She walked along the walls of shelves, stopping to touch books that looked interesting, but she didn’t pull any of them out from their places. Though she thoroughly enjoyed reading, she hadn’t had the luxury of time for it very often. Mistress Cailleach had loaned her various things over the years: books on healing things with herbs, romantic tales of yore—obviously wept over more than once—and at least one very small tome on winning wars against trolls and their ilk.
Conspicuously missing, however, had been anything to do with mages, witches, or spells. Given whose great-aunt Mistress Cailleach was, Léirsinn now thought that had shown great restraint on the woman’s part.
Acair’s library, however, was very different. She found everything from histories of countries she hadn’t known existed to beautifully illustrated treatises on varying species of animals to detailed drawings of various castles and buildings. She raised her eyebrows over the dozen heavy, obviously well-loved books making up that last group. She suspected he’d used them more than once to aid him in less-than-legal activities.
But in addition to all those lovely but fairly ordinary offerings was a very robust collection of all things magical including a grimoire that gave her chills just looking at it. She suspected that if Mistress Cailleach ever came to visit, she and Acair might be engaging in a bit of a tussle for possession of that thing.
She continued to simply wander, ignoring the lights that brightened at the first sign of squinting on her part—perhaps keeping company with a mage had its advantages after all—and found herself back where she’d been earlier that morning: at a loss for where to start.
It was no wonder Acair was so frustrated.
She stopped and put her hands on a shelf to give herself something to hold onto while she took a moment to remember all the reasons she had asked for the magic that had at least taken a bit of a rest from tormenting her. The only one that came to mind had to do with a man who had gone off to look for answers in the garden earlier, so perhaps she could be forgiven if she simply credited her request as fondness for him and let it go.
She bowed her head and breathed for a bit until the blood rushing through her veins didn’t sound so loud in her own ears and the magic Acair had used to heal her arm had stopped sparkling at her.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head, then blinked. She realized she was standing in front of that book she hadn’t quite pushed back into its place the night before.
A Child’s Book of Heroic Tales
She closed her eyes briefly again, then opened them, hoping she would see something different there in front of her.
She didn’t.
She clutched the edge of the bookshelf and felt the very air around her become still in a way she’d never before experienced.
’Twas ridiculous, of course. She was doing nothing more interesting than looking at a child’s collection of tales. It was something that could have been found in any number of places, surely.
The world was full of libraries that were full of that sort of thing. The university in Eòlas was one such place that she’d seen for herself. Even there they no doubt had the odd copy of something fit for a child lingering on some shelf or other.
Acair’s library was less extensive, true, but still jammed full of the written word. She should have expected to find numerous examples of all sorts of books written about all sorts of subjects sorted lovingly into their proper order.
She had just never expected to find something she had seen so often in her parents’ hands sitting on someone else’s shelf.
She trailed her finger along the spine. Her parents hadn’t owned very many things that she could bring to mind, though what did a child remember? Hers had been a home full of laughter, enough to eat, horses to ride, and tales read before the fire every night.
Tales from books exactly like the one she was looking at.
Actually, there had been three books. Each had had its own particular color on the cover: blue, green, and brown. Those covers, from what she remembered, had been engraved with mythical creatures. That trio of books had been stored in a prominent place on a shelf, a comfortable distance from the fire but well within reach of anyone who might want to take them down and linger in their pages.
She remembered it had been her brother to first deface one of them. She’d found him leaning over the final empty page, drawing a knight brandishing a sword and preparing to go off on his warhorse to do noble deeds.
She had gasped at his audacity, but he’d been unrepentant. A lad with questing in his future, she remembered him saying, needed to get an early start. Why he thought scribbling in the back of a book was the appropriate way to set off on that sort of path she couldn’t have said. He’d written his name in bold letters under the knight, so perhaps he’d had a point.
Because of their unbreakable code of camaraderie, she had stood should-to-shoulder with him to face their parents’ wrath. Their younger sister had followed their examples and taken his other side.
Her parents’ punishment had consisted of a serious lecture on the precious nature of books in general and extra barn chores for the three of them for at least a month. She had overheard them later discussing with affection what a fine thing it was to have children so loyal to each other, so perhaps they hadn’t been all that angry. She had loved horses, so more time with them hadn’t seemed like anything but a relief from the other studies her mother and father had thought appropriate for their children.
Her parents had also decided at that point that each of them might claim one of the books if their early artistic works were confined to the last page. Endpapers, her father had called them. Hers had been blue, the color of the sky and, from what she’d been told as a child, the color of the sea under the right conditions. Her brother’s volume had been brown.
She looked at the green spine of the book in front of her and forced herself not to leap a conclusion that might not be true.
Printers made copies of books, surely. Children’s books likely provided them with a decent income, so why not press numerous copies of each?
And of course the cover would be the same. After all, why not create an engraving plate that would stamp the same image in relief on scores of the same book, much like blacksmiths created forms for the making of horseshoes and nails and all the other useful items they produced? No sense in having to reinvent something every time one wanted to make a copy of it.
Surely.
She could see her mother running her finger over the raised image of the pegasus there on the cover. She could hear her father laughing over the notion of a faery leading that same pony and a witch trailing after them wanting her mount back. Brooms, Muire, don’t allow for a decent saddle, as you surely know by now.
Her mother would have failed miserably at sending him a stern look, her father would have laughed and leaned over the book to kiss her, and she would have been watching them and wondering how it was that she had been so fortunate to have such parents as those.