Akarnae

  “Can I tell my friends about all this?” Alex asked, knowing she probably would anyway.

  “I think those who showed you the chequered room can share in your knowledge since they must have been trusted enough to unlock some of the Library’s secrets. But that doesn’t mean they’ll always be able to accompany you wherever you go. Their access will likely be much more limited than your own. As for anyone else, you should hide your knowledge of the Library’s existence—partly for your own safety.”

  “How many other people know for certain that this is the Library of legend?” Alex asked. “And are able to explore it?”

  “Other than myself? Very few. From what I’ve heard, all current and previous headmasters of Akarnae are made aware of the Library’s existence, but they don’t necessarily have access to all of its secrets.”

  “But I’m not a headmaster!”

  Darrius chuckled. “No, you’re not. But the Library may choose to reveal itself to anybody who it believes worthy. You’ve been Chosen, Alexandra. You should feel honoured.”

  Alex wasn’t sure what she felt, so she asked another question. “The guy who opened the academy all those years ago—Eanraka, right? As in, ‘Akarnae’ spelt backwards? Seriously, he couldn’t think of anything more creative?”

  When Darrius didn’t respond, she cleared her throat awkwardly. “Anyway… You said he was a—a Meyarin? What is that?”

  Darrius looked deep into her eyes and answered, “Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t have heard of them yet. Their existence is not openly discussed these days.”

  Before she could say anything, Darrius stood and walked over to his bookcase.

  “I’m familiar with some of the literature from your world,” he said as he rifled through the titles, “and as best as I can compare, you would understand those from Meya to be called ‘elves’ or ‘fair folk’, though no such translation exists here. They are simply those who have existed from the beginning. They are immortal beings, often referred to as ‘the graced ones’. They can be killed just like any other creature, but if left alone they’ll live forever, since their bodies are immune to illness and decay.

  “Their race is unlike any other. They are beautiful to behold and blessed with inhuman strength, speed, agility and intellect. They can be either your greatest ally and most trusted companion, or your worst enemy and most treacherous adversary.”

  It was all a bit too much for Alex. “Are you telling me that you have elves here? Because I don’t know what ‘literature’ you’ve read, but the only books that have elves in them are works of fiction. Elves aren’t real.”

  She paused before adding, “And for that matter, how do you know I’m from another world? Or even what my name is?”

  Darrius didn’t answer immediately, and she started to rise nervously from her seat. But then he let out a quiet, “Ah-ha!” and pulled a book from the shelf, turning back to her. “Sit down, Alexandra. You have no reason to fear me,” he said distractedly as he flicked through the pages. “I know who you are and where you’ve come from because the Library told me.”

  He walked over to his desk and absentmindedly picked up a piece of paper which he passed to her.

  Alexandra Jennings: third year transfer student, originally from Freya.

  “Who wrote this?” Alex said, staring in awe at the ancient-looking calligraphy. As she watched, more words appeared on the page.

  Is it so hard to believe in a sentient Library?

  She gaped at the page as one final sentence appeared before it was wiped clean:

  Embrace the wonder.

  Darrius either didn’t notice her shocked expression, or he ignored it to answer her question. “I believe it’s one of the secrets of the Library that’s too difficult for us mere mortals to understand. I learned long ago that some things are meant to remain a mystery.”

  Alex had no choice but to accept his answer, and she placed the now-blank paper to the side, where it immediately vanished.

  “Now, where were we?” Darrius asked. “I think you were talking about your ‘elves’ not being real. And yes, I’m aware that’s true where you’re from. But history is different here.”

  He handed her the book he’d found, motioning for her to take a look. The page was already open and the writing was in a language she’d never before seen, but it was the picture that he clearly intended for her to see. There were two people, one male and one female, standing in a forest clearing with the moonlight streaming down on them. Even in a two-dimensional portrait, they seemed to jump out of the page and demand her attention. They were both so hypnotically beautiful that Alex could have continued staring at them for hours.

  “As you can see, they paint quite an enchanting picture,” Darrius said, closing the book and moving to place it back on the shelf.

  Alex felt the loss as if it was a physical detachment and she stared longingly at the bookcase. “What happened to them?”

  “No one really knows,” Darrius said. “One day they were amongst us, the next they weren’t. Their city, Meya, and its surrounding forests just vanished into thin air, along with their entire race. It’s one of our greatest mysteries, and while there are many theories, no human knows the complete truth of what happened.”

  “How long ago was this?” Alex asked.

  Darrius thought for a moment. “History isn’t so clear on that account. Thousands of years ago, at the very least. I would estimate the time to be perhaps a few hundred years after Eanraka discovered the Library. That’s not so great a time considering the Meyarin lifespan.”

  Alex let that sink in and said, “Okay, I think I’ve had all the history I can take for, oh, the next five years.” He chuckled and she continued, “But thanks, Darrius, for answering my questions.”

  “Anytime, dear child, anytime.”

