Chapter #5: "Blarke-Bayer Historical Centre"

Tsukiko and Ririka’s cabin ambiance was bedecked with the sound of stitch stitch stitch. Ririka was not lost to the irony that her day off was being spent doing the same activity she did for work; the little differences - wearing something a bit cuter, working on clothes that were a lot cuter, with more stuffed company and a nice breeze coming in from the open window - were enough to make the sewing mood entirely better for her. The room felt like a back hug, and the way her fingers were kept moving was a perfect unwinding.

“Hello, Princess Lily.”

She was suddenly cinched from behind and made to stare at the ceiling while the front legs of her chair took flight from the floor. She squeaked like a dog’s toy until she was gently set back level, and then - flustered - whispered “Hi.”

Tsukiko covered her grin with her mouth and teasingly giggled at her. “That didn’t scare you, did it?”

“Just surprised,” she blushed. “Happily surprised; you’re in a good mood today,” she observed with giddy temper.

Tsukiko paused and looked at her hand. “Yeah, I think I am,” she spun on her feet and turned the attention back on Ririka. “What about you, then?” She teased. “Is my baby doll having a good day of rest?”

“Ah, yeah, yeah. Kinda.” She found herself turned back on to the rhythmic needlework in front of her. “I wanted to work on this coord but only got started like 20 minutes ago - I was mostly just rereading Honey Girls all day and-” she poked herself on the cheek, unfoundedly afraid she was being boring. “Uh, so what’s happening?” she asked; this was her default phrase for when she was unsure how to start a conversation.

Behind her she heard Tsukiko ruffling in a drawer: reaching for the far corner and wrapping a chain around her finger, reeling in what it was stringed around, making the thing scrape and bump its way out of the clutter.

Tsukiko stared at herself in the gold tint of its casing, clicking it open in sync with one of Ririka’s anxious stitches, which ceased as Ririka turned her head around to try win Tsukiko's glare from the thing.

“The morning after we got it I put pictures on a forum and asked if anybody knows what it is,” she explained. “It’s been almost two weeks now, but nobody has commented an answer better than a blind guess, so I guess there is something really weird about this. I even went through all the old reference books at the library here and came up short.”

Ririka gingerly moved her project off her lap and spread it out onto the table, getting up to stand next to her girlfriend in observation of that dreadful thing. Life had remained quiet since that night: her days were being haunted by worries, but thus far nothing had changed, such that sometimes she truly felt for a minute that it had all been a series of bad dreams.

“Unless Mavor del Toro shows up at our door again,” Tsukiko said, making Ririka wince, “I think we’re at a dead end.”

Ririka could tell she was distraught at this, and - swimming against the current of her better judgement - tried to make things right.

“I think Heraschel might know some people who deal in old stuff like that…”

Tsukiko waved her suggestion off. “Don’t let him or Luci know what we’re up to, not even vaguely.”

“Maybe, uh- ah! What if we brought it to a museum?!” she preppily suggested as the thought hit her. Tsukiko turned her attention to her, patiently waiting for elaboration. “It looks pretty old, doesn’t it? Maybe if we could talk to someone who knows about that kinda stuff then they could give us an idea of what it is.”

“Lily,” - She instantly felt regretful, worried that her suggestion was horrible.

Tsukiko patted her on the head. “That’s a great idea!” She quickly scampered over to their computer and started summoning new tabs to overtake the fashion blog Ririka had left up. “It’d be great to go to the national one,” she mused, “but it’s all the way at the Forbidden North Star - and I’d hate to be seen anywhere del Toro could pick up on us snooping around - so we’ll have to find a private place in the city.”

It had them another ten days of waiting on emails until they had finally secured an appointment to take their mysterious thing down to a basement study room at the Blarke-Bayer Historical Centre to be seen by a museum associate, who’d graciously give their qualified-but-not-officially-sanctioned opinion on the piece.

The entrance to the building was under a glistening glass facade, the doors placed between marble columns which made Ririka feel meeker than she normally did. The inside was noisier than she expected it to be, even when they had only made it to the front desk where Tsukiko talked through them being given special visitor’s badges.

