Marie awoke at 10:30 the following morning, eyes bleary from sleeping far more than usual. She was afraid she’d crushed her glasses by not removing them before she’d fallen out of the waking world, but they remained on her face (though it took her a few moments to realize this). Her dreams had been nothing but dancing shadows, as though cast by a flame in the dark night. She didn’t remember enough of them to really understand, yet all the same the visions had left her with a strange feeling deep-seated unease.
She tried sitting up, her neck rather sore...in fact, all of her body was, though this was hardly surprising – she’d slept well, and long, but a different level of exhaustion still plagued her, almost like a feverish fatigue. With a little willpower and a groan, she managed to lever herself to a more-or-less upright position, arching her back in an involuntary stretch. Marie knew her Philosophy class at 11 was drawing near, but she was willing to sacrifice her near-perfect attendance in favour of staying actively occupied elsewhere – often, being in class gave one too long to think, and though she felt the need to fathom what had happened, sitting silently in public wasn’t the best way to do it.
She nodded to herself, firmly, deciding that perhaps going to the library and doing some research on something – anything, really – would ease her thoughts a little bit; she could do so until 13:00, and then eat a late lunch before orchestra practice two hours later. But first things first...she felt rather unclean, having slept in her day-clothing, as soaked and probably dirty as it was from the day prior; a long shower, and a trip to the laundry room on the first floor of Goëthe.
The floor was ridiculously cold, as usual, as she made her way slowly across her dormitory room; for now, she’d put on the shirt and long skirt of the school uniform, as her jacket – she only had one – would need to be washed first. Her shoes sitting forlornly by the hall door were in a terrible need of polishing, she noticed, but that wasn’t so much uniform requirements (especially in the winter) but her own compulsion for cleanliness.
Marie shrugged, and carried the day’s garments into the bathroom with her; the space was primarily occupied by the shower, a spartan white affair that looked rather like something from the American 1920’s, except that it worked. The sink was proportionately archaic-looking, over which a blackwood-framed mirror hung slightly at an angle...it hung on the wall in such a way that one could never quite get it balanced right on the nail. It didn’t bother her too much, as the only times she really looked in it were to brush her teeth, and to judge her hair when she rarely did more with it than tie it back.
Marie did the former for a longer period than usual, since she’d not done so the night before; this accomplished, she undressed – remembering to put her glasses on the sink’s edge – while running a little water into the tub of the shower to test the temperature. The plumbing in Goëthe was, needless-to-say, rather outdated, and for the first moments of running anything, the pressure and temperature were anything but predictable. Today, too, even after getting fully in the water, it didn’t feel nearly as warm as usual until she’d turned the hot tap up a fair bit more; it was fairly likely that the still bitterly-cold weather had formed ice on the inside of the pipes that fed the boiler in the basement.
She let her mind wander while she showered, feeling the physical relief she’d expected, but none of the mind-relaxing tendencies bathing had. A feeling of weakness persisted in her limbs, and she could almost feel her subconscious running in swift circles, an undercurrent beneath the calm she’d imposed on her waking thoughts. Marie was certain that it hadn’t really hit her yet, so to speak...surely losing one’s mind, if only for a few hours after a sharp blow to the head, was no small concern. The worst part of it was that she had no-one to talk to about it...Hänschen briefly crossed her mind, but while he might’ve been there on the train, she doubted he would understand her having a complete mental failure. Not to mention it would be definite incentive for him to avoid her, unless he was randomly used to girls dreaming of drinking their parents’ blood, and speaking with demons, above all, and scaring one of her few potential friends off was not something she wanted to do.
Then again, she thought as she turned off the water at length, he had been reading a book that was surely occult-based, or he was learning random Hebrew names for no reason in particular...he didn’t seem the type for the latter. As for the names Samael and Lilith themselves, she still couldn’t place them with anything in mythology, Christian or otherwise. Maybe that’s what she’d look up in the library? Either way, she had to go across campus.
Marie decided there wasn’t much point in wearing a jacket today. Though the rain and ice had stopped falling, she doubted greatly that the wind was any less penetrating, and if she made a full sprint to the church and library building, surely the cold would have just as much effect anyways; laundry could wait. She dressed quickly, nearly falling over twice putting on her socks while standing, re-entering her bedroom.
