The squat gray building a little ways down Main Street, apart from the main Harvest Festival celebrations, had the appearance of a tired office building. But it only looked like an office building. It was actually the library. It didn’t look like a quaint school house, the mental picture which Mel always had of a small town library, not even close. She took a picture, intent on collecting it for her bad architecture collection. She judged the building to be built no more than thirty years ago—the height of the awful architecture fashion filled with architects whose ideas of progressive design included ugly corners, ugly colors, and ugly aesthetics. Their entire goal for building, as far as Mel was concerned, was to clash with nature and common sense sensibility. They stood out all right, just like an eye sore.
She opened the glassed door and walked in. Stuart trailed behind her and stopped at a bulletin board to squint at all the local announcements. The interior of the library was just as uninspired as the exterior. The carpet was a pink flecked gray which had the effect of being bland and nauseous at the same time. The bookshelves were an unremitting metal with handwritten catalogue numbers on index cards taped to the sides. The librarian’s counter was off to the side—on Mel’s left as she had just walked in from the entrance. The wall behind the librarian’s counter was taped up with copies of popular children’s books and a large banner that said “Harvest Festival Reading”. To the right, past the shelves, she could see that there was a room designed for gatherings. The chairs and tables had been pushed to the side and there was a gray-haired woman with glasses reading a story book to a crowd of small children sitting rapt at her feet. The children’s mothers were browsing the nearby bookshelves.
A librarian was sitting at the counter typing diligently onto a desktop computer. The librarian was a younger woman with brown shoulder length wavy hair that gleamed under the florescent light. Perhaps she used gel on her tresses or maybe hair spray. Or maybe, as Mel shuddered at the thought, she hadn’t washed it in a couple days. She walked to the counter and the librarian looked up, peering up at her over a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that were in danger of slipping down her nose.
“Yes? May I help you?”
“I’m just a visitor,” replied Mel. “I was just surprised that the library was open on a holiday.”
“The Harvest Festival is just a local holiday,” the librarian pointed out. “Of course we’re open today.” She suddenly grinned at a point beside her. Mel turned to see what she was looking at and discovered that Stuart had decided to amble towards her to see what she was doing. “Hello, sir! My name’s Teresa. How may I help you?”
“Oh, I’m with her,” Stuart grinned back, his arm deliberately brushing against Mel.
The librarian’s chirpy expression slightly fell.
“Hm.” Mel found herself amused. She glanced at a pile of bookmarks on the counter that had the library’s hours printed in tiny type. “I see that you have story time today?”
“Oh yes. And since it is the Harvest Festival, there will be a craft hour for the little ones too. You two have any kids yourself? You can bring them in for that—registration isn’t required.”
“Uh, no. I was just curious,” Mel said as Stuart coughed in embarrassment.
“Well, if you need any help finding anything…otherwise, feel free to look around.”
Mel nodded and tucked her camera back into her tote bag.
“Actually, there is something you could help us with,” said Stuart. “We heard about a horn silver mine just north of here that’s closed. You don’t suppose you know anything about it or have any books on it?”
“Yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about!” Teresa the librarian exclaimed. “The horn silver mine was indeed closed down a couple years ago. I heard it was for health and safety reasons or something like that. The supports keeping the lower tunnels were weakening or something similar. The mine brought a mini economic boom to the town about a hundred and fifty years ago when it was first opened. We actually have some history books about it.”
The two journalists followed the librarian as she circled the counter and walked off towards the stacks. She ventured near the back of the library were there were shelves filled with old dusty volumes with fading script on their bindings.
“As you can see, not very many people come back here,” apologized the librarian. “Most people aren’t very interested in the town’s history—it’s just too bad that people just fall back on word of mouth. Some of these books can be very interesting.”
“I see,” said Stuart.
Teresa pointed to some volumes in dark brown binding on a shelf next to them. “These are the ones about the mine,” she said. “Most of it is just economic records and some deeds. There is also one volume about who the owners of the mine sold the horn silver to and what the horn silver was then made into. There’s some very interesting information and folklore about that.”
