Gosick

GosickS I - 4

chapter four — a golden fairy inhabits the top of the library

On a quiet evening in springtime, in St. Marguerite's Library...

The passage of many years was etched into the stone-hewn walls of this enormous repository of books, unrivaled in Western Europe. Beyond the leather-covered swing door, hammered through with round brass tacks, row after row of bookshelves encircled the central atrium. A feeling of absolute reverence permeated this space, as if wisdom, time, and stillness themselves had silently fallen upon the ground like a layer of heavy snow.

This was a sanctuary of knowledge hidden deep within the grounds of St. Marguerite's School, a distinguished institution nestled among the mountains of the small European country of Sauvure. For every day of the past three hundred years, it sat in cultivation of wondrous repose ... until now.

*****

"Are you serious?! Maxim is Cuiaran?!"

Far away at the top of that quiet library, just underneath the solemn religious fresco painted on the ceiling, resounded the piercing shout of a boy overcome with surprise. The countless books stacked along the walls, roused from their long sleep, seemed to slowly blink open their wrinkled eyes and gaze up at the ceiling as the queer noise ricocheted around the tower.

A narrow wooden staircase constructed in the form of an enormous labyrinth snaked precariously upward from the atrium below. Close to the distant ceiling above was a verdant conservatory, overgrown with tropical vegetation and enticing flowers in full bloom. The boy's voice seemed to be coming from somewhere around this conservatory, but...

"...Be quiet, Kujou!"

"B-but how is that possible?"

"How should I know?"

Alongside the innocent voice of the young boy, another voice rang out. It sounded husky, almost like that of an old woman, and yet was also strangely sonorous. That voice seemed to be savagely rebuffing the young boy. From the boy's direction came the response of an "Oh..." and a "Hmm...?" followed by a groan, until at last silence filled the library once more.

There in the conservatory, an Asian boy of small build and warm countenance sat on the floor holding his knees. In front of him was a tiny, exquisite doll.

The doll, in the form of a girl, was constructed at nearly life size at around one hundred and forty centimeters. A lavishly cumbersome dress swallowed her body up in billowing layers of white ladder lace and pink velvet ribbons. Her magnificent long blond hair spilled down to the floor like a velvet turban come undone. And her cool green eyes, set within her small, astonishingly well-proportioned face, radiated a venom that was nearly breathtaking in its coldness.

Heavy books lay open on the doll's lap, and yet more opened books sat scattered about her in all directions, spiraling around her small body like a ritualistic circle invoking some dark magic.

She took a puff from a ceramic pipe that she clenched in the delicate fingers of her pale hand, as a thin white strand of smoke lazily drifted toward the skylights....

*****

"I was really shocked when you said that Avril is the second Cuiaran.... But why do you think Maxim was the first one?"

In response to Kazuya's question, the doll Victorique—no, the girl, though she may have been petite enough and beautiful enough, not to mention impassive enough to be mistaken for a doll—gave her answer, albeit an impatiently stated one.

"The first Cuiaran disappeared all of a sudden seven or eight years ago. Maxim came back to the school every spring, but in the spring of eight years ago, was killed. And when Maxim's body was discovered, only then did the second Cuiaran appear.... Can you honestly call this mere coincidence?"