Mirror Sight by Kristen Britain

paperweight. Here and there shovels and pick axes leaned against a bookstack. Some were buried up to their handles. She saw no sign of her own belongings, but there was no way to tell if they were buried anywhere in this clutter.
    Karigan thought that if the professor wished to conduct archeological excavations, he should begin with his own office. She dared not touch anything for fear it would all come crashing down on her. Across his desk a map lay unrolled, but she could not make sense of it with its gridwork of numbers, transects, and layers.
    She froze when she heard a door open and close somewhere else in the house. She wondered what to do—hide, or stay where she was? What if it was the professor coming to work late in his office?
    She hastily lowered the light of the taper to a dim glow. She headed for the door, brushed against a stack of books, and watched in horror as they listed precariously. She gritted her teeth and tried to steady them so they would not topple, but the stack was over-balanced and fell, taking out the stack behind it, and another.
    The noise was like thunder, and she flung herself out of the room, across the hall, and into one of the storage rooms. So much for her stealthy sojourn. If they discovered her, she’d be banned from leaving her room
ever.
Not that she’d let them stop her.
    Hurried footsteps came down the corridor. She extinguished the taper entirely so no hint of light leaked through the crack at the bottom of the door. There was a second set of footsteps, and she opened the door just the tiniest bit. She saw the professor’s back, and Mirriam’s, each of them holding a taper.
    “What in the world?” Mirriam demanded. She wore a plaid housecoat over her nightgown and a bonnet over her hair. The professor was attired in what looked like formal evening wear, as if he’d just returned from a party.
    “It appears,” he said, “one of my bookstacks gave way, leading to a chain reaction.”
    “I’ve warned you many times, Professor, that it is dangerous in there—a death trap! A whisper could’ve knocked those books over. What if you’d been in there? We’d be sending for Mender Samuels is what.”
    “Then a good thing I was not.”
    “I guess we’ll have to set it right in the morning, then,” Mirriam said with a mournful note in her voice.
    “No, no,” the professor said. “I’ll let the boys handle it. What are first year students for anyway? You go back to bed and don’t worry one iota about it.”
    “If you’re sure . . .”
    “I’m sure. Go back to bed.”
    Dismissed, Mirriam retreated down the hall. The professor continued gazing at the mess in his office, tugging at his bushy side whiskers.
    “And my night’s just beginning,” he grumbled, and he shook his head.
    Karigan expected him to make some attempt at straightening his office, but he turned and walked away. She did not hesitate but slipped out of the storage room to follow him, keeping to the darkness, away from the halo of light emitted by his taper.
    He swept past the kitchen and pantry area, past the dining room, and veered into the library, leaving one of the double doors ajar. By the time Karigan reached the doors and peered inside, she discovered he’d left his taper at dim glow on the main table, but he was gone. Vanished.
    She stepped boldly into the library, but he was nowhere to be seen. She had observed him entering the library, hadn’t she? Here was his taper as proof. Vanishing was usually
her
trick and the absurdity made her want to chuckle, but she swallowed it back.
    She hid herself behind a big leather armchair in a dark corner to see if Professor Josston reappeared, but she’d barely gotten herself situated when she heard what must be the house’s front door opening and closing. She’d made a serious miscalculation about the amount of night time activity in the house.
    She dared not leave her hiding spot, and was glad she hadn’t when someone entered the library. She