Chapter 14 #2
After that display of smugness, Gabe went back to work.
I checked my phone and saw one more forlorn message from Leo, asking about the library.
I told him I was on my way, and returned home.
Well, to his home. I walked into the Carters’ house like I owned the place, because that’s how close our families have always been.
My only nod to privacy was yelling, “It’s me!”
“I’ll be down in a sec,” Leo called back, and immediately trotted down the stairs, wearing one of his dad’s polo shirts. He probably hadn’t packed enough for the trip here, thinking he’d only stay the weekend.
“You weren’t kidding about one sec,” I said.
“You’re gorgeous,” he told me.
Diary, I lie: he didn’t say that aloud. He just looked at me for a long moment, until I blushed like some maiden in a Victorian novel.
Then I said, “Raiding your dad’s closet already? Don’t you have work back in Boston?”
“I’ve got staff for that. I’m in no rush. How about you?”
“I’m here all summer,” I told him. “What I have instead of ‘staff’ is summers off and the ability to sublet my apartment to Brandeis students.”
“Right. Yeah, I…” He let out a breath. “C’mere, I want to show you something.”
I followed him to the den, which is the least-contemporary room in the house, with overstuffed chairs and too many bookshelves.
“I haven’t been in here, forever,” I said, inhaling the scent of reference books. “I still remember the first time you dragged me in here. You said you were going to show me something mind-blowing—”
“I was excited!”
“—and you pointed to an antique seed catalog you found at a tag sale.”
He smiled in recollection. “You made me buy you ice cream all summer after I sold it for ninety-five bucks.” His mouth straightened. “Mom never understood why Dad built me my own library. She thought I was so spoiled.”
“Didn’t she take you to find books on the mainland?”
“Yeah, but she never understood why it was so important to me. I hated not being able to share my passion with her. I hated keeping secrets from her.”
I’d never thought about how frustrating that must’ve been for him. And how sad. I guess that was why we’d always met at the Inn or the boathouse, because otherwise we’d talk about stuff that remained secret to Leora. Which, yeah, must’ve been so hard for Leo.
I almost said something, but he gave a dismissive shake of his head, like he didn’t want to talk about it, then led me to a linen-bound book on the coffee table.
“So at first I thought the library manuscript must be of faerie-kin origin. There was too much magic in the illuminations for it to be created by humans.” Leo began leafing through pages. “At least that’s what I thought at first. But then I logged into Zach’s List.”
“Zach’s List. Who’s Zach?”
Leo shook his head. “I have no idea, either a faerie-kin with a gift for compiling data or a conspiracy theorist who believes in the fae and also compiles data. He’s an amazing resource for occult, sorcery, mythology, and divination.”
“Oh! That reminds me. I asked Gabe, and his grandfather didn’t steal it from a magical monastery.”
Leo gave me a funny look. “Are there magical monasteries?”
“Not if you don’t think so.”
“There aren’t magical monasteries, but there are magical bestiaries, and I remembered I had this.
Check it out.” He showed me a book cover that looked a bit like one of the interior pages of the library manuscript, with pictures of impish brownies and ethereal pixies and grotesque goblins.
“Apparently some of the earliest bestiaries, well…” He took a breath.
“We’ve all read books written by faerie-kin, of course, but never ones created by the fae. ”
I gaped at him. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“You think the book in the library was made by actual fae, like the fae that vanished centuries ago?”
He tapped the book on the table. “This is a speculative catalog of fae books that may or may not have existed, based on rumors and myths.”
“Rumors?” I asked.
“Maybe ‘lore’ is a better word, but yeah. Still, the style matches, and it would explain why the manuscript kicked my ass like that.”
“A fae book. Dames. What should we do with it, then? And what was it doing in Gabe’s grandfather’s house?”
“First we should check that we’re on the right track.”
“Won’t your gift just tell you what it is?”
“My gift points me in the right general direction, but I still have to do the work. Even if I lost my gift, I’d still be really good at my job, Pan.”
“Whoa. It’s almost like gifts are overrated.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Anyway, I can’t be certain of the manuscript’s date without testing the paper and ink—I mean, there’s no way that paper was bleached with lye or lactic acid. It looked sunlight bleached, which pushes the date to pre-1600. And of course pore analysis and carbon dating might—”
“What about Gabe’s grandfather?” I interrupted, as he got carried away.
“That has me stumped,” Leo admitted. “I have no idea where he could’ve gotten it. And it’s odd that the manuscript isn’t the book I’m looking for. But I need to do more research, and that depends on you.”
“Because you won’t look at it without me.”
“And because the manuscript is too powerful for me to handle with my gift.”
“But I don’t have a gift, so I win!”
“Well—”
“C’mon, admit it!”
“Fine, you win,” Leo said. “I need your hands, Pan.”
“Now you sound like a serial killer,” I said. “What about the rest of me?”