’t want to stand out, she didn’t want Lilanee to think those things about her. All she wanted was – was – Madeleine didn’t know what she wanted.

A friend – a friend sounded nice. Two friends, she thought, because Lilanee had offered her Ezre’s friendship as well, she was pretty sure, because she had said we. Two friends seemed like a whole lot – an unnecessary embarrassment of riches – and Madeleine wondered at the idea of being so sure of another person that you could offer their friendship to someone along with your own. She would be very happy just to be Lilanee’s friend, she thought, because Madeleine didn’t think Ezre would want to be her friend, but – she thought it was nice of Lilanee to have offered him up along with herself.

But it was too late to say that to Lilanee, either to thank her or to ask if they could be friends, after all, because they were already in the library, and by the time Madeleine reached those conclusions, already looking for Miss Wentworth, and by the time they found her, there was a good deal more to think about. And – Madeleine was quite sure you weren’t supposed to let friends down, which only made it more important that she do a good job.

Madeleine thought she had upset Miss Wentworth, and she felt bad, until she realized that – if she was upset, than she must actually know things! And then Madeleine was pleased, just a little, even though she also felt bad about being pleased, and then thoroughly confused, and oddly guilty. A little kaleidoscope shimmer flickered through her field, although it wasn’t anything to the depths of emotion in Miss Wentworth’s.

Madeleine took a deep breath and prepared to launch into another attempt, but luckily Lilanee tried first, and then – Miss Wentworth asked them to come with her, instead of asking them to leave. Madeleine glanced wide eyed at Lilanee – her new friend, she thought, with a little goldenshift bubble of happiness, although she still had to ask properly, and she wasn’t exactly sure how – and followed after the librarian.

Madeleine looked at Miss Wentworth. “Her?” She asked, curiously, and then bit her lip, because she didn’t think Miss Wentworth had finished yet, and it was terribly rude to interrupt.

“Yes, Mr. Yost sent us,” Madeleine took a deep breath. “He – he said a lot of things. Um. He told us about… Couldin, and Alysonia,” Madeleine remembered the names, “and their – um – that they were – um – in the East Garden? In secret? And something about lightning,” There was visible confusion on the little galdor’s face and echoing through her field, and her nose scrunched up slightly, but she pressed on through the tangled mix of what she had remembered and what she had understood, and the tiny corner of their overlap.

“Mr. Yost said that… that there were others,” Madeleine looked up at Miss Wentworth, wide-eyed. “And to ask you.” That, Madeleine was clear about. “Please, Miss Wentworth, won’t you – won’t you help us?”

[Lilanee Kuleda]

65th Roalis, 2719
BRUNNHOLD LIBRARY| MORNING

Jasmine listened carefully, tsking every so often and shaking her head, pacing the small private room before sweeping into one of the soft armchairs. There was also a desk with a seat, and a small chaise lounge. She leant back in her chair, looking over at Madeline briefly, brows shooting upwards.

“He told…by Alioe that man…” The black haired woman shifted her hands nervously, feeling sick just from talking about it.

“I don’t want to help you. I don’t want to talk about it. Things happened when I talked about it back then. The less I talked, the less they happened.” Adjusting her glasses, Miss Wentworth finally sat forward, keeping her voice low.

“It was years ago now, and honestly I thought if I just forgot about it, then it would disappear but it seems that clocking garden is going to haunt me till I die. I was sixteen at the time, and of course everyone had heard the rumors about the East Garden. The crying and the things that people heard in the night, those gods-be-damned roses looking so picture perfect. But, they were just rumors, and the garden is beautiful. Once you get past the exterior of the maze, its stunning in the centre. There’s a beautiful pond, with some seating and a few sculptures. It really is just lovely. Or, or it was.” Her yellow eyes were looking through the girls now, back through time to the events of her youth.

