A Trick of Moonlight
A short fantasy story in which students try to untangle a late-night mystery.
While most of the Library slept, five students hurried into a little-used reading room, edging out the young boy who’d been there first as they crowded around a dusty statue silvered by the moon. The statue was as tall as the long-dead librarian it portrayed. In one arm, it cradled a massive stone tome, the title too worn to read. The other arm was slightly raised, pinching a hand scale in perfect balance. Erdil—eldest among those gathered—clutched a stack of dog-eared papers covered front and back with all manner of chicken scratch.
“It’s obvious,” he said with all the bluster of one who had no idea what he was doing, but who had too eagerly assumed the mantle of leadership when no one else had stepped up. “We just have to figure out how to activate the scales.”
Inness, who was taller than Erdil by a handspan, grasped hold of one of the scale plates and lifted her knees, hanging her entire body weight from it. “How?” she grunted before letting her feet fall back to the ground. “It’s solid rock.”
“There has to be a hidden mechanism,” said Kuy. He ran his fingers along the scale delicately, as though trying to read the statue’s secrets in the imperfections of the stone.
“What if—”
“Leave us alone, Rowan,” Erdil spat.
“But I really think we have to focus—”
Erdil turned on Rowan and glowered at him. “No one cares what you think! Get out of here!”
Rowan shrank beneath the weight of Erdil’s glare, taking an involuntary step backwards before turning and running from the reading room.
Inness frowned. “That was mean.”
“He was being annoying,” said Kuy, turning away from his inspection of the statue. “Kid’s been following us around all day.”
“He was also the one who figured out the third clue.”
“I’d already solved it. He just blurted it out before I could.” Erdil stared down at the papers in his hand, trying to make sense of everything they’d learned to get here. “I don’t care whose son he is,” he muttered mostly to himself. “Kid thinks he’s better than all of us because he was raised here.”
Flet, who’d been browsing books on the shelf behind the statue, spoke up. “This bickering is a waste of time. The clues make it pretty clear we have to get this done while moonlight shines on the statue. Look, it’s almost gone.”
True enough, the wash of cool moonlight had crept across the statue, leaving only a third still bathed in light.
“Flet’s right.” Erdil began scanning the room. “Come on, there has to be something we can put on the scales to make them move. Try everything you can find!”
Unseen, young Rowan slipped back into the room clutching a silver serving tray. Sticking to the shadows, he used the hem of his sleeve to polish the tray to a high sheen while watching the older students try and fail to balance all manner of objects on the scales. The more frustrated they became, the more he slunk back into a recess between two bookshelves, hoping they wouldn’t notice him lurking in the background.
Flet placed a quill on the scale, poked and prodded the intricately carved chain and plate, then flung the quill to the ground. “Read the clue again, Erdil.”
“I’ve read it a hundred times!”
“Read it a hundred and one, then! Read it until we’ve figured the damned thing out!”
“Fine.” Erdil shuffled his papers to find the passage. “A librarian from the oldest tales, Faithful watcher of the scales, Night Mother’s feathery brush of light, Brings the final key to light.”
Flet ran her hands through her hair, squeezing and pulling until the roots stung her scalp. “This has to be it. The scales are obvious. Night Mother is the moon. According to the astrological almanac, this is the only night of the year when light shines through this window at the right angle. If we don’t get this now, we’re ruined!”
Rowan pressed himself tight against the wall. Patience was not his strong suit, but he could wait a little longer. The students had become so caught up in their arguments about what to try before the moonlight moved away from the statue that they missed the moment the last glimmer slipped silently off the stone. Rowan stifled the urge to shout at them, and fortunately he didn’t have to wait long for Kuy to notice that their time was up. Exhausted from the lateness of the hour and the efforts of the day, the five students gave up and shuffled off to their respective beds.
The moment the last of them was out of sight, Rowan burst from his hiding place and set to work snatching a chair and placing it atop a table on the far side of the room. He then scampered atop the table and chair, hoisted his makeshift mirror as high overhead as he could manage, only to come up a few inches short of catching the last fading beam of moonlight. Quick as he could, he gathered the four stoutest books he could find, placed them under the legs of the chair, and made his wobbly way back onto his precarious perch. By standing on tiptoe, he was just able to catch the moon’s light with his platter, focusing and redirecting it onto the leftmost scale.
With tightly held breath, he strained against the shaking of his calves and the ache in his arms in order to hold the spot of moonlight in place. At first, nothing happened. Then the stone plate began to creep downwards. At its nadir, a soft click echoed throughout the night-silent room, and Rowan nearly cracked his skull open in his haste to climb down from the chair and table. He rushed to the statue and inspected the stone book. Sure enough, a sliver of space had appeared beneath the cover, allowing Rowan to lift it and reveal a dull metal key wrapped in a scroll of undecipherable symbols.
“Another clue,” Rowan grumbled. “There’s always another clue.”
Even so, after pressing the book shut and watching the stone scale slide mysteriously back into place, a smile creased Rowan’s lips. Another mystery was more fun in the end. A final prize meant no more game, and then what would Rowan do for fun?
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The Wolf of the Library
A traveling librarian journeys south to the Keshtun steppes, searching for a long-lost relic whispered to bend the will of kings.
Available in Digital and Print
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story, please consider sharing it with a friend. Until next time, I’ll see you Among the Stacks!
Mark Feenstra