Chapter 2
“You think grief is making me lose it,” I said.
During the month since my mother had passed away, Agatha Lively—my friend, mentor, and auntie all rolled into one loving yet bossy package—had repeatedly encouraged me to go to grief counseling, even though my mother and I had been estranged for years.
I’d refused, feeling that I couldn’t grieve a woman I didn’t know.
In my heart I understood that the only thing I mourned was that any chance at a relationship with my mother was now gone forever.
Okay, so maybe some counseling wouldn’t have been completely out of order.
“I didn’t say that, Zoe.” Agatha lifted the crocheted cozy that resembled a fat white goose off the delicate Haviland teapot and poured me a cup of rose hip tea.
She was a big believer in its antioxidant properties.
“I merely pointed out that you haven’t slept properly since your mother’s funeral, and this might be because you’re sleep-deprived.
” She gestured at my finger with the Mickey Mouse bandage on it with a pointed look.
“No judgment, please. I am a meagerly paid public servant and these were on sale.”
“I don’t remember you being a sleepwalker. Is this a new development?” She ignored the explanation of my choice of bandage, which I wouldn’t have needed except that the pinprick had been pretty deep. I was relieved to be up on my tetanus vaccination.
“No, as far as I know I’ve never done anything like this before.
” I took the teacup she offered. We were seated in the cluttered front parlor of Agatha’s house.
It was an old Victorian that sat prominently on the Wessex town green and had been in the Lively family for generations.
Agatha was the last surviving Lively, and the house was packed to the rafters with her family’s odd heirlooms, treasures, and tchotchkes.
None of which she would consider parting with despite the collective mess.
Having lived with her during my school vacations, I had tried to declutter it to no avail.
Sometimes I worried that Agatha would be done in by a falling stack of books or she’d trip on the variety of small cauldrons that lined the outer edge of the steps on the central staircase or, even more horrifically, she’d be eaten by one of the many sundew plants in the greenhouse.
Yes, they were carnivorous and they gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Although, to give credit where credit was due, she never seemed to have a problem with insects of any kind.
Agatha was short and curvy, with a deep brown complexion, white hair that fell in orderly ringlets to her shoulders, and professorial dark-rimmed glasses, which she lowered so she could peer at me with her direct deep brown eyes when she asked, “Have you tried taking valerian root?”
“Is it candy?” I met her gaze and she sighed.
“Of course you haven’t. How you have survived to almost forty years of age from the nutrition found in a vending machine is beyond me.”
I smiled, mostly because it was true. Not only had Agatha been my legal guardian since I was fourteen, she had also been my first boss. Like her, I was a librarian and Agatha had hired me fresh out of library school fifteen years ago when she was the director of the Wessex Public Library.
She had witnessed firsthand how I’d cobbled together my meals of Rice Krispies Treats (breakfast), Cheez-Its (lunch), and Snickers (dinner), preferably with a cola, not diet, on the side. Of course, I ate other stuff, but those were my mainstays.
“Ignoring my poor nutrition for the moment, what do you think of the book?” I asked.
Agatha sipped from her cup as if bracing herself. She set it down on its saucer atop an impressive stack of magazines. I’d sat in this room thousands of times over the years and I still had no idea what the coffee table beneath all the magazines and books looked like.
“You absolutely can’t open it?” she asked.
“No. Whatever sort of lock is on it, it’s impossible to crack. Believe me, I tried everything.” I took the book out of the canvas bag at my feet and handed it to her.
Agatha accepted the book and a delicate shiver rippled through her body. She glanced up at me and said, “October’s first chill has arrived.”
I glanced through the large picture window at the town square.
The leaves were displaying their final burst of color.
My favorites were the vibrant red of the sugar maples before they all fluttered to the ground.
The nightly temperature had dropped and the days were crisp like the apples for sale at the local farmers market.
Personally, I couldn’t wait to spend the next month consuming copious amounts of Halloween candy while working my way through my to-be-read pile.
Agatha turned the book over in her hands.
She studied the hexagonal medallion on the cover, tapping it with a pointy purple fingernail.
She held it up with both hands as if offering it to the heavens.
With a fierce expression of concentration, she stared at the book, and in a low tone, she whispered the words, “Exsolvo liber.”
Unsurprisingly—at least to me—nothing happened.
“Your waves of resistance are impeding my powers,” Agatha said.
“Sorry.” I shrugged. She had been saying this to me since I had arrived on her doorstep at the snarky age of fourteen with a deep-seated fear of magic because of all it had taken from me.
“I have no idea how to open it.” Agatha shook her head. “There’s no indication from the cover or the engravings about what it is. Do you suppose it’s a personal journal that someone wants added to the library collection?”
“Darned if I know.” I sipped my tea. It could use some sugar. “No note came with it.”
“No key? Nothing?” Agatha asked.
“Not a thing,” I confirmed. “There’s no place to put a key. The circular center of the medallion is smooth, like a tiny little bowl, not something a key would fit into.”
“Strange.” Agatha shivered again and quickly put the book back in the canvas bag. Her mouth turned down at the corners and a frown line appeared between her brows. I knew that look. Something was bothering her.
“What is it?” I glanced at the bag and then back at her face.
She lifted her head and met my gaze. “There is tremendous power in that book.”
