Chapter 35

The Library

he Dreamscape was a savannah when Aix got there, which surprised him, but was pleasing. ‘Did you have fun at the zoo?’ he asked, looking around. ‘Wow, this is lush.’

It is from the memories of the elephants. I spoke to them a long time.

Aix looked back at him immediately, eyes wide. ‘You spoke with the elephants?’ His pleasure was not surprised, which answered Cthulhu’s question about whether Aix had known other animals were sapient, and simply not mentioned it.

Among other creatures. Cthulhu said. You knew, and did not say, because you wished me to have pure data.

‘True,’ Aix admitted. ‘Intelligence is difficult to prove or measure in other animals, when you aren’t psionic.’ He paused, thoughtfully. ‘And even then… it’s difficult to prove psionics. Science likes hard evidence. I mean, to be fair, intelligence is difficult to measure even in our own species. It’s all very cultural. What were the elephants like?’

Cthulhu was pleased to be able to shape the Dreaming in the same way Aix did, as he spoke, the world around them changing to illustrate his words. They told me of their grandmother, whom the humans call Dolly. They told me of their ancestors, and the times before theirs.

‘Ohhh, that’s a mammoth,’ Aix said, seeing the animal Cthulhu created from what the elephants had shown him. ‘That’s a woolly mammoth, that’s the Ice Age….’

Cthulhu recounted all he’d learnt from the animals, and Aix named things in human terms and offered context where Cthulhu had none. And then, Cthulhu told him of the other grad students.

‘Aww, you made friends!’ Aix said, after Cthulhu was finished. ‘That’s so good! I’m proud of you. Making friends is hard!’

They wanted me to continue being translator, to teach both parties a mutual language. I do not have the time, at this moment, and I asked my colleagues if they did. Nyarlotep and Shob-Zhiggurath have the inclination, but I told them it would be a while. We must settle in, as you have said.

‘That was considerate of you, love,’ Aix said, and Cthulhu felt his disappointment at the situation, but his happiness and relief at Cthulhu considering his well-being when he wasn’t present. ‘Like, I wish we could just start that project immediately, but…’ he bit his lip. ‘I talked to Erastos today, and he’s fighting as hard as he can, but…’

I know. Cthulhu said, pulling Aix into his arms, letting the landscape fall into the shadowy nightsky mists that Aix called The Almost. The Heeren told the police enough that they believe the ones that saw me, and are looking for me. René is glad Pippin is with you, and that you both got safely away and are dressing differently now than you did that night, and has been calling upon the Council for their experience in these matters.

Aix just leaned against Cthulhu for a while, and Cthulhu felt his terror, his horror, his paranoia, his guilt—not that the guilt had any true root, simply that whenever Aix was accused of anything he immediately agreed with it emotionally, regardless of the facts. It was one of his cruelty-wounds.

‘I’m mentally ill, and I’m poor, and I’m trans, if they put me on the witness stand—’

Nobody is going to allow that, Aix. René has even confided in me he is willing to take… steps to remove you from the daylight population, if need be.

Aix went very still, ‘Like… turning me into a vampire steps?’

Indeed. He has told no one but me of this. He said I was not to speak of it to anyone. But you were frightened, and… I am not speaking.

‘You’re figuring out how humans do what we call “cloak-and-dagger”,’ Aix commented with a smile in his voice. ‘Well done.’

He explained how petitioning works, and mentioned it is common at council meetings to bring up other business, as they happen so infrequently. At the time I did not understand he might be telling me so that I would tell you.

‘Clever boys,’ Aix said, in that low and husky voice he got when he was in a mood he had explained was called Villainous. From all the stories and conversations so far, Cthulhu still only vaguely understood it.

But he was learning more every day.

The vampire humans all loved stories, and even though Cthulhu was still struggling with reading written words, there were movies, and there was always Aix to tell him stories, or someone willing to read to him. Cameron’s family had taken him to the library, and when they had found out he was learning to read, there were a few librarians who were studying to be Montessori teachers at the school just outside of the city, that were eager to help. Cthulhu knew from Aix that word, that woman, who invented this ‘Montessori’ way, would be the best way for Cthulhu, because it was how Aix had taught him things.

Humans were really very kind, it was like Aix had said. Humans didn’t need to know you, they just saw you and wanted to help you. That was their way. Their instinct. They built entire networks whose sole purpose was to store and preserve and share knowledge, and they called them ‘libraries’.

And even children were helping.

‘Hi.’

