"The Archives" Avalon Academy #9
Explore the Avalon Archives today with Assistant Archivist Maya as she works with book returns, and does a little people watching...
Avalon Academy of the Arcane is a Magical Slice-of-Life short story series that follows the daily lives of various students and staff at a magic school housed on the wandering island of Avalon.
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“Maya, could you put the returns away for level 6?” Archivist Leilani said, scribbling away in her notebook, as always. Her chin-length dirty-blonde hair hid her face as she hunched over her work. A small library of books and scrolls lay on her desk, some open and resting on top of each other, others in a neat stack yet to be disturbed.
Maya, who had been walking to her desk after putting away the returns for level 75, bowed her head. “Yes ma’am.” She walked over to a row of book carts, and found the one marked with the number 6 on the side. There were quite a lot of returns for 6, all three rows of the cart were full, and some books had even been further stacked on top. Perhaps one or more of the professors had assigned some kind of project in Archeology, judging from the titles on the spines. Level 6 was never this busy, unless there was some project or something along those lines. She started to push the cart towards the lift when he saw another heavily-laden cart marked with the number 6. A strange day indeed.
With both carts on the lift, she turned the brass knob from 99 to 6, and the machine lurched upward. Her heart briefly joined her stomach with the jolt. The Operations elevator had become rather terrifying to use over the last few weeks. She kept forgetting to speak with Administrator Shran about having it serviced. Something had to be done about the shaking, ascending and descending much too quickly, and that unnerving creaking sound that made the whole thing feel like it was about to fall apart.
Trying to take her mind off the possibility of her impending doom at the hand of falling from a faulty elevator, Maya grabbed her thick glasses, and wiped them with a cloth she kept in her pocket. It always seemed funny to her just how smudged her glasses got over the course of the day. The world around her was a blurry, confused mess as she cleaned them, and the growing anxiety in her made her realize that perhaps impairing her sight as she ascended on an, at least, questionable lift, was rather unwise. Her hands shaking, she put her mostly smudge-free glasses back on, and her brown eyes adjusted again so she could see the hundreds upon thousands of bookshelves passing by her as she went up each level.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the lift finally came to a stop at level 6, and she pulled the book carts along to the Archeology section. Maya came to a stop at the Roman-style archway tucked in between the winding, endless bookshelves that led to the section, and looked over the carts to see where to start. Archivist Leilani usually sorted books as they came in, but she had been so busy with her newest research project that she hadn’t had the time to do anything but sort the books by what level they went to. Apparently, there was a new student who had passed the Ambitus Arcanae Reflexionis test on her first try, and Archivist Leilani was looking into what could be found on the student, and related historical accounts for Headmistress Corvinus.
So, Maya looked over the titles, and grouped the volumes by category. First Voyagers had quite a few, some 12th century, Interregnum Arcanum had even more than she’d have guessed for such an overlooked period of history. It took about half an hour with the sheer number of books to sort, but eventually she got them alphabetized by section, and found a couple that actually belonged on Level 5 with General History. An easy mistake to make, though.
She left one cart at the archway so she did not have to drag both through the, at times, narrow walkways between bookshelves. The First Voyagers was a logical starting subsection since it was just to the right of the archway. Osiris the Builder, The First Campsite, What They Left Behind, and so on went back to their rightful places, filling the gaps on shelves that held nearly as many questions as they did answers.
Maya soon fell into that familiar rhythm of returning books: look at the title, look for its spot on the shelf, fit it back into place, and move on to the next. There was something so satisfying about taking a collection of misplaced volumes, and returning them to their home. Sure, it was tedious, time-consuming, and took her away from things she’d rather be doing. But, seeing the missing pieces returned to where they belong just made her feel happy. She idly wondered if that was why she enjoyed puzzles so much.
Before too long, with returning The Lost Pyramids of Avalon, Maya had gotten through the first cart, and moved on to the other one. This started with Pre-History, and Jenson’s Written in Stone. She came around the corner of Late Bronze Age to one of the reading and work areas, and saw a handsome young man, a third year Stellarian cadet, and an attractive young woman, who looked to be in the same class, sitting at one of the tables together. The woman, with a warm, contented smile, had her head resting on the man’s shoulder as she read. From the quick glance that Maya stole, the man seemed to be having great difficulty actually focusing on the book he was reading. His eyes kept darting from his work to the woman’s head, and he was practically sweating every ounce of moisture in his body. The poor man’s face was even more red than his short hair. Maya smirked as she put away Refugees of the Collapse.
