Karigan joined the clerk to help her straighten it. Like all the others, the painting was displayed in a massive, ornate frame, in this case a rich mahogany carved with a leafy pattern interspersed with berries. A bunchberry flower was carved into each corner. The portrait was of a distinguished gent with long gray side whiskers and a walrus mustache. He was dressed in white robes.
“Why should it be fitting that this portrait be off balance?” Karigan asked, as she helped shift it into position. It was heavy.
“This fellow,” the clerk replied, stepping back to make sure the painting was level, “was known for being a bit peculiar. Maybe it’s because he was so brilliant. Some of our masters can be a wee bit eccentric, you know. But this fellow?” The clerk shook her head, then whispered as if afraid someone would overhear her, “He collected objects of the arcane sort, or so it’s said. He traveled far and wide to find objects of a magical nature. It is even said he tried to learn how to use magic.”
Aloud she added, “The Guardian of that time, and the trustees, did not like his activities and pretty much drummed him out of Selium.”
Shivers trailed down Karigan’s spine. “What…what was his name?”
“Erasmus Norwood Berry. Professor Erasmus Norwood Berry. He was a master of many disciplines, which is why he wore white, rather than the color of a single discipline, like the maroon of the language arts.”
Karigan knew, had known even before the clerk supplied his name, who he was. She had once met his two daughters, now elderly, living at Seven Chimneys, a fine manor house located in the northern wilds of the Green Cloak.
“When was he—?” Karigan started to ask, but the clerk was already halfway down the corridor, off to carry out her task.
Karigan turned back to the professor. Under all those whiskers, not to mention the impressively bushy eyebrows, it was difficult to see the resemblance between him and his daughters, except for his blueberry blue eyes. Those eyes pierced right into her.
“I can’t believe it,” Karigan said. Sometimes she wondered if meeting the Berry sisters those two years ago had been real, or the mist of some dream, yet here was the portrait of their father as clear as day on the wall of this Selium corridor: Professor Berry, the master of many disciplines.
The sisters had told her of his predilection for collecting arcane objects—Karigan had handled some of them in his library, including a telescope that looked into both the past and future. She had gazed into it and, sure enough, saw many disturbing images. Miss Bayberry’s words now trickled back to her like a whisper of memory: Remember, child, your future is not made of stone.
The sisters also told Karigan how their father possessed no natural talent for magic but had attempted to learn how to use it anyway. One experiment had ended badly when he’d accidentally turned all the household servants invisible. He was unable to reverse the spell.
Liiibraaary… the voice whispered near her ear. She peered around the corridor but saw no one. Were Selium’s ghosts now wanting to speak to her? Library ghosts? Made sense since this was the library building. She gazed hard at the portrait of Professor Berry, and he gazed back at her as only a picture could, unmoving and two-dimensional.
“I liked your house,” Karigan said, not sure why she did, but feeling compelled to do so. “And your daughters were wonderful. They helped me.” She remembered how homey and magical Seven Chimneys was, and how odd but sweet Miss Bay and Miss Bunch had been.
Her words elicited only silence in the corridor, silence almost as complete as that in the archives below. Nothing so much as moved.
She stepped back from the portrait and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, good. It was my imagination after all.”
“I’m ready to go,” Estral said, startling Karigan as she emerged from the curatorial office.
Karigan cleared her throat. “Yes. Good.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Er, myself.”
“I always get the crawlies walking down this hall,” Estral said. “All those old teachers glaring at me as if I don’t measure up.” She chuckled.
They started down the corridor, and from behind her, Karigan heard the now familiar screech of a frame scraping the wall. She did not look back, but redoubled her pace so that Estral had to hurry to keep up.
Like Estral, the corridor was giving Karigan a serious case of the crawlies, and to her mind, she had already dealt with enough supernatural occurrences elsewhere that she didn’t need to add Selium’s population of ghosts to her list.
The next morning Lord Fiori hosted a farewell breakfast in honor of Karigan and Fergal. The great hall of the Golden Guardian’s residence brimmed with guests, several masters who had once given up on Karigan as a student during her early years at Selium among them. Now they treated her as a peer, asking her about her life as a Rider, and Karigan was startled to realize that the last vestige of master and student was gone from her life. She was now an adult among other adults.
Master Rendle attended, accompanied by Master Deleon, Karigan’s old riding instructor. Estral sat beside her father, and Karigan was glad she’d had time to spend with her friend yesterday. With all the chatter, clinking of tableware, and music, it was nearly impossible to carry on a conversation. And yes, there was music, much music, performed by minstrel students playing their best to impress their listening masters, and especially Lord Fiori. It was the liveliest breakfast Karigan ever attended.