what’s rightfully yours [ self ]
location: boston museum of art, medieval era offices
time: 7:39pm
illustration: the ascension [x]
Post passionem suam...nubes suscepit eum ab oculis eorum alleluia...
There’s a part of Leigh’s brain telling her to turn on the fluorescents to make the manuscript easier to read. The other, the one that wins, is the one that finds a romance with deciphering Old Latin in low light, submitting herself to the same practices of Niccolo di Giacomo da Bologna, who likely passed hands over this very illustration every candlelit night before bed.
The piece is a part of a new installation of Medieval manuscripts, and her work on its restoration is nearly complete. She’s been trying to carefully bring back the sea blue of the background next to Christ’s floating figure; it’s an amorphous stain of white, and an eyesore in her opinion. But she’s been working in circles for the entirety of her shift, and nothing tried has worked.
“You’re going to give yourself a migraine, working like this,” her boss calls from the doorway, startling her. “I’m heading out. Lock up, will you?”
She nods dutifully, still focused on the illustration. Martin’s sass is not appreciated, however full of care it may be. “Say hi to Alec for me?” she asks as he turns to leave, sparing a second of her attention to glance up at him with a sheepish smile. “I haven’t seen him since the Christmas party. Bring him around sometime, pretty please? He laughs at my jokes.”
Martin shakes his head. “He laughs at anything,” he replies. Leigh pouts, feigning hurt. “enough of that! I’ll tell him, I’ll tell him. Don’t stay too late this time? I don’t want all this to be responsible for your untimely death. Save that for the PhD.” With that he exits, giving her no time to extrapolate on the benefits of her working overtime. He knows her too well, she’ll give him that.
Speaking of PhD: there’s a three hundred page analysis on 13th century wedding customs that has to be read and condensed into an analysis by Friday. The white spot will have to wait until tomorrow. Leigh places the illustration back in its case and removes her white gloves, rolling her shoulders to stretch out the sore muscles in her back.
A crash from outside her office pulls her attention. Probably a clumsy intern leaving for the day; she’s been there, as everyone has. Leigh pulls on her coat, grabs her bag, locks up her office and goes to the break-room to see if anyone or anything has been damaged.
What she finds isn’t necessarily anyone... or anything. It’s foreign and familiar, terrifying and curious. It’s knocked over the vase on the coffee table, and it nearly seems sheepish about the whole mess. As if it didn’t mean to be so clumsy. Against her better judgement she grows closer to the queer thing, a floating ball of light, green and transparent, dripping in supernatural glow. She reaches a hand out and it bobs towards her, taking up the distance between the two and wrapping a faint tendril around her index finger.
Leigh gasps at the sensation, soft and slippery, as if falling water wrapped itself around her. Its eyes, if what she interprets to be eyes are such, glow with a determined intensity that makes her shiver.
And then, it tugs. She stumbles with the force of its power, her bag slipping from her shoulder and into the crook of her elbow. The tendril slides into her palm, drawing a tender circle in her palm, like the ones she does to herself to remind herself to take a breath, that everything’s all right, that she’s safe. Then it wraps around her wrist and gives another tug, gentler this time. This one she’s prepared for, and she steps with it, allowing this strange, familiar force to lead her up the stairs and into the Geology wing.
The light -- a wisp, that’s what she’ll call it -- leads her up a landing and towards the back of the room, to a cabinet filled with small geometric crystals, mostly in cool hues. They’re the historically significant ones; crystals that had specific owners, people who cared enough for them to hold them upon their person for protection, health, fertility. Her wisp friend places her hand on the glass, presses each of her fingers into the pane gently, as if pressing her to look further, to find something specific. Leigh passes over the biographies, noting one belonging to a noblewoman in 17th century England, another to a so-called sorceress during the Salem Witch Trials.
Something green and glinting catches her eye. The card below it reads, “Green Jasper - Frankish Amulet worn by a member of the da Bologna family. Known as the rain bringer - The gods hearken to the prayers of whoe’er the polished grass-green jasper wears; his parched globe they’ll satiate with rain and send showers to soak the thirsty plain.”
Her wisp buzzes next to her, as if she’s chosen right. Leigh shoots it a curious glance, nearly bemused as it wobbles up and down in the air excitedly. What she doesn’t expect is for it to pound its way through the glass.
“Wait -- no, no, no no, stop! Stop, please!” she inhales sharply, stepping away from the wisp as the pane begins to crack under the weight of its movement. A few more sharp hits and the glass shatters, breaking into angles and covering the carpeted ground. The wisp wraps tender tendrils around the Green Jasper Crystal just as security alarms sound. Leigh stares, open mouthed and dumb, as the moving morph of light presses the stone to the bare skin of her collarbone. She feels a delicate warmth spread from its point of contact, as if being soaked with warm water from the inside out.
The surrounding light of the wisp expands, filling the space around her, wrapping around Leigh and drawing her into its center. For a moment, before everything turns to white, she swears she sees a stallion.
