The Librarian’s Gift

It had been weeks since the twins disappeared in the museum, and they were still being watched like they might grow wings and fly out the window at any moment.

Tony dropped them off and picked them up from school, and kept them right by his side while he did his evening tours. Then it was straight home. The weekends were even more boring. The only place Tony seemed comfortable taking the twins was to the grocery store. They spent the rest of the time locked in the house.

Every few days, Tony would offer to take them somewhere fun, like the cinema or the beach, but only if they told him the truth about where they’d disappeared to that night. The twins had thought about making something up just to stop this, but couldn’t think of a good enough story. Tony had even tried to use the museum’s CCTV footage, but it didn’t cover the corner the twins had been in when they vanished. And the longer Tony went without answers, the more paranoid he seemed to become. He would get startled if strangers came too close to them in the grocery store, and seemed to watch the people in his tour groups suspiciously. The twins had even caught him roaming around the house late at night, checking and rechecking that all the doors and windows were locked tight.

On a stormy Tuesday evening, the twins were sitting in the entrance hall of the museum, trying to enjoy the short break before the next tour began. Tony was standing a few feet away at the tour starting point, when a strange looking man walked over to them.

He was tall and dark, with broad shoulders, thick arms, and a wide jaw with an equally wide mouth that seemed to naturally sit in the shape of a smile. He was wearing some kind of dress robe that was deep red. Leura’s first thought was that he was from somewhere very far away.

“Mikaa’il Okolie,” he said in a deep voice and heavy accent that Leura couldn’t place. “But please, call me Mika,” he added, reaching out to shake Tony’s hand.

“Tony Fall, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I think we’re just waiting on a few others and then we’ll start the tour.”

Mika beamed down at him. “Actually, I’ve just had a word with your receptionist and paid for a private tour, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Tony, acting more relaxed than the twins had seen him in a while. Something about Mika made it hard not to like him. Even the twins couldn’t help but feel a little excited about this tour. “As long as you don’t mind if my kids come along.”

Mika sent his beaming smile in the twins’ direction and they grinned back. “Of course, it’s an honour to meet you both.” The twins said hello, and they all headed off on the tour.

Right away, the twins knew there was something different about this one. For the first time in years, they weren’t bored. Mika seemed to find absolutely everything fascinating, and his enthusiasm was infectious. He laughed easily, was always smiling, and seemed to know a great deal about history, telling the twins interesting facts about the exhibits that they’d never heard before.

“You know there’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that early humans didn’t just hunt Mammoths, but trained them as well. Very smart animals, you know. Made great companions, almost as good as the wolves.” They were in the Hall of Skeletons now, looking at the bones of the enormous Mammoth.

“Do you work in archaeology?” Tony asked Mika. “You seem to know more about the things in the museum than I do.”

Mika let out another booming laugh. “No, my friend. I am a Librarian. So you could say it’s my job to know things.”

“Which library do you work at?” asked Wentworth excitedly. The twins had only been to the city library a few times, but Wentworth loved everything about it.

“The greatest there is,” said Mika, with a serious edge in his voice for the first time. “Very far from here, in every way.” He looked at the twins as if he wanted to say more but thought better of it. Instead, he nodded towards the T-Rex and they all headed over to get a better look. The twins liked Mika even more when he admitted that seeing it up close made him want to climb it.

As the tour was coming to an end, they found themselves in the room of Ancient Egyptian artefacts. Tony and Mika were talking about the displays like they were old friends at this point, it had stopped feeling like a tour a while ago and the twins were hanging off Mika’s every word. With a pang of annoyance, Leura realised she was even enjoying her father’s company. She quickly squashed the feeling and went back to silently despising him. As they were passing a stone pillar engraved with hieroglyphs, Mika gave a happy shout and waved them over for a closer look.

“See here,” he said, pointing at a row of symbols near the base of the pillar. “These are not glyphs you’d find just anywhere, there’s only one place they were used.”

“Yes, this piece was never fully translated, though the official reason was that it wasn’t in a good enough condition for it,” said Tony curiously. “I believe it was found north of Cairo, in a dig half sunk beneath the Nile river.”

