Interlacing Secrets

Chapter 3

Nothing more happened for the next few weeks. Annaliese finally managed to clean up all the shards of broken glass in her apartment (why couldn’t they have fixed it like the window? She had wondered irritably), and while she had kept inside for the rest of the weekend, she went to her classes like normal the following Monday. Phyllis Gates never showed up to visit, and Annaliese was not too terribly disappointed about that.

On the morning of her last class of the semester, where she had one more exam to give, Annaliese was walking to her office when she was stopped by her dissertation advisor. "Annaa!" he hailed in his booming voice. "How are you this fine morning my dear? Care to come meet with me about your paper?"

Despite the fact that she despised being called Anna, Annaliese smiled. After a few years being around him, she knew it was useless to protest. 'Sure," she replied. “I have some time, but I need to stay in my office. Can we talk there?" After receiving the affirmative, she led the way to her office and opened the door.

The inside was trashed.

Her desk had been turned over, and the drawers were laying on the floor, their contents scattered everywhere. Likewise, her bookshelves were torn apart, with some of the shelves broken. Her books were thrown about everywhere, and some even had pages torn out of them. The computer screen was cracked, the fabric of the chair ripped, and all her various knickknacks broken. Even the already useless window had its panes busted out.

Annaliese was stunned. Even her advisor was speechless for once. After they had both stood dumbfounded for several moments, her advisor rushed off in order to call the campus police, while Annaliese began to try to sort through the remains of her things. She was extremely upset about her books, especially since it was her favorite ones about medieval art and manuscripts that were practically destroyed, among others. All of her carefully organized supplies and notes were recklessly tossed about. It would take forever to put everything back in order.

Most confusingly, she had no idea who would do this, or how they even got into her office (it had still been locked when she arrived just now). She did not believe she had been that harsh on any of her students. Sure she had failed a few who did not work, but she hadn’t done anything that would warrant this kind of destruction. And certainly there was nothing she had done to slight any of her colleagues.

This she had to explain several times to the campus police, when her advisor had returned with two in tow, along with the dean of the college. The glass from the window was also broken from the outside, but Annaliese’s office was on the third floor of the building. One of the officers went off to check the surveillance videos in the hallway, but no one had been seen entering the office all weekend. They were all puzzled. Finally, the dean just promised to have everything in her office fixed over the winter break. Annaliese spent her afternoon packing up her belongings that weren’t broken or destroyed and going home. Her advisor was nice enough to give her last exam for her.

She returned home around four in the afternoon, dumped her books in the floor, and collapsed on the couch, irritated. Seriously, why did people lately like destroying her things? She still hadn’t gone to buy a new coffee table (and no one had shown up to replace her old one, as promised).

Suddenly, there was a knock at her door. Not feeling like getting up, she just yelled, “What do you want!?” Apparently, whoever was there took that as an invitation to come in, and her door opened.

“Hey, doll!” a cheerful voice greeted.

Annaliese groaned. “Oh god, not you again.” She sat up to see Dan holding open her door. “What do you want and why do you always show up when unknown things break my shit?”

“Aw! You’re not happy to see me? But I missed you so!” Dan replied, sticking out his bottom lip and pouting. “And we brought you a present!” He opened the door as wide as he could, stepping out of the way as he did so. In came Rhone, carrying an oak coffee table.

“Hi Miss Lenz!” he greeted, smiling widely. “I finally found a table similar to yours! Where would you like it?”

“Uhm… in front of the couch, I guess.” Annaliese was quite surprised as she watched him carry the table inside and set it down. She hadn’t really expected them to show up again, let alone actually get her a new table.

“There!” Rhone exclaimed proudly, admiring his handiwork. “That looks nice.”

An arm snaked around Annaliese’s shoulders. “Yeah, looks great Rhone. How ya been, doll? We haven’t seen you in a few weeks. Has that charm been working?”

She pushed Dan away from her, drawing another pouty face from him. “It didn’t stop someone from breaking into my office and destroying it.”

