I stumbled backward as he dumped me onto the floor before he turned and flicked the lock on the door. "Your crash course starts now, lass. You'd best pay attention."
I righted myself and fixed him with a glare, but he wasn't looking at me. He had turned on the hot water in the sink to full blast and was waving the steam up towards the mirror.
"Rule number one: doona do magic in front of people who doona ken it exists," he said in a voice so low that I could barely hear it above the water splashing in the sink.
As the mirror began to fog he started drawing symbols on it with his finger, quick and precise. They formed a ring nearly the size of the mirror itself. In the center of it he drew an even bigger one and muttered something unintelligible. The symbols began to glow with a golden light and rotate. Faster and faster they went, spreading the light toward the center until the whole mirror formed a fuzzy image.
"Sir, I've something interesting to show you," he spoke to the image as it became clearer, revealing a dimly lit room with a familiar figure at the center. My jaw hit the floor as I realized that the portly frame, the salt and pepper hair, and round glasses perched on the bridge of a rounded nose belonged to my boss. Christian reached over to grab my arm again and dragged me over next to him, holding on firmly.
"Christian, whit th' hell ur ye doing?" he had a stern look on his normally gentle face.
"She's found Danu's Tear. She refused to give it to me without an explanation, and won't take no for an answer. I warned her that she didny ken what she was getting into, but she didny seem to care. So here we are."
Still stunned and trying to process what was happening, I yanked my arm free of Christian's grip and returned my glare to his face. "Stop dragging me around," I demanded.
"She still hasn't told me where she found it, but she wanted proof o' what it was and wants to help. That's her price," he continued speaking into the mirror as if I hadn't said a word.
Annoyed, I turned my gaze to inspect the video chat that seemed to be conjured out of thin air; it was the proof he'd said he'd show me after all. I felt a gentle heat radiating from it and as I studied it I could see that it was made up of thousands of tiny colored symbols just like the ones he'd drawn on the mirror, like magical pixels. Disbelieving, I reached out and poked my finger through it, causing the still-swirling symbols to part like a rock in a river temporarily before flowing back together.
Christian pulled me back, a bit more gently this time, so he could see Mr. MacLean once more. "You are the strangest woman I've ever laid eyes on," he told me. Then to Mr. MacLean he said, "She's activated it."
Mr. MacLean nodded. "Rae, lass, where did ye find it?"
It took me a little while to register the question. My mind was racing a million miles a minute. Holyshitmagicwasreal.HolyshitChristianandMr.MacLeanknowmagic.Holyshitmybluffworked. Christian placed a finger under my chin, tilted my face up towards his and said, "Snap out o' it, lass. You asked for this. Now you have to deal with it."
That was the push my brain needed to jump back into gear, though I noted that he seemed to assume I was panicking when in reality I was excited. "I was at the beach for a party last night. I'd gotten tired of the noise and went on a walk over toward Fae Archway. I tripped and landed on it. It was poking out of the sand. Thought it was a rock and almost threw it into the ocean before I noticed that it wasn't a rock."
Mr. MacLean smiled gently at me. "Fate is a wonderful thing, lass. We've been searching fur 'at piece o' metal an' crystal fur a very long time, an' ye jus' so happened t' wander past it in nature, pick it up, an' bring it t' our attention. It disny surprise me 'at ye want t' learn more aboot it, ye're curious as a cat. Bring it into th' Lexicon tomorrow morning an' we'll discuss it, an' any questions ye have, in time. Christian, make sure she disny have any trouble tonight, ye hear?"
"Aye," Christian nodded and stuck his hand through the symbol-pixels, wiping away the ones he'd drawn on the mirror behind it. The image of Mr. MacLean scattered and dissipated into nothing but a mirror once more. He raised an eyebrow in my direction. "You tripped?"
"It was dark," I defended.
He continued to look at me with that eyebrow cocked, disbelieving.
