Part 30: The Hex That Wouldn’t Sit Still

(I drew this with pencil on paper - Chaiga T. Cheska)
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Being an account of one scholar’s unscheduled and thoroughly involuntary return performance, a search for a cure conducted at considerable speed, and further proof that a certain colleague’s declared prank war was never merely a figure of speech.

Compiled by Bramwell Corin, who did not request an unscheduled introduction to the aspidistra, and would like it on record that potting soil does not improve with proximity to velvet trousers, whatever the Library’s fashion section may claim to the contrary.

I had set Pip to recataloguing the Local Ordinances by hand that evening, a task I selected chiefly for its tedium, on the grounds that a junior librarian who has spent the better part of a week attempting to glue me to my own furniture might benefit from an evening with nothing sharper than a quill in his hands. He had called it, at various points over the past hour, “so unfair,” “completely disproportionate,” and, memorably, “a form of torture,” none of which had slowed his writing in the slightest, Pemberton dozing throughout on the brim of his top hat without so much as a murmur.

I rose from my own desk to fetch a fresh ledger, and found, to my very great confusion, that I could not.

My left foot would not follow me. I looked down, assuming some fold of the rug had caught my shoe, and saw nothing untoward whatsoever, merely my own shoe, sitting exactly where I had left it, apparently on the most intimate terms with the floorboards beneath. I tried again, with rather more force, and achieved nothing beyond a small, undignified stagger, one leg extended behind me like a man attempting a dance step he had not been taught.

“Pip,” I said, with what I felt was commendable calm, “has something happened to this floor?”

He looked up, quill poised. “What sort of something?”

“The sort of something that prevents a shoe from leaving it.”

He came to look, and I will say, in fairness, that his bewilderment appeared completely genuine. We were both crouched over my foot, engaged in a close and increasingly baffled inspection, when I gave the shoe one final, exasperated wrench, and my foot came out of the shoe all at once, with no warning whatsoever, precisely the moment my full weight had committed itself to the pull.

I do not remember the details of what followed with total clarity. I remember the sensation of travelling backwards at considerable speed. I remember the aspidistra, an enormous, ancient specimen the Library has tended in its heavy ceramic pot by the hearth since before any of us arrived, rushing up to meet me with what felt like personal enthusiasm. I remember landing upside down within its fronds, one leg hooked over the rim of the pot, soil in my collar, in my ear, and, upon later inspection, in places soil has no business being.

Pip’s Account

Look, I’m human, and humans laugh, especially when people like Bramwell end up throwing themselves bodily at potted plants!

It was HILARIOUS!!! I think I might even have pulled a muscle in my chest from laughing so hard. Thaddeus is a genius at pranking Bramwell! I am VERY impressed!

Still making me laugh, writing this!

Bramwell’s Account

Though I did conclude that my younger colleague was not responsible, his undignified snorts of laughter and his immediate reaction made it clear that he was innocent. Yet I felt a fair amount of unprofessional revenge towards him as I was untangling myself from the plant.

There was only one member of staff I knew who possessed that particular combination of patience and precision, and he was, at the time in question, nowhere to be found. I had rather more pressing concerns, chiefly the removal of soil from my ear, and had only just seen to it when Thaddeus reappeared, completely unhurried, and without a word pressed a note into Pip’s hand.

Nibs, please. Stationery cupboard, west stair.

I thought nothing of it whatsoever. Thaddeus sends Pip on errands of that sort several times a week, usually by the same wordless method, since Thaddeus only speaks using footnotes. Pip went off readily enough, note still in hand and still giggling about my shoe, with no suggestion that anything was amiss.

He was gone perhaps five minutes. When he returned, he did not so much walk as arrive, at considerable speed, past the staff room and straight through the reading room, his face a colour I had not previously seen on a living person, and he did not stop or answer when I called after him. I watched him cross to the east gallery bookcase, climb it with a speed and determination I would not have credited him with under calmer circumstances, reach the little cupboard at the top where the Library keeps its spare dust sheets, wrench the door open, post himself inside, and pull it shut behind him, all before I had properly got to my feet.

Thaddeus, I could not help but notice, was standing a little way off at the time, examining a stack of books on riverboat maintenance with an attention I had never once seen him grant that particular subject before, and something playing about the corner of his mouth that I have learnt, at some cost, to recognise.

I fetched the ladder.

