Trans Witch: College of Secrets Read online

  Lily straightened up at the last word out of the woman's mouth and said, "I am not a man!"

  The woman pulled spectacles from the top of her head and over her eyes and approached Lily, standing much too close to her, squinting. "Eh. If you say so."

  Lily felt her face grow hot, her pulse pounding in her ears. "It is the truth! I am a transgender woman, but a woman all the same!"

  The woman cackled. "The truth, is it? How can we know the truth?" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the Library's entrance. "One hundred and twenty thousand books in there, filled with millions of words. But how many of them are truth? How can you know that?"

  Lily folded her arms across her chest. "I am a woman because I say I am. Because that's what I know myself to be. You may disagree, and you might use some of those books to back up your assertion, but no one may define who I am better than myself."

  The woman considered this and nodded. "Good, good! You'll do. Come on in and we'll get started."

  Lily hesitated, then said, "Professor Bucher?"

  "Yes, that's me. And I know who you are. And now we've established what you are, young lady. So, we have that to work from. But there's much work to be done! Come, come! The fish need feeding, the stacks need calming, and the kindling needs stoking!"

  For a moment, as she entered the Library with her new boss, Lily thought that she must have come to the wrong place. She didn't see any books or shelves right away. The ceiling was made up of glass blocks that glowed with sunlight from above. People milled about from one area to another. The central portion of the entry room of the Library was dominated by a large firepit and an enormous tank of water, each of which was ringed by a surrounding ledge. People stood or sat in chairs around these large circular areas, staring into the fire or the water.

  One of the students approached Lily and Professor Bucher. They wore shortalls, leggings, and a red long-sleeved t-shirt. They said, "Professor Bucher, the fish have gone dim, can you help? I need to read Jaisonne's Treatise on Alchemical Dissolution, and it's only in the archives."

  Bucher said, "Yes, I was just about to have my new assistant feed them. Please be patient." she then guided Lily to a cupboard from which she produced a family-sized cereal box labeled, "Fiche Flakes", with hundreds of tiny hungry-looking cartoon fish printed on it. She pointed to a stepladder and walked back towards the enormous tank.

  Lily picked up the stepladder and followed, still confused.

  The Librarian stopped at an unoccupied section of the curved tank and pointed where Lily should place the stepladder. "Now, only sprinkle a cup or so in there. Too much, and the contrast gets too dark."

  Lily set down the stepladder and peered into the tank. It swirled with clouds of inky black fish, each almost too small to see. "Fish? What do tiny fish have to do with a library?"

  Professor Bucher let out a weary sigh. She tapped the glass and said, "The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe, please."

  Fish swam in from the near vicinity of the glass, swirling into a rectangular cloud that soon resolved itself into stationary fish, suckered to the side. Each made up a dot, and the dots formed words and a monochrome picture of a raven.

  Lily gasped, realizing she looked at the first page of Poe's famous poem. "That's marvelous!"

  "The Archive is an enchanted stone at the center of this tank. It contains more information than all the paper books in the library. To show this information, however, it is locked in symbiosis with tens of millions of near-microscopic fish. The fish need to be fed a few times a day to keep them motivated and helpful. Now up the ladder you go!"

  Lily took the box of Fiche Flakes from Bucher and climbed the ladder. As she peered out over the top edge of the glass tank, she thought she caught a green glimmer of light towards the center. "This is really amazing, it's similar to how we archive information on computers—"

  "Do you think I live here in the Library? I have a home on the West side of town, myself. I've got a laptop. We just keep all this information off of computers because it wouldn't do for it to leak into the outside world, hmm?"

  "No, right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed. It just feels like a different world in SOAM, you know?" Lily shook the box of flakes ever so gently and glittery powder of every possible color spilled out and spread across the surface of the water. The fish made the water fizz with activity as they fought with one another to gobble up the minute bits of food.

  "That's more than enough, Ms. Shelley," said the Librarian.

