A. Emeritus

Chapter 12

In the library I have to wander around a little to find someone to help me. Eventually, I find a maskless ghoul putting books back on a high shelf.

"Excuse me? Papa sent me here with a list of books to get." I call up to him. He glances down and seems to sigh before climbing down and holding out his hand for the list.

"Every time a Papa sends someone to get books, he's requesting a lot of books." He says as he unfolds the paper and scans the words. "Please follow me." The ghoul swiftly walks toward the main staircase and starts to ascend. I run after him and follow him up to the third floor where he continues to the far end of the farthest end of the library.

"How do you know where to go without checking?" I question as he stops abruptly and stoops down to pick up a book.

"I've had the card catalog memorized for decades." He tells me as he stands back up and hands me a book. "Could you slide the ladder over to me?" I look over and see the ladder at the end of the shelf and run to grab it and pull it over to him. "I was summoned before your grandpa's father's father's father was Papa, I helped build this library." He explains as he climbs up and grabs a few books off the top shelf. With each book he grabs, it floats down from his hands into my now growing stack of books. After several books float down to me he climbs down and motions for me to follow him. I'm led back through the library and to the circulation desk, where the maskless ghoul takes the bottom lost book and fills in the check out card. "This is the only book that needs to be returned. The rest you will keep." He tells me, slipping the card back in its pocket and handing me the books.

As I approach my dad's office, I notice the door is left open. Upon entering I notice the room is rearranged. The desk had been moved to add a smaller desk to the side of my dad's desk, along with a chair slid under it. Dad takes the books and leads me over to the desks.

"This will be your desk." He motions to the desk right next to his. "I want you to begin studying Latin again." He sets up the first workbook on the desk and places a pencil next to it. I sit in the chair as Dad resumes his work.

"Dad, this workbook is for little kids." I tell him as I open it and look at the age level on it. He doesn't look up from his work as he speaks.

"Then you should be able to finish it quickly, no?" I can tell he's challenging me.

I let out a low growl and start to work through the book. Just as I finish the book a piece of paper is slid over to me. It's simply labeled 'Test 1' and has questions written out in my dad's handwriting, and my dad takes the workbook and starts to grade it. I roll my eyes and fill in the test. Finally, I hand the test back to my dad and he starts questioning me in Latin. He places his face in his hands after I stutter my way through the conversation in Latin.

"Mia cara, why are you so bad at speaking Latin, you've been learning it since you were very young." He groans into his hands. "Until you get a better handle on the language, I want you to only speak in Latin around anyone you are aware of that knows Latin. You will speak it into fluency. Intelligis" I nod in response, "Words, Aster." I sigh

"Ita, pater." I reply, earning a nod from him.

Later we walk down the halls toward a room I've never been to before. Today I am getting my measurements taken again. I was told this will happen bi-weekly in hopes that the sisters of sin will be able to track my growth and predict how much I may grow during tour. That way I can have properly fitted clothes for every show and appearance.

My dad enters the mystery room, it's just a plain looking room with cabinets lining one wall, and a high counter and mirrors lining the opposite wall. I notice Viv sitting on the counter playing with a measuring tape with a clipboard next to her. My dad clears his throat and Viv stands quickly.

"Apologies, Papa." She says, and hops down, taking my measurements, quickly writing them before leaving the room. Dad motions for me to sit in one of the tall chairs, while he goes to the cabinets and brings a box of supplies over.

"Every generation before you has done their own face pain." He explains. "I expect you will do the same. This will be your box, it has everything you need, and you can always come back down here if you need more of something." He pats the box before sliding it over to me. "I will not tell you what you should look like, each generation has painting their face differently, il mia bambina. I'll be here to help today, but for the foreseeable future you will be doing your makeup everyday to improve it and master the process. This is the way it has been done for everyone." He explains.

I open the box and see a variety of brushes, many little containers of black and white cream face paint, as well as smaller amounts of other colors and makeup accessories. After laying everything out, I climb up and sit cross legged on the counter. To begin I use a half inch size brush and a little container of black paint. Slowly, I paint a curved line just under my eye socket followed by a line along my eyebrow, both lines then connected on the outermost side with a curved line following just out of the edge of my eye socket once again, before following the curve of my eyebrow down along my nose and finally fill in the rough circle. Painstakingly I repeat the design on the other side and look toward my dad.

"Just do what feels right." He nods.

Drawing in a deep breath I go along my hairline with the black paint, gently blending it just barely into my hair. The line continues down where I curve the line along the apples of my cheek and use another of the same brush to measure two brush widths away from the corner of my lips and move it straight down, before going back up and connecting the curved cheek line to the line coming from the brush. Once again I repeat it on the other side before filling the outer sections in with the black paint.

I fill in the rest with white and decide to let everything dry before continuing.

"Cogitabam cor meum nasum." I tell my dad and make a heart with my hands in case I mispronounced something to make what I'm saying clear. He nods slowly,

"Why?"

"Suus 'cute" I reply, pulling eyelashes out of the box and applying glue to the base. Every so carefully I place the lashes along my upper lashes and use a mascara brush to try to blend and shape them without mascara. Once I'm sure the white has dried I use a curved brush to make the heart on my nose, and make lines similar to my grandpa's for teeth.

Leaning back I looked at myself in the mirror before grabbing a fine brush and making as small of an 'X' as I can under the black surrounding my right eye. With that I unfold my legs and slide one the counter.

"Factum." I announce, as I start to pack everything back into the box.

"Good, it looks nice."

I finish packing everything and pick up my box, ready to go. We head into the next room over, which I didn't recognize as the seam shop when we came down here. There I gave a brief description of what I wanted in the shape of my mask, and let them know I only wanted one; Since I wasn't sure if I wanted to use a mask or not now that I had my makeup planned out.

Finally, we went back to the office where I continue working on my Latin and practicing my speaking. As the rest of the day drones on, my dad realizes that I really do know my Latin, I just don't speak it very well. If I've learned anything from today, holding a conversation with someone who isn't speaking in the language you're supposed to me speaking takes more mental energy than I expected.