“It may have been found there, but that’s not where it once stood,” said Mika. “This is from a temple in Alexandria. Those symbols mean ‘buy, borrow, or steal.’ It was the city’s philosophy, the reason it became the home of the largest store of knowledge the world has ever seen. The Great Library.” Mika was staring at the symbols with a mix of awe and respect. The twins stared at the ancient pillar they’d seen countless times before, but in a whole new light. Mika had a way of turning these objects into living, breathing stories, in a way that Tony never could.

All too soon, the tour came to an end, back in the entrance hall where they started. Mika shook Tony’s hand, then Leura’s and Wentworth’s, bowing deeply as he did it.

“It has been a great honour to get to know you all, truly an evening to remember.” Mika reached into a pocket of his red robes and took out a small parcel about the size of Leura’s palm, wrapped in intricate white and gold cloth. “I have a gift for you all, from my home.” Tony tried to protest but Mika didn’t give him the chance, placing the gift firmly into his hands. “Until we meet again.” He gave them all his biggest smile yet, and without another word, turned and walked through the front doors, his red robe flowing gently behind him.

The Fall family stood there stunned. It was like being woken up in the middle of a dream you were really enjoying. Disorientating, and disappointing.

Tony recovered the fastest. “Well, that was the last tour for the day, let’s get our things and go home.” The twins shuffled along behind him as they walked to the car, and didn’t speak much during the drive home. Tony kept one hand on the steering wheel, but the other was absentmindedly fiddling with the gift, like it was trying to figure out what was inside.

“Can I open it dad?” asked Leura, unable to resist any longer.

“Huh, what?” said Tony, clearly somewhere far away in his head. “Oh this thing, sure,” he handed it over to her. It felt heavier than it looked. The fabric wrapping was folded tightly together and it took Leura a few minutes to unravel it. Inside was a sleek black box. Leura took off the lid and looked down at the thing inside.

At first she thought it was some sort of clock. It was round and mostly silver, making it look very expensive. Its front face had a small circular disk at the centre, and then thirteen rings around it, each one sitting inside the last like ripples moving outwards. The disk and rings were covered in glyphs that reminded Leura of the ones on the pillar that Mika had pointed out. They were embedded in the silver and seemed to be made of different kinds of metals, like gold, bronze, and blackened steel. She brushed her hand lightly over the rings and realised they could all spin, changing the position of the glyphs.

“What is it?” asked Wentworth from behind her in the backseat.

“I’m not sure,” said Leura softly. She lifted it carefully out of the box and turned it over to look at the back. The surface was polished and curved. Right in the centre was an engraving…

For Raya Volkova, may this timedial never lead you astray, nor you it.

Leura stared at the engraving with vacant eyes. Her heart rate tripled, and goosebumps spread around her body. She felt like she was falling into a daydream, where the lines between reality and fantasy began to blur. There was very little she knew about her mother, because Tony never talked about her. But one of the only things she did know, was that her name had been Raya.

“What does it say?” asked Wentworth impatiently, squirming in the back seat to get a better look.

“It says… I think it… I think it might have been mum’s.”

The reaction was instant, and more disturbing than Leura could have imagined. Wentworth let out a gasp of fear as Tony slammed on the brakes so hard the car nearly skidded into the treeline before coming to a screeching halt. Leura had only just managed to keep the timedial grasped in her hand, and anger surged through her at the thought of damaging something so beautiful that once belonged to her mother.

“What did you do that for!” she roared at Tony, but a second later he’d snatched the timedial out of her hand. Leura was about to yell at him again until she saw how the colour had drained from his face, and how his whole body seemed to be shaking. His fear was infectious, and quickly spread into the twins. “Dad, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Tony was reading the engraving with feverish eyes, then he opened the glovebox, threw the timedial inside, and took off again, driving faster than the twins had ever seen him drive before.

“Dad?” said Wentworth, sounding close to tears.

“I don’t want either of you anywhere near that man ever again, do you understand?” Tony kept his eyes locked on the road, but his voice was cold and full of dread.

“You mean Mika?”

“Don’t say his name! He’s dangerous! You stay away from him, you hear me. Forget you ever met him.” Tony’s eyes started jumping to the rearview mirror, like he thought someone might be following them. He sped up even more, and Leura gripped the edges of her seat in fear.