  Lily descended the ladder and set about putting it and the flakes away. "Professor Shelley," she said.

  "I see you've remembered that SOAM is a part of the greater world, where you are a professor, despite your lack of magical training. And I shop at a grocery store, despite my title and talents. Well done!"

  Lily frowned. "Do you give everyone such a hard time on their first day?"

  Bucher barked out a laugh. "You think this is a hard time? This is a place of knowledge, of learning! I expect everyone, even staff members, to learn something! And you are new here, so you have much to learn. Oh yes, much, much to learn!"

  Lily swallowed a lump of resentment and said, "Very well. I don't know what a big firepit is doing in a library. Isn't that hazardous? Especially for the actual books, assuming you have any?"

  "Oh, we have books. This is what you'd call the multimedia center, here up front. As I said, the kindling needs tending. Grab some of those logs behind the counter. The interns brought them along just in time."

  Lily spied a small pile of split wood where Bucher pointed. She piled the wood into a wheeled carrier nearby and trundled it all over to the fire pit.

  "Odd that it's not much warmer this close to the flames," said Lily.

  "Arcane fire burns brightly but not as hot, and uses much less fuel," said Bucher.

  "Sort of like LED light bulbs?"

  "Eh? Hmm, I suppose. Now please pile the logs on one at a time, with care. Wouldn't do to stir it up too much all at once. Might disrupt the viewers."

  Lily did as she was instructed, picking up a single piece of wood to toss it onto the fire. Nearby, she watched students staring into the flames, making odd motions with their hands, as though turning pages, parting curtains, or shutting a cupboard. The chunk of wood disappeared into the coals, as though swallowed whole. The flames leaped and brightened, and Lily stepped back reflexively. She examined her clothing for sparks or burns but found herself unmarked.

  "Okay, next time, just set the log in, don't throw it," said Bucher.

  "I guess I'm not used to fire being harmless like this," said Lily, still watching the strange gesticulations of the students staring into the fire. "What are they doing, anyway?"

  "As I said, this is the multi-media area. They're engaging in deeply immersive environments to experience information with all their senses. As a historian, I find them engrossing. I like to visit the Renaissance in particular. It's not as pretty as you'd imagine it to be, but it's a delightful time all the same."

  "May I try?" asked Lily.

  "Certainly. Once you've added more kindling, I'll give you a demonstration."

  Lily nodded and continued adding the pieces of wood to the fire, setting them on top of the coals so they would sink in and become part of the overall fire. She marveled at the way the flames failed to burn her, even if she held her hand right in them. "What makes the fire special?"

  "Clearly, they're magical flames. But beyond that, it's very technical. It's a mixture of fire magic and phantasms, even a little telekinetic component for added tactile experience. It's beyond any mundane virtual reality, though it seems you're catching up."

  "You say 'you' like I'm not a part of SOAM," Lily remarked, giving the Librarian a side-eye.

  "Ha! Nicely done. You got me. It is hard not to have preconceived notions about people. Since you're untrained, you may as well be a mundane, but you wouldn't be here if you had no magical ability. Perhaps you'll pick something up.
Or maybe you'll be enticed into taking classes after all?"

  Lily placed the last log on the fire. The flames all around the ring leaped with glee, seeming even more solid than before. "Perhaps. It is only my first day."

  "Fair enough. Now, to demonstrate. Do you have a favorite bit of history you'd like to experience?"

  Lily's mind went blank. The world may never have had any events before that very moment as far as she was concerned. She glanced around the room and saw a boy with white hair and a ponytail. "How about the signing of the Declaration of Independence?"

  Bucher rolled her eyes. "How trite. But here you go." The Librarian rummaged around in a card file that pulled out from the base of the firepit and mumbled as her fingers walked through the cards. She pulled out a card and handed it to Lily. "Just toss it in the fire and lean forward when you're ready."

