Stenrik
The magic inside hits me—a dizzying wave of intoxication and chaos. The air tastes of lightning.
Someone has activated the Chronicle.
The solstice is in three days. The timing could not be worse.
“Poof? Kitty? Where did you go? I have tuna!”
The voice comes from the reference section—female, young, thoroughly intoxicated based on the slurred edges of her words.
She stands beside the circulation desk, swaying slightly. A wine bottle in one hand, a can of tuna in the other. Her glasses sit crooked on her nose, held together with adhesive tape. Her hair escapes from what was probably once a bun in seventeen different directions.
“Mister Poofypants, this is not funny! I’m having a very weird night and I need emotional support!”
She turns, sees me, and drops both bottle and can. The bottle bounces—plastic, apparently—and rolls to my feet, leaving a trail of pink liquid. The can rolls under the desk, where something orange and massive hisses at it.
“Oh my God, you’re tall.” She blinks several times, pushing her glasses up her nose with one finger. They immediately slide back down. “Why are you so tall? Are those ears? Why do you have—is that frost? Are you literally frosting? Like a cake but a person?”
“You activated the Chronicle.” I pick up the wine bottle, gingerly.
She spins around so quickly she nearly falls, catching herself on the desk.
Her palm lands in a puddle of what smells like old coffee.
“I catalogued a book! It’s my job! I’m a librarian!
We read things!” She grabs a tissue and wipes her hand, then immediately starts straightening the papers on the desk into perfect right angles.
“You read an ancient treaty aloud. You made libations.” I set the bottle on the desk. The plastic cracks from the cold, liquid leaking through the fissures.
“I am not drunk! I’m... festively enhanced. And I can still do the alphabet backwards. Z, Y, X... W... something with a V...”
Through the window, I observe shapes gathering in the storm. Dark shapes that move incorrectly, like shadows that gained mass but forgot how physics works. They press against the glass, leaving smears of something that might be condensation but looks more like longing.
“We need to—” I stop. An enormous orange cat has materialized on the desk, fixing me with a glare of pure malevolence. One paw bats at the cracked wine bottle, sending more pink liquid spreading across the papers. “Why is your cat so hostile?”
“That’s Mister Poofypants the Third. He glares at everyone. It’s his thing.” She scoops the cat up with surprising strength, considering her size and intoxication level. The cat’s back feet dangle comically, but he allows it.
“Mister... Poofypants.”
“The Third,” she confirms, setting him down. He immediately sits on my foot. The weight is... significant.
“Why would anyone—” Something scrapes against the window. Long. Deliberate. Like fingernails, if fingernails were made of frozen regret. “We must complete the ritual.”
“I’m sorry, we must what now?” She backs up until she hits the desk again, sending more papers sliding into the coffee puddle. Her hands immediately go to reorganizing them even as she talks.
“The treaty between your world and mine requires renewal regularly. On the solstice. With proper preparation and ceremony. Not on a random night by someone who has been drinking...” I sniff, immediately regretting it. The smell makes my sinuses attempt to close in self-defense. “What is that?”
“Sweet Berry Sunset. It was on sale.” She retrieves the cracked bottle, seemingly unbothered by the cold radiating from it.
“It smells like someone dissolved sugar in poor decisions.”
“Yes, well, when your life gets turned upside down by cheating jerks, the list of decisions gets a little questionable.”
Another scrape. Longer. More insistent. The frost on the windows cracks, forming patterns like reaching hands.
“Your personal distress is irrelevant. The shadow creatures gathering outside—”
“Shadow creatures?” She moves to the window, stumbling over the cat who has decided to walk directly under her feet.
“—are extremely relevant. You opened a door. They can sense it.”
She presses her face against the glass, fogging it with her breath. “Those are just tree branches.”
“Trees do not draw faces.”
As if to prove my point, something drags across the glass, leaving marks in the frost that form a crude smiley face. If smiley faces were designed by things that had only heard descriptions of human faces third-hand and thought eyes should possibly have teeth.
The woman makes a sound like a stepped-on mouse toy and grabs the nearest weapon, which happens to be the Chronicle. She holds it like a club, which would be more threatening if she weren’t swaying. “What do they want?”
“Entry. Your world possesses things they cannot obtain in mine. Substance. Form. The feeling of existing instead of merely lingering. They want warmth, light, memories that are not frozen.”
Something hits the window hard enough to crack it. The sound echoes through the library like a gunshot. The woman jumps backward, directly into me. I steady her automatically, my hands on her shoulders, and she makes a small sound of surprise.
“Your hands are freezing!”
“I am aware.” But I do not remove them immediately. Her warmth is... pleasant.
Another impact. The crack spreads like a spider web across the window. The shadow creature presses what might be a face against the glass, features shifting like smoke trying to remember what faces should look like.
“We must reinforce the boundary,” I say, guiding her away from the window. “Immediately.”
“How?”
“Salt. Creates a secondary barrier.”
“There’s probably some in the break room. The bottom shelf that no one’s cleaned since the previous century.” She leads the way, weaving slightly, using the wall for support. One hand trails along it, and I notice she’s still organizing—straightening every crooked poster we pass.
The break room is a monument to human apathy. Expired food, a coffee maker that may be sentient and hostile, and indeed, a container of salt that has congealed into a solid mass. She hands it to me, and I have to break it apart with my fingers, ice making it brittle enough to crumble.
“Will this work?”
“It is not ideal. But it will suffice.”
“Oh good, the magic ritual is a salt snob too.” She takes the salt and begins pouring it across the doorway, managing to create what resembles a line if one is generous with the definition. Most of it ends up on her shoes. “So, um, what’s your name?”
“Stenrik.”
“I’m Rianne.” She moves to the next window, tripping over the same warped floorboard twice.
“I am aware.” I gesture to her nameplate, which is decorated with cat stickers and what appears to be a hand-drawn middle finger labeled “Monday Mood.”
“Right. Of course. Very observant, Stenrik the ice elf.”
“Vetrfolk.”
“Right. Sorry. Vetrfolk.” She continues pouring salt, creating patterns that would make any self-respecting protection circle weep. “What’s the difference anyway?”
“Elves are diminutive. Cheerful. They make toys and cookies.”
“And Vetrfolk?”
“We are winter incarnate. Ancient guardians of the boundary between worlds.”
“Who track WiFi-stealing shadow creatures.”
“That is... not typical.”
Another crack in the window. The shadows are becoming impatient. One has what appears to be a clipboard, though I cannot imagine why.
Four days. I must keep her alive for four days, despite her apparent determination to injure herself on every available surface.
The Chronicle sits innocently on the desk, but I’ve seen its true nature. This will not be a simple renewal.
This will change everything.