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There’s a reason Eve had chosen to pursue a career in the military right out of high school rather than settle down and start a family like many of her small town peers, and while she isn’t saying it was only to avoid having to tote a crew of toddlers around a busy zoo, that had certainly been on her pros list. It’s funny, then, how the Library has once again handed her a case to seemingly laugh at all the careful plans she’d made for her life.
“Can we try to catch the sea lion show?” Cassandra chirps, skipping down the crowded walkway as she looks over the pamphlet she’d picked up at the entrance. “I love watching them balance those balls on their noses. Oh, and look, Ezekiel! They have a little Australian area, with a kangaroo walkabout! We have to go there!”
“Yeah, ‘cause I’ve never seen any kangaroos before,” Ezekiel mutters, rolling his eyes.
Eve can’t entirely blame her annoyance on Cassie’s child-like excitement to be here, or even Stone and Jones’ bickering all morning over the ethics of keeping animals in cages for people to gawk at (Ezekiel, who was usually fairly apathetic when it came to these kinds of things, had come in surprisingly passionate about the subject, while Jake had argued just as enthusiastically about the importance of the conservation work zoos do and the vital education they provide to the public). Yes, the three of them can be a bit exhausting at times, but being out on a mission is better than the two week dry spell they’d just endured prior to this. She’s never been so happy to get out of the Library, in fact.
No, the issue is more that during those two weeks of trying to knock out as much of their backlog of inventory, cleaning, and other odd-jobs that they never seem to have the time to do (and never want to do when there is time), she had really been hoping Flynn might come back. At least to check in. After all, it’s been nearly a month since she last saw him. Hell, since she last heard from him. And while she knows his tendency to get swept up in whatever job he’s doing, which at the moment is chasing down all of those artifacts that mysteriously disappeared after the Library came back, she’s finding it rather difficult to maintain a relationship with a man she never even talks to anymore.
“I wonder if they have those stuffed monkeys with the velcro hands at the gift shop,” Cassie says, drawing Eve out of her brooding thoughts. “I always wanted one when I was a kid, but we almost never went to the zoo, and my parents definitely never let me get anything when we did.”
Ezekiel perks up at the mention of the gift shop, but before Eve can remind him that if they acquire any souvenirs today—which she would rather not, because she knows Cassandra will find the biggest, most obnoxious stuffed toy she can, and undoubtedly Eve will be the one who ends up carrying it back to the Library—they will be purchasing them fair and square, Stone interrupts.
“Check this out,” Jake shoves his own pamphlet out in front of them, tapping at it enthusiastically. “It says this zoo was established in 1922, but look at these exhibits. This isn’t how they built zoos back then. That means these have all been redone in the last couple of years. In fact, the only original architecture left is the reptile house, and even that looks like it’s been added onto with brand new offices.”
“Okay,” Eve drawls, internally debating whether he’s pointing that out because it pertains to why the Library sent them here in some way she’s not connecting, or if he’s just nerding about architecture again. Honestly, it could go either way with him. “That's interesting, but not that strange. I mean, I'm sure a lot of zoos have updated their exhibits since the early 1900s.”
Jake shakes his head. “No, I mean, this place has been updated recently. Like, in the last couple of years. And it’s expanded quite a bit in that time, too.” He motions to a large section on the map. “All of these areas just opened last year. Wouldn’t be that strange if there were a few upgrades, but to give the entire place a facelift in that short amount of time…”
“Makes you wonder where a tiny place like this got the funding,” she finishes, relieved that at least one of her LITs is on mission. Lord knows she’ll be doing enough wrangling to keep the other two on task.
Chewing on her lip, she thinks about the best tactic to approach this. They’ll probably draw less attention to themselves and cover more ground if they divide and conquer. Plus, then she doesn’t have to babysit all three of them. “Cassandra,” she decides, assuming she’s the one who will be most easily distracted, “you and I are going to the offices to see if we can find the director of this place, ask a few questions. Stone, you and Jones go poke around, see what you find.”
“Can we stop and see the anteater?” Cassie calls, jogging to follow her as she peels off toward the reptile house. “It’s on the way!”
