2020-08-16 - Cuneiform is Best Form

Sumerian creation myths. Of all the things Ravn Abildgaard could turn up again at the library to ask for, that might not have been the most obvious. Not the history of Gray Harbor, or the early days of the Addington founders, or legends of the haunted sawmill, or something otherwise related to the region's ominous past. Instead, the Dane hunts through the shelves in the section about Middle Eastern mythologies and religions with an intent expression, taking out tomes on creation myths and certain ancient epics that predate the Bible but address some of the same issues about the same world-destroying flood. It's not clear what exactly it is he is looking for; it may not even be clear to Ravn himself. Every so often he pauses to glance at his cell phone or tap a few notes into it.

He looks less excited when an older man wanders over to the table he's sitting at, and for some reason strikes up a conversation about the proper way to prepare turkey stuffing. From the sounds of it, the man is quite opinionated on the matter; Ravn, on the other hand, is not, and mostly nods and smiles with a tired expression. "That sounds lovely, I'm sure it'll work perfectly, give my regards to your wife," he says. Eventually the turkey stuffer wanders off again with an excited look on his face -- he needs to go tell his wife and the neighbours. Ravn looks after him with an expression of resigned frustration; there's a lot to unpack in that look.

It's probably got something to do with the fact that at least according to town gossip, the man who claimed he was a Danish folklorist is actually a Swedish celebrity chef here to do research for a new TV show, Gordon Ramsay style. It's going to be shooting at the Two if By Sea, and if you want into the audience, talk to Joe Cavanaugh; the writer is apparently the man setting it all up. Or he's a Russian spy. The jury is still out, and Gray Harbor is still weird.

When the supposed chef does in fact try to catch the attention of Mary Beth, librarian, though, the question he actually asks is a little unexpected: "I was wondering if you can check, somehow, who else has been taking out books about Middle Eastern creation myths lately?"

Gilgamesh is waiting for Ravn in the stacks at 892.1. That along with a startling number of mega-ancient civilization tomes. But Gilgamesh has a millenia-old epic all his own. So that would make the tale likely to be available in most libraries. Interestingly enough there is a young adult version of the story entitled 'Gilgamesh the Hero'. It might lose some of the more arcane or complex bits, but it's a good place to get started for an overview of the tale, and Harper would have told Ravn that if she'd been working when he first arrived. Alas, Melinda (the dour, middle-aged, far-more-traditional librarian) is has the helm with the youthful, bright-eyed intern, Mary Beth doing all sorts of catch-up organization about the place. The Lead Librarian -- the one and only Harper Price -- won't be in for another hour. The slacker!

Mary Beth stops, bright-eyed and really quite pretty in a girl-next-door, preppy collegiate sort of way, to listen to Ravn's request. "Oh no, sir. I'm so sorry. That information is strictly confidential. However, I can ask Miss Price if I'm mistaken about that." She doesn't look like she thinks she's mistaken. With a cheery smile, she heads off to continue her list of tasks.

If there are rumors involving Swedish celebrity chefs who are somehow networked through one Joe Cavanaugh -- who has an illustrious and mysterious past of his own -- it's more to Harper's poor fortune that she hasn't crossed paths recently enough with the retired Commander. But it's Gray Harbor: it's bound to happen sooner or later. The sweltering August afternoon produces a lead librarian in a sundress. She doesn't don the more staid and traditional cardigan sweater until after she's dropped her things off in the back room whose door reads 'Staff Only'. When she returns, just like Mr. Rogers, she's donned the requisite sweater and the lanyard that names her along with her position as lead librarian. She checks in first with Melinda, moving around behind the circulation desk and hopping up to perch on the counter facing the older woman in a way that might seem a trifle too casual for the location or the profession. But, just like she doesn't tend to hush her voice in 'her' library, she snubs other library traditions including her current seat on the counter, happy to be 'caught up' with the goings-on in the library thusfar today from that perch.

