Chapter 45 Helena
I wore a champagne-hued belted dress with tulip sleeves, but Grim never came to pick me up for our date.
At first, I waited for him on the couch with Maui, expecting him to materialize somewhere in my vicinity. At twenty minutes past eight, I went to stand at the window, where I peered out over the parking lot to see if he might be waiting next to The Judge.
“Where is he?” I asked Maui, grabbing the pineapple and hugging her close.
After an hour, I turned on the TV.
After two, I gave up, washed up, and went to bed.
Not that I got much sleep.
All over again, my mind went rampant. This time, instead of thinking the worst about him, I fretted that the worst had indeed happened to him.
He said he loved me. And that tattoo… Didn’t it prove he held deeper feelings for me?
Grim didn’t have a phone for me to call, and his family lived in a realm I couldn’t reach on my own or communicate with.
Sunday crawled by, and I did a fair amount of pacing in my apartment. I couldn’t even bring myself to make the grocery trip I desperately needed in case Grim did come looking for me—in case anyone from the Hallowed Halls did.
When Monday morning arrived, however, I had to leave for work.
I took The Judge to the library, where I hoped my anxiety would lessen. But work proved less of a time-passing distraction than a set of tasks I couldn’t seem to focus on.
Something was wrong. It had to be.
But… what could I do about it?
When noon arrived, I gathered the day’s selection of books and headed to the storytime corner, the area already packed with day care kids and afternoon regulars—moms and dads with their toddlers, grandparents with their grandkids.
Flustered, beside myself with worry, I sat down on my stool and tried to get a grip.
Today marked the first time I’d ever had to force a smile when faced with so many shining eyes and upturned and curious faces.
The kids, ranging in age from three to six, sat on brightly colored round cushions and, farther back, on carpeted risers. Behind them, a mural depicting storybook scenes and characters like Rapunzel in her tower and Anansi in his web provided a colorful backdrop.
Its cheer and whimsy couldn’t spread to me today, and neither could the joy or the rapt attention of the children during our welcome song, which I strummed out on my ukelele while everyone followed along with the sign language I’d taught them.
Still, I kept my grin in place as I revealed our first book of the day—a classic and a personal favorite: There’s a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer.
The moment the nightmare creature started to cry, though, I found myself fighting tears, too.
Ramsey, one of my tried-and-true regulars, raised his hand. Blinking away the tears, I called on him, glad for the reprieve.
Maybe I shouldn’t have picked out all monster books this morning…
Or brought my ukelele.
“Miss Hart,” said the six-year-old, tilting his head while he blinked dark eyes at me. “Are you afraid of the monster?”
That. Well, that got a laugh out of me, which made my young patron smile.
“No,” I assured him, “I’m not.”
His frown returned. “Then what’s the matter?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I think maybe I’m afraid for the monster.”
“I’ve read this one before,” volunteered Maya, a five-year-old from Sunny Street Day Care. “The monster is okay at the end. Keep reading, you’ll see.”
I nodded, raising the book again. “That’s a great idea.”
I kept reading and turning pages, but I only partially recovered after my initial lapse.
Still, I got through the other books and, miraculously, a precarious rendition of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” before finally wrapping up.
Ramsey hurried over to me as I started packing my books back into my Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! tote that I’d purchased at an ALA conference a few years back.
“The monster turned out okay,” said Ramsey. “Did you see?”
“I sure did,” I replied, offering him the warmest smile I could conjure.
“All the monsters did,” he added. “Even Grover.”
“That Grover,” I said, referring to the other classic I’d added in, The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone and Mike Smollin. “He was worried about nothing, wasn’t he?”
“He didn’t know he was the monster,” Ramsey observed. “But… he also didn’t know that he wasn’t.”
I blinked at this and frowned. Then, finally, out of nowhere, some much-needed relief washed through me.
Children. In so many ways, they were so much wiser than adults. Always, they had been my best teachers.
“You know, Ramsey,” I said, “you’re right. Grover did all that fretting for nothing, didn’t he? He was afraid of the monster because he didn’t know he was the monster. At the same time, he didn’t know that he wasn’t really a monster at all. Not like he was thinking. Not like he feared.”
“Yeah,” said Ramsey. “So nobody got eaten or anything.”