*****
Robin, the director of the zoo, hands a grape to the monkey sitting on her shoulder, motioning for her two visitors to take the chairs across from her desk. “Who did you say you were again?”
“Oh, uh, we’re Librarians,” Cassie stutters, nervously lowering herself onto the edge of the armchair.
“Librarians?” The monkey pauses its nibbling to look at them with the same puzzlement as Robin, cocking its tiny head as it sizes them up. “What brings a couple of librarians to my humble zoo?”
“We’re… Doing some research,” Cassie spurts. “For a project. About zoos.”
“Yes,” Eve agrees with a confidence that she hopes covers Cassie’s less-than-smooth introduction. They really need to work on their improv—the whole ‘We’re Librarians’ thing doesn’t seem to work for them the same way it does for Flynn. “We’re very interested in your zoo. It seems like you’ve opened a lot of new exhibits recently, and—”
She involuntarily flinches as the monkey suddenly jumps off Robin’s shoulder to land on the arm of her chair, leaning in close to examine her.
“Oh dear, sorry about that,” Robin quickly apologizes, shuffling quickly around her desk with another grape in hand as Eve presses herself as far into the opposite side of the chair as she can. She’s never been a big fan of animals, especially primates. There’s something a little too human about them.
“He’s new,” Robin explains, trying to coax the monkey off the chair unsuccessfully. It seems determined to be as close to Eve as possible. “Just got him in a couple of weeks ago, and he hasn’t quite learned his manners yet. Have you, little one?”
The monkey pushes at Robin with its tiny hand, big brown eyes still locked on Eve as she leans further away. “It’s okay,” she starts to say, but trails off as she stares back at the little furry face, feeling a sense almost like déjà vu sweeps over her. She frowns as Robin finally manages to scoop the monkey into her arms like a petulant baby, carrying it back to a large cage set in the wall behind her desk. Something about the way it flails its arms, chirping in protest, triggers another flash of familiarity.
Eve tilts her head, trying to hold onto the nagging sense so she can follow it back to its root, figure out what this monkey reminds her of. “Where did you get him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Robin reaches an arm into the cage to drop a few grapes before setting the squirming ball of fur on a branch, holding him in place until the door is almost shut and then sneaking her arm out quickly to snap the cage shut. “This little guy?” she says, hooking a rustic-looking lock through the latch as the monkey grabs at the door. “Funny story, actually. He just showed up a couple weeks ago, all on his own. Probably someone’s pet that they didn’t want anymore. People are always getting exotic animals like this, thinking they’re cute, but not realizing the amount of work that goes into them, the trouble they cause. And then they call us. Or, as is the case with this fellow, they release them into my zoo.”
The monkey jumps onto the side of the cage when it realizes it can’t get out, looking out at Eve between the bars with the biggest, saddest eyes she’s ever seen.
“I always wanted a baby hippo to live in my bathtub,” Cassie comments. Eve finally looks away from the monkey to raise an eyebrow at her. “What?” she defends. “They’re cute! But my parents would never have gone for it. They wouldn’t even let me get a hamster.”
“Yes,” Robin continues, sitting back at her desk, and adjusting a couple of little knick knacks that the monkey had knocked ajar when it bounded over to Eve. The items look like souvenirs picked up from various travels—a dirty hunk of marble, a worn figure that might have been a goat or a ram. “Well, it’s more common than you think, people getting these animals that should never be pets. In fact, most of our animals here are from situations where the animal became too dangerous and needed to be rehomed in a facility that could properly take care of them.”
Cassie’s face lights up. “Oh, so you’re saying your zoo is kind of like a sanctuary for animals?”
“Exactly,” Robin agrees, leaning on her elbows with an amused twinkle in her eye. “Now, if you don't mind… I would be happy to set up a tour, but I am rather busy at the moment. We’re putting in a new wing in the aquarium, and I need to sort out all of these work orders.”
Eve’s smile doesn't quite reach her eyes as she stands. “We can show ourselves around. Thank you for your time.”
Cassie echoes her thanks and scurries to follow her out of the office. “I like her,” she says once they’re out of earshot.
