Mid Spring, The Archive During Rain

The storms returned today.

They were not violent storms, only the slow, steady sort that seem content to settle over the cliffs for an entire day. Heavy clouds gathered before dawn, and rain drifted across the conservatory glass from morning until evening without ever quite stopping.

The Archive always changes during weather like this. The halls darken earlier, sound carries farther through the old pipes, and the lower corridors begin to smell of saltwater and damp stone no matter how many preservation burners remain lit beneath the foundations. Ordinarily I find that comforting.

Today it only made the silence feel heavier.

I avoided the observatory entirely. The broken preservation seal remains exactly as I found it yesterday, and several times I considered repairing it. Each time I found something else that urgently required my attention before I reached the door. Whether that was good judgement or quiet avoidance, I cannot honestly say. It simply did not feel like the right day to disturb that room again.

Clio has not ventured near the eastern halls since the missing hour. She spent most of the day beside the warm furnace pipes beneath the study windows, watching the rain drift across the conservatory roof. She seemed peaceful, although there were moments when her attention became so deliberate that I found myself wondering what she was listening to.

I dislike writing that.

Then again, Clio has been quietly proving my assumptions incomplete for a very long time.

Muninn disappeared shortly after sunrise. I heard him return sometime during the afternoon carrying something substantial enough that his claws scraped loudly across the rafters above the library ceiling. Whatever he brought back remains hidden there. I considered investigating, but decided against it. Some discoveries seem happier when left to introduce themselves in their own time.

I found myself working unusually slowly today. Simple tasks that would normally pass almost unnoticed seemed to take twice as long because every few minutes I stopped to listen.

I was waiting for the bells.

They never came.

Somehow that felt worse.

Their absence settled over the Archive like a held breath.

This evening, while reorganising preservation inventories in Hall C, I discovered moisture coating the inside of several sealed specimen cabinets despite the glass and hinges remaining perfectly intact. It was unmistakably condensation, but from within rather than without. None of the preserved specimens appeared disturbed, although several of the living containment chambers farther north also showed unusual increases in humidity despite stable temperatures throughout the surrounding halls.

Nothing required immediate intervention, but I moved the more delicate specimens farther from the eastern walls before finishing for the day. It seemed the sensible precaution. That side of the Archive has felt increasingly damp of late, as though something beneath the foundations is slowly changing. I do not think it is flooding. Whatever I am noticing feels older than that, and far more difficult to explain.

I have also begun catching myself dreaming while awake, if only for a moment at a time. I will be standing in an ordinary corridor and suddenly become certain I can hear waves where no water exists, or glimpse black seawater reflected in the conservatory glass before realising it is only rain. Once or twice I have found myself remembering staircases I am certain I have never climbed.

Or perhaps staircases I once knew well enough to forget.

I find I prefer not to dwell on that possibility.

The rain continues tonight without interruption. The study still carries the faint scent of seawater despite every window remaining securely closed. Clio finally fell asleep beside the furnace an hour ago, while Muninn continues moving quietly through the rafters overhead.

Every so often, beneath the steady rhythm of the rain, I think I hear something knocking softly from somewhere deep below the eastern halls.

Not the bells.

Not yet.

Perhaps it is only an old door shifting with the weather.

Or perhaps something older, patiently reminding itself that the Archive is still here...

and still holding.

— M