With that, the librarian left Mel and Stuart at the dusty bookshelves. Mel promptly sneezed and wrinkled her nose. “Well,” she said, “I hadn’t exactly envisioned spending an afternoon back in this kind of musty place.”
Stuart picked one of the volumes and slowly smiled. “Oh, but think of the possibilities. We’re in an isolated part of the library. No one’s going to accidentally stumble upon this particular stack. And it’s just you and me…”
“Yeah,” Mel smirked as she took another tome. “And there’s no one around to hear you scream.”
He just shook his head and opened his book. For the next few moments, nothing could be heard but the turning of pages as they perused the history volumes. Mel was leaning against the hard metal shelf for support as she idly flipped through pages of graphs and numbers. Suddenly she stopped flipping the pages and her hand stilled. She straightened up.
“Hey, look at this.”
Stuart looked over her shoulder as her finger pointed to the relevant passage.
* * *
Before the town was founded, the natives used the area which is now the mine as a religious communing place to pray to their gods. They found some of the horn silver on the surface and shaped the mineral that they did find into religious artifacts, mostly bowls and cups for libations, statuettes, ceremonial daggers and knives, and square tiles that they fashioned for mosaics and used for counting, not unlike rosaries.
The area next to the mine was where the natives buried their ancestors in the belief that the area where the horn silver was found was a mystical place, home to spiritual and protection energies which had been imbued to that place by their gods for various reasons. Since the natives used that plot as a burial place for their dead, the founders of Gavot saw fit to leave the place as it was even after the natives were driven out. It is now the Gavot cemetery which now holds the bodies of the founders themselves.
The natives believed that horn silver had many properties as in their folklore, it was thought to be one of the “magical elements” originally made by their god of the cyclical year, the Horned One. Ground into powder, it was added to various medicinal tinctures to cure a variety of illnesses such as cold, influenza, the pox, arthritis, headaches, body aches, toothaches, the sniffles, allergies, cataracts, and easing pain from broken bones and insect bites alike. The powder was also added to ritual mixtures containing nickel and sulfur which was thrown into the fires along with other hallucinogenic drugs to induce visions to commune with the gods. It was also added to incense and body lotions.
In solid form, the horn silver was used to make various artifacts for self adornment as well as religious and magical purposes. Most noticeably, the natives fashioned the horn silver into beads which were usually strung into a necklace and used as decoration. This native tradition has survived in Gavot’s annual Harvest Festival as the prize the winner of the festival competitions receive. On another note, the beads were also used for magical purposes. Depending on the intent of the magician who “blesses” the beads before giving them to the recipient, they can either act as a talisman to ward of evil influences or be a focus to evil influences itself to curse the wearer. In such cases, the curse can only be reversed if the gift is given back to the giver.
* * *
Mel sighed. “Now what? We have no idea who gave those beads to Mad Dog.”
“Well, what do we know so far?” said Stuart. “They look remarkably similar to the beads that are given to the winners of the Harvest Festival competition. Perhaps they were made by the same artisan.”
“It doesn’t matter who made the thing.” She closed the tome and slid it back into the shelf. “It’s the person who gave the necklace to Mad Dog who counts.”
He rubbed his chin. “But we do know who gave it to him. The Grandburys told us. Mad Dog’s boyfriend, a painter who wore all black.”
“Hm.” Her eyes narrowed as her mind worked on the information. “I nearly forgot about that. And we didn’t get a chance to talk to the bed and breakfast’s visiting artist before he took off to that foot race. You don’t suppose he could be? I mean, he just seems to be like a visitor, like us. He told me earlier that he was just here to sell some of his paintings.”
“There are probably plenty of painters who wear black,” he agreed. “And Mad Dog supposedly was hanging out with the artist commune back at the community center.” He winced, thinking of the drunk bingo ladies. “We’ll have to go back there, won’t we?”
She patted his arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
“Really. I had the impression that you wouldn’t hesitate at all to throw me to the banshees.”