“I think she’s hiding something,” Eve replies, the image of the monkey’s sad eyes still burned in her mind. “And I would like to find out what it is.”
*****
“I’m telling you,” Eve says as the four of them huddle by the entrance to the reptile house later, after the zoo has closed for the day. “There was something weird about that monkey. Something about the way it looked at me. Like it didn’t want to be in that cage.”
“Right, because most animals enjoy being locked up,” Ezekiel snarks as he fiddles with the electronic keypad.
“Would you hurry up with it?” Jake hisses, glancing over his shoulder. All of the staff had already left for the day, but there were still a couple of guards wandering around.
“Keep your pants on,” Ezekiel quips, unconcerned. “It’ll just take a sec. Which is impressive, because this is actually a very advanced security system for a zoo. Whatever they’re keeping in here, they definitely don’t want anyone getting in. But good news is…” There’s a click as the light turns green, and he flashes them a self-satisfied grin. “I’m Ezekiel Jones.”
Jake rolls his eyes, brushing past him and into the reptile house.
The place is decidedly spookier than it was earlier when the lights were on, the red heat lamps casting an eerie glow on the maze of tanks, filled with all kinds of creepy crawlies. Cassie jumps when the alligators in the large enclosure to their left slide into the water as they pass by.
“So you think the thing they’re hiding is the monkey?” Cassie whispers, once she regains her composure. “I mean, sure it was cute, but I agree with Ezekiel. It seemed like it was just a normal monkey to me.”
Eve purses her lips, shaking her head as she leads them to the doorway at the back of the room that leads to the offices. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it, there was just something about its eyes…”
“Yeah, well, that’s not the only odd thing about this place,” Jake adds. “Every employee here that we talked to—zookeeper, concessions worker, janitor—they’re all women. No men anywhere. I finally asked one of the keepers about it, and she said the director here only hires women.”
Cassie quirks a smile at that. “I think I like her more every minute.”
“Huh,” Eve grunts, agreeing with Jake that that is kind of weird, but not sure how any of it fits together. “So do we think she’s just progressive, or has some kind of vendetta against men?”
The answer to that remains to be seen as they weave through the back hallway and finally reach Robin’s office. Eve is relieved to find the monkey still locked in its cage in the back of the room, even as a sense of guilt pangs in her gut for the imprisoned creature. It begins to hop wildly around its cage when they slide through the door, whooping loudly with excitement.
“Good thing I disabled the alarm,” Ezekiel gripes, quickly pulling the door shut. “Your monkey friend wants to get us all caught.”
Eve shushes the monkey, which surprisingly works. It immediately goes quiet, hanging off the bars of the cage and blinking at her with those big, hopeful brown eyes. As if it’s trying to communicate something to her. Trying to get her to understand.
It suddenly clicks, where she knows those eyes from. “Oh my God,” she breathes, glad she’d trusted her gut and come back.
“What is it?” Cassie asks, looking between the monkey and Eve.
Yes, she’s sure of it. She could never mistake those eyes, not in a million years.
“It’s Flynn.”
*****
Eve was hoping that Jenkins would have some kind of magical potion to turn Flynn back into a human, seeing as he has a magical potion for just about everything else tucked away in that lab of his, but she can tell by the face he makes when they explain that the furry creature currently bouncing around the Annex, knocking things off shelves and sticking things in his mouth like a toddler is in fact their wayward Librarian that the answer won’t be that simple.
“Do we have any idea how this happened?” he asks, watching as the three LITs unsuccessfully try to convince Monkey Flynn to come down off a tall shelf of glass globes, which are wobbling precariously every time he moves. “The reversal of an animal transformation is quite dependent on the method used to invoke it. Not to mention it becomes more complicated the longer the transformation lasts.”
“Flynn!” she barks as Jake has to lay out to catch a globe that topples from the shelf. Monkey Flynn immediately snaps his attention to her, bouncing along the railing to the stairs and into her arms. “Would you quit terrorizing them?” she chastises lightly, ruffling his fur as he wraps his tail affectionately around her arm.
