Chosen

Chapter Six

In the early morning hours, the village was dead. My body woke with the sun. A habit left over from the "before" days, I was sure. But not a bad one. It was peaceful to be the first out and about, to have the streets to myself and not worry about having to make awkward conversation with anyone along the way.

The palace guards were changing shift. I followed the two just getting off the night shift up to the palace entrance. They turned off just inside the courtyard, but I continued on inside into the vacant hallways and all the way to the library.

The room was dark and cold. I pulled back all of the curtains, but the effect was minimal.  The sun was content hiding behind the clouds.  I set to making a fire, cramming bits of the previous day's poetry into the cracks of the logs for kindling and setting the whole thing ablaze with my shiny new lighter.

I promised Gwenyth that I'd keep at the poetry and reserve library reorganization for my spare time, but I had no desire to sit in front of a blank page and drag out terrible words. Moving books was more difficult work, physically, but it was so much more appealing. The process was straightforward: take the books down, figure out the best way to organize them, put them back according to that system. I knew how to do it. There was the small matter of the time it would take to accomplish, but I had all the time in the world.

I approached the shelves and began phase one of the project by rolling up my sleeves and moving armloads of books from their current spots to the floor. I made it through almost an entire column of shelves before anyone arrives.

Edmund stood in the open space of the aisle and said, "What are you up to?" as he studied me curiously, his glasses perched on top of his head.

"Oh," I answered, dusting off my hands and wiping the sheen of sweat from my forehead. "I'm, uh, reorganizing. I've had a career change. I'm the librarian now. These..." I waved my hand toward the shelves, "are a mess. I'm going to fix it, but first I have to take everything off."

"I see." His forehead pinched into a set of horizontal lines. "Did you get permission for your, how did you call it, career change?"

"Yeah, last night." The words came out before I realized what they might have implied. I kept my face blank to prevent him reading too much into them.

His eyes skirted over my head to the shelves. "Looks like hard work."

"Books are heavy, but it's not big deal. I kinda like it. The movement...it's good."

"Right." He waited a beat before adding, "I have a lesson this morning, but it looks like rain out so he might not show. If I have some time on my hands, I'll help you out."

"Thanks. I'd appreciate that."

He nodded and went to his table, leaving me alone with my work. When Cully arrived, we shared a similar exchange, but there was no sight of Jonathan. Edmund joined me later when his pupil hadn't shown, and I asked about him. He regarded me blankly for a moment and then said, "Probably out on one of the patrols."

"Patrols?"

"Yes, they go out into the forest to look for anything...out of the ordinary. It's a safety precaution."

"On horses?"

"Usually. Why?"

I didn't know why. It was just an intuition that I had; a picture of boys on horseback riding through the forest. A memory, maybe. Running a hand through my hair, I shrugged and said, "I guess because walking would be tiring."

Cully joined us, and the work went quickly with so much help. The shelves cleared enough that I could see through to the other side of the room in spots.