At some point, Mary Beth also stops by the circulation desk. There is some friendly conversation among the three women. Harper signs off on the intern's time card and the college-aged woman takes her leave out into the beautiful summer afternoon. Harper looks back to Melinda, asks her a question, then with an atypically stern expression waves the older woman off, pointing to the room she just left her things in. "... until you've ..." Melinda really works not to smile much, but Harper knows her weak spots when it comes down to it -- the women have known each other for more than eight years now. It shows. That, and Harper brings an sprightly spirit, apparently, to most anything she does, at least from Ravn's small sample set of interactions.

Either part of Melinda's 'report' mentioned the Dane (Swede) over in non-fiction who apparently keeps stopping innocent people to discuss stuffing recipes, or Harper's keen brown-eyed gaze spied him on her way to pleasantly interrogate her subordinate even before Mary Beth mentioned the man. It is true that little occurs in the GHPL that Harper isn't aware of (much to the chagrin of teenagers who try to sneak back behind the stacks for a little make-out sesh now and again). Somehow her reputation doesn't tend to swing to hard-ass, despite her ability to shut all that down without much fuss at all. She knows most of the teens who use the library by name (and all of the small children) and somehow keeps track of most of their favorite genres and interests. That's definitely a thing for Harper, the whole this-is-my-community bit. She even regularly comes in during her off hours on most occasions for the read-alouds in the children's section.

Mary Beth gone. Melinda doing something in the back room. Harper drops off the counter to the floor with a little hop in her heels, swings around with a whirl of her sundress skirt, picks up a pen and tucks it behind her ear, and that's when the rounds begin. She checks in on some parents and their kids in the children's section. She straightens up the periodicals and has a conversation with the elderly man who is almost always grumpy but secretly keeps track of Harper's hours so he can visit the library while she's working. Then she slowly sweeps her way through fiction, making a suggestion here or there to patrons who are clearly browsing for that interesting next read. And thus, she ends up rounding the end of a row of books and stopping beside Ravn's table.

"Ravn Abildgaard." She remembered! There's a little query in her smile as if checking that she got both the pronunciation and the names correct. "You've returned. And look at that. You're doing some research." Using his phone? She settles a hip on the edge of his table and unapologetically spies any visible notes he might be taking. "I'm quite sure Hammurabi didn't visit Gray Harbor. But that presupposes no fourth dimension that would allow time to fold and individuals with a certain enlightened understanding of the nature of reality to go where and when they choose." Her smile is wry after that flight of fancy. "Is there anything I can do for you today, or would you prefer your own time and space? I'm excellent at running interference. That is, unless you are a foodie and this is all some grand ruse to find random citizens to discuss the merits of sage in poultry-based dishes." Harper pauses, tips an inquisitive look at Ravn, then inquires, "You wanted to know who else has been interested in ... let's see, was it Middle Eastern creation myths? Is that correct?"

The very much not a Swedish celebrity chief, thank you very much, looks up at the interruption to his mental processes and then smiles with obvious relief that the head librarian is in fact not the third person in an hour to ask him to sign their handkerchief or this book -- he refused the latter because it was very obviously a book grabbed randomly off a shelf and he's fairly certain that the library does not really care to have its copy of Killing Commendatore signed by some random Danish blogger. He tosses her a bright smile and murmurs, with a hint of exasperation, "Believe me, Miss Harper, the day I offer to cook you a three course dinner is the day I am not so secretly trying to kill you. My cooking expertise is on level with boiling an egg and hoping it turns out not too runny. I have no idea why people seem to have decided that I'm a celebrity chief but if they ever make me cook for them, they'll certainly learn the truth of the matter."

The books stacked around him -- some open, some not -- do indeed demonstrate a focus on Middle Eastern mythologies, the Sumerian creation myths in particular. The page he is currently looking at discusses the marriage of the goddess Ereshkigal to Gugalanna the canal inspector, which later morphed into a marriage to Nergal, the god of death. If one is to go by the plates of Sumerian friezes in the book, the Babylonian afterlife was a highly overrated affair; a dark cavern full of demons with nothing better to do than torture the souls of the once-living. The suicide rate in ancient Babylon must have been low; death would only make things even worse, a level of miserable that Christian brimstone and hellfire preachers usually fail to convey no matter how hard they try. People often fancy themselves able to, on some level, cope with pitchforks and fire -- but the bleak nothingness of oblivion, the very erasure of existence, that is the most terrifying thought to many a soul. In that direction lies existential crisis and then, insanity.