She only half means it. Turns out, Monkey Flynn is a troublemaker, even more so than normal Flynn, and she’s the only one he likes. Which also means she’s the only one he’ll listen to. He’d already proven this by pulling Cassie’s hair, throwing rotten fruit from his cage at Jake, and biting Ezekiel when he’d undone the lock on the cage (which Eve had tried very hard not to laugh at, because this isn’t a joke, no matter how funny it is).
Monkey Flynn curls contentedly up against her chest, big eyes looking up at her with adoration, and for a second she wonders if maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to leave him like this for a little while longer. She kind of likes all these cuddles. Not to mention that maybe like this he wouldn’t be able to run off so easily.
But no, the responsible adult side of her knows that they need to turn him back. She would be a pretty terrible Guardian if she didn’t.
“None of us have talked to him in over a month,” she tells Jenkins as she continues to scratch Flynn’s neck while he presses himself happily into her. “I have no idea how he got this way, or how long it’s been.” She gives the little bundle in her arms a gentle shake. “I don’t suppose you can tell us what happened? Do some charades or something?”
Jenkins winces. “Typically with these kinds of transformations, the animal’s instincts are quite strong. I’m not sure Mr. Carsen will be much help.”
“Figures,” Eve sighs, though she had already guessed as much. As chaotic as Flynn can be, she doesn’t think he would be quite this unpredictable if he was fully in control of himself. “You hear that, Flynn? Once again it’s up to me to save your little furry ass.”
Monkey Flynn chirps, distracted by something across the room which he squirms out of Eve’s arms to go chase.
“Alright, crew,” Eve declares, deciding there’s no use in waiting. “Back to the zoo to figure out how Flynn got turned into Curious George. Jenkins…?”
“I will keep him contained,” the caretaker promises, shuffling away hastily to follow Monkey Flynn, who disappeared through the doorway toward his lab.
As Cassie dials up the backdoor, they hear a shatter of glass and Jenkins calling out, “Mr. Carsen, unhand that teacup immediately!”
*****
Eve can’t say she’s all that surprised to see Robin waiting for them in the reptile house when they return. The director’s lips curl with that same amusement from before as the four of them topple through the backdoor, apparently not put out at all that they’d broken Flynn out of her office.
“I wondered if you would figure it out,” she purrs, closing the door of a tank where she had been feeding a large python, who is now slithering down to the floor of its cage to investigate the rat she’d left there for it. “I’ll admit I was skeptical—you weren’t as quick as that other Librarian. By the way,” she adds, waving at them as she pushes a cart filled with various bowls and buckets of all types of food toward the next tank, “when did we get multiple Librarians? I thought there was only ever one.”
Eve isn’t interested in playing her games. She wants answers. “Who are you?”
“Hmm, let’s just say I’m someone who can see the true nature of people,” Robin says. She opens the next tank, this one containing a lizard, and sets a bowl of chopped lettuce and carrots inside. “And I decided to use my gift to help those less fortunate. A noble thing to do, wouldn’t you say?”
“You turned Flynn into a monkey,” Cassie accuses. “How is that noble?”
“Oh that. It’s his fault, really.” Robin saunters over to the railing by the alligators next, which poke their heads out of their pool curiously as she picks up a shiny metal bucket. “He was going to stop me, and I couldn’t have that, so something had to be done.” She turns her gaze back to Eve, her smile cold. “I think he makes a rather fine monkey, personally. I had planned to use him in shows for the children. He would have loved it.”
Eve clenches her fists, ready to fight, but Jake’s voice stops her.
“Circe,” he says. Robin’s eyes flick to him, her lips twitching. “You’re Circe.”
“Oh, very good,” she coos condescendingly, taking out a chunk of some kind of meat from the bucket with a pair of tongs and throwing it to the gators. Both lunge for it, sloshing the water noisily as their jaws snap at each other to get to the morsel first.
The name sounds familiar, but Eve is relieved when Ezekiel is the one to ask, “Who?”
“Circe,” Jake repeats. “Daughter of Helios and Perse, a master of potions and herbs. She famously turned Odysseus’ men into pigs on their way back from the Trojan War.”