"Okay, listen, I remembered something horrible, alright? It was extremely vivid and it startled me so much that I jumped, lost my balance, and fell over. Stop looking at me like that."
He opened his mouth to reply when the bathroom door shuddered and a voice on the other side said, "Ope, sorry about that," in an American accent.
I waited for a moment and then whispered, "So? Are you going to explain what just happened to me or not?"
"Not here. Not tonight. You've got your proof and all I need now is your word that you'll allow us to have the artifact."
"Only as long as you let me use it to help you find Atlantis and teach me how to do things like that," I gestured to the mirror that had fogged over with steam once more.
"That's part o' the deal, lass. Here's another rule for you: doona speak o' this to anyone but myself and Mr. MacLean. Do you understand me? Keep that thing out o' sight until you give it to us tomorrow." He held out his hand. I glanced down at it, then back up to the stony look on his face. I wanted to argue, demand that he answer at least one of my many questions, but I didn't want to take so long that my friends came looking for me. So I kept my mouth shut, and shook his hand. A small burst of golden light flared on the backs of each of our hands, pushing the air back with enough force to blow my hair back.
"What just happened?"
"We've struck a bargain, lass. You give us the pendant, I'll teach you about magic, and you'll get to come along with us to try to find Atlantis. That was just sealing the deal. We're each bound to our word, now."
I opened my mouth to ask, 'or what?', but thought better of it, and snapped my jaw back shut. I had plenty of time to ask questions tomorrow. I could process what I'd seen tonight and be ready with a whole list of inquiries by the time I got to the bookstore.
It was severely awkward to walk past the man who was waiting outside of the bathroom. I did my best not to blush with embarrassment as he raised an eyebrow at the two of us leaving together and avoided any and all eye contact for the rest of the night.
I stewed the rest of the evening between that embarrassment, and the fact that holyshitmagicwasreal. I ended up helping out in the kitchen once I got home. It was nice to have something to do with my hands as I thought about the events that had transpired. I'd originally only intended to stop to inform the staff that I'd already eaten and they didn't have to make any food for me, but then I asked if they needed any help and got swept up in the organized chaos that was the kitchens of Castle Callahan. I was mostly an extra hand, asked to fetch ingredients and hand them off or measure them out. I also got to chop several carrots and one onion before I was swept aside for not being quick enough, then patted on the head and told it was a long-practiced technique and why don't I go help Meredith with the dessert? By the end of it all I had managed to get flour all over myself and pie filling in my hair, but my mind had calmed down.
I needed another shower to get the sticky dessert filling out of my hair. I made sure to take off the necklace and keep it in the bedroom, tucked away in a drawer, on the off chance that the steam from the shower would make it glow or something. Once I finished, I wrapped up in my fluffy robe and slippers and made my way back down to my room and put the necklace back on. I worried about it disappearing and thought it had less of a chance to do so when it was hanging around my neck, although it couldn't be in too much danger since Christian had let me take it home, and agreed to keep an eye on me. I plugged in a pair of headphones into my phone and put my Fall Out Boy station on Pandora before I got to work proof reading my second essay. I hardly noticed how quickly time passed as I swapped phrases around to make the sentences flow better and corrected any typos. It was nearly midnight by the time I was happy with my work. I saved it all onto the owl USB flash drive that I kept as a key chain and put on my warm pajamas under my robe before padding to the library.
I was quite proud of my collection. This room was about as big as the bookstore, and held nearly as many books, only it was round due to being in a cylindrical tower. There was a huge section devoted to my favorite romance novels, fiction and non-fiction alike, but a vast majority of the books were historical, informational, classical and mythical texts that I'd read over the years. Every single one was categorized as they would have been in the bookstore, by genre and then alphabetically by author, rather than by the Dewey decimal system. I had a program that helped me keep track of all of them that allowed me to search by title, author, and subjects or tags. There was a large, rectangular, wooden table in the middle of the room surrounded by chairs and lamps for my erratic studying habits. Couches, chairs, side tables and plants dotted the open floor, giving it a cozy atmosphere. The south side of the tower was the only one not completely filled with bookshelves, only because it held one large bay window. A three foot wide bench, topped with a comfortable layer of cushions, pillows and fluffy blankets, made up a window seat that looked out over the twinkling lights of Cove Bay. A study desk, complete with a red cushioned, high backed chair, rested between the large study table and the window seat. On top of it sat a desktop computer and a printer.
