Page 129 of The Cerulean Sister
"Not at all." I push a few books out of my way.
"But I know what it is like, howtheyare when you are doing what they want. How good that praise feels."
"I'm glad I told you. 99 would not understand, not without our tether doing a lot of the work." My words come out so sad it almost chokes me.
"Just please be careful. This place is alluring. Even I feel it," she whispers.
When she says things like that, it makes me wonder how her life would be if her mother stayed and she was raised in the priestess order. Maybe that is why she feels a small pull in this direction.
I start on the drawers below the desktop and notice the sticky one is open slightly. I open it farther, a little afraid of what I will find missing.
The dark blue, leather-bound log is not sitting where I left it on top.
That scholar saw me place it back in this drawer. I was not exactly subtle in my caught-off-guard state when he approached me. I have thought since then that he could have been part of the coup, that perhaps the clothes in the hall so close to the entrance could have been his. But what would a First Son soldier pretending to be a scholar want with Mary's strange log?
I remove most of the contents onto my lap until it's empty and not a thing is inside, including the key. I shove it back into place, cramming the papers in without care.
"Would she have kept it somewhere else?"
"No. Maybe, but I don't know where. She had a house not far from here," I ramble, holding my head up by my bent arms resting on the desktop.
"Have you looked everywhere in her desk?"
"Yes." I groan. "Where is it, Mary? Where did you keep it?"
For some reason, I have the urge to feel under the surface of the desktop. I reach my hand down where my legs are tucked in and skim my fingertips on the underside of the wood.
"Try the front." Calliape jumps up, understanding immediately I might be on to something.
I stand and walk around the desk, where my reach could not extend to before. I brush the underside, and my fingertips bump against a little box attached to the top. I pull it slightly and it comes loose.
"Open it!" Calliape scream-whispers.
A thin piece of wood slides across the box like it is meant to hold keepsakes or trinkets. I glide my thumb harder over it to open it completely and pull out a long, darkly tarnished key.
Calliape beams at it. "Where is the room?"
I turn to the back of the office area, toward the door that Mary would use to access the scholars’ chambers. She was employed by the temple for the work we did, her transcription desk in this separate area to keep the stuffier scholars from complaining. Their study is strictly on other matters in Cosima, any subject on this world except the priestess order.
"Through there." I point.
"Should we go in?"
I nod, a little nervous to enter, but turn the handle on the door anyway. The room is pitch black aside from a single well-lit desk, the only one in the entire room illuminated.
"It looks like someone is here?" Calliape whispers. "We should go." She places her hand on my shoulder, vibrating with the need to fold the distance and escape.
"I see no one. They may have stepped out. Let's be quick."
We rush to the back of the room, up the long aisle, passing the messy desks on either side. When we pass the lit-up desk, I can't even bear to look at it, as if the reminder that someone has been here recently is too much for my nerves to handle.
I press the key into the door, but it won’t even pass the opening of the keyhole.
"It's not the right key." I glance up at Calliape, horrified.
"Try again."
I spin it upside down, but it is still much too large no matter which way it is held.