“I went in, and really nothing happened to me to begin with. I figured out how to get to the centre, and found the pond. It was so quiet and peaceful, and in my infinite wisdom I decided it was my own private sanctuary, a place to sit and study, such a stupid idea really.” She frowned, gesturing as though it helped to explain.

“I…I heard the crying first, a few days after I’d been visiting. It was so so quiet I, I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was insects, you know? So soft and so quiet, like some sort of creature just on the breeze. It would come and go, and I started to stop going. But I don’t know, I felt…drawn. I felt like I was missing out by not being there, so I went back. Stupidly, I went back. I don’t remember how, but time seemed to pass so fast, before I knew it the sun was setting and I was still there. I packed by things and tried to leave but…I couldn’t get out.” Her eyes focused on the girls then, brow drawn behind her glasses.

“The gap in the hedges was just gone, like it had never existed at all. I went around and around and even tried to push through but it was just…gone. I could hear the crying again, but it wasn’t like before. It was there. Right there. In the water.” Jumping up suddenly from her chair, the older woman rubbed her hands together and shook her head.

“I can’t do this. I can’t. Yost shouldn’t have said anything. He should have just told you to go the clock away. I should have the old fool put into home duties honestly. Ophelia should know that he’s spreading rumors.” Turning her back on the students, Miss Wentworth removed her glasses, wiping at her eyes with a kerchief pulled from her sleeve.

“This is ridiculous. No one wanted to know then, and with good reason! Crazy, that’s what they called me. Crazy Jasmine Wentworth and her crazy ghost stories.” Lilanee bit her lip, stepping towards the woman a little and reaching for her shoulder hestitantly.

“Miss Wentworth, you’re not crazy. I’ve seen ghosts too, here in the school. I truly didn’t believe such a thing could exist but there it was, clear as you are right now.” Glancing back at Madeline, the red head realized that she’d not told the younger girl that yet, and hoped that she hadn’t just scared the dickens out of her. Smiling awkwardly, she turned back to the library assistant.

“We don’t think you’re crazy, and someone needs your help. Miss Strutenbroke saw something there, in that same garden, and no one is talking about it. What if…what if others go in their Miss? What if others were hurt, like Tamika. Like…you?” Jasmine sniffed, putting her glasses back on and turning to face them again.

“Something, a figure, a girl. She started to rise out of the pond, as though being lifted from below. Her skin was so pale, almost grey, and her fingers were blackened at the ends. Her eyes were, well they could have been green but they were all milky and bluish from the water, and her hair was the same color as yours. It was long, and wet, falling down over her white nightgown. I was frozen with fear, genuinely I couldn’t move, and she grabbed my arm. I saw flashes of something, a fight maybe? I felt, it felt…it felt like the whole garden was closing in on me. I couldn’t cast, I couldn’t even gather my field properly.” Her voice was a whisper, so quiet that the girls would have to strain to hear her.

“She was talking, and water was pouring out of her mouth, but I swear I heard her in my head. ‘Help us'. Help us? I was so clocking scared, and I wanted to run away, but I was frozen and she was so sad and so real. I didn’t know what else to do. I said yes, and it was like she was burning my arm. It hurt so much, and she was tugging on me, pulling me towards that stagnant dark water. I screamed, and screamed, and something from the other side of the hedge howled back. It was so loud, so clocking loud. She let me go, and I ran for my life, shoved my way through the hedges and just clocking well ran.” Her hand had strayed to her forearm, holding it tightly as though the memory of the event had brought back the pain. Jasmine shuddered, laughing suddenly.

“I don’t know what the clock I was thinking, but the next day, I decided I had to help her move on. Like it was my sole purpose in life, I thought that I needed to keep my word and help this poor ghost. Help us, she said, so I assumed maybe there was more than one? Maybe that was the other sound I’d heard. I started researching in all the usual places. The library. The crypts. I spoke to some of the older teachers and students, but no one had any information." Yellow eyes wide, she continued.

