Dr. Pierce Johnson, Professor of Antiquities - The First Day

Dr. Johnson cursed himself as he walked away from the lake, gripping his cane tightly in one hand, not bothering to swing it while moving as fast as he could.

He was rattled.

He wanted to get back to his car, and to his offices at Augsburg.

He had been followed from Ingrid Magnusson’s bookstore by a man who looked like he could be police…or a prizefighter.

Perhaps he was one of St. Anthony’s notorious Park Rangers, the professor thought.

This prospect worried Dr. Johnson most of all.

The young-man was tall and broad-shouldered. He had been sitting by himself in a chair at the reading room when the professor had arrived to collect a rare book, the Albigensian Grimoire.

He had finally gotten permission from his patroness, Ingrid Magnusson, to examine it.

He had been waiting more than a year for it to become available. He had followed her to St. Anthony so that he could be in proximity to it, and he was eager to look into its pages, both to examine its ancient lore, as well as the modern interpolations that had been made by Lord Crowley and his minions, and their predecessors in the Golden Dawn.

Now he had lost it, and he feared Ingrid’s partner, Karl Thorrson, would not let him live it down…the professor was certain that the one-eyed giant would not let him live for losing it.

Dr. Johnson was not a brave man, nor did he aspire to be one; a fear of violent reprisal had haunted him since childhood. Despite his height, which gave him a somewhat imposing disposition, he was graceless and physically weak.

When he first had the notion that the young man from was following him he panicked and began walking toward Loon Lake.

The professor was hoping that he was imagining things; he suffered from paranoia. But, then the man turned with him on Hennepin, and then again on 31^st Street, and he matched his gait.

When Dr. Johnson got to the lake he attempted to lose the fellow in the brush growing on the steep hill that formed a ridge on the lake’s east side.

It did not work.

Then the professor decided that the man must be one of the Rangers, a semi-private police force, like licensed-gangsters that everyone in St. Anthony tried to steer clear of.

Dr. Johnson did not want to be caught with the book in his hands so he decided to hide it beneath some shrubs, figuring that he could come back for it later.

He walked away from it then, walking right past the man who had stopped on the path to watch him.

The professor went along calmly, feeling as smug as could be, telling himself that he had outsmarted the sleuth, pretending for a moment that he was the better man.

The feeling did not last.

Within the space of ten paces his heart began to fall into stomach.

He knew the man would retrieve the book, and he contemplated the implications.

He would need to do something desperate if he was going to survive this blunder.

Dr. Johnson looked out over the surface of the water as he turned away from the lake, fearing that he would be sleeping there soon, eighty feet below the surface…perhaps before the night was through.

He needed to see Ingrid, she might protect him, and he needed an ally…he thought he should call his protégé, Celene Forrester, and solicit her aid...she might introduce him to her father, the Colonel. He felt that he might be safe with someone like the great man to shield him.

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Amelie Elmquist-Forrester - The First Day

Amelie stood by her window in the antechamber of the wing she occupied in the Forrester mansion. It was a spacious room, cold and white, but well-lit and fashionably appointed.

She stood at the window watching her father, Colonel Forrester, as he conducted a prolonged interview of a poorly dressed young man in the garden below her.

There was something about the young man that troubled her, and it wasn’t just because he was tall and handsome, and disheveled.

Amelie could not peel away from the perch where she concealed herself behind the long white curtains, wishing more than anything that she could hear the conservation taking place between them.

She knew that the household staff were preparing a room for him in the guest quarters of her father’s wing at that very moment, though she did not hear of it until a few minutes prior to his arrival.

Nils, their butler, had kept the information from the staff and from her, though he had probably known for some days that her father intended to keep the boy as their guest for a term of days, possibly longer.

Amelie positively loathed those kinds of secrets. She felt that they were disruptive, and not just to her. They were disruptive to the staff as well.

She had been feeling out-of-control lately, and such disruptive secrets would only contribute to that.

Amelie had managed to squeeze a little information from Nils about the shabby-boy and what he would be doing at the mansion; Nils had told her that his name was Johnny Holiday, that he worked for the Saint Anthony Star, the evening paper, that he was an aspiring journalist and a student at the University of Saint Thomas, across the river in Pig’s Eye.

Nils said that her father had enjoined him to do some research, and perhaps write a story concerning Amelie’s husband, Bjorn Elmquist, who had gone missing a few months earlier.

Amelie had begun to shake, slightly, when the old butler told her that.

Nils told her that it was his understanding, that the Colonel, on account of his fondness for her husband, and believing he may never return, wanted something tangible to remember him by, a piece of prose to capture the essence of the man and remind him of their time together.

Amelie found Nils’ explanation to be preposterous.

She felt threatened by the prospect of this boy getting into her business…it was more than just disruptive, it was menacing.

However, Amelie knew her father was obsessed with stories, he believed narrative had a mystical quality, the way some aboriginal tribes believed that photographing a person could steal their soul or rob them of their essence, as the renowned anthropologist Margaret Meade had reported.

Her father believed that stories could do the same thing, like the ancient people whose singular ambition was to be remembered in song and have their deeds recorded in sagas and epic poetry, to be retold throughout the ages.

Ultimately, Amelie suspected that her father was not satisfied with the notion that Bjorn had decided to leave her without a good reason, and without saying goodbye to anyone…including him.

The Colonel wanted to find out why he had gone and he wanted someone who was unknown to both his friends and enemies to carry out the inquiry.

            Perhaps he would get a good story out of the investigation, she concluded, but that would just be sauce for the plum…so to speak.

Amelie was nervous, and shaky, and it was getting worse by the minute

She didn’t want anyone asking questions about her marriage. Bjorn was gone, and her father was right, he would not be coming back.

Amelie was certain of it, and she wanted her father to accept it and move on.

Bjorn would never be heard from again.

She watched them drinking coffee, while she-herself quaffed a tumbler of strong brown liquor; she needed it she told herself…she always needed it, to settle her nerves and prepare her for her own interview with the aspiring journalist, which she intended to conduct just as soon as her father was done with him.

Amelie was determined to discover his purpose.

Nils would bring him to her shortly and she would put his heels in the fire.

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