Chapter Thirty-five
A t last, day teetered on the edge of night. I rose and dusted the bark and pine needles from my rear end and gave thanks for the tracksuit’s warmth. Lise had left hours ago. I’d kept alert for signs of the sheriff’s office, but no one had come here for me yet.
“Come on, Rodney. We’re going home.”
But not home the usual way. I’d given my key to Lise, and besides, someone from the sheriff’s office would undoubtedly be watching for me to return.
My lame costume as Ian’s mother Escalade—I still groaned at the name—would only get me so far, and might even be public information by now.
Luckily, I knew a way into the library that didn’t involve a key.
I kept to the trees along the path that led from the woods, along the bluff above the river, to the library. Where the woods thinned near the clearing around the library, I stopped behind an old oak and surveyed the grounds.
The library was completely still, dark. It was closed by now, of course, and Roz had turned off the lights and drawn the curtains.
I faced the far side of the old mansion—the side away from the drive to the highway— and only the odd day hiker or Lyndon doing garden duties would see me.
At this time of the day, neither was likely.
Rodney at my heels, I ran across the open space and crouched at the library’s outer wall, directly outside the former parlor, below the bay windows of what was now Literature.
My plan was to shimmy down the sawdust chute that had once fed the mansion’s ancient boiler in the basement.
Now, of course, an efficient gas furnace heated the building.
I edged to the hinged steel door in the foundation and pried my fingers under its heavy rim.
“What are you doing?”
I wheeled around to see Buffy and Thor behind me. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be home after dark,” I said, following the old advice that the best defense is a good offense. I kept my voice low.
“You’re a fumigator,” Thor said.
“Fugitive,” I corrected.
“We’re here to look for you,” Buffy said. Her sequined tulle skirt was a dusty pink in the twilight. “You’re worth big bucks.” She squinted. “Why is your hair that color?”
“Someone paid you to find me?”
“They will,” Thor said with confidence. “Perhaps Sheriff Sam would be interested in this information?”
A wily smile spread over Buffy’s face. “Unless you pay first.”
Good grief. These kids made Vito Corleone look like Florence Nightingale. “I don’t have my purse with me.”
“We’ll take an IOU. Here.” Buffy proffered a pen and a small notebook with a unicorn on it and the words DREAMS ARE FOREVER.
Shysters. “Is twenty bucks enough?”
“Fifty,” Thor said.
“Thirty,” I countered.
“Thirty-five, and our silence is only good until tomorrow morning,” Buffy said. “After that, we require a supplement.”
I snatched the notebook and scrawled out an IOU.
Thor took it, his lips moving as he read. “Who’s Escalade Penclosa?”
“Never mind. You got what you wanted, so scram. Grandma Patty is sure to be looking for you. Remember, lips sealed or you don’t get a penny, okay?”
Buffy stared at me, her lower lip protruding just barely. She narrowed her eyes, then shifted her gaze to her brother. “Thor, conference.”
Thor, who was admiring the IOU for the princely sum, said, “What?”
“We need to talk.” Then, to me, “Just a moment, Josie.”
Uh-oh . I glanced around. Should I make a run for it? Retreat to the woods?
Just as I pulled myself to standing, Buffy and Thor returned.
“We made a decision,” Buffy said. “We’re not turning you in, and we’re doing it for free.”
“For ten dollars only,” Thor said.
“No, Thor. We agreed. For free.” She rested her hands on her tutu-adorned hips. “You’ve been very good to us, and as a gesture of good will, we are providing this service free of charge. Perhaps you’ll favor us with your business in the future.”
I couldn’t nod fast enough. “Definitely.”
“Unless the sheriff asks us. Then we need to tell the truth, or Grandma will be mad,” Thor added.
Buffy wiped her palms together as if signaling a job well done. “Thor?”
“Good evening, milady,” he said. Classic comic books again. “Time to get home for dinner.” He grabbed Buffy’s hand, and the two kids disappeared around the corner.
I leaned, limp, against the library’s side. Close call. I gave myself the luxury of a few seconds of rest before returning to the sawdust chute.
The chute’s lid gave with a loud creak and burst of diesel-tinted air as it opened. I froze, but no sirens sounded, and no one came running.
“Are you ready, kitten?” I flipped to my belly and, feet first, slid down the cold, grimy chute. Ancient sawdust tickled my throat. Again, I was grateful for the thickness of the tracksuit’s velour. I landed on the basement floor and, coughing, looked up the chute. “You coming?”
Rodney’s citrine eyes glowed back. He scampered down like Baryshnikov in a catsuit.
The dust-smeared basement windows gave little light, and I didn’t dare flip the light switch. I felt my way to the door to the basement’s main hall and inched toward the service stairwell. From there, it was an easy climb to the atrium.
My bones practically melted with the comfort of thousands of books welcoming me with songs, murmured hello s, and a whirlwind of magical energy. Despite my streaky black hair and dirt-encrusted tracksuit, I felt rejuvenated.
I crept up to the tower room to wait.
I let the cooling night air blow over me through the openings of the tower.
When would Beata arrive? I was sure she would.
And what about Lise? I was tempted to lean forward for a view down the drive, but I didn’t dare.