"I was hoping that you'd bend the rules a little and tell me if anyone else has taken a strong interest in this field lately," Ravn admits. "Though actually, if anyone has, it's probably the police you should be telling about it. There's been a murder -- a park ranger turned up buried on the beach, missing his head, covered in cuneiform script. I ran a few pictures of the glyphs past a friend at Copenhagen U and they told me it's pretty much the word 'Kur' repeated over and over again. Kur is the Sumerian land of the dead or its personification, depending on the source. It's been a decade since I sat through classes on Babylonian myths so I'm trying to brush up a little, in the hope of maybe finding something useful before the killer strikes again."

Sombrely he murmurs, "Because he will strike again. No one goes to the effort of carving glyphs into a decapacitated corpse and burying it in a place it's certain to be found unless they're trying to send some kind of message. I want to know what that message is, because otherwise, the guy is going to do it again. I'm not by any means a detective or investigator, Miss Harper, but I do know how stories work. Gray Harbor, if anywhere, runs on stories -- and I imagine that so do killers who fancy themselves some kind of cultist, or have overdosed on old horror roleplaying games. If I can find something -- then maybe the police can catch this guy before he leaves someone else headless in the sand."

For all the grim subject of the conversation, however, Ravn looks quite content. His grey eyes have that particular gleam of an academic who has found an excuse to exercise his talents and flex his research muscle. Ancient Middle Eastern mythology is very much not his field -- though naturally, he's done the introductory courses on it -- but it is a field within the realm of folklore and story telling, which is indeed his passion. Gray Harbor's madness drives some people to fear and desperation; this one, it seems to encourage to dig deeper, poke everything with a proverbial stick, turn over every rock. It's entirely possible the Dane is going to get himself eaten alive by the next interesting monster to stumble out of the Veil but he may be the sort of man who'll die taking notes while being chewed on. The kind of man who would pat a stingray a few times too many because it is just that interesting, in the best of Steve Irwin style.

There are points for that 'Miss' that Ravn will likely never know he earned. Harper has always eschewed the more modern and politically correct 'Ms.'. Maybe it's growing up in a small town, maybe it's some other personal idiosyncrasy. Regardless, Ravn's invisible score increases enough to keep her from correcting it to 'just Harper'. The whole case of mistaken identity or rumor or whatever it is does find Harper amused and a bit more playful than usual. "I've always wanted to make a proper meatball, you know." His smile is returned, the exasperation is perhaps commiserated with despite the amusement. "People get ideas sometimes. I like to think that the machinery that runs reality throws a bolt or something now and then."

She scans the assemblage of literary resources spread across the table Ravn is sitting at. She reaches out and traces a fingertip along one of the bold lines in the frieze depicting Sumerian afterlife. "Light reading, I see." Her nails are somewhat short, but neatly manicured, nonetheless. Oblivion and existential crises tend to be more common in Gray Harbor than the average town. At least, Harper doesn't look shocked by the topic or its darker aspects. No. If anything, Harper is intrigued. The man already self-described as a fellow research junkie. This is simply one more piece of evidence supporting that claim.

Bend the rules. Harper spends what might be a longer span of moments considering Ravn than most people would find comfortable. "It's not customary to share the reading habits and choices of library patrons with other ... patrons, Ravn." She moves a step closer, from the top corner of the table at which he's sitting to the corner nearer to the front edge along which he is facing. There she settles her hip against the table and lowers her voice to near a whisper. (Finally! The librarian is hushed in her domain!) "But I might be inclined to share that information with you if the information stayed between us and no one else were to hear about the ... indiscretion on my part." She pauses, then elaborates, "I pride myself on keeping the confidences of those who ask for privacy." Apparently neither of the men were doing anything to hide what they were researching. Anyone in the library could have passed by and seen as much. Perhaps that's why Harper is willing to break her own personal rule for the man she's only met now on two occasions (including this one).

