6. Skeptical at Best
I t was library policy that one had to book an appointment to see any of the books or artifacts in the Old Book Archive on the fifth floor, so that the Library Archivist could supervise. But Ollie was both the Archivist, and the one who had made the policy. And as he very much wanted to keep talking to, or at the very least keep staring at, the man who had just basically said he liked how much he talked, Ollie was fully willing to ignore said policy.
Smiling brightly, he shyly drawled, “Well, since you just so happen to be wandering around with the very man who owns this library, who is also the Archivist here, I think we can make an exception, don’t you?”
Noble blinked, before chuckling. “I would appreciate that.”
“Then, onward to the public fifth floor!”
He spun and headed back the way he came.
“Why do you call it the public fifth floor? Now that I’m thinking on it, the other library staff do it with the fourth floor too.”
“Ah, that’s because there is another fourth and fifth floor that's separate from the public ones, which I live in.”
“You live in the library?”
“Technically, I live above it.” Ollie chuckled. “Well, above the first three levels of the library, that is. The two fourth and fifth floors line up. Thus?—”
“The need to label them?”
“Yes.”
Above the full three floors of literary bliss, his home took up the small private fourth, and even smaller fifth, floor on the left side. It had always annoyed him that he had to be specific, but as the floors currently right above them—a tower-like section that branched off the third floor—were technically also the fourth and fifth floor, he always had to add the note of private versus public.
He would willingly admit the configuration of his library was slightly odd, especially with all the doors, and just the way some of the floors were set up, but it had nothing on the baffling layout of his house. Most of his living space was sectioned off behind doors, with some walls looking oddly shaped, and seemingly out of place. Obviously, the space had once been part of the library below, yet…it was still off.
Beyond the odd layout, the space his home took up didn’t exactly make sense overall. Knowing where his living quarters were, and even being able to spot both windows from the outside, it still was like there was missing space. From the outside, it looked like his fourth floor was only a little less than half the length and width of the building, and his fifth a quarter of that size, yet inside, he wouldn’t say the fourth floor took up more than a quarter, while the fifth was just…his bedroom and a hallway. As large as that bedroom was, a quarter of the building it was not.
Ollie had, of course, looked for hidden doors, or hollow and false walls, yet he had found none. Logically, there had to be more building beyond the walls, as…where else would it be. Really, the only thing stopping him from taking a sledgehammer to one of them was…how much of a headache it would be to fix it, and well, mainly he found the idea of destroying possible pieces of history abhorrent. And his living quarters were historic, even if he couldn’t figure out when it had been renovated. As none of it was original, even if it was old.
Ollie ignored Eashaa as they passed her desk, the woman was now back sitting in her chair. He rolled his eyes when she waved cheekily. Not a single ounce of respect.
When they headed towards the stairs, Red wandered off as he knew he wasn’t allowed there.
There were no elevators to the fourth and fifth floors, as there simply hadn’t been room to add one. There was, however, a panel that opened up near both of the tower floor stairways, which held a folding electric lift chair that could be pulled out and used by those who needed it. Ollie would have just left them out, if they didn’t completely block the small spiral stairways.
Nodding to Fleur on the fourth floor as they passed her to go to the other set of stairs, they headed up into the archive. Reaching the seemingly large wooden door, Ollie sorted through his keys and unlocked the only physical lock on the door, before pressing his finger to the scanner to unlock the electrical one.
As much as he hated adding anything that ruined the historical aesthetic of his library, security was something he always caved on. And as the room held books that collectively were worth millions, simple door locks were not going to cut it.
Opening the thick door, that on opening you could see was actually made of solid metal, he waved Noble in with a smile, stepping in after him. Ollie turned back around and relocked the manual lock on the door. Luckily, the electric one re-engaged automatically when closed.
He smiled as he eyed the room. There was a white table with chairs, after which there were rows and rows of steel shelving racks of various heights, with boxes of all sizes on them. Unlike below, the walls and floors in here were all white and not wood. They were made of a material that was more suited for archival preservation, for the same reason that the shelves below were all lined. Wood, even sealed wood, could lead to damage due to possible chemical vapors and more. While easy to avoid with climate control, it was better to be safe than sorry.
“You keep it locked even when you are inside?” Noble asked slowly.
Ollie looked over at the man, his brow raising. “Yes, you never know who may try to wander in. Best to be safe!”
“What if the person you are with isn’t safe?” The words hadn’t sounded off, yet the look in the man’s eyes was oddly intense.
“Umm.” Ollie blinked, frowning slightly as he showed the man his cute cow taser that hung alongside his keys. “I have a taser that I know how to use…and there is an alarm I can trigger as well, so…yeah…” He cleared his throat, suddenly feeling slightly nervous. “Right, have you been in here before?”
“I haven’t,” Noble admitted, his voice neutral, his face was empty of any detectable emotion.