They pulled roughly into the driveway, and the tires gave a loud squeak of complaint. Tony rushed the twins inside. They were given a quick dinner of beans on toast and told to get ready for bed. Tony roamed around the house, double and triple checking that every window and door was locked. This, of course, only made the twins even more afraid.

While Leura and Wentworth were pretending to be asleep, they listened to Tony wander around the house, muttering things the twins couldn’t hear and rattling a window every now and then to make sure it was locked tight.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Wentworth through the dark, his bed only a few feet from Leura’s.

“It must be something to do with mum. Maybe Mika knew her, or something.”

“But why’s he so scared? He never told us what happened to mum. Do you think she was… you know… murdered?”

“No way, we’d know if she was.” Leura spoke as confidently as she could, but the truth was she had no idea what had happened to their mum. They used to ask their dad all the time, but all he ever told them was that she was gone forever. Eventually, they stopped asking.

Leura reached over to her bedside table and took out a small photo album from the top drawer, and an even smaller torch. It had been a sort of ritual for her for many years now to look through the album each night when she couldn’t sleep. It was thin and only big enough for one photo on each page. There were less than a dozen photos in all, but she would stare at each one for a long time, soaking in every last detail.

They were the only photos she had of her mother. They were old, and most of them were poorly taken.

Lying there in the middle of the night, Leura would imagine the type of person her mother was. All she really knew about her was what she could gather from the way she looked in those photos. It wasn’t much, but Leura was convinced her mother was kind, and very brave. Something about the way she held her head so high, and had so much light in her eyes.

Leura liked the idea that she’d inherited her bravery from her mother, but sometimes, in quiet moments like this one, Leura worried that she wasn’t actually brave, that she was just pretending to be because she wanted to be like her mum.

“I wish dad would just tell us what happened,” said Wentworth sadly.

“He won’t,” said Leura, feeling her anger bubble up to the surface once again. She’d always believed there was a good reason they had to grow up without a mother. But what if there wasn’t? What if Tony was hiding something? What if he’s the reason she’s gone? Not for the first time, Leura imagined herself as she would have been, if she’d only had a loving mother by her side. A parent she could trust.

It had been a long time since Leura let herself hope that her mother would ever come back. She knew what happened when you hope for things like that. She wasn’t sure she could survive the disappointment. But the timedial had changed things. For the first time in her life, she had a reason to believe her mum was really out there, just waiting for them to find her.

“He won’t tell us anything, but maybe there’s someone else who will.” She reached under her pillow and pulled out the black box. “Dad didn’t take this away, and look.” She held it out upside down. Even in the faint light coming in through the window, Wentworth could read the shining silver words written in cursive letters. Dials, Springs & Pendulums - Greenway lane, The Rocks, Sydney. “I think Mika wanted us to know where to find him.”

The next morning looked just like any other. The twins ate breakfast together and got ready for school. Tony hurried them out the door and they listened to the radio while they drove. The only things out of place were the black box sitting snugly in Leura’s backpack, and the timedial, still in the car’s glove box.

Tony dropped them off at the front gates. Just as they were getting out of the car he tried to say something but couldn’t find the words. He watched them disappear into the school and felt an overwhelming desire to run in after them. He’d never been closer to losing them, he was sure of that.

As he pulled away from the school he heard her voice again, as clear as it always was. Promise me you’ll look after them - that they’ll be okay - promise me Tony.

“I’m trying Raya,” he said to the empty car. “I promise I’m trying.”

Inside the school, the twins were huddled together in the corner of the playground, planning their escape.

“We can walk to The Rocks from the museum, it’ll only take about half an hour,” said Leura, “and it’s not that big, I’m sure we can find Greenway lane quickly.”

The Rocks was the oldest and smallest part of the city, right on the harbour. It still had a lot of the original buildings from hundreds of years ago, and was riddled with alleyways and hidden paths.

“It might not be that easy, Leura, The Rocks is a bit of a maze. And dad won’t be far behind us.” Wentworth was fidgeting with a stick, and Leura knew that was a sign he was feeling particularly nervous.

“That’s why it’s so important that the distraction works,” said Leura forcefully. “We need every second we can get.”