  She smiled despite the child remark since she knew his kindness was genuine. “So, the million dollar question: what happens now?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I can’t stay here forever,” she said. “How do I get back to the, um, ground?”

  “That’s simple,” Darrius answered. “The same way you arrived.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Didn’t I fall here?”

  “You did,” he replied. Seeing her expression, he added, “Is there a problem?”

  She stood and walked over to look out the window again. It was still the same view. If anything, it seemed like they were even higher than when she’d first looked. But since the clouds obscured her vision and the ground wasn’t even in sight through them, she had no way of knowing if that was true.

  “Yeah, I’d say there’s a slight problem,” Alex said, gesturing towards the view.

  “I don’t make the rules, Alexandra,” Darrius said with an apologetic shrug. “You asked me how to get out, and I answered you. It’s your choice whether or not you follow my advice.”

  “How about some different advice?” she asked. “Like the kind that doesn’t involve falling to certain death?”

  “I’m afraid I have no other options for you.”

  He didn’t look afraid. In fact, he seemed completely at ease. Not to mention completely serious.

  “You’re mad,” she said without thinking.

  Darrius smiled at her words and replied, almost jovially, “You’re certainly not the first to believe so.”

  At least he wasn’t offended. He almost seemed to take her insult as a compliment, proving to her that he was, in fact, a very strange man.

  Alex took a deep breath and closed her eyes. As she did so, she heard a voice like a whisper in the wind: “Just believe.” She snapped her eyes open and turned to look behind her, but there was no one there.

  “Let’s say for a moment that I believe you,” she said. “Would I really have to jump?”

  Darrius appeared to think about it and her hope soared until he said, “I suppose I could push you.”

  She groaned and banged her head against
the wall.

  “The laws of gravity are simple, my dear,” he said. “What goes up must come down.”

  He wisely remained silent while she grumbled into the wall about staircases and elevators and how technically she’d never gone up since she’d only fallen down in the first place. There was no such thing as falling upwards.

  “Come along, then,” he said, pulling her away from the wall. “While time is of little consequence here, I do have work to be getting on with and your friends are likely anxious for your return.”

  Alex blew out a resigned breath and followed him across the room until they stood in front of a door she hadn’t even noticed before. When Darrius turned the handle, the entire door vanished, opening to nothing. Unless, of course, the sky could be considered a destination.

  She scurried backwards three steps before Darrius latched onto her arm with a firm grip.

  “There’s really nothing to be afraid of,” he said, as if commenting on something as mundane as the weather. “Remember how I told you that the Library often teaches through challenges? Well, this is merely one such obstacle.”

  “You also mentioned that it teaches through failure,” Alex pointed out, her body shaking in fear.

  “So I did,” he agreed, cheerfully. “But not, perhaps, failure as you understand it. And I don’t believe this particular challenge will end in failure.”

  He managed to gently pull her one step closer to the ledge.

  “I—I don’t think I can do this, Darrius,” she stammered as he coaxed her forward another step.

  “I, however, have no such doubts.”

  Alex looked up at him. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but his eyes were really more silver than grey. More importantly, they were full of confidence—in her. Darrius truly believed she could do this. So she decided to trust him and—literally—take a leap of faith.

  He must have noticed her sudden conviction because he smiled and released her arm. “Until we meet again, Alexandra.”

  She was too focused to question his parting statement, so she just nodded and—after squeezing her eyes shut—did possibly the most insane thing she’d ever done in her entire life.

  She jumped.

  Seventeen

  The wind pummelled Alex’s body and roared past her ears at a near-painful volume. She strained to open her eyes against the pressure battering her, and when she did, she wished she’d kept them closed since the ground could finally be seen through the clouds. It was still a long way off.

  She wondered for a moment about the impossible height from which she was falling, but her thoughts scattered when her speed increased. She wasn’t just freefalling anymore—it was as if she had weights tied around her, pulling her down to the ground faster and faster.

  Alex had to close her eyes again to ward off her nausea. It didn’t help much since she could still feel and hear the wind pushing her closer and closer to the ground. The solid, hard, ground.

  But then, gradually, she started to slow down. It didn’t take long before the wind began to ease, and then it died out completely, leaving Alex’s ears ringing and her body tingling from the aftermath. She had no doubt that if her eyes had been open they would have been watering like crazy. But they were still closed—at least until she heard the most unexpected sound.

  “ALEX!”

  “NO!”

  Her eyes snapped open and the first thing she noticed was a roof above her head. How on earth had she managed to fall through and into a building?

  Scratch that, the first thing she noticed was that she was, in fact, not dead. Then she noticed the room she was lying in; a room with a familiar chequered floor.

  Alex sat up too quickly and had to hold her head in her hands until the room stopped spinning. Her ears were still humming and when her vision cleared she finally noticed what was going on around her.

  Jordan and Bear were standing in the middle of the room, both looking horror-stricken as they stared down into a black square on the floor.

  Three squares simultaneously changed colour and they were able to jump closer to one another and yet still stay near the black square. Jordan looked as if he was about to jump straight down the square, but Bear’s arm latched onto him and held him back.