“Well, as you can see…” He waved at the rows and rows of industrial shelving. “There are no normal bookshelves here, and we treat it exactly as one would an archive, thus the name. All things are kept individually in custom sized, archival quality materials, and storage boxes. And while the climate in the normal library is something I heavily control and monitor, it is not as accurately controlled as in here, as this room is on a system of its own.
“Many of these books, and in some cases, letters and other paper materials, on top of being older than those below, came to me already damaged, and require special care in making sure they aren’t damaged further. Which is why I ask you to please follow any instructions I give you.”
“Of course,” Noble assured him, finally smiling again.
“Right then, it is time to wash our hands,” he chimed. Shaking off the odd feeling he’d had, Ollie quickly opened the only other door in the room, leaving it open as he went in.
Tucking his keys into his shirt, he went to the first of two sinks in the room, which were just as clinical as the rest of the archives—white everything.
Pumping out a few drops of soap, Ollie lathered up, saying, “Wash and dry as thoroughly as you can. The less oils and dirt on our hands, the better.”
“Won’t we be wearing gloves?” Noble mused, as he began washing his hands at the sink next to him.
“If we were handling photographs, and other artifacts, generally, yes, but as we will be handling books, no. There are specific situations where gloves are used, such as when there is metal or ivory. And even then, when it comes to turning the pages, it’s best to take them off.
“The only other reason to wear them would be if there was something toxic in and on the books, such as mold, or…that pesky, historically loved green made of arsenic. Otherwise, gloves are not recommended, as they can make things cumbersome when it comes to turning the pages, and often increases the risk of tearing and more.”
“Huh…I suppose that makes sense.”
Ollie hummed in agreement. Shaking the water off his hands, he quickly dried them thoroughly as Noble did the same.
That done, he waved the taller man out, and nudged the door closed with his foot as he exited, before heading deeper into the archive.
“So, we have a total of twenty-one ‘witch’ diaries,” Ollie said, as he walked past the first five rows before turning down the sixth, with Noble following behind him. “All are handwritten, but only thirteen are in English. Of the ones in English, the dates range from the 12th century to the 17th. To be clear—” He gave the man a sheepish smile. “—when I say English, I mean mostly middle to early modern, though the later ones are on the edge of transitioning to modern.”
Ollie stopped in front of the shelving unit that had many thin horizontal rows filled with boxes, none of which were stacked. The shelves were considerably smaller than the ones around it. Underneath every box, on the edge of the shelf, was a catalog number.
“So, do you have a preference, century or language wise? Or is there something specific you are looking for inside them?”
“English, for sure,” Noble stated. He hesitated for a moment before slowly asking, “Have you read them?”
Ollie blinked. Tilting his head, he smiled. “I have, even the non-English ones.”
The library had been his personal playground as a child, and his fascination with it all had always leaned towards the older collection. Well, that and he had been the one who had personally procured six out of the thirteen of their current collection in English. Ollie tended to read all of the books he personally acquired…no matter how boring some of them may have ended up being.
Noble took a deep breath. “Which one to you seemed the most believable?”
He frowned. “Believable, as in, if I believed in such things as witches, which one, on reading it, would have me accusing someone?”
“Yes,” the man said, the word sounding almost somber.
What exactly did Noble do? Like, Ollie had always felt there was an air of mystery around him, but yet… The books he always picked out were witch-related—the overtly magical kind, and not necessarily wiccan related. And if they were not witch-related, they’d been geared towards the ‘supernatural’.
All very fun and entertaining subjects to research, for sure. He had to say, the books the man read were on the serious side of things, as most of the time, the authors believed what they wrote, instead of being the cash-grabbing gimmicks that most books on the subject were today. It was just…well… Ollie would admit, he was a bit of a skeptic when it came to such things.
Frankly, he thought all of it was a bunch of nonsense. He’d never really understood those monster and ghost hunter shows, or the supernatural podcasts. Ollie understood the entertainment value well enough, he just struggled to rationalize why anyone would actually believe any of it. So, he really was a bad person to ask this sort of question to.
“If…I believed in such things…” He pursed his lips as he thought over the diaries. “I suppose, authenticity-wise, they all have some bit of believability, just for the sheer fact that during those centuries, admitting to such a thing as magic use, even in a private diary, was risky. But if I were to choose one…the Diary of Annabel Cane, dating from October 16th, 1671 to July 10th, 1672.”
“Is there a reason you picked that one?” Noble asked.
“It’s because of how almost mundane, casual she was in the way she wrote about her daily life, alongside the supposed spells she used.
“Well, that and the increasing level of fear that emanated from her in the later entries. I would have likely assumed she didn’t exist, and that it was just a story told in diary format, if it wasn’t a provable fact that the poor woman was brutally murdered in her London home the day after her last entry.” Ollie wrinkled his nose. “We have an old news pamphlet in the Newspaper Archive that reports on her murder. The details are vague, but the words ‘unmet violence’ and ‘grotesque’ were used.”
Noble winced. “Let’s…start there…”