“I’d love to talk about it some more when we aren’t dealing with an impending apocalypse.”
“Deal.”
They each got to work on their respective stacks of books, and fell into a companionable silence broken only by the sounds of pages turning and books being moved on the table. Lilith came by a few times as she patrolled, sniffing and purring, and she would jump on the table for some brief attention from either of them before dropping down and continuing on her explorations.
Raum heard the distant thump of the door open and close, and the sound of someone approaching. He looked up to see one of the library clerks coming through the stacks, carrying a cardboard box full of folders and binders, followed by a campus security guard.
“Hey, Gary, what have you got for me?” Raum stood up from the table and went to Gary, who handed him the box with a groan at the weight. Raum took it easily and looked down inside, seeing several binders with Simmons’ name on the spine. “Whoa, what’s all this?”
“MERS found some more of Simmons’ research hidden in his office and had security bring it over here for a SorcererRedmayne?” Gary said, and the guard nodded, agreeing. “They said he was here with you.”
“That’s me,” Ezra said and got up from the table, coming over and peering down into the box. “Thanks for bringing it over. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem,” Gary said, and he and the security guard looked relieved to be handing over the research. “I’ll leave you to it. Have a good day.”
“Thanks, you too,” Raum replied, and Gary and the guard left while Raum carried the box over to the table.
“I wonder what they found,” Ezra hovered as Raum set the box down on the table and started taking out binders, handing several to Ezra, who took them eagerly. “Let’s hope this is what we need.”
Ezra
Raum tookthe box and Ezra got started on his stack of binders, flipping through the plastic dividers and reading each section heading. He set aside two binders that seemed to have nothing to do with the trading post expedition, mostly older research into other sites, and kept looking.
It was in the last binder that Ezra found something useful. The research was dated recently, collated within the last few years, and the research into the trading company and the post was right there in front. “I think I found something.”
“What?” Raum asked, looking up from his own stack of binders.
“Research Simmons did on the trading company and the missing trading post. There might be more in here.”
“Great!”
Ezra started poring over the research, and he was skimming past what they had already learned when he flipped a page and stopped.
“Raum, look at this,” Ezra breathed out in surprise, and he turned the binder to show Raum a detailed sketch of the skull.
In the charcoal drawing, the details were smeared a bit, but the gaping mouth, the intricate designs carved into the bone, and the single slice from a bladed weapon on the forehead, were all identical to the skull Ezra had held in his hands.
The drawing was on old, thick vellum, and had the scent of dust and time. He left it in the transparent plastic sleeve, not wanting to damage the antique sketch.
“Is that the skull?” Raum asked. “That has to be it.”
“It is indeed,” Ezra confirmed. “Simmons knew about the skull before he went on the expedition to find the trading post. I bet it was the only reason he set up the dig to begin with.”
“What else is in there?”
“Let me see,” Ezra said and went back to looking through the binder, going slower now, carefully flipping through the pages and plastic sleeves holding old paper. He found another old piece of parchment in one of the sleeves, the edge ripped like the page had been torn from a book ages ago.
It was written in a tight, cramped script, and Ezra tried to read it, but the style of writing was too difficult. Another glance had him doubting it was in English, too. He checked for a transcription but found nothing. “Raum, can you read this?”
Ezra popped the plastic sleeve out of the binder and passed it to Raum, who took it carefully, peering down at the handwriting. “Yeah, I can read it. It’s in Norwegian, so give me a second.”
“I feel a bit better about not being able to read it,” Ezra muttered to himself. He had a lot of trouble reading old cursive script styles, especially anything before the 1960s. The smaller the lettering, the worse it got for him.
“There’s a translation app that can scan written text, cursive or not, and convert it to text on the screen of your phone. I encourage my students to use it when dealing with primary sources where they can’t read the script. It translates written scripts from other languages into English as well,” Raum said casually, not looking up from the page as he translated. “It’s not perfect, but the margin of error is acceptable since it’s such a huge help for people with accessibility needs.”
“There’s an app for that?” Ezra asked, sidelined from his impatience by the idea that there was an app that could help him with his research. If he wasn’t pressed for time, he sent out images of the script in question to a transcription service to get it typed out and then emailed back to him. Lots of times he was in a pinch and had to struggle through on his own. He figured it was a symptom of his ADHD and his inability to register patterns in the cramped script that left him so stymied by old handwriting.
“Sure is,” Raum looked up long enough to give him a soft smile. He set down the paper long enough to grab his phone and tap at it, bringing up the app in question and passing the phone to Ezra. “It was made by one of the Computer Science grad students. Here ya go. If you like it, download it and give it a try.”