I put my teacup down and crossed my arms over my chest. Agatha was a self-proclaimed kitchen witch and used cooking as a way to practice her craft, while I refused to practice magic. It was one of the only differences of opinion we had. “How can you tell when you can’t open it?”
“Don’t take that tone with me.” Agatha wagged a finger at me while retrieving her tea with her other hand.
“I didn’t have a tone,” I protested. I didn’t like that I sounded exactly as I had when I was sixteen and she’d busted me for breaking curfew.
“Oh yes you did,” Agatha said. “You sounded exactly like your mother when we were teenagers and she was feeling peevish. And then she would deny it, as if I didn’t know exactly how my lifelong best friend was feeling. I don’t know who she thought she was fooling.”
She stared at me until I cracked. “All right, maybe there was a hint of a tone, but you know how I feel about all things woo-woo.”
“And now you’re going to double down and be disrespectful?” She leaned back and looked me over as if to say, the audacity .
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. I knew being a witch was part of her identity, but I saw nothing useful in practicing spells or magic. In my experience, witchcraft left only death and destruction in its wake.
“Zoe, you know your mother was a witch—” Agatha began, but I interrupted.
“I know.” I held up my hand. “And you know the promise she asked me to make when she dropped me off at school.”
“What she asked of you…” Agatha’s voice trailed off and she shook her head. “It’s not my business.”
“It is,” I said. “You stepped in and raised me. I think that makes it your business.”
“For her to ask you to swear that you would never use your magic, to deny your abilities—it’s just not right,” Agatha said. “And I believe your mother would have seen that if she’d—”
“Been around for more than an afternoon here and there? Maybe.” I shrugged. “But the truth is, I came to the same decision on my own. I’m not interested in magic or in being a witch. I just want to be normal and oblivious to the craft like regular people.”
It was my turn to stare at her. Agatha knew I didn’t like talking about my mother or my grandmother and their witchcraft. Despite being well into my thirties, I found the entire notion of casting spells and whatnot deeply uncomfortable. I was a librarian and operated in facts. Period. Full stop.
“Thank you for looking at it.” I changed the subject. “I suppose I could just toss it out like those moldy books people insist on donating to the library because they’re certain they’re worth something even though they’re water stained or reek of cigarette smoke or mold.”
“No!” Agatha cried. “You can’t do that. It might be valuable.”
I glanced around her house, noting the piles and piles of belongings left behind by her family.
“Don’t say it.” She shook her head. “Just because I have a problem sorting my family’s possessions doesn’t mean I’m wrong about this. That book isn’t visibly damaged, and it might be an important historical artifact.”
“Fine. If I can’t throw it away, what do you suggest I do with it?” I asked. “I can’t open it without tearing it apart, so what purpose does it serve?”
“We won’t know until we can read it.” She took a bracing sip of tea.
Obviously, she was much more interested than I was.
This wasn’t surprising, as I was unsentimental by nature.
Compared to her house, the aesthetic of my cottage on the other side of town could best be described as no one lives here .
I didn’t have any pictures on the walls, there were no collections of any kind except for my books—it’s not hoarding if it’s books—and I firmly believed in a place for everything and everything in its place.
I think that was one of the traits that made me such a good librarian.
“If you say so,” I said.
“I do.” Agatha refilled my teacup and then her own. “Listen, if you really want to know more about the book, you need a professional appraisal. There’s only one place that can help you—the Museum of Literature in New York City.”
I blanched. This was problematic. I rarely left Wessex and never by choice. I simply did not enjoy leaving my zip code. “I can’t go to the city.”
“Zoanne Ziakas.” Agatha’s voice was sharp. “I have never known you to be a coward.”
“I’m not,” I protested. “It’s just that my comfort margin is very narrow and happens to fall inside the border of Wessex.”
Agatha tsked and picked up her teacup. “Do you really want to keep having dreams where you prick yourself with a pin?”
“What makes you think it will happen again?” I asked.
“What makes you think it won’t?” she countered.
Damn. She made a good point.
“What if next time you wake up to find you’ve removed your eyeball with a spoon?” she asked.
“ Ergh .” I blanched. “Way to go to the dark side.”
“Clearly something in that book disturbs your unconscious. Who knows what you’ll do next?” Agatha shrugged. “My friends at the museum can help you.”
“Is this the place where you’re on the board of directors?” I asked.
“Yes.” She nodded. “It’s the only place I’ve allowed some of the Lively family heirlooms to be on loan. I trust them implicitly.”
I knew Agatha was right that the book needed a professional’s assessment. Of that there was no question. But the thought of driving to the nearest station and taking the train into New York City was daunting, to put it mildly.
“You can do this, Zoe,” she said.
I glanced at the book in the tote bag and then at the bandage on my finger.
I hadn’t told Agatha about the murmurs I’d heard in my dream before I’d come to my senses.
The voice had whispered to me in a language I’d never heard before, and yet, in my dream, I’d understood it perfectly.
Had it come from the book? Or was it just my overactive imagination?
It had to be me. I refused to believe otherwise. Still, the unsettled feeling persisted.
“I know I can do it.” I glanced back at Agatha. “It’s more a matter of do I want to?”
“Do you have a choice?” she asked.
I glanced at my finger and then at the book. No, I didn’t.