Brett was already unzipping his backpack. He pulled a book out, keeping the cover hidden, and thrust it at Levi, who accepted it gingerly. "What the heck you studying there, Levi?" Brett said, "Female anatomy?" He said in a hurried whisper, ears burning red.
"What?" Levi looked the book over. It was bound in green leather, about the size of a paperback. Small dark stones like red amber studded the binding. The pages, when he flipped it open, were handwritten in beautiful, even calligraphy. Incredibly detailed sketches of symbols, mystic circles, and strange creatures dotted the pages and crowded the margins. "Hey Brett, where'd you get this? It's pretty cool!" The writing was small and so ornate it took him awhile to figure out what it was saying:
There Nidhogg sucks the corpses of the dead, the wolf tears men
Understand ye yet, or what?
Further forward I see much; can I say of Ragnarok and the gods conflict?
Brothers shall fight and slay each other; cousins shall kinship violate
The earth resounds, the giantesses flee, no man will another spare.
"Hey, this is about Norse mythology!" Levi said excitedly. "Where did you say you got it?"
"What? Hand me that," Brett said. Levi handed it over, and Brett flipped through the pages. "Oh," he said in a slightly strangled voice. "I guess this is pretty cool."
"What'd you think it was Brett?" Levi asked curiously.
"You didn't read the cover? Look." Brett handed the book back, gesturing at a highly detailed, embossed Celtic tree. Beneath the tree were the words Prophecies of the Volva.
Levi laughed. "Oh yeah, I had the same reaction the first time I heard that. Emily told me that's the word for priestess in old German, or Norse, or whatever it was."
"Couldn't they have picked a better word?" Brett muttered to himself. "Emily stole it from the Librarian. Gave it to me in the hallway earlier."
"What?" Levi said curiously. "Why'd she do that? She could read any of the Librarian's books any time. The Librarian's sort of her mom, you know. Well, not really. It's difficult to explain." He continued flipping through the pages. On one, a great wolf-like creature, looking eerily like the kid-monster Brett had killed, stood quietly while a viking man with a winged helmet stuck his hand in its mouth. Twine wrapped around the monster's legs. "Hey Brett, does this one look familiar to you?"
Brett took the book back. "Yeah, it does." He kept flipping the pages. Another picture showed five grotesque, wide-mouthed little men leaping around a huge black cauldron. "And these look really close to the goblins I fought last year." Brett looked up, suspicion in his eyes. "You talked to her."
"What? No!" Levi said quickly, but he could see Brett didn't believe him.
"I trusted you!" Brett kept his voice to a whisper, but Levi shrank back. Brett's face was angry-red, his fists clenched. He flung the book to the floor, where it smacked and slid a short distance away.
"Dude, no I didn't!" Levi's own face started turning red. "I can't believe you would think that!"
"Then how does Emily know exactly what book to give me that has exactly the right kind of stuff in it?" Brett's asked bitterly. "Tell me that, huh?"
"Emily just knows things! It's like a superpower!" Levi shot back, "Or, maybe she just thought I'd like to read it. I don't know! Come on, you gotta believe me."
"No," Brett said, turning away. "That was a crap move, Levi." He started walking quickly away.
Levi was left, mouth open, standing on the steps, book down the staircase below him. Slowly he went down the stairs, picked up the book, and stuck it in his own backpack. He didn't know what to do, so instead he did nothing. After a couple more hours, when the school lights started turning off, he decided he should probably head home.
Levi didn't notice the two forms shadowing him on his way out.
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