In Times of Danger
Chapter One - The Librarian's Daughter
Growing up, I was always told that I had great potential, and My teachers would often Recommend that I was too advanced for such simplicities as I was enduring. Though, what else could be expected from the daughter of the Cheif Librarian at the Oxford Library?
Put quite simply, My childhood was spent surrounded by the leather bound and ancient additions of the tales of history, art, muses and Mystery. Before I began my Schooling, I would spend all day in the library with my father, helping him catalog and check books.
Often, he would pull me away from a group of books that I was due to check back in and re-shelve, and show me an old leather bound book of some form or another, pointing at a passage, he would read to me aloud, his old baratone of a voice echoing even in it's quiet demeanor of the Library. This was always how I liked to remember him, smiling down at the words on a page as he carefully explained to me it's significance to history and the affects it held on the worlds it came form.
But, alas, I seem to be straying from my true story. In a way, I beleive it all began when my Mother died. Nothing was the same ever again after that day. But perhaps I should explain about the time before then, shall I?
My father and I never stopped reading together in the small isles of that Library, and all through my school experience until seventh grade, he would come to pick me up from my small private school, bringing me back to the old shelvs in the library, sitting me in one of the cubbies where the College students, professors, and visting scholars. He always gave me the strict instructions to , 'finish up with your work and I'll be bakc to check on you later.'
As it was, 'later' was always exactly two and a half hours after he shut the old oak door behind him, retreating from the fourth floor to the ground floor. I always finished after the second hour, and spent my extra time watching as the scolars passed, some who were too buisy looking at thier books to notice my presence, and others looking up and smiling warmly at me. I always loved to watch them go by and think of all the things they could be reading for.
One day when i was in the seventh grade after school, my father had to work late in the Library, and I was alone on the sixth floor- historical information. As I walked along the cubbies, I suddenly heard a shifting along the line, and froze. Something in my primal nateure called to me, I now realise, but at the time, all I could think about was the fact that there was someone else here, possibly one of the younger students willing to sit and talk for a while and interrupt the unbearable silence of the nearly empty building in the night.
I rounded the corner of the last and farhtest stall from the door and saw workinbg there a young boy, no doubt a college freshman and only a few years older than myself, who poured over a leather bound book and then to a few peices of paper lain out beside the book. He started, feeling me watch him and turning darkened auburn eyes on me, the affect of the shadows and dim lamplight casting an eerily ark look on him that made him look as though he were studying for something that could mean his death.
We both stayed perfectly still for a long moment before suddenly, he broke out into a nice smile, his eyes lighting slightly and his hand- in a motion I'm sure wasn't meant for me to catch- closed the book, pushing it over the old parchment beside it to hide the studdies from my veiw. "Hello, there." he said, his light voice catching me by surprise.
The young man's name was Paul. He was Studying Western Europian History to Write a synopsis of the life of a man I'd never heard of before, Vlad Tepes. He told me that Vlad was better known for his part in Briam Stolker's novel, Dracula. From there, we began speaking of ancient Western Europian history, me adding tidbits i had learned from the books and my fahter, some that he jotted down on a small yellow notepad that he took out, saying that it was useful information. When things like this happened, I would pause and elaborate where I'd read them and what else the book had included. He seemed partucularly interested in Saxon History, explaining that Vlad's family lived in a Saxon-owned walled city because of a Trading deal his father had made with them.
My father was late to the cubbies to pick me up that night. It was the first and the last time, and I didn't realise it until by chance I glanced at my watch, seeing that he was two hours late. I jumped slihglty, causing Paul to pause in his explaination of the city where Vlad grew up to watch me carefully for a moment. "Is something amiss, Miss Katrina?"
I had introduced myself when I'd barged into his cubby unannounced, feeling a dunce for gaping at him as I had before he made the connection. 'Are you perhaps related to the Head Librarian here? Mr. Lengdin?' he politely asked, and I smiled, happy that someone had noticed my quiet and kind father.
Now, as i sat with Paul in the small cubby, I suddenly felt like I needed to speed away, find my father, and flee. I shook my head, looking back at my watch. He was probably caught up in his work, I told myslef. Nothing to worry myself over. " I'm fine..." I said quietly.
PAul watched me pprehensively for a moemtn before I smiled at him, and he tentatively began telling of how Dracula fled to Transylvania after his father's assasination. Just as Paul finished his tale, I heard a shift from behind myself. Wheeling around, I saw my Father standing among the shelvs, looking normal enogh, though something wasn't quite right with his eyes. they seemed almost as shadowed as Paul's had been whe I'd first seen him. "Bothering the scholars, my little bookworm?" He teased, smiling a fake one.
Though he had not said anythign, something primal stirred in me and I knew something had hapened. I knwe nothign would be the same after this night. Somehow.
Paul stood, smiling and extending a hand wich my father shook. " No, she's been quite s great help, actually. I'm not sure I would have looked in half of the books she's quoted for my studdies, and I'm sure that I would do much worse wihtout the links she's given me." The truthfulness of the statement caused a slight blucsh to creep into my cheeks and caused my father to smile sadly.
" I know," he said, " She has a true gift- Just like her mother." And In that moment, I made the sad connection. My eyes widened and I froze. My father told Paul that he needed to close up the Library, and that he had to head out. I numbly shook paul's hand and listened as my father explained that we could probably continue our discussion in a couple days the next time I would be here. Paul nodded with a curt smile and left the cubby section, bearing me and my father to the silence of the unsaid words.
For a long while we said nothing. Then with a sigh, my father came and sat in Paul's now vacant seat and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Katrina, Mom's had an accident..."
And with those five words, my entire world as I knew it then came crashing down around me.
take it back?