But that is when Ravn goes into some lurid and horrifying detail about the death, the cuneiform on the headless body, and the reference to Kur. Through it all she listens: Harper listens as if a life that matters to her depended on her familiarity with the details. There's an attentive stillness to her that could be either disturbing or charming, depending on one's point-of-view or mindset. "You're certainly vehement about taking an active role in this investigation. This has something to do with your folklore re-enactment recently, doesn't it? The headless corpse seems too apropos to the tale not to seem that way."

Harper smiles faintly, the warmth fully in her brown eyes if not quite tipping her lips into an outright smile. "Have you done this sort of thing before?" Involved himself in investigations? Found himself so close to such a grisly death? "Give me a bit and I'll see what I can learn -- do you plan to be here for a bit longer today?" Assuming Ravn says he does indeed intend to be present for a bit more time, Harper doesn't ask for his cell phone number to call him with information later. She actually goes to question her staff -- at least those who are present today.

He sees her talking with Melinda. There's a gentleman wearing a volunteer vest who she speaks with at length over in the fiction section. He gesticulates now and then and points toward the area in non-fiction where Ravn found his books. They continue their quiet conversation with Harper nodding now and again, looking as though she is asking questions at certain points. She then deals with a few people who approach her with questions before heading over to the main circulation desk, settling into a chair there and making what appear to be a couple of phone calls.

It's closer to forty-five minutes later when she returns to where Ravn is sitting and pulls out the chair directly beside his, settling sideways on it, crossing her legs and leaning in a bit toward him, not quite invading his personal space, her voice low. "I've learned some things, though I don't know how helpful they'll be to you. I suppose they're better than nothing, though, Ravn." Each time she speaks his name she speaks it slowly as if trying to master the pronunciation.

"One of our volunteers says he's sure there was a special on one of the cable television channels about the progression of Sumer to the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations not so long ago, which is why -- " Harper glances left and right, continues to speak in a hush. This close there is a faint suggestion of cinnamon on her breath from the cinnamon altoids she has a particular penchant for. "Because the subject was on his mind, he noticed the man who was killed here about a week before his death, looking at similar materials you have pulled today. But that, alone, isn't the only occurrence from what I can tell. Apparently, about a month ago, another man -- only described as about your age, wearing glasses -- also spent quite some time here looking through much the same collection of information." She stops speaking, takes a slow breath and exhales, leaning back into her own space a bit. "Peculiar coincidences indeed, given the murder, the cuneiform, and what you have shared. I'm sorry I don't have a name or better description of the other gentleman." She frowns, a faint furrowing of her brows. Perhaps 'gentleman' isn't the correct word, all things being what they are, including murder of a particularly macabre sort.

"If you like, I'll run the information through some of my own version of searches to see what I can find. But, of course, I can leave it to you as well. I'm not so much of a busybody as I might seem to you. After all, you can't help it if you're an interesting man who happens to be a master with Swedish cuisine." Ah, she's teasing him. The offer, however, seems sincere.

The Dane watches as Harper wanders off to do things one might expect a librarian to indeed be doing, and his own mind wanders for a moment too. Truth of the matter is, my boy, you have no business sticking your nose into any of this. So you were there when the body was found. Big deal, this is Grey Harbor, it probably keeps sucking in people from all over the world because otherwise, the population number would dwindle to oblivion in a decade. It's a miracle that anyone here lives long enough to collect their pensions. But you just can't help yourself, can you. Some questions are entirely rhetorical in nature. Finally feeling like something matters. At least he's not the kind of patron who thinks himself entitled to sneak a beverage or a candy bar into the reading area only to proceed to leave stains everywhere; not even a flask of bottled water within reach.

Ravn listens carefully, researcher's mind recording every tidbit of information to be sifted through later; better to decide what is useful and what is not when one has more pieces of the puzzle. He steeples his gloved fingers under his chin in the fashion of someone who is paying very close attention and thinking, leaning back on his chair a little and focusing his grey eyes on nothing in particular lest the visuals disturb his thought processes, and listens to Harper's explanations about TV specials and other patrons who may or may not have gone missing -- because who knows? "I think that perhaps the authorities should know about Henry Fitzgerald coming here -- and that other fellow your collegue took note of. For all we know, they found the other fellow dead somewhere last week too, just no one's connected the pieces yet. If you want, I can try to pass it along quietly, but I do think not telling them is toeing the line when it comes to obstructing investigations. You had no reason to connect these men with anything before, but now we do, and -- it 's probably best to not try to keep actual law enforcement in the dark. Like you said, neither man was doing anything secretive or illegal so it's probably nothing, but I'd hate to hear next month that a third library patron has gone missing, you know?"

