Page 7 of Atlas of Unknowable Things

LYCANTHROPY

The Were-Wolf is a fearsome beast. He lurks within the thick forest, mad and horrible to see. All the evil that he may, he does. He goeth to and fro about the solitary place, seeking man, in order to devour him.

—MARIE DE FRANCE, TWELFTH CENTURY

I didn’t want to disturb anyone, so I spent my first morning at Hildegard up in my room doing some light reading and feeling generally positive about life.

It was true that my uncharacteristic bout of sleepwalking had left me uneasy when I’d first awakened, but as dawn bled into a heavenly morning, I began to feel alive with possibility.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Casimir’s relic.

Thirteen figures and a two-faced god—it seemed very likely that this could reverse popular opinion of Murray’s work and vindicate my own.

Of course it would need to be authenticated, but I had a feeling deep down that we were dealing with the real thing here. I just had to get my hands on it.

The possibility of the relic meant that my dissertation had taken on a decidedly more exciting tenor.

Suddenly my lot in life had gone from pitiful to potentially important within the span of a few months.

It was a reminder, I supposed, that the wheel of life is always turning.

Apexes swiftly plummet to nadirs, but nadirs never need trap us for long.

Once I heard stirring downstairs, I wrapped up my work and began readying myself for the day.

After brushing my teeth, I tried to make myself look presentable (academic presentable, which isn’t saying much), slipped on some shoes, and headed out into the hallway.

Downstairs, I stood mesmerized by the daylight view out the grand French doors that opened onto the terrace.

The sky was the color of a tropical sea, and nasturtiums and bougainvillea dripped from trellises just outside.

Finding myself alone, I took the opportunity to poke around.

Until I knew more about Casimir, I had to assume that the artifact could be anywhere.

As quietly as I could, I started down a narrow hallway.

When I came upon a room with a piano in it, I slipped inside and looked around, scanning shelves, looking on every surface.

Satisfied it wasn’t in there, I returned to the hall and walked until I reached what appeared to be an old-fashioned flower room.

There was a large counter, a deep sink, and a surplus of glass cabinets filled with vases, but nothing else of note.

“Feeling better?” Dorian’s voice came from behind me, and I whipped around to see his smiling face.

“Yes. Thankfully.”

“Come in to breakfast, and once you have eaten, you can get to work in the archives.”

I followed him down the hall and into a formal dining room, its walls painted a vibrant blue.

A silver coffeepot sat atop a long, intricately carved oak table.

Cups made of delicate porcelain were set near a basket of fresh pastries.

I poured myself some coffee, grabbed a croissant, and sank into a high-backed wooden chair with a deliciously soft blue cushion.

The croissant was warm and fluffy, with a wonderfully buttery lightness.

“Professor Duarte may join us. She’s finishing up some work, but she’s eager to meet you. Everyone is,” he said, sliding into a chair kitty-corner to mine.

“So you live here alone?”

He looked slightly embarrassed. “My father is the chancellor. I’ve lived here since I was a boy.”

“Nice if you can get it.” I gazed out the window at the bright blue sky beyond. “And the campus looks amazing. I’d love to get out and explore.”

“I’ll make sure you have a tour of the grounds this morning, and then we’ll have lunch with the others.”

I knew by the others that he meant the attractive pair from the photograph.

Just looking at them had made me feel like a tumble-dried cat.

In academic circles, everyone always wants to test your accomplishments—What have you published?

Where did you study? etc.—and I knew how to play that game even though I hated it, but I wasn’t sure about the rules here.

I had a vague fear that someone might try to measure my waist or judge the intellectual merit of my work based on my lack of facial symmetry.

“In the meantime,” he continued, “is there anything I can help you with?”

The relic was on the tip of my tongue, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to ask about it. I didn’t want to risk seeming too eager and arouse suspicion. “No,” I said. “Not right now, thanks.”

“Well, if you need anything, I’ll be in my office. It’s right down the hall from here and to your left. Next to the music room.”

“Just out of curiosity”—I cleared my throat and tried to sound casual—“where is Professor Casimir’s office?”

For a second, I thought I caught a glimmer of suspicion in his eye, but it quickly faded. “Funny you should ask. It’s actually just off from the scriptorium.”

That seemed odd to me. Why would a neuroscientist have her office down there? I didn’t press it, though. I just took another bite of my croissant and nodded.

When breakfast was over, I headed down to the archives to work, but as I passed through that glorious library, the door on the upper landing caught my eye once again.

It couldn’t hurt to have a look, could it?

Setting my things down on one of the wooden tables, I started up the unstable stairs, grasping the railings for balance.

When I reached the door at the top, the handle turned with a creak and the door opened onto a long, thin corridor, illuminated by a stained-glass window at the far end that depicted Virgin Mary cradling an olive branch in her lap like one might hold a baby.

On the left side of the corridor was a single imposing ornately carved oak door.

I tried the handle, but unfortunately it was locked.

So much for secret passages leading me directly to the artifact.

I climbed back down the rickety stairwell and readied myself for work.

Down in the scriptorium, I set my bags on one of the tables and went to investigate.

I found Casimir’s office in the back of the scriptorium, but it was fairly underwhelming.

Windowless, it didn’t contain much more than a metal desk and a wooden chair.

It gave the impression that she hadn’t spent much time there, and it seemed like someone had made quick work of clearing it out after she left.

There was a closet filled with office supplies, but little else.

I’d been hoping her computer might have still been there and that she might at least have photos of the relic on it, but there was nothing.

Still, I would keep an eye out. There were some people who still insisted on keeping hard copies of their work.

Charles was one; mistrustful of relying solely on technology, he always printed his work out and kept it in binders.

I often teased him about being a Luddite, but he was the one with the tenure-track job, so the joke was on me.

I closed up the office, intent on looking through some herbal texts.

My first day, I had noticed what I thought might be a fairly old translation of the Shennong Bencaojing—one of the earliest pharmacopoeias.

Although Western and Chinese herbalism were very different practices, I thought it couldn’t hurt to diversify my existing, albeit scant, herbal knowledge.

My time in academia had taught me to never discount the role of serendipity in research, and while I had such an impressive collection of herbal texts at my disposal, I might as well widen my scope.

However, before I reached the herbal section, I found myself drawn to the many shelves lined with bestiaries.

The monstrous, that was what had originally catalyzed my interest in folklore.

In my dissertation, I had quite a bit about modern accounts of monsters, but it was the ancient ones that truly fascinated me.

In the Western world, the origin of the bestiary was a text called Physiologus.

Of unknown authorship, it appeared in the second century BCE, and was one of the first to discuss the unicorn and the phoenix.

However, it was hardly the first text to mention monsters.

In Asia, the Physiologus was predated by two centuries by the Shan Hai Jing.

Also of unknown authorship, it was one of the first texts to describe dragons and sea monsters.

A century prior to that, Herodotus gave us a collection of monsters in his Histories, upon which Pliny the Elder extrapolated in The Natural History.

However, the bestiary as we know it developed directly from the Physiologus.

I selected three codices from the shelves and brought each over, laying them out on the table.

In movies, people always put gloves on when examining a rare book, but in reality, it’s best to handle them with bare hands.

The oils in our hands are actually beneficial for them.

If only people were inherently less damaging to each other than we are to books.

The first, composed in Latin, was a fairly standard bestiary.

My guess was it was probably written somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.

It contained many of the usual contents—unicorns, sea serpents, griffins—but the craftsmanship was extraordinary.

The second was similar, though perhaps not much to write home about.