Page 20 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
“Why are you looking atmelike that? Why should I do it?”
“I wasn’t looking at you. But now that you mention it?—”
“I reckonyoushould unwrap it, Alex. You had explosives training in the war, didn’t you?”
“My only experience with bombs was nearly getting hit by them.”
Gabe pushed past them. “I’ll do it.”
Their protests reverberated off the surrounding buildings, but before Gabe could reach the parcel, the library door opened from the other side. Professor Nash stood on the threshold. The parcel toppled over and landed on his toes.
“I thought I heard voices.” He picked up the parcel and slipped the card out. “It’s addressed to you, Sylvia. It’s a book, if I’m not mistaken.”
Willie huffed as she thumped Alex on the arm. “Told you it was nothing.”
Alex rolled his eyes.
I unwrapped the parcel at the front desk. It was indeed a book, filled with pages infused with strong magic. The book wasn’t particularly large or thick, but the black leather cover was smooth from years of handling. Inside, the pages were in good condition thanks to the magic, but the book was old according to the date written on the first page.
A thousand years old.
CHAPTER 5
We took the book to the first-floor reading nook, the larger of the two reading areas in the library. Light drenched the desk near the arched window, allowing us to inspect the pages closely. Some of the ink had faded, but most of the text was still legible.
The powerful paper magic seemed to ooze from every page, but it wasn’t my area of expertise that was required to understand the contents. Professor Nash’s knowledge of the ornate script and ancient spelling meant he was the only one who could read the title page.
He bent over it, adjusting his spectacles to get a better look. “It’s in Latin.Liber Familiae.”
“Book of the Family,” Gabe translated. He pointed to the word beneathLiber Familiae. “This looks likeHendreau.”
The professor pushed his glasses up his nose as he squinted at the faint text. “Yes, it is.” He straightened and gave me the same degree of scrutiny he’d given the book. “The French form of Hendry, I suppose.”
I wasn’t altogether surprised. The card attached to the parcel had my name on it, and I’d already heard about the family journal that Melville Hendry had taken. “The Hendrysisters mentioned this. They were looking for it at Melville’s flat yesterday. Apparently, it’s passed down to the strongest male magician in the family. Given there are no male Hendry magicians of my generation, it has come to me.”
Willie had been inspecting the book, but she suddenly straightened. “If Hendry had it, how did he know to bring it here? How does he know aboutyou?” Her nostrils flared. “You met him, didn’t you?”
“We spoke this morning.”
Professor Nash gasped, “That’s wonderful, Sylvia.”
Willie scowled. “Where is he staying? He should be arrested?—”
“Willie!” Gabe snapped. “Sylvia doesn’t know where to find him.”
She looked like she would protest again, but a glare from Gabe silenced her. Well, almost. She did mutter something under her breath that I didn’t quite hear.
Alex had been carefully turning the pages of the book, but suddenly stopped and flipped back and forth. “All of these early pages are in another language. Latin, I presume. They’re also written with the same handwriting, using the same ink.” He pointed to some of the letters that were indeed identical. “That suggests they were written by the same person. But these are dates, yes? And they’re all different.”
The Latin was beyond me, but Gabe and the professor had been educated in the language and confirmed Alex’s suspicion. They were different dates, spanning hundreds of years.
Professor Nash pointed to a word at the top of a page, then turned to the next one and pointed at another written in the top corner. “And these are places, if I’m not mistaken, both in France and England.”
Alex took over again. “Then after about halfway, the handwriting changes, and the ink, too. It changes every page ortwo. And from here,” he turned to a page about three-quarters of the way through the book, “I can read it. The words are in English and the formation of the letters more modern.”
Willie shrugged. “What does that mean?”
“It means the first part was transcribed by one person from another document.”