He patted my knee with one umber hand, a gesture that melted my entire heart—what was left of it at this point anyway.
“That’s lucky,” I replied with another short laugh that made Ramsey’s smile broaden. “You know, Ramsey, you really helped me to see things more clearly.”
And I wasn’t just telling him that. He had.
Because his words served as a reminder that Grim wasn’t a monster, either. Not really. And if he wasn’t a monster, not the truly scary sort, then what did he have to fear?
The powers that be…
If they—The Few—cared enough about collecting human souls and seeing them to their various destinies, if they cared enough to give Faust, a man who had notoriously sold his soul to the devil, refuge from literal demons, then they couldn’t be all bad.
And if they weren’t all bad, Grim was likely… okay.
If they were looking out for Johann, Flora, and Cedric, they would look out for Grim, too.
Right?
“Don’t worry, Miss Hart,” said Ramsey as he rushed in to give me a hug. “The monsters all turned out fine.”
“Thanks, Ramsey,” I whispered, patting his back before he turned and hurried off to line up with his friends for craft time.
For a while after that sweet interaction, things got better. I got better.
I started to focus again. But then, when three o’clock rolled around, my terror came crashing down on me all over again when Hunter entered the children’s department—something he never did.
Behind him, dressed in jeans, a Hello Kitty T-shirt, a spring-green raincoat, and a yellow beanie that hid her pointed ears, trailed a distraught and anxious Flora.
“Flora,” I gasped, rising from my swivel chair behind the checkout counter. “Oh my God.”
“Oh,” said Hunter, folding his arms, “so you do know this pint-sized heathen.”
“That’s Miss Pint-Sized Heathen to you, you great boot-wearing goose.”
Hunter blinked at me, unamused. “She was looking for you all through the stacks in the adult nonfiction, yelling your name like someone who, I don’t know, has never been in a flipping library before.”
“I have a library in me house the likes of which you’ve never even dreamed of,” snapped Flora.
“I bet its two bookshelves filled with Goosebumps and YA trilogies.”
“Try life records, forbidden magic, alchemy, and divination.”
“Okay, Merlin.”
“I know someone who knew him, you know,” said Flora, hands going to her hips. “Taught me a hex or two he learned from his books. So, if’n you’d rather not find your elbows inverted in the mornin’, you’d do well to remember your manners, Boot Boy.”
“My name’s Hunter.”
“Well,” said Flora, “at least you don’t shame your own name. Did a fair job hunting down Helena, didn’t you?” Abruptly, Flora turned to me. “But what are y’doin’ all the way on this side of the building?”
“I’m… the children’s librarian,” I told her, gesturing to our more colorful surroundings. “The children’s section is separate.”
“Didn’t know you worked with kids,” said Flora. “You and I have something in common after all.”
“How are you gonna say you work with kids?” challenged Hunter. “You are a kid.”
Flora wheeled on him. “Well, if that ain’t the wean calling the fairy a shrimp.”
Hunter spread his arms. “What’s with you people? I’m eighteen!”
“When I was eighteen,” said Flora, “I was pulling pixie pranks on the countryfolk, not traipsing through a boring old library molding my brain on books.”
“What?” Hunter squinted at Flora like he, too, had caught the barest of shimmers in the air at her back—her wings poking through whatever glamour she’d cast over herself.
“Flora,” I said, drawing the fairy’s attention back to me. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
Didn’t I already know the answer, though? Why else would she be here?
“Och,” said Flora, “it’s all the exact opposite of okay.”
“It’s Grim,” I guessed, “isn’t it?”
“The kid knows Grim?” asked Hunter, aiming a thumb at Flora, who, arching her brows, aimed a thumb back at him before echoing the question.
“The kid knows Grim?”
“Um.” I bit my bottom lip. Then I shook my head. “We… all know Grim. Hunter met him the other day when he stopped by to ask about—well, that’s not important. Flora knows Grim because she’s his… um.”
I couldn’t exactly say “coworker,” could I?
“I’m his niece,” said Flora.
“From Scotland,” said Hunter, his gaze darting between us, more dubious now than ever.
“Twice removed,” Flora added.
“Twice?” Hunter crinkled his nose. “But that would make his actual niece, like, ancient.”