  “Let me go!” Jordan cried. “We have to do something!”

  “I know that!” Bear yelled back. “But jumping in after her isn’t going to help anyone!”

  Alex watched the scene with fascination. It was as if no time had passed even though she’d been gone for hours—overnight, apparently. She hadn’t understood Darrius’s earlier comment about time being of little consequence, but now she marvelled over the realisation. Then she noticed that her friends looked like they were both about to do something very stupid, so she snapped out of her shock and called out to them.

  “Guys! I’m over here!”

  She couldn’t help laughing at their incredulous expressions when they spun around to face her.

  “Alex?” Jordan gasped, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” she said. “I’m okay. Really.”

  He didn’t look like he believed her—or that he believed she was really there. Bear, too, was gaping at her.

  “I’m kind of tired,” she said when neither of them moved. It was true—the adrenaline from the fall was fading, taking away all of her energy. But fortunately she had landed right where the torch was that identified the safe exit, so at least she wouldn’t have to cross the room again. “Any chance we can get out of here now?”

  That seemed to spring them into action, and without another word they quickly—but carefully—made their way over to her, looking up every so often as if to make sure that their eyes weren’t playing tricks on them.

  They reached her in record time and she felt the breath leave her as first Jordan and then Bear enveloped her in a crushing hug.

  “H-how—?” Bear stammered.

  “It’s a long story,” she said. It was true, for while only seconds had passed for her friends, much more time had passed for her.

  “But, you were over there,” Jordan said, pointing to the centre of the room where the ominous black square had yet to change colour. “And you fell.”

  She laughed again, her good humour returning now that her feet were back on solid ground. “Yes, Captain Obvious, I was, and I did.”

  “But—but you’re here now.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Both of them continued to gape at her so she decided to go easy on them. “Let’s just get out of here and I’ll tell you what happened, okay?”

  They nodded and she huffed in frustration before adding, “But only if you start acting normal again. I’m perfectly fine, so stop looking at me like I’m about to disappear or something.”

  That was apparently what they needed to hear, since they both relaxed and grinned at her. Jordan even gave her a mocking salute, and if she hadn’t been so relieved by their changed expressions, she might have kicked him. Instead she just said, “Let’s get going.”

  “Um, about that…” Bear looked so guilty that Alex just knew she wasn’t going to like his next words. “We might not have been completely truthful with you before about this being the exit.”

  She closed her eyes and counted to ten before she spoke. “Where is the exit, then?”

  “It’s sort of—uh—” Jordan hesitated, winced, and quickly finished, “—back where we started.”

  As one, all three of them turned to look across the room.

  No. Way.

  “It was supposed to be fun,” Jordan added meekly.

  Alex sighed. She couldn’t be angry with them. They’d only wanted to show her a good time. But she really was tired, and she had absolutely no desire to cross the room again. So, without knowing why or how, just simply that she could, she placed her hand on the wall beside the torch and willed an exit to appear.

  She heard Jordan’s quiet “Wicked!” and Bear’s incredulous whistle when a door appeared out of nowhere, but she
’d experienced one too many surprises already that day for her to truly appreciate what she’d just done.

  It was almost a relief to find that the door opened into the great foyer of the Library—only almost, because standing in their path was the grizzly librarian.

  “So,” he said by way of greeting. “It would appear you have indeed been Chosen.”

  Alex nodded cautiously but didn’t say anything.

  He pursed his lips and squinted at her through his glasses as if judging her worthiness. Whatever he saw must have been enough since he soon relaxed his posture. “Very well,” he said, and without another word he turned and hobbled back over to his desk.

  “Right, then,” Alex said, breaking the strained silence as her friends continued to stare at her. “I need chocolate. Stat.”

  After a quick visit to the Rec Room’s dining area, Alex followed the boys to their bedroom, where she ingested copious amounts of chocolate while telling them about everything that had happened to her. When she was done, silence descended.

  “Wow. That’s just… wow.”

  Alex looked at Jordan. “Crazy, right?”

  He snatched up another chocolate bar—his sixth—and peeled back the wrapper before taking a bite. “Definitely. You’re a bit of a freak, you know. Why does all the weird stuff happen to you?”

  His affectionate look took the sting out of his words, but still Alex frowned. She’d been wondering the same thing.

  “I for one think this is totally awesome,” Bear said, leaning back on his bed. “Just think of all the possibilities!”

  “Absolutely!” Jordan agreed, downing the rest of his chocolate and shoving the pile of empty wrappers off his blanket and onto the messy floor. “Imagine all the trouble we can get into!”

  Alex suppressed a groan. “Don’t get ahead of yourselves,” she said. “We still don’t have any idea what all this Library stuff means.”

  “What’s left to know?” Jordan asked. “The legend is real, the Library likes you, and you’ve been Chosen to share its secrets. Bear and me too, by extension. What do you reckon, mate?”

  “That’s the gist I got,” Bear said. “Sounds pretty sweet to me!”