My face would show pale against the tower’s darkness, and I’d heard an SUV idling at the entrance driveway. A sheriff’s deputy.
I’d told Lise to arrive on foot by the forest path, just after dark, and to use my key to enter through the conservatory.
Which didn’t mean she’d show up at all. Maybe she’d had second thoughts. She’d watched as I broke the spell binding Beata’s magic. She knew what Beata was capable of. Perhaps she’d returned to Astoria. If she had, I couldn’t blame her.
Sound funneled up from the atrium. Someone was downstairs. I heard a door slowly open, then steps in the stairwell. I held my breath and half-rose from my chair.
“Josie?”
Lise . I stood and stepped into the hall. She’d come.
The books sensed a new source of magic, and their humming intensified until the library’s air vibrated like a beehive. Underlying the buzz sounded a baritone thread of warning: Don’t, careful, no, go .
Together, we walked down the hall toward my apartment. Lise’s penlight made a spot of white-yellow on the fir floorboards.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I whispered.
“I had to. I admit, though, I’m scared.” Lise glanced over the banister, into the library’s shadowy depths. “You live up here?”
“The old servants’ quarters were made into an apartment when Marilyn Wilfred converted her family home into the library.”
“Who’s Marilyn Wilfred?”
“Remember the portrait above the entrance to the foyer? The woman in the flapper gown? I showed her to you.”
“The one with the black cat at her feet,” Lise said. “Yes. She’s mesmerizing.”
I knew the feeling. I’d always wondered if there was something magical about her, but I never knew for certain. “That’s Marilyn Wilfred.”
We went into my apartment. A faint glow showed through Sam’s kitchen curtains across the garden.
“Stay back,” I told Lise, “and you’d better turn off your flashlight.” I led her to my bedroom, where a breeze through the window ruffled the partially closed curtains. “If we sit here, on the floor, we won’t be seen.”
“Next to the bed?” She pointed to the rag rug.
I nodded, although Lise couldn’t see me. I’d loved living in this apartment with its Victorian furniture and cozy fireplace. As before, I hoped these would not be my last few hours here.
“I’ll light a candle,” I said. “We’ll need it.”
I took the brass candlestick from my bedside table and set it on the floor.
Candle lit, I slid the green trunk with my grandmother’s magic lessons from under the bed.
Rodney was already purring. Would the trunk open with another person near?
It wouldn’t open for my mother, even though she was also a witch.
I glanced at Lise. The candle cast a pink-orange light on her freckles. I hoped it wasn’t a mistake to involve her. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? I don’t know what Beata will do to protect her power.”
“I have the feeling she’d do just about anything.” Lise’s gaze wandered to the room’s dark edges as if imagining the possibilities. “You can’t do this without me. This is where I need to be.”
Whatever Lise’s magical drive was, it was moral— that much I now knew. I felt a bond to her, as if I’d known her for years. A sisterly feeling. Was it because we both had magic in our veins, or was it something more? “Thank you. I hope I can repay you someday.”
“By telling me about my gift, you already have.” She nodded toward the trunk. “We’d better get busy. We don’t know when she’ll turn up.”
I rested a hand on the trunk’s latch, and it sprang open without any effort on my part. Whatever was about to happen was fated.
The trunk’s letters glowed in a blinding blend of red, green, and golden light as if they were living. But it wasn’t the letters that caught my eye, it was the grimoire. On its own, the grimoire rose to the top of the letters.
“What is this?” Lise’s voice was breathy with wonder.
It took me a moment to be able to speak. “My grandmother’s grimoire. She kept her spells in it. Among other things.”
“It’s as if it’s alive.”
Lise and I both jumped back as Rodney dropped into the trunk and rolled on the grimoire, purring more loudly than I’d ever heard him.
More strangely, the library’s books were singing. Their voices wove together in an eerie music that was half symphony, half chant. They often spoke to me and sometimes sang—especially the books in Arts—but never had they sounded like this.
“Do you hear that, too?” I asked Lise.
“Hear what?”
“Never mind.” I slipped the grimoire from under Rodney. It was nearly too hot to touch, yet my hands closed on it like a magnet drew iron. Rodney leapt from the trunk, and I shut it, setting the grimoire on top. It flew open to a page I’d never seen.
“It opened by itself,” Lise said, catching her breath.
“It’s the spell we need. The spell to bind Beata’s magic again.”
My fingers trembled. The spell looked to be simply words, no objects needed. That didn’t mean the spell would be easy—on the contrary, it would require every atom of magic we could draw. Maybe more than we had. And it would have to be focused with laser-like intensity.
Then the words on the page vanished.
“What happened?” Lise said. “Weird. I smell herbs— rosemary, lavender, and something else. Mugwort.” She looked at me with surprise. “I’ve never even heard of mugwort.”
My grandmother. You will know what to do wrote itself on the page, then vanished.
“This is the freakiest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lise said.
“That makes two of us, and I’m supposed to be used to it by now.”
“What do we do when Beata gets here?” Lise said.
The books’ singing was louder, dizzying. My heart beat faster. “I don’t know.”
“We need some kind of plan.” Lise’s voice had risen in pitch.
Downstairs, the kitchen door creaked open.