fandomhigh | Library, Wednesday

Sholeh was doing her best to maintain a calm facade for the patrons of the library. No one was going to benefit from a panicky library aide. No, she needed to be composed, collected, and helpful. The library was where people came to figure out solutions, not see a ninny hiding under her desk with her pinafore over her head.

So Sholeh set to work, straightening the research tables and tidying the books. The ones that had been deemed useless were put away, the ones that had seemed useful were set to the side, and another armload were brought down for people to look through for clues. She taped a few sheets of paper to the circulation desk for people to make notes that everyone could read. It was all well and good for someone to have the answer written down somewhere, but it wouldn't do anyone else any good if it wasn't disseminated properly.

The flying creature that was roosting on the bookcase squawked at her several times, but a few dark glares from Evan had it quieting down. He'd been sticking to her closer than her own shadow for the past several days and with all the sharp-toothed creatures lumbering about, Sholeh couldn't quite say she minded.

And--rats! Now her nose was bleeding again. There really was no rest for the weary.

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The loud commotion made Sholeh start, but once she was over her fright, she was peering at Cosette with interest.

"Our weather machine?" she asked. "It's in that book? Surely not, that's been there forever!"

Sorry, Sholeh. If she'd been raised in a more civilized manner Cosette might not have been yelling quite like that, and she'd probably apologize for it when she was back to being her usual self.

"Perhaps not," she said, and put the book down on the table. Sure enough, there was a schematic drawing of the weather machine along with the somewhat sketchy illustration of the mysterious man's face, but beneath it was a caption that Cosette pointed to.

"There's a plague that's hit the island before," she said, "that's what this book's all about, but it says here that the first time it happened this man pinched this --" and here she stumbled a bit over the words -- "'magical artifact,' the machine, I suppose, and disappeared with it rather than send his child away."

No apologies would be needed, Cosette. Sholeh was just a little on edge from everything today. It was great to hear someone crying out with good news!

"So the plague and the machine are somehow related?" Sholeh asked, bending over the book as well. "That does look like the machine that was left, yes."

"The man's here," Cosette blurted out, indicating the drawing of him now, "on the island, and now so are all these things that want to eat us. That could be a coincidence, but me, I'm not so sure."

"Okay, so you think he's drawing them here?" Sholeh asked, peering at the picture to try to commit that face to memory. It was doubtful that Evan would let her go looking for anyone, but maybe if she spotted him on the way to the hotel...Well, okay, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Politely ask him to leave and take all the monsters with him? "On purpose or by accident?"

"That, I don't know," Cosette admitted. "But if he's been able to disappear with a machine before, well, it must be something he knows how to do."

She paused and added, half in an undertone, "Useful sounding skill, if you ask me."

When she met Cosette again after all of this died down, Sholeh would likely be very confused. As it was now, she simply shared a smile. "I've wanted to disappear a time or two myself," she admitted.

Oh honey. That was so not what Cosette meant.

"So we have a man, a machine, and monsters. Now we have to see where they fit."

"That we do." Cosette seemed fairly animated; she enjoyed puzzles, and this was most certainly one, if a potentially dangerous one. "Though I'll happily leave messing about with the machines to someone else."

"What does it say about the plague?" Hannibal ~~who was totally here all day~~ asked. "Is that something else that we ought to be watching for?"

"How does one watch for the plague, anyhow?" Cosette wondered; she couldn't help a tiny laugh at the idea of trying to play lookout for an epidemic.

. . . it was probably funnier to her, coming from an era before a good understanding of epidemics and the causes of disease and all.

"I suppose," she said, remembering herself and trying to revert to a more serious manner. "Though I haven't found anything else in this book that's got anything to do with that man, or with the weather machine."

Taking Cosette's dress into account, Hannibal answered her question seriously. "If it mentions what the plague's symptoms are, we can see if anybody here shares them, and see what we can do to minimize the spread of it. I don't imagine being sick on top of all the rest would be much fun."

"I wouldn't like that much," agreed Cosette. "Do you think something could bring it here the way the bears and the Vikings and all of those things seem to have been brought here?"

"Anything is possible," Hannibal answered. "Here more than most places."

"All the better if we find a way to shut the door on them all, then, hmm?" Cosette said thoughtfully.

"Preferably before anything too deadly makes its way through," Hannibal agreed. "And you may have given us a place to start. Well done."

Cosette blinked for a moment, caught off guard, then smiled very hesitantly like a girl unaccustomed to praise of any kind. "It's up to the rest of you to finish," she said, "since I'm not sure what to do from here."

"I'm not certain anyone is," Hannibal answered dryly. "But we have more information now than we did this morning."

Library, Wednesday

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