I climbed it, knocked on the cupboard door, and asked Pip, as kindly as I could, whether he was quite well and what in the world had happened.

There was a long silence, and then, from somewhere inside, a small, strangled voice informed me that it had been about Mistress Spine, that he had seen something he was not meant to see, and that he would rather not discuss it further, now or at any future point in his natural life, if it was all the same to me.

I did not press him. I did gently suggest that he might set it down for the record afterwards, in the usual way, once he felt able. This was met with a silence of a very different quality, followed by the observation, delivered with some feeling through two inches of cupboard door, that Mistress Spine eventually reads these records, one way or another, and that he would very much rather she didn’t read that particular one, thank you.

I could not fault the reasoning. I left him to it, with a blanket passed up through the gap for his comfort, and had got no further than wondering how long a person could reasonably be expected to live in a cupboard when the front doors below opened with considerably more force than the weather outside warranted.

I came down the ladder rather faster than I had gone up it. Above me, I heard the cupboard door creak open an inch, then another inch, as curiosity apparently began to outweigh mortification, though Pip did not yet show his face.

Through the doors came Maerwynn, arms locked fast across her chest, elbows pinned to her sides with the fierce concentration of a woman determined to appear composed, whilst from the waist down she was engaged in the liveliest, most committed high-stepping jig I have ever seen a grown scholar attempt without the benefit of music. Her boots struck the flagstones in a rhythm that would not have disgraced a barn dance at midsummer, knees rising nearly to her chin, each stamp landing beneath an expression of such fixed and furious dignity that I could not, for several long moments, make sense of what I was looking at.

I set down what remained of my composure. I opened my mouth, and closed it again.

“Maerwynn,” I said eventually, “are you quite well?”

“No,” she said, arms locking tighter still, chin lifting another degree as her boots carried her, completely without her consent, in a small circle before the fire. “I am not. I have been hexed.”

It was at this point, Maerwynn, without so much as a falter in her stepping, tilted her head slightly and said, “Bramwell, why do you have a note pinned to your hair?”

I had, until that moment, completely forgotten the events of the previous quarter-hour, my attention being thoroughly taken up by more pressing matters. I reached up and found, secured just above my left ear with what I can only assume was one of Lyria’s hairpins, a small folded note in Thaddeus’s careful hand.

I did not read it aloud, and I do not intend to reproduce its contents here either, out of consideration for a colleague who has no notion she was ever observed. It explained, in Thaddeus’s usual economical fashion, precisely what Pip had walked in upon, precisely who had arranged for him to walk in upon it, and precisely why. I refolded it, put it in my pocket, and found I could no longer summon the slightest irritation towards my younger colleague’s continued residence in a cupboard. I would, I suspect, have moved in with him.

Maerwynn’s Account

I introduced myself to the Quickthistle Elves of the high moor exactly as I do to everyone, notebook in one hand, boots planted respectfully outside whatever circle they happened to be standing in, and what I genuinely believed at the time was a rather charming request to observe their manifestation rites from a distance.

They did not find the word “observe” in the slightest charming.

I couldn’t tell you which of the elders cast the working currently attached to my feet. Matters had grown rather heated by then, and my attention was largely taken up with leaving the vicinity as fast as my legs, still entirely under my own command, could manage. What I can tell you is that it has followed me across three days of travel, two river crossings, and one night in a hayloft I would rather not describe in detail, and has shown no sign whatsoever of tiring, though I certainly do.

I have excellent notes, for what they’re worth. A whole new Kindred, previously uncatalogued, nothing like the Crystalsong or the Rootward. I fully intend to hand them to Bramwell, whether my feet agree to the arrangement or not. At present, they have not been consulted.

Bramwell’s Account, continued

I turned around, found Thaddeus, and asked him what we could do to help our colleague resolve her hexed lower half. He produced a folded note.

Counter-hex. Third floor, Elvish Workings, unless someone has reshelved it out of spite again.

We went as a party of four, Pip finding this more interesting than being in a cupboard, or three walking and one stamping, Maerwynn delivering her notes on Quickthistle vocal patterns at a volume completely unaffected by the slipjig her lower half continued to perform throughout. The Library, sensing excitement, took an interest of its own, and a book titled “Sentient Libraries can Dance too, Shall I Show You?” fell from a shelf directly into Pip’s arms.

