Chapter 10 - Building Bookshelves

July 7

The morning after we finished working in the Endless Garden for the month, Groundskeeper had been nice enough to let me sleep in, something I desperately needed after our late night. Breakfast had been waiting for me the same as every other morning, and Filomena sat with me telling me about her lessons with Ms. Proctor as I gave her her magic offering for the day.

Afterwards, Groundskeeper led me to a covered walkway that led from the main building of the academy to a large building that towered over everything else around it. Gargoyles lined sections of roof sneering at everything below them. Large wooden doors creaked open at our approach, and I was shocked by the sight that met us when my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.

More books than I had ever seen in my life lined dark wooden shelves, floating light balls trailing behind students in various uniforms. At the center of the great room was a circular counter, where adults who all looked nearly the same, were talking to students with piles of books. Nearby were desks, where other students were busily writing notes or reading through thick leather bound books with furrowed brows.

A sign on a metal pole standing guard near the entrance read “No food. No Drink. No Spells except Light Ball. No exceptions.” Groundskeeper could not have looked more out of place in this academic environment. Her large muscular frame, dirty jeans, and flannel jacket wrapped around her waist made her stand out among the neat, organized stacks.

She walked towards the counter and one of the librarians, it was easy to tell by the way she acted, as though this were her domain and she had ultimate authority here.

“Well hello, Groundskeeper. It is a surprise to see you here. How can I help you?”

“Hey, Booksie. I’m finally getting around to replacing those old shelves. Or more accurately my assistant will be.”

“Did the board finally hire someone to help you out?”

“Eh, sort of. She’s part of the work study program, staying with Ms. Proctor and me until the school year starts.”

“Well, it will be nice to finally get those shelves dealt with, and I can imagine you are appreciating the help,” she said with a bright smile, before turning to me, “Hello, my name is Booksie. What can I call you?”

“Um, Max.”

“Welcome to the library, Max,” she turned back to Groundskeeper, “You go on now, and I’ll show Max here what needs doing. I’m sure you have far too much else that needs doing.”

“Hey, thanks Booksie. Just so you know, she’s pretty new to magic, so you’ll have to show her the spell she’ll need,” she thought for a moment, “Oh, yeah. Don’t open any of the books here, kid. Some of them can get pretty nasty. Well, good luck, I’ll be back to pick you up this evening.”

I stared wide eyed as Groundskeeper left me alone with a complete stranger. At least she was nice, but still. I flinched as a hand touched my shoulder.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Shall we get started,” Booksie flashed me a big grin, “The work shouldn’t be terribly hard, there’s just a lot of it.”

I followed her through the stacks of books, scrolls, and every other conceivable form of reading material. At one point I spotted a student scribbling in a notebook while occasionally glancing at clay tablets in glass cases that could be pulled out of the wall like drawers.

I felt like an out of place tourist. I was turning my neck this way and that to see all of the strange things in this wonderful place. Booksie didn’t comment but I could see an amused smile on her face as I stopped to stare at a glass globe on a blue cushion that was filled with swirling symbols made of light. Occasionally, one of them would twinkle, or change shape. A gentle clearing of Booksie’s throat pulled me from the mesmerizing display.

“Okay, so the shelves with little red chalk x’s on them are the ones that need to be replaced. We make them out of magic, but even so they start to lose their structural integrity after a while so we have to have Groundskeeper fix them.”

“Um, why can’t the librarians fix them? No offense.”

“Well, we could, but most of our magic is taken to run the vital functions of the library, like the wards over certain books, and making sure the shelves maintain their state and things like that. And before you ask, no, we can’t just use normal wooden shelving because the magic leaking from the books wreaks absolute havoc on normal wood.”

“I guess that makes sense. Sorry.”

“Hey, no worries. I can understand the logic. There are some materials that can last nearly forever and wouldn’t be affected by the books, but the cost of making shelves with them would be far more than even most national budgets.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, so have you been taught how to dispel magic yet?”

I shook my head, “No.”

“Hmm. Okay, have you worked with creating magical items yet? Like out of pure magic?”

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“I can make a light ball, and I’ve done the summoning ritual. That’s about it. Sorry.”

“Oof,” she said, a hint of concern showing on her otherwise cheerful face, “Alright, well, I guess we’ll get you started on this shelf.”

She pointed to the first book shelf with a red x marked on it in chalk. The shelves themselves were warped and looked like the books were simply too heavy for it to hold them up.

“Let’s start by pulling the books off of the shelf. Let’s see, where should we put them?” she put a finger to her lips, thinking, “Well, I suppose we can just stack them gently on the floor for now. Normally, I wouldn’t condone such a thing, but all the tables are currently occupied. I’ll bring a cart up for you to use once I’m done showing you how to do this.”

