Summoning Rain

Chapter 1

Standing just inside the door, Andrew scanned the library. He had either found the most awesome senior project ever or else got royally screwed. Unfortunately, there was no way to find out until he started and he couldn't start until he accepted the job. So, he did. And here he was.

The university had just acquired this house and everything in it, which included an incredible collection of very old and rare books. How old, how rare and just exactly how valuable was Andrew's job to find out. Well, not exactly his. It was his job to assist Dr. Harper and her gang of grad students. What, exactly, assisting them meant he really wasn't sure. His first task was to look at the collection and propose an indexing system that he would then implement if Dr. Harper approved.

Andrew moved slowly, looking at the spines to get a feel for the collection. He heard the man who owned the house was a physics professor, so it didn't surprise him to see a lot of scientific works. And math. The bookshelves built into the wall to the right of the door and along the adjacent wall to the window were organized by field. The older books, when all disciplines were under the umbrella of natural philosophy, were on a floor-to-ceiling shelf that blocked most of the library from the view of the door.

Circling the thick shelf, he reached out and brushed his fingers over the red, velvet curtain shielding the window. There was a large, polished wood table and leather padded chairs on the other side. They looked well-worn and Andrew had to wonder how old the furniture was, too. And who the old physics professor invited into his library to sit at this table and... discuss the books?

Turning his attention back to the books themselves, Andrew followed the shelves through geography, history, philosophy, religion and an impressive collection of literature spanning just as many languages as the non-fiction. In a cove created by a jutting chest high shelf, he found a thick leather chair, a large end table and the only modern lamp with its arm out, ready for use. He imagined this was where the old professor spent most of his time. It looked like heaven.

The last wall seemed to be the professor's reference section. The variety of books on language had the mix of old and very old of the rest of the library, but there were also newer texts. And biographies and historiographies and scholarly analyses of the ancient books, including one written by Dr. Harper, Andrew noted.

There were also modern books, things off best seller lists, carelessly stacked where there were empty spaces. Often under or shoved beside a little statue or elegant bookend. Andrew wondered if they were gifts from relatives who didn't know what else to buy the man who loved books.

He next regarded the large stand in front of the other window. A stand like that, sturdy and in a place of prominence, would usually hold a bible or, more likely, a tanakh. But it was empty. His family probably took it, Andrew thought. He had noted a few other conspicuous holes in otherwise packed shelves, including a large section among other religious works.

His eyes lingered on that shelf and then drifted lower to a cabinet beneath it. Moving over to it and crouching down, Andrew tugged on the handle: locked. He was going to leave it, assuming anything of importance would be on display, but he smelled something damp.

Afraid there might be a leak that could damage the books, he searched for a key. He checked the obvious places: the drawers in the end table near the chair, another cabinet built into the shelves that wasn't locked, and a decorative box on the mantle above the fireplace. Reading glasses, decanters and matches.

He was about to give up, wondering if it was serious enough that he should call Dr. Harper, when his eyes fell on a statuette. It was nothing special. An off-white, heavy stone elephant standing between sections on Indian history and Hinduism, its rear and trunk were acting as book ends.