Early Summer, Tea Leaves and Rainwater

The rain returned before dawn today.

It was the gentlest sort of rain, settling over the conservatory glass in a steady rhythm that continued for hours without thunder or enough wind to trouble the gardens below. By the time I rose, the Archive had already become quieter. Even the sea beyond the cliffs seemed content to remain hidden behind mist.

I spent most of the day doing very little.

That was not laziness so much as necessity. The past several weeks have been filled with examinations, preservation work, and questions that seem only to produce more questions in return. Lately the Archive has felt increasingly watchful, and I have caught myself searching for meaning in every unfamiliar sound or misplaced object. This morning I decided I would do no such thing.

There would be no restoration work, no preservation inventories, and no visits to the eastern halls.

Instead I brewed tea shortly after sunrise and carried the kettle into the conservatory.

Clio followed me the entire way, weaving between the ivy planters with the quiet confidence of someone who already knew where we were going. She has become noticeably more affectionate these past few weeks, although affectionate is perhaps not quite the correct word. There is something protective about the way she chooses to remain close now, as though she has quietly decided that I should not be left alone more often than necessary.

I opened several of the upper windows despite the rain and allowed the cool air to drift through the gardens while steam rose gently from the teacups beside the fountain. For a while the Archive sounded almost exactly as it did years ago. Rain tapped softly against the glass overhead, water moved steadily through the old pipes beneath the floors, pages shifted somewhere within the upper library, and Muninn wandered along the rafters carrying scraps of cloth and dried rosemary from one beam to another for reasons known only to himself.

There is remarkable comfort in familiar sounds.

I spent several quiet hours drying herbs beside the western benches while reading through one of the older botanical journals recovered from the conservatory storage cabinets many years ago. It was not an Archive catalogue or preservation record but someone's personal notebook filled with pressed flowers, sketches of ivy climbing the stone walls, and observations about which plants survived particularly harsh winters. The entries contained very little of historical significance, yet I found them strangely moving. Whoever wrote those pages had once lived here gently enough to devote an afternoon to watching flowers grow.

That thought remained with me for much of the day.

Sometime during the afternoon Clio climbed into my lap while I was sorting fresh tea leaves and promptly fell asleep without the slightest hesitation. She very rarely does that while I am occupied with anything, and I found myself sitting almost perfectly still for the better part of an hour because disturbing her seemed entirely unnecessary.

Muninn appeared to regard this arrangement with considerable disapproval.

He paced back and forth along the edge of the fountain for several minutes, watching us with what I can only describe as theatrical annoyance, before dropping a single white feather directly into my teacup.

I laughed.

Quite loudly, as it happened.

The sound startled Clio, caused Muninn to launch himself indignantly into the rafters, and echoed through the conservatory in a way I had not heard for some time.

It occurred to me afterwards that the Archive had needed laughter every bit as much as I had.

By early evening I gathered the dried bundles of lavender and rosemary and carried them upstairs to hang beside the study windows. The rooms smell warmer already, softened by herbs, candle wax, and freshly brewed tea instead of old paper and preservation oils.

Before extinguishing the conservatory lamps I paused beside the covered sculpture beneath the ivy wall.

It remains exactly where I left it several days ago.

For a moment I considered uncovering it.

Not because I expected it to have changed, but because I wondered whether I had.

In the end I left the cloth where it was and turned out the lights. There is no urgency in understanding every mystery the moment it appears. Some things lose nothing by waiting.

Tonight the rain continues softly across the conservatory roof while the study fills with the scent of lavender, rosemary, and warm candle wax. Clio is asleep beside the still-warm teapot, and Muninn has once again hidden several bundles of rosemary somewhere within the rafters, where I suspect I shall discover them one at a time over the coming weeks.

For the first time in quite a while, I find myself thinking less about what the Archive is trying to tell me and more about what it has quietly given me.

That seems, somehow, the healthier place to begin again.

— M