Chapter 4
There. I’d said it, admitting the one thing that made me feel vulnerable. But if I wanted their help, I had to tell them everything. After I’d cut myself last night, I’d remembered the voices I’d heard in my dreams…again.
The whispers had been clear: I needed to retrieve the book and then make myself bleed.
I had no idea why, and in my sleepy state, I’d been unable to fight it until the pain of the cut had brought me back to myself.
Needless to say, I was becoming wary of the book, which was also a huge understatement. I was legit scared of it.
I glanced at Claire, Miles, and Olive. No one moved. No one said a word. They simply studied the book. I held my breath. I expected Claire to call security and have my friend Tina with the Taser arrive to escort me out. But she didn’t.
Olive and Miles exchanged a side-eye, and Miles nodded as if he’d come to a conclusion.
“That actually explains quite a lot.” He glanced at me. “The book is clearly sealed by a blood oath.”
I sighed. He sounded like Agatha. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d told her I had no interest in being a witch.
I didn’t want anything to do with blood oaths.
I was an information specialist who lived by the motto knowledge is power and operated on verifiable facts from citable sources.
I leaned forward, preparing to leave. There was nothing for me here.
“You can’t open the book, can you?” Olive challenged me.
I wanted to retort, Would I be here if I could? Instead, I said nothing, but I didn’t get up and leave.
“This.” Olive tapped the hexagonal medallion on the cover. “This dip is where your blood goes.”
It was the tiny circular bowl shape in the center of the hexagon. The same one Agatha had thought a key might open. Now it made sense, I supposed, but blood? My blood? Oh hell no.
Suddenly, opening the book seemed like the worst idea ever. I wanted to go home.
“You didn’t spill any blood on it, did you?” Olive continued to stare at me. I swear she never blinked.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Pity,” Olive replied, glancing down at the book.
I felt as if I’d disappointed her and I didn’t enjoy the feeling. I was thirty-six years old, a fully realized adult who owned her own home and paid taxes. I did not need the approval of this Morticia Addams wannabe.
“If you’re so interested in opening the book, why don’t you use your own blood?” I asked.
Olive rolled her eyes as if I’d said the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
Still, she took a small dagger from her black suede shoe—what sort of librarian carried a dagger in their shoe?
—and pricked the tip of one of her fingers with it.
She held her hand over the hexagon, allowing a few drops to land in the center.
We all stared at the book, but nothing happened.
“See? It’s not that difficult.” Olive turned to Claire, who squirted some antibacterial liquid onto a tissue and wiped Olive’s blood off the metal lock. “I can put the book in the vault until another member of the family comes to claim it.”
“ My family? Good luck with that. I’m it. The end of the line on both sides.” I picked up my coffee and took a sip. It was delicious, with subtle notes of chocolate and cinnamon. It calmed me.
“Are you quite certain?” Miles asked.
“Yes, my father passed when I was a child and my mother a month ago,” I said. “I’m her sole heir. This book couldn’t have come from her. I mean, if she’d left it to me, it should have been with her other belongings.”
“You would think so, but it isn’t a typical item to inherit, is it?” Miles asked. “There’s no way of knowing how it found you. It’s not exactly like the family china, is it?”
How it found me? I stared at the book. Had it belonged to my mother?
The handwriting on the envelope had seemed familiar, but I couldn’t know for certain.
I’d only seen my mom a handful of times after she’d dropped me off at the boarding school in Wessex twenty-two years ago.
At this point in my life, Agatha was more of a mother to me than Juliet Ziakas, which was why my grief was… complicated.
“If you’re the only remaining member of your family and choose not to try, the book will remain forever closed,” Miles said. His expression was aggrieved, as if the book’s abandoned fate physically pained him.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t someone else bleed on the damn book?”
“Being sealed by a blood oath means only a person who is related by blood to the person who sealed the book can open it,” Olive said. “That’s assuming the book did come from your mother. It might have nothing to do with your family.”
“Really?” I asked. Finally, some good news. “In that case, I feel no need to be the one to unlock the blood curse.”
“Oath,” Miles corrected me gently. “Blood oath. You did say that the book spoke to you in your dreams. I believe that indicates you are bound to the book.”
