One #2
“It’s not.”
“Then why did you mention it?”
“Because you were all…” I waved my arms around. “And you seem a bit tired.”
“I am. I’ve had a bout of insomnia lately, and when I do sleep, my dreams are wild.” She was rambling. “And yes, if I were rested, this would probably bother me less, but still… Please explain to me what that creature is doing here?”
“Again, she’s been here the longest. Think of it like tenure.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Our boss, the lovely Mr. Samuels, can’t stand her either, and yet…she remains.”
“I just—she tried to tell a girl today that the reference section was closed for renovations, so she couldn’t get her the book she needed on dinosaurs.”
“She could have given her a firsthand account about them, maybe have the kid come back and interview her.”
“Xander!”
“When I was little, she was still peddling that whole flat-earth theory.”
“Oh my God, you are not helping at all.”
“At least she believes the earth is round now. That’s a step in the right direction.”
She shook her head. “Why is she here?”
“You keep asking that question,” I pointed out.
“Because I’m at a loss. I overheard her telling a woman—who was threatening to have her fired, by the way—that she doesn’t even need this job as she lives quite comfortably due to her divorce settlement.”
“Your point?”
“First, I’m not surprised she’s divorced, and second, she doesn’t even need the job, so to me, that’s merely another reason to can her ass.”
“I don’t think you understand how things work around here, little lady,” I said, using my best drawly cowboy voice.
Her eyes narrowed. “If she can work anywhere, why here?”
“To spread the joy of reading, of course.”
Danesha pressed her lips together tight.
“No? You don’t think so?”
“Second warning,” she said, pointing her finger at me. “Do not make me smile. I don’t want to smile. That woman is a horror.”
“Which is why she can’t work alone. We must always make sure one of us is here to tell the kids that of course there were dinosaurs—ankylosaurus being my favorite—no matter what Mrs. Milton says. And also, if they want to fly a rocket ship to Mars someday, then they certainly can. They just need to become a pilot.”
“This is horrifying.”
“I agree, but other than funding, there’s no way anyone gets fired from a job working for the township. Desiree Nichols, at our DMV, I’m convinced she’s completely deaf, and yet, still working.”
“Lots of deaf people are in the workforce who?—”
“Use sign language or have other aids to allow them to do their jobs,” I finished for her. “Yes. I’m aware. I’m neither an ableist nor an ageist, and Desiree is only in her mid-sixties, but she doesn’t know ASL, doesn’t have any hearing aids, and as far as I can tell, much like Joanna, simply doesn’t like people.”
“And yet she’s working with the public.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Wait. Is she the one in charge of directing people at the DMV?”
“Oh, so you have met her.”
“Dear God in heaven, is that why the line is always so long? I’ve been in there, like, five times since we moved here to get my license changed, and it’s always a zoo. The line is out the door.”
“Except on every other Thursday.”
“Sorry?”
“Every other Thursday,” I repeated.
“Every other Thursday?” she parroted.
“This is getting funny,” I teased her.
“Why Thursday?”
“That’s when Tariq works. He gets everyone sent to the right place and in and out of there in minutes if it’s something easy like a change of address on a license.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. He closes his bookstore, Circle Read, two Thursdays every month to work at the DMV because Desiree, his aunt, needs that day to go to the salon and get her hair done.”
“I—I’m speechless.”
“He’s great. He and I always discuss what books on witchcraft he should invest in for his shop, and I’ve yet to steer him wrong,” I said proudly. I’ve read quite a bit and made certain to suggest quality tomes that embraced the entirety of a witch’s magical journey from spells to floor washes to baking.
“You know Joelle was hired as the city manager. She will get this place in line.”
I smiled at her.
“You don’t believe me?”
I kept smiling.
“Fine.” She sighed. “The mayor, your man, and Councilman Hernandez are the only three she says are even remotely competent.”
“Well, having the mayor on her side will help.”
“For a tiny town, the red tape and funding here are a mess.”
“No, really?” I mock-gasped.
“I will hit you.”
“This is a shock, I tell you.”
“The sole reason I’m not smacking you with a dictionary right now—like a really heavy one—is because you’ve got company.”
Turning, I found Cass—Cassidy MacBain, Lorne’s niece—and her best friend, Delia Johnson, plus three other girls.