“How old is ancient?” asked Flora, turning the question on me. “Personally, I don’t think I’m quite there yet.”
“Okay,” said Hunter, holding up both palms. “The math isn’t mathing here—on any level.
But I don’t think I super care about that.
All I care about is that I really feel like you shouldn’t be in the library unsupervised.
Honestly, I don’t think I should be in the library unsupervised, but I guess I keep holding out they’ll eventually offer me hazard pay.
Bottom line, are we good now? Can I foist this hobgoblin with her spectacular vernacular off on you, Hart, and go back to my Quasimodo bell tower—aka the nine hundreds? ”
“You’ve never met a hobgoblin in your life, have you?” asked Flora. “I’ve half a mind to sneak one under your bed in the wee hours, I do. If for no other reason than to teach you a lesson about the fair folk.”
“Whatever you do,” Hunter said, shifting his focus back to me, “please don’t marry into this family.”
A furious blush heated my face. “Um… I’ve got it from here, Hunter, thanks.”
“Then I’m out,” Hunter said. “This place gives me hives. Too many colors. Deuces.”
He threw up a sideways peace sign before swinging away and fast-walking out of the children’s department—probably wanting to make himself scarce before someone under the age of ten saw his name badge and asked for help finding a book, logging on to a computer, or with tying a shoe.
“Look, lass,” said Flora, concern knitting her expression, “I hate to bother you at work, but I didn’t have much of a choice after what we found in the Hallowed Halls.”
“No,” I said, “it’s okay. I’ve been worried sick about Grim. What is it? What’s happened?”
“I was hoping—perhaps in vain—to find out you’d seen him in the last day or so.”
“The last I saw him was Friday night,” I said, blushing again—and hoping desperately Flora didn’t ask for details.
“That’s the night Johann found Grim’s hourglass abandoned in the Basins chamber. I was out with Pluto, chasing Cedric’s soul down—except we found out too late it was a clever decoy.”
“Cedric?”
“Aye,” said Flora. “He’s loose—but I don’t know how. Or, unfortunately, where.”
“Oh no…”
I gave the children’s department a scan. I swallowed hard, too, overcome with the need to get the heck out of here in case the wizard came to the library looking for me. To finish the job he hadn’t been able to with the bookmobile.
Clearly, in his pursuit of ruining Grim, he didn’t care who he hurt.
I couldn’t be around my patrons.
“Johann was away in the Netherworld Forest,” said Flora, “walking with Lady Red, who asked to speak with him about… Well, Johann has something like a stalker.”
“I know who Johann is,” I said.
“Grim told you?” She tilted her head, surprised.
“I… sort of guessed.”
“Oh,” said Flora. “It’s a sensitive topic for Johann, which was why he followed Lady Red out to the forest. She wanted to ask him about the smashed-up Volkswagen parked near one of the larger portals—to see if its presence there meant anything to him.
She thought it might mean the portals had been breached, and he—we—were compromised. ”
“That’s… well, that was my car,” I told her. “Grim probably took it to the Netherworld to hide it after Cedric demolished it trying to kill me. But, Flora, where’s Grim? What’s happened to him?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “But I do know souls are dogpiling. I’m making my deliveries, but the adult spirits are backing up. Grim’s not doing his job. Usually, if one of us stays put for long enough, he and I can find each other’s signature—but I can’t feel him anywhere in the world.”
This was terrible. Horrible. Worse than I’d imagined.
Clearly, something had happened to Grim. And Cedric was to blame.
“What about The Few?” I asked. “Have you spoken to any of them?”
“Johann has tried summoning Sir White, but he won’t answer,” Flora replied. “Neither will the others. And we’ve searched the Hallowed Halls from top to bottom for Grim. Everywhere but his chambers—but we can’t get in. Johann and I both tried.”
His chambers.
“Oh my God, Flora,” I gasped, my eyes springing wide as they found hers. “I know how to find him. But I need to get into his apartment. I’ll explain when we get there. But can… can you take me to the Netherworld?”
“How soon can we leave?” said Flora.
“We’ll go now,” I said, grabbing my yellow cardigan from the back of my swivel chair.
“That’s what I was hopin’ you’d say,” said Flora, a flicker of relief registering on her young face.