That’s when it happened again, briefly. It was just a flash, nothing coherent, but her room flickered in and out, much as everything had done so at her family’s house the day before...she momentarily lost her balance, her right shoulder supporting her weight against the bathroom doorframe. She blinked several times, trying to clear her eyesight, but the whatever-it-was had already faded. The unnerved sensation tried to rise again, but she suppressed it, reasoning she was just too stressed, and of course she was going to think she was continuing to freak out...she’d just blinked, or maybe something had reflected sunlight into her window at just the right angle. This didn’t really make sense, as her room faced away eastwards into the forest instead of inwards to the campus lawns, but she took the theory and ran with it.
Marie put on her shoes at some length, having to untie them first; why it was easy to take one’s foot out of a tied shoe but not to put one’s foot in a tied shoe was beyond her. She picked up her bag, on second thought emptying everything but a single notebook and a pen and pencil onto her bed, making a mental note to go through her things later in the evening and sort them out a bit...the knife, too, demanded some examination, but she didn’t feel right doing so just yet...her copy of Faust she snatched up and set on the bedside table, its usual resting place. She nodded, making sure there was nothing else to do before she set out, and then promptly did so.
As with most Monday mornings, the campus was devoid of all sound, especially within the dormitories since most students were either still abed at this hour, in class, or if they happened to be awake and about, too dejected by the prospect of another week of school. Her footfalls echoed loudly as she descended the stairs on the northern end of the building, glancing out of each window at the landings. The campus lay beneath a blanket of actual snow, as opposed to ice and rain, and she whispered a silent thanks to the powers above for what blessing must have fallen while she’d been asleep. The concrete walks, too, had been shovelled off, punctuated every few meters by large drifts of snow piled against the sparse lampposts. The sky, however, maintained its dreary shade of grey, and the wind was certainly still accompanying the subzero temperatures.
Marie ran the straight walk diagonally from the door of Goëthe to the steps of the church, beating the cold, carefully placing her black shoes to avoid patches of ice that lay around the dimples and cracks in the stone. Father Vollschaft had thankfully started a mediocre blaze in the fireplace by the entrance to the building, a warm smell of burning, dry wood floating about in the air. There was a strong hint of cinnamon, too, though this was probably from the library, the handiwork of the old and decrepit Stephan Weintrauber. God only knew what possessed the aging scholar to assume that such scents as cinnamon, lavender and various other archaic concoctions would inspire students to do anything but feel a little bit romantic, but Marie was fairly pleased with the end result – the library didn’t smell horrifically like books.
The library itself was possessing of two rooms, in a way; as one entered the door to the right of the church entrance, the desk – Weintrauber’s sanctuary – sat to the left, and beyond that was a small enclosed corner office from which the librarian’s scratchy classical records could be heard playing softly. Further inwards, row by row of three-shelved bookcases were tightly packed, the space between hardly accommodating one person to pass another. The lights were dim, hanging lantern-shaped fixtures at intervals that permitted the mostly-ancient books’ covers to be read with a little effort, probably in keeping with the aesthetics of the church sanctuary on the other side of the far-left wall; all-in-all, the library as a whole gave off an almost completely-Gothic air, and sometimes she wondered why the school hadn’t just given in and outright used candles.
But her favourite section was the one up the stairs in the back. A small, spiralling black-iron stair led up the furthest wall to a landing of sorts; flush against the railing was a tall, dark wooden bookcase that ran from floor to the ceiling. Once in this upper space, one could see the books thereon, and Marie always delighted in the selection – there were books in strange subjects, from obscure histories in German myth, to bound collections of sheet music, and an extensive set of antique pieces of literature; one of her most-read was a series of Norse myths, transcribed into the German epics that Richard Wagner had composed for the stage, second only to a book of Goëthe’s poetry and plays that she’d permanently secured with the librarian’s permission.
People rarely went up into chamber, lit only by a single oil lamp that hung from the ceiling and by the round blue-and-gold abstract stained-glass window, whether out of disinterest or fear; many of the lighter mythological works and religious examinations had fresh, more modern editions that could be found on the main floor, and when an assignment dictated, students generally opted to have the librarian go up and obtain what they needed. Marie had a silent understanding with the old man, though; the room of exposed wooden beams in the soft glow of a lamp and diffused wintry light had become her second home, in a way. She came here to think, to dream, and occasionally to sleep if the noise conditions in Goëthe dictated.
Weintrauber was absent this time as she entered the library; he’d probably gone back to the faculty housing, where likelihood was that he’d nod off unintentionally for several hours, returning to the library for the evening. She proceeded to the back of the main room, climbing the stairs slowly; the handrail was cold to the touch, though the air was reasonably warm. Reaching the top, she breathed a sigh of relief, and then almost immediately thereafter bumped into someone.
prev chapter
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Subscribe
Flag Writing