Cassie’s face lights with realization. “You didn’t just transform Flynn. All of the animals here, they’re all people, aren’t they?”
Circe touches her nose, setting down her bucket even though the alligators continue to snap greedily at her. “I used to run a rather small venture, just a few new additions here and there, but it seems word's gotten out, and we’ve been expanding quite a bit lately. In fact, I happen to have a few more exhibits to fill.”
Eve takes a defensive step forward to put herself between the director and her Librarians as Circe bends to take something off the bottom shelf of her cart. Smirking at the move, Circe stands slowly, holding up what looks like four regular bottles of water. “Speaking of, might I offer you a drink?” she asks.
“Yeah, like we’re gonna fall for that,” Ezekiel scoffs.
Circe’s smile only grows as she shrugs, setting the bottle down on the sign by the alligator enclosure. “Your choice,” she says. “You can either drink these and live a happy life safe and cared for here in my zoo, or…” She snaps her fingers, and a series of clicks sound through the room as the doors to all the tanks and cages swing open. “You can try your luck surviving the night here. But I must warn you, some of the most dangerous animals in the world reside here, and I barely got through feeding any of them. And they’re especially hungry today.”
As if to prove her point, one of the alligators drags itself through the opening to its enclosure, snapping its jaw in the direction of her cart as she backs away toward the door to the offices and blocking any chance Eve has at getting to her. “Give me a holler if you change your mind,” Circe sings at them as the door thumps shut.
“Let’s grab that potion and get out of here,” Eve says, eying the open cages nervously as more creatures begin to get adventurous and peek out. “We can deal with her later.”
They go for the obvious exit back at the front of the room first, but not only is the door no longer connected to the Library, it won’t budge when they try it. But Eve isn’t panicking yet, even though the other alligator has joined its friend, and, deprived of their bucket of meat chunks, have turned their gaze toward the four of them. There are still other doors to try.
The second door also proves useless, but still she keeps her cool, even as a large snake drops out of its tank nearby. Even when the third door is sealed and a tarantula skitters past her foot, she doesn’t completely lose it.
No, it’s when she turns around and realizes she’s been cornered by an angry alligator that she starts to get nervous.
“Jones,” she calls, spotting him at door number two a little ways away. “Don't suppose you can do something about this?”
He balks at her, looking around as if she meant to talk to another Jones somewhere nearby. “What am I supposed to do?” he squeaks, waving at the alligator emphatically. “I'm not bloody Steve Irwin!”
“Yeah, but I seem to recall you saying something about how ‘no door can stop Ezekiel Jones's on more than one occasion,” she snaps back, grabbing the only weapon she can find, which happens to be the pool skimmer from the alligator’s enclosure, to ward off the approaching predator.
“I'm working on it,” he grits out, and proves it by turning back to the door to fiddle with the handle. “She must've used some kind of magic. I can't pick these locks.”
The alligator grabs the pool skimmer and yanks it out of Eve’s hands, so she climbs up on the railing, searching for some other way out. But there's nowhere to go. To her left, Jake and Cassie are fighting off a mean-looking cobra, and to her right, a komodo dragon is slinking through the rows of open tanks, tongue flicking in search of food. There's no way out.
Suddenly, a blur of fur swings through her vision, landing on the top of the alligator’s head. “Flynn!” she gasps in surprise as the little monkey bounds away, drawing the gator's attention off of her.
“Colonel Baird.” She has never been so happy to see Jenkins, standing in the blue light of the magical doorway at the entrance of the reptile house. “Might you be in need of assistance?”
“How did you know?” she breathes as she and the others rush toward the open door.
“Ah, well Mr. Carsen managed to communicate that he was under Circe’s spell,” the caretaker explains as she and her Librarians take advantage of Flynn’s distracting antics to pick their way to him. “Having dealt with her before myself, I had a bunch you might be in some trouble.”
By the time she pushes the others through the doorway, Monkey Flynn has landed on her shoulder once again. “That is a story I definitely want to hear,” she says, gladly leaving the vicious animals behind as she ducks back into the Annex.