I nodded, and grabbed the first book, a thick leather volume with strange symbols on the cover. When I went to grab the next one and stack it on the first in my arms, a large eye popped out of the gap I had just made. I jumped back as a liquid seeming black mass formed in the bookshelf, with one large unlidded eye. It stared at me.

“Oh, wow. I haven’t seen a Watcher in ages. You must have pissed off someone really high up.”

“A Watcher?”

“Yeah, the board uses them sometimes to keep an eye on potential problems. A few decades back, we had a nasty problem with some kid with a power trip trying to turn the students here into some kind of fascist mage army, and these guys were everywhere trying to sniff them out.”

“Oh, they must be keeping an eye on me for the trial period?”

“The trial period?”

“Supposedly they will be having a review at the end of the month of my work, and determining if I can continue to stay here during breaks and work, or if I have to return to my aunt and uncle.”

“Oh. You don’t want to go back to them?”

I paused, before shaking my head, “They weren’t very nice to us.”

She looked sad for a moment, before shaking her head, “Well, why don’t we focus on doing the best job we can then. You,” she pointed at the watcher, “you can stay and watch, but keep out of the way. We’re busy.”

She nodded with approval as the liquid form of the Watcher flowed out of the shelf and stood (sat?) at the end of the row of shelves. It was a little unnerving but at least it was out of the way. I quickly finished pulling the books off the shelf and stacking them in front of the next shelf over.

“Now,” Booksie tore a page out of a notebook she pulled from her light blue robes and drew two circles. One was fairly simple, and the other was full of incredibly complex interlocking runes, “These are the magic circles you will be using today.”

I studied them closely.

“This one,” she pointed to the simpler circle, “is for dispelling magic. It doesn’t work on all spells, just magic constructs like the bookshelves and you technically have to overpower the existing circle. It should be pretty easy since they’ve mostly worn themselves out. Simply visualize the circle on your palm like you do with the light ball, and press it against the shelf until it has vanished.”

I did as she instructed. Visualizing the circle with its handful of simple runes, and when it was clear, I pressed it against the dark wooden-looking shelf. A little over a minute passed. I was afraid that I had done it wrong, when the entire shelf turned to a fine yellow gold powder.

“There you go! Just like that,” Booksie high fived me, “Now the hard part, see all this loose sandy stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s got a long technical name but let’s just call it sand for now. We are going to use it, and whatever additional raw magic we need to rebuild the shelf. The complicated part is that, unlike the other two circles, you don’t want this one to be touching you at all. Otherwise you could start losing bits. So you have to imagine it in the sand which involves pushing your magic out of your body a lot more than you might be used to. It can kind of help if you smooth out the sand a bit first, but it isn’t strictly speaking necessary.”

I crouched down, and tried to smooth out the sand. It felt like a fine powder, but it kind of clung together like clay. When it was reasonably smooth, I rubbed the sand that had clung to my hands in the air, and set about imagining the complex circle.

My ability to visualize things was becoming better with all of the practice I was getting lately, so it wasn’t as difficult as I had thought to imagine the circle. Booksie was right in that the real difficulty came from imagining the magic flowing out of me. So far, I had relied on the tactile feeling of warmth as the magic flowed through me to determine where the magic was. Once it was outside of me, I wasn’t sure how to tell what was happening.

I stopped, frowning.

“Are you having trouble?”

I nodded, “I’m just not sure how to tell where the magic is once it’s not inside me.”

“That makes sense. How have you been doing that so far?”

“There’s a kind of warmth that I can feel.”

Booksie thought for a second, “Have you considered visualizing the magic the same way you do the circles?”

“No,” I sighed, “That would make too much sense.”

Booksie laughed, “Give it a go, I’m happy to guide you until you’ve got the hang of things. We librarians are just happy to finally be getting these shelves dealt with.”

I took a deep breath and focused on the sand again. Visualizing the circle in its entirety. Booksie was kind enough to hold the paper for me so I could reference it as needed. When it was in front of me, I began moving magic out of myself. Deciding to bypass my arms altogether, I visualized the soft golden light that had filled the summoning circle during the entrance exam coming out of my body like a swirling mist. Then I tried to use the light to fill the imagined circle just like I had with the light ball.

I could feel it working, and far more importantly I could see the sand begin to shift and form until with a snap, a shelf just like the ones around it was standing there. I had done it.

“I did it!” I exclaimed perhaps a little too loudly for a library.

“Good job!” Booksie said, smiling brightly, and putting a finger against her lips, “but let’s keep it down. People are trying to read, and study.”

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

“Now, you just need to put the books back, and do the other 314 shelves.”