“What’s shakin’?” I asked them.
Delia’s face scrunched up. “Don’t ever say what’s shakin’ again. That was really cringe. Nobody says that anymore.”
No one on earth was as judgmental as a teenage girl. Period. “Fine. What do you want?”
Cass leaned on the counter. “Can we talk to you over here?”
Moving around the cage of the checkout island, I got to the other side where the card catalog was—which was no longer in general use ever since the computer system was put in. Of course, a few things had been missed, which was why we kept it. And furthermore, any good librarian worth their salt had to understand the great mysteries of the Dewey Decimal System backward and forward. I was a master in that area.
Cass gave me a smile instead of telling me what she needed.
“Yes?”
“As you can see, I have a pen and my magic journal with me, so when you give me answers this time, I’ll write them down.”
Lately, I’d been getting a lot of witchcraft questions from her and her friends, and many were the same ones over and over.
“You promise?” I wasn’t annoyed, it hadn’t reached that level, but no one liked to repeat themselves. Retaining a given answer was just good manners.
“Yes,” she said quickly, sounding serious. I noted then that all five young women had journals and writing implements.
“First, who are your friends?”
I was introduced to Skylar, Jewel, and Hailey.
“Nice to meet you,” I told them and got big smiles in return. “And you may proceed with your interrogation,” I said imperiously to Cass.
“Really?”
I groaned. “You’re no fun at all.”
She shook her head at me. “Okay, so, why do you say, so mote it be ?”
All five girls were looking at me expectantly.
“The words so mote it be close a spell or prayer. It releases the magic, lets it know to go do its work, or tells whatever deity you’re entreating that you’ve finished asking for everything you need.”
“So it’s like saying amen,” Delia pointed out.
“Basically, yes.”
Fun to watch them all write in their journals at the same time.
“And what about blessed be ?” Jewel wanted to know.
“That’s what you say when you’re leaving. It’s like hope everything is good with you and have a nice day wrapped up in one. You can also use it as a greeting. Like aloha , which means both hello and goodbye.”
“Aloha?” Cass sounded confused.
I nodded. “I had a roommate from Kona when I was in college.”
She looked at me oddly.
“Kona is on the Big Island in Hawai'i,” I explained.
“I know where Ko— I’ve just never heard you say blessed be.”
“I usually say it to other witches, and while there are a few in town, you might not have been with me when we crossed paths.”
“Okay. How do you know if someone is a witch?” Skylar asked that time.
“Well, normally they tell you.” Her question made no sense. “Don’t you all follow several on Instagram?”
“Yes, but how do you know?” Cass pressed me.
I knew who was magic because I could see and feel their power. That was the blessing I received when I was branded by the god Arawn. A branded witch could easily tell a magic user, and in most cases, could counteract any enchantment used against them. I, for example, could always pick out a witch or wizard, sorceress or warlock, but I was truly powerful only on my own land. Separated from Corvus, where I lived, my magic was limited to what many could do—or maybe slightly more, since I came from a line of guardians.
Historically, those lines were chosen to be caretakers by a god or goddess. Some watched over great libraries in castles and manor houses all over the world. Others guarded sacred groves where deities met with those forbidden to them, while still others, like me, kept safe small areas of land with rifts that deities used to move from one plane to another. All those trusts between protectors and the protected were sacrosanct, and when those places were threatened, the guardian’s power would rise to meet the challenge. Taken together, being branded and being a sentinel answered the question of how I knew a witch when I met one, but for Cass and her friends, the answer needed to be simple, redacted.
“I don’t really know,” I replied, which was a lie, but to say any more was not something I could do. “I just have to wait and see.”
The girls all nodded.
“Did anyone in your family die in Salem?” Hailey asked me.
I squinted at her. “No witches died in Salem, only innocent people. You can look that up.”
“Yes, but members of the Corey family were killed.”
I had heard this particular question my whole life. “It’s a common surname,” I assured her. “But really, if those people had attacked real witches, don’t you think there would have been a completely different outcome?”
“Yes,” Cass agreed. “But back then, all the things you do, like making witch’s ladders and spell bottles and even mixing tea and crafting wreaths could have gotten you thrown in prison.”