And that, indeed, leads to the folklorist answering the librarian's inquiry about himself. "I'm not very experienced with things like this. I have a lot of theoretical background in folk beliefs, but I've never been involved with a murder investigation before. The way I see it, though -- the police here no doubt have forensics, detectives, investigators, researchers, all the people who are usually involved in something like this. I'm sure they're already asking all the normal questions. But this is Gray Harbor where nothing is normal if you've got this ... thing, this shine. The park ranger who let us look at the body definitely had it. All of us who were there when the body was found have it. The bloke who found the body, definitely does, and quite a lot of it at that. I am thinking that perhaps we have an angle that police authorities who don't see what we do do not have. And that means that on some level, I owe it to the dead fellow to try to think of the things that the police probably won't. I'm positive the police already identified the cuneiform script and the Sumerian connection. What I can contribute is a link to all the crazies, the tinfoil hat wearers, the way myths permeate our culture and may seep into a sick mind, making somebody kill. If I can find something -- anything that lets the authorities predict where the killer will strike again before he actually does it, then I'll consider the effort I put into academia absolutely vindicated." Practically a soliloquy, that.

The librarian's offer earns a lopsided smile just as her light-hearted jab nets a sparkle of laughter in grey eyes. "How about I very generously offer to not cook for you in return? The way I see it, anything we can find that may tell us why this man was killed, and if there's going to be other headless bodies turning up, is a good thing. It may well turn out that the police already has somebody doing the same research, that they already figured it out. Then we've wasted a bit of time -- but if they haven't, then we may end up saving a life, and that makes it worth one's time to try, don't you think?"

Ravn taps his cell -- serving in the capacity of notepad. "What I've got so far -- besides all the research that I imagine the police already has someone doing -- is literally in the tinfoil hat end of the game park. There's a prominent theory out there, that the deities of almost all of the ancient pantheistic religions were in fact alien astronauts making contact with early civilisations. The Nasca lines, the Pyramids, megalithic sites -- all of it, built by aliens. It's utter manure, obviously, and no actual academic would take it seriously for a moment. But our killer might -- and one of the incarnations of these aliens is apparently demons from the Sumerian underworld. The Annunaki, judges of the underworld who sit next to the goddess Ereshkigal who rules Kur. In some narratives they are elder gods banished in favour of a newer generation but in the oldest texts, they are among the most powerful of deities -- there's a lot of confusion on their exact nature, considering that some of the very prominent Babylonian deities later on are also Annunaki. What's important there, though, is that they are on the list of ancient beings who are supposedly alien astronauts so there is a possible motive. Poor Mr Fitzgerald was found on the beach, his body having taken considerable damage from the water, and his head had been replaced with that of a squid. That in turn implies a connection the ocean."

The man used to be a university lecturer. sometimes it shows. "Now, our killer is probably not a specialist in his field, so if this theory holds, he's gone straight to Googling which means he's landed in the Gilgamesh epic right away. I'll bet you coffee later that he didn't read the whole thing but he got the Cliff's Notes. The Annunaki wept as the Flood wiped out humanity. Why do gods of the underworld cry at the loss of human life? Because it means they have to start over on creating their slave caste. Because -- and now we're getting into the really crackpot stuff here -- there's a prominent pseudoarcheologist who published numerous works on this in the 1960s. Long story short, humanity was created by these space aliens to be their slave labourers on Earth. The Scientology folks go on about a similar narrative. What I'm saying is, if our man is this kind of loon, he's the kind of not so harmless loon who's either trying to stave off an alien invasion by human sacrifice, or call up his space slash ocean gods in the same fashion. Either way, he'll continue to kill until some space god actually turns up -- something which sounds highly unlikely but this is Grey Harbor."