“But we don’t know that for certain,” I countered. “I could have been having strawberry-Pop-Tart-midnight-snack nightmares because the book is so creepy. No, as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to keep the book, the oath, all of it.”
Claire was silent, occasionally sipping her water while watching the conversation between the rest of us. Her face was neutral and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, whether she thought I should try to open the book or not. Not that it mattered. I had no intention of doing so.
Olive took a pair of gloves out of her pocket. She slipped them on like she was a crime scene specialist. Miles picked up a box from beside him on the floor. It was an archival box and presumably where the mysterious little black book would live forever and ever, amen.
“All right, then. We’ll add it to our inventory,” Olive said. She picked up the volume and held it over the open box. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m positive.” I rose to my feet and picked up my shoulder bag. “Absolutely positive.”
Olive didn’t say a word as she placed the book in the box, but the disapproval that poured off her was palpable—almost as strong as the sudden excruciating pain that split my skull.
I staggered and doubled over. I dropped my bag and clapped my hands against my head, half expecting to find an axe lodged in my cranium.
“Zoe, what is it? Are you all right?” Claire set down her water and leapt to her feet. She caught me as I started to slide to the floor.
The pain was so intense I felt tears spring to my eyes. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t speak. I tried to point to the book, but before I could lift my hand, I blacked out.
· · ·
I could hear people talking in hushed tones.
As I listened, I gender-identified the voices as belonging to two women and two men.
There was an agitated quality to their conversation, but I couldn’t make out the words.
I blinked and saw a fancy ceiling with swirling plasterwork overhead.
That’s right. I was in New York City in a meeting at the Museum of Literature.
I forced my eyes fully open and discovered I was lying on the couch, with a man seated in the chair beside me, wafting the fumes from a small handheld diffuser over me.
The scents of lavender and vetiver were strong and I assumed he was using them to calm me.
It must have worked because my headache was mostly gone.
“Welcome back,” he said. He had a soothing Nigerian accent, if I was guessing correctly, and he was very handsome, with a deep brown complexion, warm brown eyes, and a wide smile.
He was dressed professionally in a white dress shirt with a blue-striped tie and navy slacks.
“My name is Tariq Silver. I work for Miles.”
“Awkward to meet you, Tariq.” I tried to make light of my embarrassment and his smile widened. “I’m Zoe Ziakas.”
“I know.” He glanced over his shoulder to where the others were standing at the far side of the room. He raised his voice and said, “She’s awake.”
Claire immediately started toward us while Tariq helped me to sit up. “Can I get you anything?”
“Not unless you have my dignity in your pocket,” I said.
“Sorry, no,” Tariq said with a soft laugh.
He switched off the diffuser and set it on the table.
I noticed the book was there, out of the box.
Olive and Miles followed Claire, who sat down on the couch beside me, leaving the chairs for Miles and Olive.
Tariq crossed the room and carried a chair from in front of the windows back to our little circle.
“What happened?” I asked. Although I suspected I knew.
“You fainted,” Olive said.
I wasn’t sure if I was imagining the judgment in her voice or if she really did find me weak. I sat up straighter.
“I never faint. How could that happen?” I asked. The question was rhetorical, but the expressions on their faces were considering.
They were collectively silent. I suspected they were trying to decide what to tell me. Annoying. They all turned to Miles. He bobbed his head once in acknowledgment, a habit of his that I was beginning to recognize.
“I believe the book is a grimoire,” he said. “Are you familiar with the term?”
“Of course, I read Harry Potter .” Yes, I said it just to see Olive roll her eyes again, which she did.
“But I’m also a librarian, so I know that grimoire is a word derived from the Old French grammaire , which originally referred to any book written in Latin.
Grimoires of the Middle Ages favored ceremonial magic and were unsurprisingly written primarily by men who wanted to exact vengeance on their enemies, locate lost treasure, or have the woman they desired forcibly delivered.
They also included spells and rituals that advocated animal cruelty, theft, magical rape, and even murder. ”
I saw Olive’s eyebrows lift just the teeniest bit. Was she impressed? Hard to say. I doubled down.