Still with some time to spare, Ririka followed as she secured her bag over her shoulder picked a small hallway to go down on a whim. At the end of it, they found a legion of statues frozen in frolic or dignity, dotted intermittently between uncountable treasure displayed in glass boxes. There were little jewels and heirlooms sat next to framed photos, heavy clay vases - one as big as a toddler - and old clothes, displayed on mannequin torsos that Ririka thought didn’t look as good as the ones she had. All of them were cast in a theatrical contrast of spotlight and shadow, thanks to the curved paneled glass roof letting the sunlight down only at certain angles.

Tsukiko’s steps didn’t seem to have any particular interest, but Ririka - on one random turn towards a wall - felt her gaze be caught like a fish on a line, and stopped in her path.

The object of her attention was a painting, just one of many, but one which she felt guided to in particular. It was drawn in watercolors, with gentle strokes that had the texture of clouds on a bright summer day. The soft colours would remind one of something placed in a children’s library, but the subject matter went against its sweet aura.

It showed two women in a couple’s embrace. One faced outward, while the other had her back to the perspective, her silk dress torn and stained red by a spear planted in her back. On the ground beneath them were visible the bodies of three fallen comrades.

Ririka stepped up to it, reeled in, wanting to see what it was called and who painted it. “It’s beautiful,” she thought to herself, “but I wouldn’t want Tsukiko to have to see it.”

“Do you enjoy this piece, ma’am?”

“Oh crap it’s a person.”

Ririka, now forced to remain in place by both politeness and her own social fright, swiveled her neck to see who had spoken up at her.

She looked to be an employee of the museum, indicated not only by how she had talked but how she was dressed: wrapped in a thick jacket the colour of milkless coffee, opened down the middle to show a cross section of her white dress shirt and a vest that was so brilliantly green that it caught the light and reflected emerald up to her hair as it hung over her shoulders. Between the folds of her collar sat a black ribbon and a jeweled charm necklace, which may have looked cute if worn by somebody who wasn’t holding themselves like they were smugness cast into the shape of a woman.

Her mouth, coated with dark lipstick, was slightly open to a smile, but her eyebrows remained flat and level with her fingers as she tilted her head to rest every so slightly on her hand. Even though she had to look up to Ririka, the woman still made her feel small with the way her violet eyes studied her: Ririka’s startled expression, the way her hair was brushed, the ruffles of her skirt;' she looked over all of them like she was studying a bug she had caught in a mason jar.

“It was painted by Annalena Yona , who titled it Last Wish Whispered. It depicts the death of legendary general Mahaut Janina, who was ambushed and killed after she and her women were falsely declared to be traitors.” the woman began explaining, all without ever looking away from Ririka. “She was actually succeeding in fighting for herself, but took the stabbing to save her wife, who she asked to carry her back to their home so she could die there, laying in their bed. There’s a companion piece titled simply At Home which shows her last request being granted, but we haven’t been able to acquire the original copy of that one,” she scowled, “Yet.”

Ririka stood clasping her hands, so enthralled with the painting’s hauntingly romantic backstory that she zoned out imagining it. “That’s so tragic…” she sadly said to herself as she looked back at it.

“Yes, you look like someone who’d be a sucker for doomed love. Personally I don’t think that story’s true at all though. For one thing-”

Being subjected to the continuing monologue brought her back to where she was, making her turn head around to pick out the fox ears on Tsukiko’s hood out of the crowd. “Thanks for telling me,” she meekly interrupted, unsure of if the woman actually heard her over the report she was reciting from memory. “I gotta go now.” 

The woman bit her lip. “I see. Well, I have a meeting anyway.” she said as she rolled up her sleeve to glance at a wristwatch. “I hope you enjoy yourself, though, do come back once I get At Home for us.”

“Okay,” Ririka said as she tiptoed away, deciding that she didn’t really want to do that.

“There you are!” Tsukiko called as she emerged from a cluster of the public and grabbed Ririka’s hand, half-annoyed and half-teasing. “I didn’t expect you to leave me back there.”

“I saw a nice painting,” she explained in brief. “This place is kinda cool though…”

“Well, I’ll look with you when we’re done,” Tsukiko promised. “That can be our date for this week,” she winked, and started down a flight of stairs with Ririka in tow.