When Tony picked them up from school, the twins tried to act normal. This was easier for Leura, who liked to talk, and spent the trip bombarding Tony with news about what they’d learnt in class and the latest gossip, fresh from the playground. Wentworth spent the trip laughing nervously at all the wrong parts of Leura’s story, and incessantly wiping his sweaty hands on his shorts.

The first tour of the afternoon was always the busiest. This one had four different families on it, as well as a group of backpackers from overseas, and a group of little old ladies who held up the tour for nearly fifteen minutes telling everyone how they were part of a book club and were about to read one set in ancient Egypt. Normally the twins hated the busier tours because it meant Tony got asked a lot more questions, but today they wanted the tour group to be as big as possible. The more people keeping Tony distracted, the better.

About an hour into the tour, they entered the Hall of Skeletons. Wentworth looked so nervous Leura was worried he might be sick.

“Just calm down, won’t you, you’re going to give us away,” hissed Leura out of the corner of her mouth.

“What if it doesn’t fall?” asked Wentworth breathlessly.

“It’ll fall,” said Leura, looking up at the enormous jaws of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The twins knew that all the skeletons in the room were held up with metal rods hidden within the bones. But they also knew that many of the older skeletons were in desperate need of repair. Leura had lost count of the number of times Froggy had complained about the T-Rex in particular. That neck joint is worn all the way through… one little knock and the whole head is coming down, and that’s right where everyone stands to get a good look! It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen if you ask me, which nobody does, of course.

Leura reached into her pocket and felt the cool touch of the stone she’d spent her entire lunch hour picking out. It was oval shaped, smooth, and just the right size for her hand. It was also heavier than it looked. She knew she’d only have one shot at this, but unlike Wentworth, who was so uncoordinated he struggled to put his shoes on in the morning, Leura was a natural athlete. She could throw a ball better than anyone they knew, and it wasn’t like the skull of a giant dinosaur was a small target.

As Tony led the tour group around the room, the twins dropped back and tried to keep themselves hidden behind the backpackers. They knew Tony would take the group over to the T-Rex last, so had no choice but to wait until they’d done a full lap around the entire hall.

“Now, those of you with a sharp eye may have noticed we’ve missed one of the skeletons,” said Tony, with a wink at the old ladies, “so I think it’s time we took a look at the king of the dinosaurs, the tyrant lizard, the one and only, Tyrannosaurus Rex.” Some of the kids squealed and started pulling their parents over to the centre of the room.

Tony gathered them at the side of the dinosaur, so they had a good view of it from head to tail. As he started his usual speech, Leura carefully took the stone out of her pocket. She could hear Wentworth breathing in short, sharp gasps beside her, and tried to ignore the noise. Any moment now, she knew her dad would turn his back on the group and start pointing out the different parts of the enormous skeleton. She had to be ready.

Then the moment came. Tony turned around and started pointing at the long tail, explaining how it was used as a counter balance for the massive head at the other end. Leura looked straight at the empty eye sockets of the T-Rex, and threw the stone as hard as she could.

Only her and Wentworth saw it flying through the air. Everyone else had their eyes on the tail. That is, until the stone struck the side of the T-Rex’s skull right in the temple with an almighty CRACK. Everyone’s head spun towards the sound, right in time to see the skull come loose from the neck and fall to the ground, shattering into dozens of pieces on impact, and sending a shockwave of sound bouncing around the hall. More than a few people screamed, some stumbled backwards and tripped over the people behind them, and in all the confusion and chaos the twins slipped away from the group and out of the hall. As soon as they were clear, they broke into a run.

“How long - until he notices - we’re gone,” said Wentworth, panting heavily as they sprinted through the entrance hall.

“Not long enough,” answered Leura.

They dashed out the front doors before the receptionist could so much as glance at them, then headed off down the busy city street in the direction of the harbour. A feeling Leura had never felt before coursed through her body. It was a blend of excitement and fear. A desire to keep going, yet a longing to go back. She felt like she was finally breaking free of the tiny world she’d been trapped in, and entering a whole new one. A dangerous one, maybe, but if that’s where her mother was, then that’s where she needed to be.

Grinning like a maniac, Leura ran faster, pulling Wentworth along behind her.