Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang(80)

 

I shrugged. “Coincidence. I suppose we should go report in to Kristoff that we haven’t found anything.”

 

I started to get up, but Magda held up a hand. “Hang on a sec. I think there’s more to it than coincidence. You had to scoot your chair over a foot so you could touch that spot. It’s not something you can reach when you sit square at the desk.”

 

“So? It’s just a weird quirk. I like wood. I like to touch it.”

 

“Only that one spot?” she asked.

 

I frowned at the desk. “Now, that is odd. I guess I have been drawn to this one edge. . . . Oh, Magda, you don’t mean to say-”

 

“Stranger things, my dear, stranger things.”

 

I rolled my eyes.

 

“Look at it this way.” She crawled over to where my hand had been resting, examining that edge of the desk closely. “You’re a Zorya. You’re not normal anymore.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

She brushed away my grimace. “You know what I mean. You’re Pia-plus, and no, I’m not talking about your size. Maybe there’s something here that you’re subconsciously picking up on. Hand me that letter opener, will you?”

 

I shook my head but did as she asked, giving her the thin knife that Alec obviously used as a letter opener. She poked at the edge for a few minutes, making me flinch a couple of times as the blade marred the wood.

 

“Oh, let me do it,” I said, nudging her aside. “You’re just going to scratch up the lovely finish. Not that I think there’s anything to what you’re . . . Well, I’ll be damned.”

 

I don’t know if it was Magda’s prodding with the knife that did it, or if I triggered some sensitive spot, but a piece of the molding about seven inches long came off in my hand. I thought for a moment that I’d broken it, but a glance at the minute dovetail work of the desk and molding told me it was intended to come off.

 

“Look. Is that an opening?” Magda asked, peering closely at the desk. “It is. I think there’s something in there. You got a pair of tweezers on you?”

 

“Do my eyebrows look like I’m the sort of person who has tweezers?” I asked, getting on my knees so I, too, could peer into a thin, narrow slit that had evidently been carved into the thick top of the desk. Like Magda, I could see the faint outline of an object deep in the recess. I used the paper knife, gently guiding the object out. “I think . . . Ah, there it is. Yes, I have it.”

 

“What is it?” she asked, peering over my shoulders at the slim book I held. “Something important?”

 

“I can’t imagine stuffing something trivial in there,” I answered, carefully unwrapping a saffron yellow animal skin that had been carefully folded into a bundle. Inside it was what appeared to be a hand-stitched goatskin journal. It was small, about the size of a PDA, the outer cover brown and stained with age. The pages inside, about ten total, appeared to be made of vellum, also mottled and stained with the effects of time. I rubbed my fingers along the pages, not seeing, for a moment, the thick black handwriting, but admiring the profound sense of age that wrapped around the book.

 

“Can you read it?” Magda asked, her lips moving as she tried to decipher the handwriting.

 

“Let’s take it to the light.” We scooted two chairs over to the table lamp, angling it so the light shone down on the mottled pages.

 

“It’s definitely old,” Magda said, hunching over it next to me.

 

“I think it’s a diary of some sort. That’s a date, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing to the upper corner.

 

“Looks like it. April? August? Something with an A. From 1642. Wow. Seriously old. I can’t make out what the writing says, though. Can you?”

 

I concentrated on the thick black writing. It appeared to be in a language that I didn’t recognize. I ran my finger along the lines of handwriting, trying to pick out words that made some sense.

 

My finger stopped; my heart contracted. “That . . . that’s Kristoff’s name.”

 

“What? Where?” She craned to see.

 

I tapped the word. “Right there. That says, ‘Hannelor Kristof,’ which has to be a reference to my Kristoff.”

 

“Hmm. Maybe it’s when he first met Kristoff.”

 

“Could be. I wonder if this is the reaper journal Kristoff mentioned.” I continued searching the diary. There were several more instances of his name, but nothing struck me as recognizable.

 

“Maybe Kristoff can read it,” Magda suggested as I finished running my finger along the lines of text on the last page. Something niggled at the back of my mind, something that I had just seen that was important.