“Sorry, Library, this is not the time. Perhaps later,” I told it, and it sulked audibly somewhere in the rafters.

We reached Elvish Workings to find the relevant shelf had indeed been reshelved, under Household Curses and Their Reversal, three corridors away, which meant retracing the entire journey with Maerwynn’s boots hammering an increasingly insistent rhythm behind us.

Pip’s Account

I want it on the record that I have NEVER enjoyed watching Bramwell try to be professional this much in my whole life. Maerwynn’s got a Cartulary and everything, and the WHOLE time he was using his special measured voice, the one he saves for dignitaries, she was just DOING A JIG next to the reference shelves, arms folded like she was queuing for a bus that was really late and she was furious about it.

Also, I kept watching Thaddeus out of the corner of my eye this WHOLE time because after today I do not trust a single quiet second he produces, and there were SO many quiet seconds.

Bramwell’s Account, continued

We tried a counter-charm involving salt, which achieved nothing beyond a light dusting of Maerwynn’s boots, a passage from “Reasonable Terms, Mostly Observed”, which Thaddeus was convinced applied, though on reflection I believe he simply likes that book, and a suggestion of mine involving standing perfectly still, which Maerwynn received with the flat patience of a woman who has already tried standing perfectly still on three separate continents.

Throughout, she continued delivering her notes with the composure of a woman lecturing at a symposium, arms fixed, chin level, boots writing a furious percussion beneath her. I confess I made Thaddeus stop twice so I could ask a follow-up question, which Maerwynn answered without missing a step, and which I found, rather to my own surprise, considerably more interesting than the hex itself.

It was Lyria who solved it, and none of us saw it coming.

Note, translated from Lyria by Bramwell

Lyria had been following at a small distance with a tea tray throughout, having decided, in the manner she reserves for moments requiring comfort rather than reference books, that what the situation wanted was a strong cup of tea. Her petticoats are not built for corridors crowded with four people and a jig, and she had already sidestepped Pip twice with the unbothered grace she brings to everything.

She approached Maerwynn from the side, holding the tea steady, and attempted to press the cup into her hands. Maerwynn’s hands, being locked fast across her chest, were not available for the purpose. Lyria adjusted. Maerwynn’s knees, at that exact moment, rose in another emphatic step, caught the underside of the saucer, and sent the full contents of the cup sluicing directly down over both boots.

The jig stopped.

It did not slow or wind down as a tired dance might. It simply stopped, mid-step, Maerwynn left standing with one boot raised an inch from the floor and an expression of such profound astonishment that I very nearly made an undignified snort of laughter, which I would like on record is the closest I’ve come to behaving like a certain younger colleague whose name begins and ends with a ‘p’.

“Mint,” said Maerwynn, staring down at her feet. “It was mint tea. What a wonderful cure!”

Thaddeus’s Reflections

I have examined the saucer. There is a faint residue along the rim consistent with a common variety of garden mint. Nothing about it should have been capable of unpicking a working from an uncatalogued Kindred.

I have no further explanation to offer. I dislike this.

I will confirm that the glueing of the shoe was mine, and that the errand to the stationery cupboard was also mine. I will not confirm what Pip witnessed en route, as it does not seem fully fair to a colleague who remains unaware she was seen at all. I will say only that the timing required rather more patience than the shoe did, and that I consider it my finest work to date.

Pip’s Account

I KNEW the nibs thing was off! I KNEW it! And also, Thaddeus, thank you, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, for not writing down what I actually saw, because if Bramwell had read that out loud I would have had to leave the country, possibly the continent, and never come back.

Bramwell’s Closing Account

Maerwynn stood motionless for a long moment, testing the stillness the way a person tests ice on a pond, before pronouncing it, cautiously, sound. She then sat down rather heavily on the nearest bench, unfolded her arms, and demanded, with some feeling, a proper pot of the same tea, “and biscuits, if this Library has any sense at all,” which it did, several arriving before she had finished the sentence.

As for the note still folded in my pocket, I have decided its contents will go with me to my grave, and have told Pip only that I know that I do not judge him in the slightest, and that he is very welcome to keep the cupboard as a standing arrangement should the need ever arise again. He seemed to find this more comforting than I expected.

Author’s Note:

I hope you enjoyed this latest account of the Wandering Library and that you’re keen to learn more about other freelance scholars of the Wandering Library, such as Maerwynn.
-Chaiga T. Cheska