  The card was filled out in a spidery hand with arcane symbols and what Lily thought of as human-readable text that indicated the topic she wished to view. It seemed too pretty to destroy, but Lily wanted to see what the virtual world would show her, so she tossed it in and leaned forward—

  —and found herself falling, falling through clouds, far above the land, which zoomed in at an impossible rate, then slowed as she made out a town, streets, buildings, people. People dressed in Colonial garb. She found herself at street level, peering out of someone else's eyes, feeling their clothing upon her skin, the swish of skirts, the restrictive cinch of a corset around her waist. The wind blew the smell of manure and sweat past her, and her host stepped carefully to avoid horse droppings on the cobblestone street. She approached a brick building with a gabled roof and many chimneys, following a few others. Men yelled inside, debating and celebrating, coarsely egging each other on.

  Inside, the smell of body odor was only surpassed by the cacophony of perfumes and the scent of powder. The only pleasant odor was the faint aroma of a cookfire in another room. Men crowded around a table, each giving a speech as he brandished a quill and signed the famous document. The July heat made the room stuffy, and Lily's host sweated and itched under her layers of clothing.

  And then, things changed abruptly. The scene faded, and Lily stood, now herself once more, by a pond in a forest. Near her, a tripod suspended a bubbling iron cauldron as big as her head over a small fire. She wore a long green dress with an inverted triangle of cloth as the main feature of the bodice. The triangle was embroidered with a wavy serpent with four little legs with splayed feet. The head sported long curved whiskers and antlers.

  Could this be the "auld triangle" the little Ryde Kyng driver had spoken of?

  Chapter Eight

  A floral aroma wafted to her from the cauldron, accompanied by the piney scent of the forest, along with a bit of swampiness from the pond water. The air chilled her skin, but she welcomed the sensation.

  She found she held a staff made from a straight tree branch which twisted like a relaxed corkscrew towards the top. The staff was either of black wood or had been blackened but not burned in the past.

  She stood there, enjoying the peaceful scene, but pushed away thoughts of how she'd gotten there and what had happened to the Continental Congress. She breathed in the cool, scented air and breathed out, letting out tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.

  There was a stirring in the water, a rustling in the trees, a hush among the birds and insects around her. She could sense it had a shape she could not define at first but was familiar to her.

  At peace, she raised her staff and asked of the air, "Hello? Who is there?"

  A mist formed in the air above the pond, sunlight caching it just right to make it shimmer with rainbows. It was hard to focus on it, it was so bright and shifted form as she watched. But she saw it to be the same serpent-like dragon upon her chest.

  It spoke to her with a whispery woman's voice. "There is little time. To find your love, you must find your power; for this is the heart of why she is imprisoned."

  "But what is my power?" cried Lily. "And how do I stop those who imprisoned her from doing it again once she's free?"

  "Yours is a power that has been forbidden, but must be revealed," murmured the water dragon. "Yours is the power of a witch, not a wizard."

  "What's the difference?"

  "You must discover that for yourself," hissed the misty apparition.

  "Somehow, I knew you'd say that. I feel like it'd save so much time if you just told me what I need to know."

  "Knowing is not understanding. Our time is done. Find others, rebuild what has been undone!"

  And then, the scene became nothing but flames. Lily stepped back and stared at Bucher, who watched with an unreadable expression.

  "Well, what did you think?" asked the Librarian.

  Lily considered telling her everything but decided to keep her own secrets for now. "I've never seen anything like it! The Founding Fathers could have used a bath, that's for sure. I wasn't really expecting the smell-o-vision component."

  Bucher nodded. "That is an occupational hazard, delving into history as I do. Now, take the duster for a walk around the stacks. I'm sure they're building up a charge, I haven't had time to get to it lately."

  "The duster?" asked Lily.

  Bucher whistled, and a strange creature galumphed from behind the water tank. It was the size of a German shepherd dog, but had fur longer than a sheepdog's, all standing straight out and waving with unseen air currents. Its face reminded Lily of an opossum, its toothy snout giving the impression of an eager grin. The animal let out a happy whine as it looked up at Professor Bucher.

