Whoops! Snippet instead of review.
I have been so engrossed in finishing the last stretch of the first ‘Kalbrandt Institute Archives’ book that this week’s ‘Bare Bones’ fell by the wayside. Again.
On the upside, I started the ‘Bare Bones’ as a filler for slower times, and writing is definitely not slow at the moment! It may be tough – I rarely had a story fight me so hard before settling in the shape the rest of the book needs it to be – but progress is steadier than it has been for the past two months.
To celebrate, here is a sneak preview:
Eva couldn’t resist reading the tags that hung from the folders. Both tags and folders were much newer than the dates on the tags suggested.
“A stupid question perhaps, but how old is the Institute?”
“Well over six centuries,” Jonathan answered from one the cabinet by the door, rummaging in one of its drawers. “The first reports date back to the fourteenth century.”
Eva whistled through her teeth. “Fighting ghosts since the 1300’s.”
“Not exactly. The archaeological and historical research goes back that far. The ghosts didn’t get involved until later.”
“Still pretty impressive.” Despite her weariness, she considered opening her senses to the soundless voices that nudged the edge of her awareness, just to hear if there was anything left to say after all that time. She put her hand on a folder. “May I open them?”
“Only when you’re wearing there.” He had pulled several white gloves from the drawer and waved them as he strode past her to the bookcases with the more recent files, obviously in search of something.
While waiting, Eva pretended to be useful and read some of the tags nearest to her. “These numbers don’t start with a letter?”
“That’s because they’re too old. The first ten thousand reports or so don’t have a prefix, because back then there was no division of specialities.”
“I saw the department names on the index. Why were they in French?”
“That was the Institute’s common language at the time. Working with a team of people from all over the world, you have to decide on a single language for communication. These days we all speak English amongst each other, but for centuries it was French.”
Eva recalled the librarian woman saying something like that. “Before that, it was Latin, right?”
Now on to the finish line!
Cheers,
