I laid under Doloise for what seemed like hours, but was probably less than a minute.\u00a0 It’s amazing how time slows down when you’re being scrutinized.\u00a0 The funny thing, of a whole list of things I would find hilarious if they hadn’t been happening to me, was that I was far, far more scared of Doloise and what she might do than any magical amulet.<\/p>\n
Doloise was saying something about snakes when I struggled enough under her for her to determine that indeed, it was time to let me up.\u00a0 Snakes?\u00a0 I listened a little bit more closely.\u00a0 The amulet was a beautiful silver circle with a medusae-like image.\u00a0 Ah.\u00a0 Coil Serpentine.\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas slept with an old woman named Adelinda who was obsessed with snake and dragon magics, and I learned a tiny bit.\u00a0 She was constantly harassed by Ophite cultists, which is why Thomas had gotten involved with her…but maybe I had been knocked on the head which is why I was thinking more about how to work in the classic Indiana Jones line rather than why Doloise tried to “protect me.”<\/p>\n
“We are not,” Doloise continued, “what you think.”<\/p>\n
Melusine.\u00a0 “Silence, Zmei.”<\/p>\n
One of the elderly fellows stood up.\u00a0\u00a0 “And the flames of infinity are so transparent, And the entire abyss of ether is so close, That I gaze direct from time into eternity…And recognize your flame, universal sun.” <\/span>I recognized it from one of the poems I had memorized for this meeting, “By life tormented, and by cunning hope,” by… Afanasii Fet?\u00a0 Something like that.<\/p>\n “I am not that one,” Doloise said, but her gaze was pointed down.<\/p>\n “I was thinking something more `Thomas the Rhymer,’ myself,” I said aloud, as if to prove I was really here.\u00a0 “But she’s not that, either.\u00a0 She’s here because she owes me.”<\/p>\n “Servant?” The woman asked.<\/p>\n “Guardian and guide,” Doloise said.\u00a0 You could almost guess her mood from the angry tone she put into the words, but I couldn’t tell where the anger was really directed.\u00a0 Maybe I had a guilty conscience.\u00a0 I moved closer to her, anyway, and Sullen Boy moved away from the wall.<\/p>\n “Am I in danger?”<\/p>\n “I could not take the risk,” she said.\u00a0 “These people are?”<\/p>\n “Simple poets,” the other elderly man, who had been working at the computer, spoke up, scooting away and looking at me.\u00a0 It was the fellow who had told me to come, and he had the same hint of an accent the woman did.\u00a0 “Thank you for…” he chose the word, “attending.\u00a0 The excitement is…” another choice, “it is a good change.\u00a0 But you should have come alone,” he said, shaking his finger at me.<\/p>\n I shrugged in the eternal, “Well, it wasn’t my idea,” expression.\u00a0 The teenager got it.<\/p>\n “What are you?” the woman asked.<\/p>\n “My name is,” well, it’s Eastern European anyway, so I dropped it.\u00a0 “But most folks call me ‘E.'”<\/p>\n “You are the Closer,” Sullen Boy finally spoke up.\u00a0 He didn’t have a hint of an accent.\u00a0 “Not like the chick on TV,” he amended.<\/p>\n I nodded.\u00a0 Hey, sometimes it’s good to have a reputation.<\/p>\n “He’s the one,” the young man continued.\u00a0 “He showed the kikimora–”<\/p>\n I interrupted. “I didn’t know,” I started to explain.\u00a0 This could be awkward.<\/p>\n “The way home,” the older gentleman who had welcomed me concluded SB’s sentence with a Look.\u00a0 That didn’t need any translation.\u00a0 “It is not a bad thing,” he said to me.\u00a0\u00a0 “You brought peace.”<\/p>\n That’s me, an agent of magical perestroika.\u00a0 Glasnost for ghosts.\u00a0 Having exhausted a vocabulary I was sure I hadn’t gotten completely right, I brushed some imaginary carpet lint off my clothes and chose a chair.\u00a0\u00a0 Something made me think he hadn’t chosen me just to share stories around an electronic campfire.\u00a0 He needed something.<\/p>\n Their eyes watched me, but Doloise was a concern, too.\u00a0 I patted the seat next to me.\u00a0 Good doggy.\u00a0 Good dangerous, dangerous otherworldly thing.\u00a0 Behave.<\/p>\n “We come to the library,” the man began, “to share wisdom.”<\/p>\n Doloise nodded, sharply, as if she had heard something important.\u00a0 I watched the guy who had spoken the translation I remembered.\u00a0 He sat down again, but his eyes were on the woman.<\/p>\n “This is Nellie,” the fellow who invited me pointed to the woman.\u00a0 “Andrei,” he referred to the poetry-speaking gentleman, “Artur,” the young man (SB), and “I am Viktor.\u00a0 We have others, not all who make it each week.\u00a0 There are always…”<\/p>\n “Forces at work?” I offered the cliche.<\/p>\n “Yes, that would be it.\u00a0\u00a0 The library has knowledge in it, which makes it a safer place to meet than a home.”<\/p>\n I understood all he wasn’t saying, too.\u00a0 Thresholds and that magical feel to things.\u00a0 Something between public and private, in a strange way.\u00a0 There were, well, the library was like an onion.<\/p>\n Or an ogre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They don’t speak poetry, unless you mean curses, they just mutter and make you think the …worses. 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