She checked her pocket watch and decided she had more than enough time to take a… break. So, Maya came back around to the other side of the bookshelf. Since there wasn’t a full backing panel on the shelves, if she stood on the tips of her toes, she could see the couple at their table. Her hands resting on the shelf, Maya briefly found it interesting that the mahogany shelves here in the Archeology section matched her skin tone rather closely. Would this act as a kind of camouflage? After a moment’s fancy, she shrugged, and looked back through the shelves at the couple.
By the three, if the man blushed any deeper, he might just burst into flames. Maya couldn’t decide if she’d want to see such a spectacle or not. For one, observing a case of legitimate spontaneous combustion would be fascinating. The screams of pain and terror would be a pretty significant negative, however, not to mention the danger to the books around him. Maya noted that the woman seemed quite aware of her effect on the man. She caught her sneaking a peek at the man, and grin mischievously. This young woman had the man exactly where she wanted him.
Giggling as silently as she could manage, Maya withdrew her notebook from her beige Assistant Archivist coat, and jotted down some notes about the scene for later. Maybe this situation she had stumbled into would be the exact thing she needed to breathe some new life into that romance novel she had been working on in her spare time.
Suddenly, the woman stood up and said something. Maya thought she heard something about a Café? And then she was off, sparing the man one last wink and smile before she stepped out of the Archeology section. He looked to be collecting the books they had been reading.
Maya stepped from around the corner, and feigned surprise as best she could with her voice. “Oh, hello there, young man. Done for the day?”
“Oh, uh, yes. For now. We’ll probably be back tomorrow.” The man said, scratching the back of his head nervously.
She held a hand out as he put the last book they had gathered on top of the stack. “Will you be needing the same books again tomorrow, then?”
“I, uh… don’t really know…” he said as he picked up the stack, looking to the side as he thought.
“How about I put them on Recall for you? That way you can easily collect them tomorrow?” Maya asked.
A look of surprise hit the man. “Oh, that’s a great idea! I forgot Archivists can do that.” He then handed the stack of five books over.
“That and more! What’s your name, young man?”
“Oh, right, Garrett Grant, 3rd year Cadet of the Stellarians,” he said.
Maya placed her left hand on top of the stack, and closed her eyes. Her heart quaked as she reached unseen hands out to bind each book to him with a thread that would wear off after a couple of days. Finally she anchored the threads to the Archive, it’s thrumming essence sending jolts of power through her. Then she said, “Recall Set, Garrett Grant, libri quinque.” Then she felt that familiar sensation of a connection becoming solid, like her ears popping after climbing a mountain.
She smiled, and placed the books on her cart. “Just say Recall, Garret Grant while holding this card,” at that Maya extracted a slip of card stock she had inscribed with a dormant activation circle. It was a quick cast card, which allowed the user to use a spell, even if they were not trained in it. “And they should materialize in front of you. I’d suggest placing the card on a desk, or other flat surface after you say the words. Otherwise they will form in your hand, which might be rather more weight than you will be ready for at once. I’ve made that mistake once, ended up dropping the poor books on my feet.”
Garrett smiled, and took the card. “Thank you… what was your name again?”
“Maya Abebe, Assistant Archivist.” She held out her hand.
“Well met, Ms. Abebe.” He said, shaking her hand. “I’ve got to get going. Thank you for the help!”
Maya watched as the young man walked to the lift, and then went back to her work. About half an hour later, she had put the rest of the books back to their rightful place, including the ones that belonged on level 5, and she took the carts back to level 99.
After she had put the carts back where she had found them, and removed their level markers. Maya walked back to her desk, and found Archivist Leilani slumped in her chair, rubbing her eyes.
“Lani, how long has it been since you got some sleep?”
The woman chuckled, which turned into a yawn. She spoke in her signature sing-song, almost dream-like voice, “Oh, probably the day before last. I think I’ve found what I’m going to be able to find, though.” She yawned again, larger this time. “Would you read over my notes? See if they are making any sense?”
“Of course, ma’am.” She walked over to the Archivist’s desk, and fished out Leilani’s notebook. In her mentor’s immaculate handwriting, she saw the name of the student she had been researching, Abigail Clarissa Scott. Parents presumed dead, and then there seemed to be quite a few guesses at who her parents might be.
“So, we don’t kn—” but she cut herself off when she realized that Leilani was asleep, and likely would sleep as soundly as a rock for the rest of the day. She shook her head and smirked. Every time she got a research task from a professor or one of the Headmasters, it was the same story. She’d pull as many all-nighters as necessary to work, and then crash once she had reached some kind of conclusion.
Maya settled down at her desk, and extracted her own notebook. Now it was time to find gaps, mistakes, and adjustments for her mentor, a task which Archivist Leilani said was “Essential for thorough research that is both accurate and insightful.” Besides, Maya really wanted to learn more about this new student herself.