Rhone sat down on her couch. “Yeah, we went by your office and we noticed the janitors cleaning up the mess.” When Annaliese gave him a strange look, he stood up quickly. “I’m sorry!!”

“No, it’s fine. Why were you two at my office?”

“We had a few questions for you, since you’re our resident medieval art expert right?” Dan asked.

Annaliese gave him a suspicious look, suddenly remembering that everything strange had been happening began after Phyllis’s inquiry after her grandfather’s research. Were they connected? She nodded slightly despite her misgivings, wanting to know what Dan was getting at.

“Have you ever heard of Eckhart of Aachen?”

That erased any of Annaliese’s doubts. Eckhart of Aachen had been a monk from the Carolingian Renaissance that had created numerous illuminated manuscripts during the reign of Charlemagne. Her grandfather had been the leading scholar researching manuscripts from this era. He had even owned two of his manuscripts, which Annaliese now owned along with all of her grandfather’s notes. While that was common knowledge in academia, Eckhart of Aachen was not. Alphonse Lenz had only just discovered him at the time of his death.

Even though Dan did not give Annaliese a bad vibe like Phyllis had, she still did not want to just give him the information he was asking for. She remained quiet for a few moments, struggling with the decision on what to say. Dan saw through her though.

“Someone else visited you asking about your grandfather’s research, right?” he said, looking straight at her. There was no sign of his flirty playfulness anymore. “The night you were attacked by the Hound?”

Annaliese sighed before nodding. “Guess you already knew that then. I was just putting two and two together. A woman, she called herself Phyllis Gates and said she was a colleague of grandfather’s. Honestly, she gave me the creeps.”

Dan nodded. “Yeeeaah, harpies generally give that sensation. They’re really freaky, especially when they’re mad.” When Annaliese gave him a strange look, he continued. “That’s what she is. A harpy. She’s working for someone who’s looking for Charlemagne’s lost treasures. We keep running into his minions everywhere, but we haven’t figured out who he is yet.”

Rhone coughed. “Dan… I thought Carlisle told us to keep that secret?”

“Well, we can’t get Annaliese to help us if she doesn’t trust us, right? She’s the only one we know who hopefully has the information we need,” Dan replied, shrugging. Rhone still looked uncertain, but he didn’t say anything. Annaliese looked between the two.

“Who’s Carlisle?” she finally asked.

“Our boss. Anyway, your grandfather was researching a few manuscripts made by Eckhart, right? We have one too, I think Silva said there were four total.”

Annaliese nodded. “Right. They would be the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each with author pages and illuminated text. I have…” she stopped herself mid-sentence. Oops, I didn’t want to admit that much, she thought.

Dan just grinned. “Yeeees, you have what now?” Annaliese just shook her head and kept her mouth shut. “Oh, come on! Pleeeeeease?” he whined, grabbing her suddenly and pulling her into a tight hug. “You know you don’t feel like we’re creepy and you trust us!”

Annaliese huffed and wiggled in his grasp. “Oh, let go!” While she did feel like she could trust the two of them for some strange reason, she wasn’t certain that she wanted to give up information on her grandfather’s research. Yet, at the same time, she would never get down to the reason why people wanted the research so badly unless she didn’t take advantage and ask questions herself. “Fine. I have Mark and Luke,” she admitted. “Grandfather bought them off of a collector a few years ago.”

Nodding, Dan let go of her and stepped back. “We have Matthew. Do you mind letting us take a look at yours? Or, letting Silva, anyway. She can tell us if they’re all related and what we’re actually looking for.”

“I suppose. But I have full ownership and control over them. They’re important to me.” Annaliese replied.

Dan nodded again. “Understandable.” He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Annaliese. It had an address written on it. “Come here tomorrow then. Silva’s out of town today, otherwise we would go now. Does that sound alright?”

“Sure.” Annaliese looked down at the address on the paper and sighed. “I suppose.”

“Right! Well, we’ll see you tomorrow! Would you like me to pick you up, doll?”

“I can make it myself.”

Dan and Rhone left after that, leaving Annaliese shaking her head. What was she getting involved in? This was all so strange.