“H-hey baby?” Ririka whispered, her words carried more by the echo of the corridor than her own voice. 

“Mhm?”

“If I got fatally stabbed would you carry me home so I could die in our bed?”

Tsukiko stopped mid step and looked back at her.

“Are you feeling alright sweetheart?”

“Yeah, just wondering.”

“Okay, well, I would," she assured her.

Ririka blushed. “Ok. That’s good.”

After that, they made it to the basement floor, which was essentially one large hallway full of many smaller studies and closets. “Here, this is the room they told me,” Tsukiko said as she took the liberty of opening the door, letting Ririka be the first one to step in.

She did so, but immediately jumped backwards as she looked inside and found herself matched with the same gleefully observing purple she had the awkward exchange over the painting with minutes before, sitting perfectly upright with her jacket slung over her chair.

“Come on in,” she invited, in a customer service voice audibly accented by an upbringing outside of Kismet. The woman either didn’t recognize Ririka or didn’t care that she was there, which Ririka was caught between being hurt by and thankful for. She decided to stay in the doorway until Tsukiko stepped ahead of her.

“My name is Verity Godard; I’m an archivist here,” she presented herself like a grand prize, “I hear you have a little trinket you’d like to ask me about.”

Tsukiko nodded, pulled down her hood, and set her bag on the table to reach in it. Out of it she pulled the watch, and silently slid it across the table.

“Oh mon chou, that’s called a pocket watch,” Verity instantly piped up. Tsukiko came halfway to rolling her eyes.

“That’s what it seems like, yeah, but if you open it up-” she pried open the face, “the numbers are base 10 instead of base 12, there’s only one hand, and it doesn’t move on its own.” She demonstrated pushing the dial down with her thumb, spinning the hand to land it solidly the mark of “4”. “I posted it on the internet too, but nobody’s been able to come up with a solid idea of what its purpose is.”

Tsukiko’s demonstration managed to get a beat out of Verity, whose face gained actual interest in the conversation.

“Curious,” she bit her lip, and forcefully reached for it to see for herself. Being pried from Tsukiko’s hand caused the display to swivel back to the top mark of zero. Verity pressed it down herself; Her eyes were fully lit up, but dimmed again as the hand remained still.

“Show me how it works?” she beckoned Tsukiko, who gulped.

“Well, that’s the thing I suppose.” She took it and showed the simple but impossible mechanism. “What it does depends on who touches it, but we have no clue why or how.”

“Fascinating trick,” she scoffed. Tsukiko and Ririka nervously glanced at each other, neither sure how to proceed with her.

“Let me see you do it,” she snickered, pointing at Ririka. “Pressing the thing down, I mean to say.”

Ririka found herself stammering, looking to Tsukiko for help and not receiving much. Hesitantly, she let Verity hand her the watch, and showed her the face as she pressed down and levered it to read off “6.5”. After a second, Verity leaned over the table and slipped Ririka’s thumb off of it, replacing it with her own pointer finger whilst Ririka was still holding it. Again, the hand remained stuck at 0.

“Right, interesting,” Verity stood up and began marching around the room. “two little punk girls coming all the way here just to spend an afternoon trying to get a raise out of me with their manufactured little puzzle game.” She slammed her hands on the back of a chair. “God, don’t people have jobs anymore?”

Tsukiko scowled indignantly. “Hey listen, it’s not what you think,” she insisted. “We seriously don’t have a clue how or why this thing works either, that’s the whole reason we’re here.”

“Right, right. And how did you come by this silly little thing again?” she snickered to herself.

Tsukiko bit her nail. “My grandmother,” she quickly lied. She tried to swerve her words into telling a made up backstory for her bringing it to Blarke-Bayer, but got shushed.

“Hold it in, foxtails,” She went for a cabinet built into the wall, and fetched a palm-sized yellow box covered in a handful of buttons and with a dim screen in the middle of it. “Have you ever seen this stuff before? It’s called PVB - which is short for its chemical name - but I’m no chemist, so like most people I just call it star jelly. If you crack one of these tubes open, it’ll seep out and go towards the residual effects of people using magic. One of you two girls is a Scene Star right? Or maybe the both of you? Either way, in a few minutes I’ll get a hint of how you’re screwing with me,” she bragged.

