Chapter 16 #2
I let Theo lead the way. Even though he doesn’t start classes until the fall like me, it’s clear that he spends a lot of time here. Every few feet, he points out an important building, or the best place to get coffee, or what pathways to avoid in the winter because they’re always icy.
It’s a fight not to push past him and make a mad dash for the doors when we reach the library. No matter where I am, or how different it looks from my own library, a library always feels like home. Something familiar. Something I can count on.
It’s wild how easy it is to picture myself at RC in September.
Attending history lectures, studying at the student union, making a little home for myself among the stacks.
Every open space on the library’s main floor is filled with couches or chairs or study tables.
There’s a small café near the entrance, and I almost screech when I realize it is stocked by Carbs with Holes.
Maybe I can get them to sell me those Caffies by the keg.
“How is this not a Dunkin’?” I nod to the closed kiosk. “I thought it was mandatory for Massachusetts residents to buy at least one Dunkin’ product a day.” There are three locations in Harlow’s Rest alone, and there are only four stoplights in the whole town.
Theo lets out a laugh. “It used to be. But then the owner of Carbs with Holes married someone on the board of trustees here.”
“I think that nepotism worked in our favor.”
“Don’t tell anyone, but I agree.” Theo leans in so his mouth is almost touching my ear. I jump a little but don’t move away.
I don’t think I could make my brain tell my legs to move if I wanted it to.
His breath is too warm and pleasant on my neck, and his mouth is so, so close to me.
Suddenly it’s the only thing in the world.
His full lips. How soft they look. How his breath smells like the peppermint he stole from the circulation desk on our way in.
My body is clearly seeking vengeance upon me for a past indiscretion because without my permission, my feet spin me until Theo and I are face-to-face. He’s still bent over me, so our lips are mere inches apart. “Your secret is safe with me,” I whisper. As if he’s confessed something raw and real.
Neither of us moves, and his eyes stay locked on mine. My whole body thrums in time with my rampant heart.
Am I about to have my first kiss? In a library?
Could there be a more perfect place? I can’t even bring myself to be upset that it’s with a guy who believes in ghosts because in this moment, as I trap my breath in my lungs, waiting to see what each new second will hold, I realize that I want to kiss Theo Hargrave.
Maybe more than I have wanted anything. Ever.
Three girls burst through the entrance to the library, laughing so loud it echoes off the ceiling, and Theo and I jump apart.
Turning on my heel before he can see my face, I point in front of me. “We’ve got research to do.”
Theo sets his hands on my shoulders and swivels me in the opposite direction. “That way.” I don’t look at him, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
I march off toward the archives.
They’re located in the basement, under the newer part of the library, and I am not at all shocked to learn that Theo is best friends with everyone who works in this department.
No one asks for his ID or provides instructions for now to handle Mercy’s diary. They simply give it to him, like he’s requested it a thousand times before.
Given how obsessed he is with my house and its lore, he probably has.
The diary has been stored in a binder with plastic protectors for each page.
For the next hour, we sit shoulder to shoulder, poring over them.
Theo shows me some of the entries about the well, and while most of them just sound like a teenage girl with an active imagination, the dim lighting of the archives, paired with the way my body can’t relax with him so near, sends a chill down my spine.
I’m almost creeped out.
Almost.
On one of the last pages in the binder, I spot a mention of a Book of Unnatural Magiks.
It’s at the very end of the document, in the middle of a long, overly detailed description of the monthly market in the town square.
Mercy writes that she was suffering from a painful monthly bleeding, and she’d wanted nothing more than to remain in bed, but her father sent her for supplies.
She was also supposed to sell the blankets she and her mother made, but angry and in pain, she’d traded them for a book an old woman at one of the carts offered her. She goes on to say,
I cared only for the remedies promised. Herbs good for headaches, a draught to ease my stomach. It was Harmony who drew my attention to the last section, and its stranger medicine.
I nudge Theo and point at the lines. “This has to be the book they talk about in our pages.”
His eyes chase the words across the document. “How did I miss this? I’ve pored over this whole binder so many times.”
“Because she spends most of it talking about her period?” I am willing to bet he always skimmed this one, if he read it at all.
His face tells me I’m right.
With my phone, I pull up the library database and search the title of the book. “Nothing at this library or any others,” I report. I let my eyes drift over Mercy’s writing again. “She does seem to like to tell stories…” Could she have made the book up?
“Or there’s only one copy and it didn’t survive,” Theo says, as if he can read my thoughts.
“Survive what?”
His eyebrows rise. “Whatever happened at your house the week of August seventh.”