"Still with me?" At least the Dane has a trace of self irony; he does realise just how far out this line of thought is. "One thought that struck me right away on the beach that day was, whoever did this likes roleplaying games. It's a hunch but -- all of this is a hunch. There's a roleplaying game based on Lovecraft's stories which is probably why I made that connection -- the squid head. The game is marketed with the name of Lovecraft's squid-headed older god sleeping in a dead city under the sea. And then I thought -- what's the biggest old roleplaying game of them all? So I looked a bit for sea gods in that context and ended up with Tiamat the evil dragon goddess -- Tiamat, who in Sumerian mythology is the goddess of the sea, or the sea itself. I've got a passage on it here that I think correlates with the way our killer is thinking." Ravn reaches for the cell and shows a paragraph of text to the librarian, probably while wondering why she hasn't fled screaming yet.

"When above the heavens (e-nu-ma e-liš) did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed marsh." This resulted in the birth of the younger gods, who later murder Apsu in order to usurp his lordship of the universe. Enraged, Tiamat gives birth to the first dragons, filling their bodies with "venom instead of blood", and made war upon her treacherous children, only to be slain by Marduk, the god of Storms, who then forms the heavens and earth from her corpse.

"That's the short version, the Wikipedia version -- again, I'm convinced that our man is not an actual researcher, Wikipedia is where he'd lift his ideas from. So... I guess I'm expecting some fellow in a tinfoil hat to appear on a street corner next week, ranting about dragon gods." Ravn shrugs slightly in the fashion of a man who knows very well just how crazy he sounds. How absolutely far fetched and ridiculous this whole theory is. "I really hope I'm wrong. That it's just some arsehole thinking he can dump a body and no one will find the real suspect if he makes it look like some random cultist stuff."

Sitting there on the chair beside Ravn’s, her body sideways on the seat so that her bare knees don’t quite nudge Ravn’s pants-clad thigh while he leans back in his chair and steeples those gloved fingers beneath his chin, Harper watches the way he takes it all in, responds here and there, comes to the conclusion that the collection of details ought to be shared with law enforcement. His suggestion isn’t met with anything that could be described as eager or anticipatory. “You’re probably right. But I think you’ll find that, in their official capacity, Gray Harbor’s police force has a record of looking past the Gifts, the Nightmares, and the morbid mysteries of this town more than one would like when expecting results and action.” Harper truly looks as though she doesn’t mean to speak poorly of the law enforcement officials of the town, which might be why she continues. “They walk a difficult line when it comes to the reality-shattering events that hail down on Gray Harbor.” Lowering her hand from her chest, she absently plucks at the hem of her skirt as she thinks on the topic. “The sorts who truly investigate with open minds – and, this is only a suspicion – who wield significant power to respond to threats and bent reality tend to be the ones who shine the brightest. It’s a sort of unofficial hierarchy of power and of knowledge, if you want my uneducated, intuitive theory.”

Ravn isn’t very experienced when it comes to this sort of thing. He is, however, thorough, detail-oriented, and, it seems, quite motivated. Harper’s gaze speaks to that argument without the accompanying words seeming necessary. The Dane returns to what the police must be doing at this point in regard to the case. “I think you should consider a visit to the precinct, making an appointment with and speaking to a detective to share what you’ve … gathered. I, of course, will happily speak to any of it if they require it. And after you have done that? Alexander Clayton would be the first name I would suggest when it comes to more informal networking. And perhaps August Roen.”

He owes it to ‘the dead fellow’. Harper cants her head with keen, sparkling brown eyes that don’t miss much as she watches Ravn. “You have a strong sense of right and wrong; you’re drawn strongly by what you believe it is your responsibility to take upon your metaphoric shoulders, don’t you.” It’s an observation more than it is a question.

If he speaks to her of all he’s learned and what he intends to do so grandly as for it to be considered a soliloquy, Harper is an audience of one who would pay the price of a ticket for admission. Her smile tips toward wry when he moves on toward conspiracy theorists, the nut jobs pursuing the ragged edge of ill-informed, superficial and error-riddled online lore and games taken too seriously. Aliens. Creation myths. Goddesses. Kraken-headed deities. Dragons.