“Certainly, yes.” I didn’t add that if crazed, intolerant bigots had come for me on my land, they would have never left.
“So when people tell you they’re witches, do you just believe them?” Delia wanted to know.
“Of course.”
When I met new people and they told me they were a witch, I always treated them as such. Because really, if you felt magic move inside you, who was I to judge? Everyone got to have their own journey. What I didn’t like were the people who said they were witches merely to make a buck. The people who put tap water in small glass bottles with cork stoppers, added ribbon and glitter and sold it as moon water, those were the people who drew my ire. Fake magical items, from wands to scrying mirrors to heating amethyst to pawn it off as citrine, pissed me off.
“So I could say blessed be to you,” Cass said, distracting me, which was good. Getting mad at people selling fakes would make me rabid. It wasn’t a good use of my energy.
“You certainly could,” I told her.
“There are different meanings of candle flames, aren’t there?” Skylar inquired. “Like how high or low it is.”
“There are. And there are excellent graphics on Pinterest about that.”
“Really?”
“There are,” Delia assented. “I just like to check with Xan on anything I’m not sure about because I don’t want to do it wrong.”
“For the most part, nothing you do will be wrong if you follow your intuition,” I promised them.
“But you said for the most part. What did you mean?” Jewel asked.
“Like, I understood that you were getting a Ouija board to try out.”
They all nodded.
“Well, I myself would not because for one, you never know whom you’re speaking to, which takes catfishing to a whole new level of scary, and second, you never want to summon something you can’t banish—which is a good general rule.”
Cass winced. If I hadn’t been looking at her, I would have missed it.
“Something happen?”
“I don’t know,” she replied hesitantly. “We talked to something…we think…and then we left to get snacks, and when we came back, it was different.”
“What was different?” I asked, knowing that the chances that they had spoken to something through the veil were decidedly small. Contrary to what most people thought, spirits were not anxiously waiting on the opposite side of the veil to chat. It was not like in the movies. Ghosts, on the whole, preferred to be left in peace.
They were all suddenly quiet.
“I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“The thing moved,” Delia told me.
“What thing?”
“The piece that’s supposed to.”
“The planchette?”
“Is that the name of it?” Skylar was staring at me.
I nodded.
“Yeah. It was in one spot, and now it’s on the other side of the board.”
“That could be anything.”
“But we had it in a safe place.”
“Define that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said it was in a safe place. I have no idea what that means.”
“It’s on a flat surface, so it shouldn’t have moved.”
But how easy was it to bump a board without noticing? “Okay, so when you left to get snacks, did you close it out?”
“Close it out?” Cass appeared confused.
“Did you say goodbye?”
They all shook their heads.
“I see. May I ask where and when you did this?”
“Today, in the basement,” Delia answered me.
“Your basement?”
“No. The basement here.”
“Oh,” I said, trying not to grimace. Of course the board moved; they were lucky it hadn’t been flung across the room and into a wall, which would have scared the crap out of them. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Lots of nodding.
I returned to Danesha and told her I would be right back. Following them, we went through the art history area where the unsafe wood fireplace was that was supposedly going to be replaced before winter this year. I wasn’t holding my breath. Then we started down the spiral staircase to the basement, where the historical archives were, along with all the music—vinyl albums, eight track and cassette tapes, and now new sound booths where anything could be listened to. The microfiche vaults were there, as well as maps, monographs, and all the journals, magazines, and newspapers the library kept on file.
On the opposite side of the room was a door normally kept locked but that you could check out a key for, which would then give you access to a set of old, steep stone steps that led to the smaller second basement. Flanking the stairs was ancient brick that countless people had put their hands on as they descended to make sure they didn’t take a tumble. Between the wear and tear on the stairs and the erosion of the walls, the entire entrance was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Mr. Samuels believed, as did all the head librarians before him, that because the key needed to be checked out and a waiver signed and witnessed, they were protecting themselves from liability. I didn’t think so, and when I took Lorne down there one day, he concurred.
Later, when we were leaving together, I caught him shaking his head.
“What?”
“You do realize that the first time someone actually falls on those stairs of death, it’s done, right? That whole area of the library will be sealed off permanently.”
“Or until it’s renovated.”
“Sure. But when have you seen the town vote to improve infrastructure? I just see money going to beautification projects.”