*****
“I was tracking the Golden Fleece.” Flynn tugs his blanket tighter around his shoulders—he still can’t seem to get warm since losing his built-in fur coat a few hours ago, even though Jenkins assures him the reversal potion he’d concocted from the sample Cassie had been smart enough to grab during their swift exit should have fully cured him. He did spend over two weeks as a monkey, so being back in his normal body will take some getting used to. Which is why he’s still in bed, even though he’s technically fine, because he’s grown rather dependent on having a tail to help him balance. “Circe, Robin, whatever she was calling herself,” he adds with a flourish of his hand. “She was using it to persuade donors to give her money for her zoo.”
“The Golden Fleece is supposed to bring good fortune to whoever possesses it,” Jake provides when Eve raises a curious eyebrow.
It’s nice to finally put together all the pieces now that Flynn is human again. Eve had caught most of it, but as she’s not quite as versed in her Greek mythology as the others, there were still a couple of holes in the story. “And she needed the money to keep expanding the zoo because…”
“Ah, because she was turning men into animals,” Flynn says matter-of-factly. “Specifically, men who mistreated and abused women. She would get them to drink her potion, and poof! Then she would give the women jobs so they could start over.”
Jake crosses his arms, leaning up against the doorway to Flynn’s room. “That’s kind of cool, actually.”
“I knew I liked her,” Cassie chimes in from where she’s perched on the edge of the bed.
“A bunch of gronks put on display for everyone to see?” Ezekiel muses. “Might be the only zoo I actually like.”
“Okay, but no matter how noble her intentions were, you can’t just turn a bunch of people into animals,” Eve points out. “We’re going to turn them all back, right?” She looks around at the faces surrounding Flynn’s bed, which are all pulled in varying degrees of disagreement. “Guys, it’s wrong.”
“I don’t know,” Cassie says. “Flynn seemed pretty happy as a monkey. Maybe they like being animals.”
Flynn shakes his head ruefully, lifting an arm to scratch at his tousled hair. “No, Eve is right,” he sighs. “We should probably get Jenkins to synthesize more of the cure.”
“Pretty sure he’s already working on it,” Cassie admits with a pout. Jenkins had wandered off at some point after ensuring Flynn was fully human again, presumably to tie up the rest of the loose ends of this mission. Or perhaps because Flynn had destroyed half his lab while in monkey form.
“Speaking of the Golden Fleece,” Flynn interjects, frowning as he scratches his head a little more rigorously. “You guys didn’t happen to grab that did you?” At the blank stares he receives, he prompts, “Little figure of a ram on her desk, wooden horns, wool body… No?”
“That was the Golden Fleece?” Eve asks, vaguely recalling seeing the dusty, unimpressive object sitting on Robin’s desk.
“Well, yeah,” Flynn chuckles. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know, maybe something gold?”
Cassie pulls a face. “We can go back and look for it, but by now…”
Shaking his head again, Flynn takes a deep breath, but he can’t be all that annoyed wearing that smile. “No, I’m sure she’s probably long gone with it. And I was so close, too. If she hadn't tricked me into drinking that potion…”
“Yeah,” Jake says, his own lips twitching as he pushes off the doorframe. “Looks like all you managed to get this time around was the golden fleas.”
Flynn, who Eve suspects probably does have fleas with the way he’s still going at his hair, stops dead to stare at him, mouth open but unable to form a response.
“I should probably go help Jenkins,” Cassie comments quickly, eyes flashing with a smirk she tries to hide
Ezekiel is quick to follow her out the door. “Same. See you later, Flynn.”
“It’s good to have you back, man,” Jake says, winking before he, too, disappears.
“I don’t—” Flynn begins to stutter.
Eve pats him on the knee, wrinkling her nose as she stands as well. “Yeah, you should probably take a shower. Maybe a few.”
She starts to walk away to go help Jenkins sort out the rest of this mess, but turns back, her eyes glittering playfully at her flustered Librarian. “By the way,” she says. “I’m going to miss that tail.”
His cheeks go pink, face splitting into a grin as he settles back into his bed, home at last.