He offers not to cook for her and Harper lifts the hand of the arm resting against the chair back to press her palm above her heart. "A man who swears a solemn oath never to cook for me? Be still my heart.” Doesn’t she think it will all have been worth it? Ravn asks this of a woman who was born and raised in Gray Harbor. A true fatalist who sees lives end with disturbing frequency, who observes frequently injured members of her community, whose own dreams haunt her on a regular basis. No, she’s not so avaricious about pursuit of answers as Ravn, but he does awaken an appetite with his enthusiasm and gathered, stray almost-clues.

Harper leans in to look at the screen of his cell phone as he shares his notes. Alien incarnations as demons from an ancient underworld. She flickers her brown gaze from his phone to his face and back again. She’s at least not laughing. “A sacrifice for some purpose. That is an interesting theory.” Morbid, too. But Ravn may get the impression that ‘morbid’ doesn’t disturb Harper so very much at all. She asks in the middle of all this, “Did they ever find his actual head?” The ocean as a key part of the equation.

He used to be a university lecturer? Perhaps that’s at least in part why Harper listens with such fascination. Rapt attention, even. There’s no sense whatsoever that she’s handling him or kindly giving the crazy man an ear to feel heard. No. Her inquisitive, measuring gaze is full of genuine interest. He bets her coffee later. She arches a brow just so, smiles, and lets him continue. Scientology makes an appearance, because of course it does. Continuing sacrifices to either stave off an invasion or to invoke a millenia-old deity of one sort or another.

Is she still with him? “I am, save that I forgot my aluminum foil.” The sea goddess. Harper reads the provided paragraph. “You are a tenacious man,” she observes upon finishing reading. And I think the connections are not so far-fetched as you say.” Dragon gods. And here, finally, Harper chimes in with a thought on it all. “If this killer-slash-mythological-“expert” is based here or near here, then I’d expect to find hints of these theories on local chat boards and social media. That seems like a realistic next step for pursuit, some fishing.” Harper lifts the hand at the hem of her skirt to lightly touch three fingertips to the back of his hand atop his glove ever so briefly – if the gloves are purposefully keeping unwanted touches from his skin, she’s not going to linger there. Her hand drops back to her lap with the other. “So, you’ve spelled it out. You’ve suggested steps involving the police. You’ve tracked down a thorough trail of crackpot breadcrumbs. What do you plan to do next?”

"If anyone actually found Henry Fitzgerald's head they neglected to tell me about it." Ravn offers a small, wry smile. "But there's no particular reason as to why anyone would, either. I don't imagine the authorities usually go out of their way to keep random bystanders up to speed on crime scenes. That said, don't expect me to look too surprised if at some point they find a collection of heads in some basement belonging to our tinfoil hat wearer. Someone who tries to communicate in symbols will want to keep symbols of his 'achievements' so far."

He studies the librarian's face a moment, giving careful consideration to that last suggestion -- because that is painfully obvious to some, but not to someone to whom the primary function of a cell phone is to serve as a portable notepad and web browser, and 'staying connected' is decidedly not a habit; someone who occasionally tweets and when he does, seems to largely be talking to himself. "Social media. Of course." Ravn sighs at himself. "You're absolutely right. He's proud of what he's doing. He's got it all figured out. He's going to be bragging about it in some secretive fashion or other because he can't not. He feels book smart, and he needs validation. Going to have to find myself some seventeen year old internet addict who's on everything from Facebook to TikTok, I think. There's a game shop downtown, probably a good place to ask around."

"Might go talk to Mr Røn rather than just walk into the police station and end up with some officer who thinks I'm the one who should be wearing the tinfoil hat." A small sigh, inadvertedly giving away Ravn's own reluctance to deal with authorities, and he pronounces the name of August Roen in a clipped, one-syllable, decidedly Scandinavian fashion. "I've only run into him a few times but he seems like the sort of man who'd be able to get information to the people who might be able to make something of it. He also seems like he's got a lot on his plate already, with that crazy rumour going around about him cancelling his wedding, but maybe he'll welcome the distraction or at least be able to point me at whoever on the police force is the right person to talk to. Also, if you're right that the people who shine the most sort of -- well, lead this little unofficial society of strange people here, then I imagine he's top tier and will know what to do with all of this. Him and Itzhak Rosencrantz and a few others, sitting next to them feels like walking past a furnace."