She set the device to activate and set it in front of the couple with her face like a weasel’s. Tsukiko too annoyed to speak and Ririka too anxious, they just watched in awkward silence as her expression progressively dropped until it seemed a full five minutes had passed and the goop still hadn't moved a smidge.

“Oh good heavens,” Verity laughed. “That’s- Hm, was I wrong?” Shocked, she put her finger on her chin. Her initial enthusiasm poured right back in as she picked up the watch and turned it all over again, desperately playing with the dial trying to get it to do something.

“Hey foxtails, show me you do it again,” she commanded. Pointing at Ririka, she added “You too.”

She made herself a miniature show watching the girls trade it back and forth, showing her its anomalous reaction to their touch.

“Welp, I’m stumped,” she slumped back down in the chair. “Congratulations, you’ve brought me something I genuinely can’t explain, let alone identify. Speaking in hypothesis, it seems like it’d be similar to a C31 or a G-M tube, but it has to be somehow measuring something that’s present on you but not me.”

Tsukiko sneakily wrapped the watch’s chain around her finger, slowly reeling it back in towards her. “Measure…?”

“You two haven’t touched any radium lately, have you?” she asked, in a tone that left them unsure of if she was joking. “I’m very intrigued; I’d like to ask to take tentative possession of this item, and I can commit it to further study.”

“No thank you,” Tsukiko responded, her words snapping like a bear trap. “We had no interest in donating it, it’s coming back with us.”

Verity grimaced. “You’re being foolish,” she insisted. “There’s no way you’re halfway qualified to be caretaking such a curiosity!”

“No deal,” Tsukiko bluntly insisted.

“Oh come on!” Verity whined, her consummate persona dripping off her. “I’m going home after this and don’t feel like fighting about it, please just do the sensible thing for me.”

“Let’s go Lily,” Tsukiko motioned as she stood up, watch tailing behind her as she scooped it up back into her bag. “Thanks for your time,” she told Verity as she put her hood up and crept out.

Tsukiko and Ririka stood outside, huddling under the small canopy of a bus station planted in front of the museum.

“Sorry I got mad and stormed out,” Tsukiko said while counting lines on the road out of boredom. “I should’ve remembered you wanted to look when we were done.”

Ririka tapped her cheek thinking of how to reply, then sighed and pulled out her phone.

In response, Tsukiko got hers out and opened it to “don’t worry”.

“my fault for saying to do this to begin with”

“Oh no darling, nothing’s your fault.” Tsukiko rubbed her eyes and pulled out the watch, feeling an urge to show it to the sunlight and think over it even with a phone in her other hand and an annoyance at a late bus in her head. “Besides, look on the bright side. Now I owe you another date, and you know I’m gonna let you pick wherever you want.”

Ririka blushed and fidgeted with her hands.

“i’m too people’d out rn” she messaged. “just take me home and get high and watch tv with me pls” she sent, along with an emoticon with pleading eyes.

Tsukiko exhaled, and let her eyes shut for a second. “That sounds nice.”

Before she got too lost in thought, she snapped them back open. Something had just become wrong.

She looked down at her hands, her phone in one, the other - empty.

Her lungs involuntarily forced out a hybrid gasp-and-yelp as she spun around looking at the ground.

“What the hell what the hell?!” raced through her head, as she became frustrated at everything. “I literally just had it; there’s no way I dropped it.” She took a glance back in her bag and even her hoodie pocket, both of which turned up empty.

“Ririka, where is the w-”

“Sorry to sneak up on you!”

Tsukiko’s neck was drawn back towards the museum entrance, while Ririka was so startled she jumped back into her arms. Leaning against a brick wall was Verity Godard, smugly admiring the watch in her hand while her coat tails fluttered in the wind. 

“But you know how it is, I have too big a conscience to let this walk away from me. I’ll get it back to you if it turns out to be something boring after all!” She saluted, then hopped off the ground and started scaling up the wall effortlessly, magically gliding along the bricks before dashing out of sight, leaving Tsukiko and Ririka in the dust.