The Guardian

Emily and the Librarian drove home in silence. Every once in awhile Emily would glance over nervously at the stately, tall woman, but saying anything might give too much away.

She hated it; hated the silence that had grown between them in the past couple months. When she was younger, first adopted by the Librarian, Emily had felt like she could tell her guardian anything. In turn, the Librarian had told her secrets, incredible, marvelous, beautiful secrets, about the reality of other worlds. Secrets she had sworn never to tell another.

But now it was different. Emily reached over and turned on the radio. Sweet, rapid notes dancing in sorrowful sweeps and bounds filled the car.

"Mozart's Requiem. Rather vivacious, that man. Ahead of his times," the Librarian remarked.

"Did you ever meet him?" Emily asked, more to fill the silence than anything.

"Of course. I spent some time in Vienna during that century, so I was well established in the court when he made his first appearance." The Librarian smiled in reminiscence. "Nobody quite knew what to make of him. A man of many foibles, outrageous by the day's standards. You might have liked him."

"Hm," Emily said, and returned to staring out the window.

She knew what was going on, and she couldn't tell them. "What did you give Levi?" Emily asked abruptly.

"A simple rune, nothing more," The librarian said.

"But Levi's full mortal. Why would you give him actual magic?"

"Several reasons." The Librarian's voice was flecked with annoyance, and Emily saw her mouth tighten a fraction. "You know I can't tell you any more, Emily. Stop pressing the point."

"You're not supposed to give mortals magic, and you did that as well. Guardian, I need to know what's going on."

"I don't half know myself, and I can't have you interfering in things you don't understand and are little prepared to face." They pulled up to their home, but neither made a move to climb out of the car.

Emily stared up at the tall, Victorian, 3 story house, tucked in behind vine covered fences, pine trees, and birches. A carpet of bright green damp grass ran right up to the doorstep. If the yard and gardens in the back weren't so obviously well-tended, the place could have easily fit into a movie of ancient horrors. Cracked paint the color of wistfulness flaked from the wooden panels, and the rust-brown shingles of the steep roof huddled beneath curved iron trellises. Most of the rooms were dark, storage places for weapons, ancient and priceless artifacts from every place the Librarian had lived in her long centuries, and books. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of ancient works clung to every wall and created a maze with endless bookshelves. Only the two bedrooms on the top floor and the kitchen on the bottom were truly used for living. Emily wondered what Levi might think if she actually showed him where she lived. Living with the Librarian meant allot of strange rules, and one of them was that nobody could ever know the actual location of their house. Not even the postal service, which was always asked to deliver things to the school.

Finally the Librarian sighed. "Emily, when I can tell you more, I shall, but right now the situation is too delicate, too volatile. You're going to have to bottle up that insatiable curiosity for once. Just trust me."

Emily grimaced and popped the car door open without another word. The Librarian sighed after a moment and followed her charge to the back of the car, where a moment later they were unloading the books.

The books were unusual, as the house was unusual, as the Librarian and Emily herself were unusual. Many were written in unearthly tongues, unheard for centuries and forgotten. Many were completely mundane, other than their incredible age and beautiful state of preservation. A few, like the ones the Librarian had ordered shipped to the school, were actually magic. One of those was missing.

Emily hoped against hope that the Librarian wouldn't notice its absence.