The safe was about the size and weight of an anvil—though hollow inside. And it struck in a cacophonous cacophony—just a tremendous splash of glass. It was as though a giant, life-sized glass whale—if such a whale ever existed—were to crash into a solid ocean of ice; instantly transitioning from existence into spectacular non-existence. The safe struck the glass mirror-box and flung us all into the forest on a wave of whistling shrapnel. For the moment, at least, that drowned out conversation. But it wasn't long until the Ambassador tumbled to a stop and had something to say about this most recent tumble of events:
"I should have known! Of course they would have thrown the book at us!"
"Thrown the what?" The voice of Macie crowed from above. She hung twelve feet overhead, her feet hanging over my head.
"Thrown the book!" Ambassador Revevevicez said. "The Dwellers have a tendency, when they don't want to be reflective—which is always, because always they dislike reflections...They have a tendency to take a page from the old book, as the saying goes."
"The Bible?" I asked.
"No, you know—the old book."
"The phone book?"
"The book of sayings."
"Sayings?" Chevron shuddered. Or, I think he shuddered—it could have been related to the glass and the tumble. "What cursed book of sayings?" His cool exterior had shattered with all of this shattered glass and we caught a glimpse—however cracked—of the real Chevron: a supernaturalist spook. (And rightly so.)
"The book of saying says they take a page from the old book," the Ambassador clarified. "Am I making myself clear?"
"Not in the least," I said.
"They take a page from any book and they dwell on it. Turn it over in their mind and turn it over in real life, also—over and over, sometimes five or six times—until they are ready to add it to the book of their design. This book." The Ambassador stood now and approached the terrible safe. It was terrible for all the racket it had made, for all of the racket it had—in our conversation—silenced, and for its terrible job of keeping its inside contents inside and its outside contents (which included the whole of the world plus Ambassador Revevevicez) out. He pried his way in with all the effort of a sage grouse grousing at sage. And he removed "the book."
"Ah..." He said, paging through the book. "Oh..."
"What is it?" Macie asked.
The Ambassador chuckled. "Mmmm...yes, yes..." He cooed to himself. Very pleased and laughing like a flattered beau. "This is quite right. Quite exquisitely right."