I plopped down into the chair and turned on the computer, pulled the head off of the owl and plugged him into the computer so I could print out my essays. I nodded my head to the beat of Sugar, We're Going Down as I pulled open a drawer and took out two different colors of report folders. As I was putting the papers in order I felt a prickling sensation crawl across the back of my neck. I glanced around the library, wondering if one of the maids was up cleaning late or if a guest had wandered in looking for a book. There was no one in sight. I shrugged and continued on with my work until the feeling intensified to the point that the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I frowned and pulled my headphones down, listening hard. I could hear an occasional tapping sound coming from the window behind me. A chill ran down my spine as I stood and turned around. No one should be tapping on the window. The library covered the third and fourth story of the tower, and was at least ten meters off the ground.
The windows were coated in a light layer of condensation. In it I watched strange symbols form as if being drawn with an invisible finger. The tapping sound came every time a new symbol began to appear. My heart pounded in my chest. Those looked similar to the runes that Christian had traced on the mirror earlier. I had no idea what kind of magic it might be, but that there was any at all when 'people' were looking for this necklace was not a good thing. I ran up to the window and swiped my hand over the first line of runes, hoping to disrupt whatever was going on in the way that Christian had ended the video-chat spell earlier. My robe made a squeak against the damp glass and the writing stopped. I got rid of the rest of them as fast as I could, soaking my sleeve in the process. I backed away to see if any more were being drawn higher up, shaking slightly. I stood there for nearly five minutes inspecting every inch of the huge window before I realized that it had started to rain. Large droplets fell horizontally in the wind blowing outside. Despite being wrapped up in my robe and slippers, I shivered.
I considered calling Christian or Mr. MacLean to tell them about what happened before realizing that I didn't have personal numbers for either of them. Mr. MacLean had asked Christian to make sure I didn't have any trouble tonight but how on earth was he supposed to notice an invisible hand writing runes on the inside of my library window? Unsure of what to do, I shut off the computer, grabbed my essays and went back to my room. I turned my music off and listened for any other disturbances on the way, but noticed nothing. I checked all over my room for any more symbols before I let myself relax. I wasn't entirely sure what could be manipulated to form them and found some of the places I checked bizarre, like the dust on top of my shelves and the dry erase board I kept in a the desk drawer, but when things were happening that I didn't fully understand I decided I could never be too careful. As an added measure I drew the shades and curtains over the windows and made sure there wasn't a single crack through which anyone could see inside. Finally, around one in the morning, I sat down at my desk and decided I wasn't going to be sleeping any time soon.
I pulled my headphones from around my neck to return them to their home, then pulled out a fresh piece of paper and a pen so I could begin writing down all of the questions I had for Mr. MacLean.
How did magic work? Were there other kinds besides symbols? Wands? What kinds of magical people were there in the world? How many were there? Was there an entire secret society, or did those who knew about it simply keep quiet about it? How did Mr. MacLean and Christian know about magic? Could I do magic, or would they only teach me about it and have me keep quiet about it? Did the Fae really exist? Christian had called the necklace Danu's Tear, was it the same Danu that was the supposed goddess of the Tuatha De Danann? Are the legends about them true? If they existed, what other kinds of magical creatures existed? Mermaids? Centaurs? Unicorns? Were the Dark Waters really cursed? If so, why? Could that be the reason for the crash of Flight 427? Did ley lines really draw energy? Were ley lines even a thing?
I refused to look at the time when I finally curled up in bed. I didn't want to know how little sleep I'd be getting that night.