Cthulhu saw a little human, with a red mask on, come sit at the other small chair at the table. Cthulhu was looking at a picture book, by now having shifted two of his eyes to seem human enough, though darker skin colours were easier than the pale ones like Cameron’s and Aix’s. The little human had brown skin and curly black hair, and a blue shirt that had some colourful monsters on it, that Cthulhu knew by now were named Ernie and Bert.

‘Hello.’

‘Miss Shonda says you. Um. Says. You um, you learnin’ to read. Um. Even though you’re um. A grown-up.’

‘That is true.’

‘You should read to me. Cos um. Cos my Daddy reads to me. And. And I heard him um, I heard him tell Miss Shonda and Auntie that it. That it helps him read better.’

Another small human came up, who looked older but related to the first, but had his hair differently manipulated, and had a blue mask. ‘Whatcha doin’, Marcus?’

‘Marcus was telling me how important it was to practise reading to others. May I read to you as well?’

A big smile in those dark eyes. ‘Yeah! Wait, you gotta come over to the Reading Chair.’

Cthulhu let them lead him through the shelves and to the colourful circular area that had precisely one chair sized for an adult. It was orange, and cracked, with a bit of static electrical charge on the plastic. There were other small humans around, sitting on the rug or at other tables within sight; but they all, one by one, came over and sat down in front of the chair expectantly when they saw Cthulhu going toward it.

‘I have never read to such a large audience before,’ he said, feeling somewhat nervous.

‘What if you sit on the floor with us?’ said one of the larger humans, who wore glasses like Aix and Victoria did, and was white, and wearing a black mask. ‘Then you’re just the same.’

‘Um, what is your name? I’m Harper,’ said the second child to come over to Cthulhu.

‘I am called Joe.’

‘Hi Joe!’ said an older black girl, with a mask that had a pointy-toothed smile on it. ‘I’m Keisha! Marcus is my cousin, and Harper’s our neighbour.’

‘I’m Misha like the angel!’ said the human with the glasses, wearing a long pale coat and a black mask with a red star symbol in a circle.

‘I’m Sophie like the grifter!’ said a littler one with a dress on, in a sequined mask.

‘This is Rain and I’m Leaf,’ said one of a pair of identical humans. ‘I’m a boy.’

‘Yeah, Leaf is a boy now,’ Rain said stoutly.

‘Ah,’ Cthulhu said, sensing their fear, and knowing it well from Aix. ‘My partner is a transman also. He is called Aix.’

They were less afraid, after that, and Cthulhu was glad for it. Leaf came over and hugged him.

‘Can we meet him someday?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘I think he would enjoy that very much. Do you know what a bard is?’

The children seemed to think this was a question that merited raised hands. Cthulhu wasn’t sure what raised hands meant, but sensed from their surface thoughts that this was procedure for orderly group discussion. Cthulhu saw Harper looking extremely excited, bouncing and waving the raised hand.

‘Harper?’

‘A bard is like in the game I play it’s called Dungeonsanddragons and it’s a performer and that’s where my name comes from it’s a bard name like from the middle ages when everybody was first having last names people would call the bard John Harper if he had a harp but it’s my first name. Also I’m a he/him we should tell our pronouns.’

He said this all, seemingly, in one breath. ‘Well,’ Cthulhu said, reminded fondly of himself when he had been very small, ‘That is correct. A bard is a travelling performer of any variety of performing arts, and my Aix can do many things—tell stories, sing, dance, and he has a clown as well, a small one.’

This caused a great deal of excitement, so much that the librarian came over to them, which made them try very hard to quiet down.

‘Sorry, Miss Shonda,’ Marcus whispered.

Miss Shonda was black like Marcus, Keisha, and Harper, with her curly hair in a large black and gold halo around her head, and glasses she wore on a chain. She knew Joe, and was glad he was making friends. He was a quiet man, he came in with one of the Golds quite often, and was learning to read—seemingly for the first time. She’d been helping him, and saw the book in his gloved hands. ‘What’s so exciting?’ she asked.

‘Um, Joe says their partner Aix has a clown and is a bard,’ Leaf said.

‘A little clown,’ Harper said, bouncing. ‘A little clown isitPippin? Mommy told me about Pippin from Mr Simon. She’s a pierrot. Like a really real wild pierrot.’

‘It is Pippin,’ Cthulhu said, surprised, before looking up at the librarian to explain. ‘I was going to read to my new friends, but there were introductions to be made. And I thought perhaps sir Leaf would like to meet an adult like himself, my partner, Aix. He is a bard, and… I think he would enjoy telling stories to children.’

