The Annex
“I thought we were going to see the leprechauns?” Cassandra said.
“So we are,” Jenkins replied as he escorted her through the byzantine byways of the Library. It was a bewildering maze of halls and galleries, holding everything from Penelope’s unfinished tapestry to Prufrock’s intimidating peach, yet Jenkins navigated the sprawling Library with ease. “But we need to go properly prepared.”
The Library’s Hibernian Wing, which was devoted to Irish history and mythology, was one of many subsections comprising the Library’s vast and all but unfathomable entirety, including the Large Collections Annex and the Theoretical Animals Wing. Even after three years and change, there were parts of the Library that Cassandra had barely explored. She wasn’t entirely sure she had ever visited the Hibernian Wing before.
Some Cillian I am, she thought guiltily. I suck at being Irish.
A newfound determination to better appreciate her heritage prompted her to scope out the surprisingly sizable collection as she followed Jenkins into the wing. Along with shelf after shelf of books on Ireland, from Ireland, and by Irish authors, poets, and playwrights, various other relics and artifacts were also on display, including a gorgeously illuminated manuscript that rivaled the celebrated Book of Kells, a three-faced stone idol, a weathered Celtic cross, a fiddle, a bog mummy, a humble iron bell, an oil painting of a cattle raid, a bottle of Guinness and … a potato?
“Wow!” she exclaimed, trying to take it all in. “I had no idea the Irish collection would be so … extensive.”
“Not for nothing is Erin known as the Land of Saints and Scholars,” Jenkins commented. He gestured at the packed rows of books. “Its contributions to literature alone warranted its own dedicated wing of the Library.”
Cassandra scanned the bookshelves. A serpentine design embossed on the spine of one volume caught her eye and she pulled it from the shelf. Inspecting the book, she read the type of the front cover aloud:
“The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker.”
“Born and raised in Dublin,” Jenkins informed her. “One of his lesser works, to be frank, but not nearly as fictional as generally believed.”
She flipped open the book, revealing an interior illustration depicting a sinuous creature that was part snake, part woman. Reptilian eyes peered malevolently from a classically beautiful face. A forked tongue escaped smirking lips.
“Not sure I needed to know that,” Cassandra said.
With a shudder, she snapped the book shut and returned it to the shelf. Heading deeper into the wing, she came upon another intriguing item: an ordinary-looking rock, about the size of a brick, resting under a glass dome atop a velvet cushion as though it were one of the Crown Jewels. That the rock occupied a position of honor within the collection piqued Cassandra’s curiosity.
“What’s so special about this rock?” she asked.
Jenkins paused to answer her. “That, Miss Cillian, is the actual Blarney Stone, as opposed to the one that throngs of tourists kiss every day in hopes of obtaining the fabled gift of the gab.” He grimaced in distaste. “You can understand, no doubt, why we keep the real Stone under lock and key. The last thing the world needs is more silver-tongued charmers who can talk others into anything.”
I can see that, Cassandra thought.
Catching up with him, she found Jenkins looking over a flowerpot resting atop a windowsill. Sunlight filtered in through a green stained-glassed window, while a simple tin watering can sat nearby on a small end table. Sprigs of fresh green clover sprouted from the soil in the pot. At first, Cassandra thought that the sprigs were merely shamrocks, but then she looked more closely.
“Wait,” she said. “Are those all…?”
“Four-leaf clovers,” he confirmed. “I cultivate a small crop for just such occasions.”
Using a miniature pair of gardening shears, he clipped off two of the sprigs, one for each of them. He affixed one to his lapel as a boutonniere, then turned toward Cassandra.
“If I may?”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I mean, please do.”
He deftly threaded the stem of the second clover through a buttonhole on her sweater, making Cassandra feel as though they were going to the prom. (Not that she would know, having had to skip her prom for medical reasons.) She blushed slightly.
“Is this a formal occasion?” she joked. “Or are we just hoping to blend in with the leprechauns?”
“Think of it as a passport,” he explained, “not to mention a prudent precaution. A genuine four-leaf clover, worn on your person, allows one to see through any glamours or illusions cast by the Fair Folk.”
That Jenkins thought such a measure necessary worried Cassandra. “Is that something to be concerned about?” Pretty much everything she knew about leprechauns came from Lucky Charms commercials and an old Disney movie, but she had never gotten the impression that they were particularly dangerous. “Are leprechauns friendly or not?”
“Depends on their moods, which can be mercurial,” Jenkins said. “Leprechauns are more mischievous than malevolent by and large, yet they can be capricious and prone to trickery, so it pays to be on your guard when dealing with them. As a poet once sagely wrote: ‘Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting, For fear of little men.’”