  "Snuffles, this is Lily. She'll help you find all the tastiest parts of the stacks today."

  Snuffles hopped up and down on two legs, dancing in a circle with delight.

  Lily eyed the creature. "Is it safe?"

  "Snuffles? He's a sweetheart. Just don't touch his fur without his permission. Let him sniff you first. Yes, like that. Good. Now we're friends. Take him back behind the multi-magical center to the stacks and walk him up and down. If you feel anything, hmm, staticky, you may want to slow down to let him feast."

  "So, he's eating magic? Why is that?"

  Bucher waved a hand. "Magical books have a way of building up energy around them. The more books in one place, the more it builds up. If it builds up too much, strange things begin to happen spontaneously."

  "I see. What does Snuffles do with all that energy?"

  "He digests it. And then, a few hours after, he lets out the digested energy, which has to be disposed of."

  Lily blinked at Bucher. "Are you saying?"

  Bucher nodded. "Yes, that will be one of your duties as well."

  Lily kept herself from groaning aloud. "I'd best be off, then. Come on, Snuffles, let's go."

  Snuffles looked from Bucher to Lily, but since Lily walked in the direction of the tasty magics, he trotted along behind her.

  There turned out to be a single entrance to the stacks, a doorway bracketed by marble columns with carven vines and leaves, painted green and gold.

  Once inside, Lily found herself within a curving hallway made of bookcases from floor to ceiling. Each direction ended in a bend inward. Snuffles chose the left branch, and Lily followed.

  Books of all shapes and sizes populated the shelves; many bound in leather, seeming quite heavy to Lily's eyes, others were perfect bound and modern. As they walked, a staticky resistance grew in the air. It pulled at her clothing, fluffed her hair as she turned her head, and made little crackles of electricity tingle at the tips of her fingers.

  After a few turns of the hallway, it became clear to Lily that she walked the pattern of a labyrinth. Looking at the books, she had no clue how they might be arranged. Yet another thing to learn about this place.

  The power in the air had a euphoric effect, as though she breathed in more oxygen than usual. The lightness in her head made her feel bubbly and light-hearted. She wished Penny were here to share this ex
perience with her. The penny in the pendant upon her chest warmed at the thought. For a moment, Lily didn't feel alone; a glimmer of hope came to her, along with the memory of the water dragon's words.

  Snuffles left no pathway unexplored, so traversing the maze took longer than Lily would have expected. They encountered a few people along the way, mostly searching for an obscure tome or reading one in place. Around one corner, down a short dead-end, Lily and Snuffles surprised a couple kissing.

  "Oh, we're sorry," said Lily, trying to guide Snuffles away from the women.

  The taller of the pair turned and smiled at Lily. She wore a pendant with the colors pink, white, and blue. "Not a problem. Always good to see some family."

  Lily took a moment to realize what she meant, then it dawned on her that the girl was transgender, like her. "Oh! Of course! I love your necklace!"

  "Yours is pretty too. Why a penny?"

  "My wife's name is Penny. It reminds me of her."

  The other girl squinted at Lily's pendant. "It's more than that, isn't it? I can feel it from here. She's with you, isn't she?"

  Lily froze. She didn't want to give away the pendant's secret. And she'd been told not to trust anyone. But also, to gather allies. She hesitated too long, she knew, so she just nodded. "It is like that, yes. Let me gather up Snuffles and leave you two to your studies."

  The girls giggled and waved to her as she and the creature rounded the corner.

  Lily wondered if she should take greater care to hide the pendant. A longer chain, or a higher neckline? Should she take it off and hide it in a pocket? But then how would she feel the temperature cues it was supposed to give her?

  Snuffles continued to lead her around the labyrinth of bookshelves that made up the stacks. As he went, his floofy fur sparked and connected with arcs of electricity from the shelves. Lily wasn't certain how safe this might be, so she kept her distance.

  Time passed, and Lily began worrying about getting back to the English building on time to teach her first class of the day.