‘A bard? Oh, is he with the SCA?’

Cthulhu paused, trying to recall if Aix had mentioned it. ‘He was,’ he said. ‘That is where he learned. We have just moved here, and he is away on business at the moment. I will be joining him soon. But we shall return.’

Cthulhu knew he needed to be carefully vague, because the police were still about, and Erastos had given him lessons on how to avoid leaving information ‘laying around’ for them to easily find.

‘Moving is A Lot,’ Keisha said, with sagely nodding and tones that were copied from someone older. ‘My family just moved here from California, it’s A Lot.’

‘Why don’t we settle down and let Mr Joe read to us, and then talk more later?’ Shonda suggested gently. To her surprise, Joe got off the chair and sat on the floor with the children, the book open on his lap, one finger under the words as he read them. He was still slow, and careful, but the children helped him when he stumbled, and were very patient, all of them young enough to remember learning to read. Harper was even getting better at letting other people be slower than he was. Shonda kept an eye on them as she went back to work.

Cthulhu always picked out things Aix recommended—therefore, he was reading The Cat in the Hat, which Aix had told him about, and thought very well of. The children were curious when, after helping him with a word, he asked them why.

‘That’s “mother”,’ Marcus said, when Cthulhu paused and began sounding it out.

‘Why does it say Mother?’ Cthulhu asked, and Marcus paused, then took him through the sounds.

‘Muh. Aw. And then, um, this one says. That is a blend and it says th. And. Eh. Rrr. M-aw-th-eh-rr. Mother.’

Cthulhu put his fingertip beneath the ‘th’. ‘Th.’

‘Yeah!’

Cthulhu quitely shaped T and H separately without voicing them, then TH, trying to understand why it would be written with those letters.

‘…You good, Mr Joe?’ Keisha said, after a long silence.

‘I am pondering why people decided to write that sound down in that way.’

‘Oh,’ Keisha said, and all the children thought about that.

‘There used to be two letters for “th” there used to be eth for Moth and thorn for The,’ Harper said. ‘We didn’t used to have to use T and H.’

‘There were more letters in the alphabet?’ Sophie said, eyes wide.

‘What did they look like even?’ Rain asked.

‘I can draw them,’ Harper said, getting up and going to find the librarian. ‘Miss Shonda, can I please have a chalk for the board?’

‘Sure, baby,’ Shonda said, going over to the children’s library desk and getting one out of the drawer.

‘I’m going to show everyone the old letters!’ Harper said proudly, ‘wanna see?’

‘I do!’ Shonda said, curious, and followed him to the board, where he drew two letters.

Đð Þþ

‘This one is eth, and this one is thorn,’ Harper said.

‘I wonder if Miss Moffitt knows about them,’ Misha said.

‘Dark alphabet show me the forbidden letters,’ Keisha said, and giggled, which made all the other children start giggling.

They finished the book after that, and the children had many more questions for Cthulhu—about Aix, and Pippin.

‘Are you married?’ Misha asked.

‘No. Aix does not want to get married again.’

‘Are you gonna have kids or be Uncles?’ Rain asked, adjusting her purple mask.

‘I do not know. We have a kitten, and we have Pippin.’

‘You don’t have to have kids,’ Leaf said, ‘if you don’t want.’

‘But it’d be cool, because then we could play with them,’ Rain added.

‘Yeah, and then. And then um. We could come over. Er.’ Marcus said.

Do you want children?

Aix narrowed his eyes slightly in confusion, looking at Cthulhu. ‘What brought that on?’

I met some human children at the library, and they asked if we were going to have children, or be… Uncles.

Aix relaxed, chuckling. ‘Oh, I see. Well…’ he looked down, sadly. ‘I can’t. Or… it’s very, very unlikely to ever happen, especially at my age. And nobody would let me around kids.’

Why? You are a teacher, a storyteller, like the librarians.

Aix sighed, and Cthulhu sensed the subject was very painful. He decided to say something else.

I spoke to the librarian. She said she would be happy to have you tell stories to the children. There are few people with time for that, now, and who will wear a mask of the proper style.

Aix brightened, cautiously. ‘I have time, and I’ll wear a mask.’

Yes. I told her. Cthulhu lay next to Aix, looking up at the starry sky with him. Having been around human children now, I think you would be a good father. You are perhaps ideal.

Aix sniffled, and rolled over to hug him tightly, and didn’t say anything for a long time; but he was happy to hear it.

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