"And then," the Dane adds with a small smile as he starts to disassemble his fort of books, "I'm going to ask if there's anywhere in particular that librarians prefer to take their coffee. You know, just on the off chance that I am in fact wrong and our Sumerian Killer did in fact read all of Gilgamesh. Or that I might accidentally end up at the same table as said librarian some evening and not babble on about serial killers and conspiracy theories. I think I owe you the first two cups of coffee just for having to listen to this."

Oh, do not doubt it: this whole thing will resolve with a collection of heads somewhere. (Among other things.) How could it not? Ravn's listening demeanor is nearly as pleasant as his speaking is. Harper's smile warms as she speaks and he listens. When he agrees with her that social media might be a successful avenue for exploration for the particular sort of quarry they're hunting, Harper nods slowly. "I think so, too." She said as much. And yes, she agrees, there is a gaming store just over on such-and-such street. She describes the owner and suggests the woman would likely be very helpful in that sort of endeavor.

When August moves higher on the list than the police, Harper seems to settle a bit, to relax her side into the seatback, crossing one leg over the other in the small amount of space between her knees and the closer side of his library chair. "I think you're correct on both counts: from what I gather he is quite a resource, and he always seems to be coming from or heading to some unusual event. Not that I know him particularly well, but we've crossed paths a time or two."

Ravn mentions Itzhak and Harper lights up, her smile delighted. "Rosy ... ah, Itzhak is a fine man to know. If you've made a connection with him, by all means pursue it. I adore the man. And he has stunning musical talent atop all the rest. Give him my warmest greeting if you see him soon."

Harper watches the books get pulled together, stacked, re-organized before she gestures to a nearby cart for books that are ready to be re-shelved. "Leave the clean up to the experts. It's what we do." That smile is capricious.

Librarians and their caffeine? She tips her brows up, then promptly names a few places downtown Gray Harbor that provide coffee. "Please don't feel obligated, Ravn. You are a delightful man with a fantastic mind, a researcher's panache, and people like you make my job so much more enjoyable." From a slim pocket at the back of her lanyard, she pulls out a business card of sorts. It lists the library's information, then her name -- Harper Price, Lead Librarian. She untucks the pen from behind her ear and flips the card over to write out a phone number in a lovely scrawl that is entirely readable. "Call me if the mood strikes, babbling or not. I'd enjoy the chance to learn more about you." She slides the card toward him on the table top. One might notice a silver-banded ring on her right hand, ring finger, mostly because she doesn't wear much other jewelry aside from her wristwatch. "As far as owing goes, you are only allowed to maintain that perspective if it's the only way we'll cross paths again." In a town the size of Gray Harbor? Unlikely.

Harper pushes to her feet, the faint scent of rosemary and mint stirring the air with her movement. "For now, I need to address those teenagers over in the fiction section." She'll offer her hand to shake, but looks entirely uncertain if the man wearing gloves will actually shake her hand. Either way, she heads over and is soon entirely dealing with a falling out among a group of four mid-teens while they presumably were there to work on their term papers.

For whatever reason Ravn does wear those kidskin gloves, it's not out of a fear of shaking hands; his handshake is firm but not bone crushing. And indeed, his smile seems genuine if a little flustered at the praise. "If I have managed to make your afternoon interesting, then this tinfoil hat madness has already been good for something. I'll be sure to make it up to you in coffee." If the wedding band on her ring registers at all, it certainly does not deter the man from pursuing academical connections.

The mention of Rosencrantz teases forth a smile, though. "I've had the pleasure of hearing him play. He is absolutely amazing with a violin. I'd follow him around like a puppy just for that -- and it doesn't hurt that he's a pretty decent bloke on the side. I'll see about getting this information to the proper people. Thank you for your time, Miss Harper."

Those poor teens forced to work on their mid-term papers are probably about as happy about that as Ravn Abildgaard is an hour later when he finds himself looking at a game shop that is very much a former game shop. The burnt out remains of the Control Pad offers little aid to a man looking for some teenaged tech genius to help him sift through social media for traces and hints of a serial killer with a Sumerian obsession. Going to have to leave that one to the authorities, then. Surely they've got somebody who knows how to do this.