The Book of Miranda | gxg | ✔︎

(15) The Prince Sent Ravens

I can't remember the last time I read for fun.

That's a lie. I can't remember the time I actually picked up a book myself and sat down somewhere to read it voluntarily, not hovered over someone else's shoulder with the impression that I'm just loitering. I've been damn near allergic to books over the last few years. It's no coincidence. My father doubled down on trying to fix whatever makes the words dance on the page like someone's rubbed paprika in their underwear whenever I try to read them. I can still listen fine, when someone bothers to narrate for me. And I can still bushwhack through a book—it just takes longer, and tires me faster than the five-story walk to my father's office on the wharf back home. That's not energy I relish spending on anything demanded of me.

When it's my choice, though, it's worth it for the stories.

I drop my satchel in the window alcove and crawl up after it. I haven't had a chance to dust the place yet, but the window's sat open for most of four days now, and it's nearly cleaned itself. The stone is about as comfy as bareback riding with ass bruises, but the quiet of the room and its complimentary birdsong are comfort enough for me. I dig out the bible. It's heavy. Dense—the kind of density my father calls "the weight of knowledge" when it's latinate treatises he's referring to, but I always found those insubstantial the way one might call a brick nutritious. It's stories that hold gravity for me. This book is laden with them.

I run a hand over the cover, then crack it open. The Miranda Bible. Someone, somewhere, named this book. I don't know much about them. Can't, really, when we're separated by at least a hundred years. But I know they spoke English. They had access to an older version of this religious anthology—also in English, an anomaly in its day and age. Nobody else here transcribed the bible into laypeople's languages until the House of Heymair stormed this area. Which means whoever printed, bound, or read this book likely did so undercover to avoid an accusation of sacrilege that could spiral all too quickly into a witch trial. A convenient excuse to stamp out the irreverent.

A flip a couple pages and find myself in Genesis. I like the rhythm of Genesis. It's the kind of story that begs to be vocalized; reading silently just can't recreate that musicality. Or maybe that's a privilege reserved for people who aren't me. I delve into the verses with their tiny, pirouetting text. Memory helps me read, as does rapt attention. I let myself lose myself in the creation of the planet and its living things, and wonder only idly whether the angels were created, too, or whether they were always there.

There's nothing unusual about this bible. I finish my favorite part of Genesis, then flip back to the index for a page map to my other go-to bible stories. Something seizes my attention almost immediately.

I've never heard of the Book of Jubilees before.

I stare at the name for a long moment to make sure I'm not misreading. Then I search the rest. I find two more anomalies: 1 and 2 Enoch are set next to one another not long after Jubilees. The rest of the index is in the order I'm familiar with. Clarice was right: this book is thicker than a normal bible. I get a page number and flip to Jubilees 1:1. Once again, I begin to read.

I know this story.

I frown down at the page. This isn't new material. It's just a retelling of Exodus, abridged and lacking many of the juicy details the full version boasts between its pages. I flip ahead, then back. The more I read, the more cheated I feel. What's the point of including this? It's the biblical equivalent of a student rehashing a text in their "original" essay, hoping their teacher won't catch the blatant similarities.

There must have been a reason. I grit my teeth and return to the intro verses. It takes a minute or two to regain my flow; disinterest saps my mental energy, and it's hard to track a story when it's less narrative than summary. My eyes glaze over by chapter three. For a summary, Jubilees is a chunky sucker, rivaling Genesis and some of its next-door neighbors, the famously stout Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. It's not until chapter seventeen that my skimming snags on something like a thorn-caught stocking.