Summoning Stone

Chapter 1

Sweeping auburn hair up and twisting it into a bun, Tessa secured it with a clip. Her warm brown eyes scanned the bookshelves as they had many times before. A conspicuously empty portion of the large shelf in front of her almost made her laugh a little. Of course it was only that those books were being examined by Dr. Harper and/or other of the grad students, but the gap in the otherwise packed library seemed funny for some reason.

Tessa had an odd sense of humor. She was aware of this. As a person intending to spend her life with her nose in old books, she didn't see a problem with it. Books don't judge.

"Hi Andrew," she greeted the undergrad as she came around the center bookshelf. She then asked the obligatory question: "Are you feeling better?"

Andrew looked up from packing some of the older, more fragile books into opaque, air-tight boxes. "Hi. Yeah, thanks," he smiled and then looked down to secure the lid. When he had, he straightened and his hand gravitated to his belly. "You need something?" he offered.

"Mm," she made a sound to acknowledge she heard the question, but didn't immediately answer him. Her attention was drawn by a cabinet built into the bottom two feet of one of the shelves. She hadn't seen it open before.

Andrew followed her gaze, looked back at her, and then opened the next box to continue what he was doing.

The cabinet was peculiar. While it was of the same dark-stained oak as the shelves, the inside of the doors had iron bars. It looked like reinforcements, like one would see on oversized church or castle doors. The matching cabinet on the other side of the room, which held decanters, didn't have the iron.

Tessa took a few steps closer. From the spines of the books lined up on the top of the two shelves, it was apparent that these were occult. That actually made sense since the shelves above the cabinet held religious works spanning many faiths. She supposed these were hidden to avoid giving visitors the wrong impression.

She moved closer, still. On the bottom shelf were oversized books lying on their sides in a stack. Three of them. None of the spines were labeled and the leather binding them looked very old, though in fairly good condition.

Crouching in front of the cabinet, she pulled gloves from her pocket and slipped them on. The leather of the top book had greened. She picked it up, but only to carefully extract the one below it. There was no reason to be drawn to one book over the others, but she wanted this one.

The middle book was bound with grey leather that had cracked in a pattern that looked like hardened lava. When she moved it out to get a better look at it, the scent of rock dust blossomed. But not a chalky, choke on the air kind of dust. Sweet. A slate path cracking underfoot.

Standing up, she rested the book against her middle and adjusted it carefully in her arms. If the book had once been labeled across the front, it was illegible now. There were four holes where a bracket might have been, decorating or providing a means to lock the book. Somehow the rust stains around them looked like they belonged. It was the same on the back.

Carefully pulling open the cover, she looked at the unusually dark pages. Age typically yellowed vellum, but these had become a grey brown, which made the ink nearly disappear. The same was true for the next page and the next, but even so Tessa felt compelled to spend her time with this tome.

Still looking at the barely legible text, she started to drift back to the door. Losing the light meant she had even more trouble making anything out but even so didn't close the book.

Behind her, as she turned to get around the large bookshelf, Andrew moved to close the cabinet. The lock clicked.

Tessa made her way upstairs with the book. The bedrooms were co-opted as offices by the grad students. She had claimed the one at the end of the hall, away from everybody else. It had a beautiful view of the woods.