He wasn’t wrong, but tourism helped a lot of businesses. “Well, we have to hope for the best, then. I mean, all of us who have used those stairs for years know the deal. I know exactly where not to step when I’m carrying a stack of books down.”
“No, no.” He scowled at me. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to lose you because you took a header in the library. That would be a bit anticlimactic, don’t you think?”
I did.
Now, following the girls, we were all careful, arriving safely at the bottom of the musty space that was also heavy with the scents of old paper, wet stone, and dirt. I loved it, but most people didn’t enjoy the cobwebs, the thick layer of dust, or the occasional loose wooden floorboard. The wiring was faulty as well, which was why you were supposed to bring a battery-powered lamp with you.
When we came around the first bookshelf that was filled with rolled pieces of parchment and leather tubes, I saw the small table surrounded by pillows and several battery-operated candles that the girls had been using.
“There, see?” Cass pointed, stopping so sharply, I almost walked into her.
It looked like a perfectly normal Ouija board to me, with the planchette off to the side.
“What am I looking at?”
“When we left it,” Delia said, coming up beside me, “the thingy—the planchette whatever—was in the middle of the board, and now it’s all the way to the right.”
As expected, I felt nothing, and walked over to the board. The planchette was clearly sitting over the word NO. “Anything could have moved that,” I declared nonchalantly. A lie, yes, but scaring the girls was in no one’s interest.
There was a waft of deep floral and green grass then, a slight hint of the sea and some kind of spice, perhaps tonka bean or coriander, that I could never quite put my finger on. Regardless, I smiled, knowing why the lovely scent was there. Glancing around, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, a trick of the light I would have written off if I wasn’t raised to notice.
“You know,” I said to the girls, “do we think a library is the best place for a spirit board?”
Blank looks greeted me.
“I mean, I know you picked it because it’s dark and creepy,” I said, even though I could see Mrs. Radcliffe, the first librarian in Osprey, scowling at me. “You know as well as I do,” I directed my words to her, “it’s like a bad horror movie down here.”
She rolled her eyes, and I winked. As usual, that fast, she was smiling back. We had always gotten along, from the first time I saw her shelving books in the solarium when I was five and went to speak to her, unconcerned that she had no feet. Most ghosts did not, as they were not fully corporeal. She was very kind, put her finger to her lips, and left me. My grandfather had explained that while she couldn’t speak to me, we could still communicate. Once I was older, in school, if I asked questions, if I needed to find something, she would always point me in the right direction. Normally I whispered when I spoke to her. It was a library, after all.
“Are you talking to us?” Cass asked me.
“I wasn’t, no. But now I am.”
Delia took a breath. “Is there a ghost down here?”
“Yes.”
“Is she mad that we were screwing around with the board?”
“I wouldn’t say mad. I would say disappointed.”
“Oh no,” Cass groaned. “My dad never gets mad, but he does get disappointed.”
I chuckled. “Use the planchette to say goodbye on the board, then put it away. If you’re going to use it again, I would suggest doing it outside, on your back deck, and draw a circle of salt around where you’re all sitting. That way, in theory, you should be able to speak to something, but it wouldn’t be able to pass through the ring.”
“I—”
“And when you’re done with the salt, don’t simply sweep it off the deck.”
Cass nodded. “I remember. It would be best to sweep it up and then drive it to the ocean and throw it in.”
“Which might take a bit,” I said, smiling at her.
“Yes,” she sighed.
“But burying it miles from home is good too,” I reminded her. “Or the next time we have a bonfire, you can throw it in. Lammas is coming up in August, so you can wait for that because we’ll have one then.”
“Or,” Delia said, “we could just not do this anymore.”
I grinned at her. “There is that.”
“I don’t get it,” Skylar said, gesturing at the board. “People use these every day.”
“And many either contact nothing, ever, move the planchette themselves, or, in the worst cases, open doors they have no idea about.”
“I don’t want to do that,” Hailey stated firmly.
“I would agree.”
“Thank you, Xan,” Cass said, leaning into me as Delia collected the board—after making sure she said goodbye—and put it in the box.
Glancing up, I saw Mrs. Radcliffe give me a small head tilt and a smile. She was glad they were done with it as well. The library was, after all, no place for such shenanigans.