"I spoke to Yost, and he told me about a passive gardener? But, he was so hard to understand, I didn’t quite know what he meant. He talked about Couldin and Alysonia to me as well, and truly that is where I should have just stopped. I should have just let the dead be dead, buried that damn book, and moved on with my clocking studies.” She paused, staring widely again, hand tightly around her arm as she realized she'd said too much. Blinking, she shook her head and tried her best stern face through the fear that permeated her field.

“And you should too. I shouldn’t have told you any of this. Truly, I could loose my job for this, putting tales in students heads. What the clock am I thinking.”

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Morning, 65 Roalis, 2719
Brunnhold Library

Madeleine glanced around, and then she sat too, because it seemed like the polite thing to do. She perched on the chair at the desk, back straight, hands in her lap, and watched Miss Wentworth, wide-eyed.

Madeleine leaned forward a little too when Miss Wentworth began to speak. Her story was very awful. Madeleine thought it sounded like a bad dream, the sort you had if you ate too many sweets before bed, or especially before a nap. She thought that that must have been what happened to Miss Wentworth, really. She had eaten too many sweets in the garden, and she had taken a nap. And Mr. Yost was very nice, but he was only a passive, and sad about something, and that was why he was confused.

It sounded like a very scary dream, with the exit disappearing! Madeleine could understand why she didn’t want to talk about it.

But then Miss Wentworth changed her mind. Madeleine let out a faint little cry. “No, please - Mr. Yost was only trying to help -“ Madeleine didn’t understand why, but it upset her so much, the thought of the passive being taken away from his smelly garden shed. Maybe she should have liked it; he would have easier work inside, wouldn’t he? And he was very old but -

Madeleine didn’t know why the thought of him leaving his shed behind made her sad, only that it did. It ached somewhere right in the middle of her chest, painful and raw, and it made her uncomfortable and unhappy. She thought she might cry with the weight of it.

She thought Lilanee would argue for Mr. Yost too, but the older student was telling Miss Wentworth all sorts of things - about having seen ghosts? That, Madeleine thought angrily, was moony. It was very wrong to lie, very wrong. She knew Lilanee wanted Miss Wentworth to talk, and Madeleine did too, even if she wasn’t entirely sure why - but to say she had actually seen ghosts...!

Even if it was a lie, it seemed to work. Miss Wentworth calmed down, and she didn’t say anything else about Mr. Yost getting in trouble. She must, Madeleine thought, frowning, have eaten really very many sweets. It sounded like a really, truly awful dream, and very frightening. Madeleine shivered just hearing about it -

Although, of course, that didn’t make it real.

A girl in the lake with water in her mouth? Nobody could talk with water in their mouth. It wasn’t even possible. Anyway she’d have drowned, Madeleine thought dismissively, and then she couldn’t talk at all. Weren’t there plants that could make you hallucinate? Madeleine hadn’t studied very much botany, but she thought that made sense. Maybe there were hallucination roses, and Miss Wentworth had eaten too many sweets and taken a nap in the hallucination roses.

“It’s okay Miss Wentworth,” Madeleine said, encouragingly, her eyes wide, when the older woman stopped talking.

She must have gone back, Madeleine thought, and nothing happened. And she was embarrassed, and that was why she didn’t want to tell them. Madeleine smiled at her, because she knew what it was like to be embarrassed sometimes. She wouldn’t make fun of her, Madeleine decided. Not then and not later either, nor even if Lilanee wanted to. And - and - if Lilanee tried, Madeleine wouldn’t ask to be her friend. She felt deeply resolved. Luckily she hadn’t asked yet.

“You can tell us,” Madeleine promised, solemnly. “What - what happened? When you went back again?”

[Lilanee Kuleda]

65th Roalis, 2719
BRUNNHOLD LIBRARY| MORNING

Jasmine looked sharply at Madeline when she exclaimed over the elderly passive, adjusting her glasses in a perturbed manner, before continuing hesitantly with her bizarre tale. The more she spoke, the more agitated she became, as though part of her was relishing finally telling someone the story she’d held onto for so long, whilst the other part of her was fighting to be a good role model.

