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If Seventh Sister suffered the same constraints and issues, perhaps she’d shake a snoozing old lady awake and order her to clean up in that hoity-toity tone too.
And maybe, if that librarian put herself in Seventh Sister’s Ruth shoes for a bit, she’d realize that an overweight elderly person in her sixties with low energy and bouts of fatigue was prone to naps, and tended to sleep deeply. That maybe she could use a little help putting the books back where they belonged, given she wasn’t too nimble and speedy in these aching old bones.
She sighed.
It was exhausting to feel things, and to think so much about other people’s feelings. Which underscored her original thesis:
Being human was the pits.
No wonder some people preferred to stay as an island unto themselves.
The reason she was in the library on a Sunday afternoon (besides the fact that it was practically a daily ritual for Ruth; the cushion of her chosen armchair retained the shape of her double-wide behind long after she left it)—was to help Ben and his friends discover more useful clues for the attainment of the Secret Gift.
And in the process, help herself.
She rubbed one gnarled hand over the back of the other, both trying to loosen the knots in her joints, as well as petting the two rings she wore.
One for the Jewel of Dreams. The other for the Song of Destiny.
It was the Song that led her to the Secret Gift as the next quest to complete. It practically sang to her right inside her ear. She thought she was having hearing issues until she realized that it was the ring making the raucous inside her head.
Then, the two rings together acted like two points in a triangle. When she flipped through history books, purely by leisure as a way to pass time, they pinged like a tuning fork when she landed on ancient Egypt, triangulating the period in which the Gift originated.
Finally, with the Jewel of Dreams, she could plant symbols, clues and images in Ben’s dreams to point him in the right direction.
Which was why he and his friends should be on their way to Egypt by now.
It was certainly a more convoluted approach to starting a quest than the alternative to date—which was to be summoned by Papa, and be sent back in time with a few guiding words from “Master.”
And it took her this long to even cobble together enough clues herself, never mind influence Ben to pursue the quest. She didn’t realize how she could use the rings until the very moment they “pinged.” Planting seeds through Ben’s dreams also took trial and error, and lots of repetition.
Furthermore, it wasn’t as if she sat on her thumbs all day doing nothing. She had to behuman.
She had a job, naps to take, carpentry to learn. She had to eat and sleep, dress and undress, clean herself and her surroundings.
Honestly, there was hardly any “free” time at all! The seconds, minutes, hours and days went by so fast. She could hardly keep up.
Perhaps if she sat Ben and the Immortals down and told them who she really was, she could be more direct about the quests. That would have shaved off at least six to nine months in lead time.
But…
She didn’t know if she was “allowed.” And even if she was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
This was the only chance, in the entirety of her long,longexistence, that she was truly human. Right in the thick of it like the rest of these fragile, complex, emotional mortals.
Perhaps she was here, in these forms, for a reason. Perhaps she had her own lessons to learn.
Or she’d screwed herself royally by jumping through the Mirror Pond on a whim and sealed the portal.
Only time would tell.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
~1490 B.C. Ancient Egypt. 18thDynasty, reign of Thutmose II.
Heba stood unobtrusively in the shadows of the tall stone columns that surrounded the open-sky training field as she watched Shai take on six of the finest fighters in the royal guard.
He, bare-handed; they, fully armed. It was barely a fair match even then—forthem.