Paused, frozen between duty and personal need, Miss Wentworth looked at the sixth form with wide eyes, her lip quivering slightly. Lilanee didn’t look back at Madeline, merely nodding encouragingly to the older woman, clutching the strap to her satchel as though it would ground the heavy thumping of her heart in her chest. Memories of the crypt flooded her, and she swallowed the empathetic fear that swelled within.

“Yes, what happened? You mentioned a book. What book, Miss Wentworth?” She said softly, cautious not to push too hard. The greying galdor all but fell back into her chair, staring at the floor between the two girls, holding her forearm as though if she let it go she might fall apart.

"I found something inside me. Bravery? Stupidity? Frustration? I don’t know what I was thinking, but I figured I should check the garden for clues. Surely there might be something there, some sort of clue to as to the ghost girls past? I mean, it was worth a try. So I went in the middle of the day. Honestly, you wouldn't even know there was a ghost there, it’s was so different. I followed the maze to the pond and searched the ground there, I even took a moment to search around the maze, but I didn't stay long. It…it moves on its own, or at least it seems to. Regardless I didn’t find anything there. So I was on my way out, and I just felt this compelling urge to search under the rose bushes. They are strangely vibrant, when everything else in there is so dead. I got right underneath them and I found a box. It was very old, and warped with water damage and rotting in some parts, but still in tact. When I pulled it out, it had initials stamped on the top. A.L.B. The latch was rusted shut, so I found a rock and broke it off. Inside was a little black book. A journal. Her journal. Alysonia’s. Or it was, for the most part. Someone had written in it, about two days after her final entry and I…" She looked even more frightened now.

"I took it back to my room to study it. It was so captivating, their story. I couldn’t stop reading it. Until the end, and I…” Jasmine looked at them.

“The writing is rushed, scrawled madly as though the writer was scared. And I…that’s when things started happening. I...I began seeing things in corners that weren't there. And then, one night I went to the baths..." Her voice got lower, softer and tears were in her eyes.

"And she was there." Jasmine whispered, her hands were trembling now. Barely blinking, she stared at Madeline.

"I stopped trying to help then. I got scared. But...I still saw her...all the time. She was in the water." Suddenly, Jasmine wiped her eyes with her kerchief again, snuffling as she tried to collect herself. She shook her head.

“I got rid of that damned book, and I left Brunnhold for years. Moved to Florne, and didn’t see her anymore. I eventually forgot, over time, or rather I remembered differently. I remembered a silly teenager getting herself all worked up with silly stories in some old journal. I came back and took up the vacancy here in the library and I’ve been fine. Right up until today.” Adjusting her glasses again, the woman stood sharply, frowning at them both.

“I won’t have anything to do with this again. I’ve made my peace, and I’ve been happy. I refuse to let this consume me again. If you want to find out what happened to your friend in that place, you can do it yourself.” Moving past the girls, she grasped the handle of the door.

“I hid the book inside the Crypts. Behind the bookshelves in the first antechamber, before you get to the tombs themselves, there is a loose floor stone. It’s there, if it’s survived these years or not been found. You want answers, you can find them yourselves.” With that, she opened the door, leaving the two girls alone.

“Right.” Said Lilanee, looking at Madeline in the moments that followed. From beyond the room, they would hear Rosie Opkins calling to the older woman.

“Miss Wentworth? Miss Wentworth where are you going?! Miss?!” The grey and black haired galdor continued to walk from the room, to the library doors and out of them, not for a second looking behind her. The Hessean pursed her lips.

“We should catch up with Ezre and the Incumbent before we proceed to the Crypt.” She said, as though they had definitely decided that going to retrieve the journal was a good and agreed upon next step.