The Library of Shadows, page 24
Instead, Este found a pile of paisley. The printed sheet wasn’t a poncho, but it would work in a pinch.
Posy’s ghost costume dragged across the floorboards as Este raced down the Vespertine Hall staircase and out into the frigid gales. Her sneakers splashed in wading puddles, soaking her up to her ankles and leaving a muddy rim along the hem of the sheet.
Hazy through the gray storm, the Lilith’s spire was a dark streak along the darker skies. Every light inside the library had been extinguished. Each window was a black eye, watching her with every step toward the doors. Plastered to the carved panels, a sign read: Closed for Maintenance. When she tugged on the handle, it didn’t budge.
“Dammit, Tammy,” Este said to the storm and the wind and anything else that would listen. She jiggled the handle again. Nothing. Then, there was the scratching sound of a window sliding open.
“Este, is that you?” Posy’s stage whisper was unmistakable. Her head jutted out one of the classroom windows above.
Este shouted, “You were supposed to be eating a baguette right now!”
“And you’re supposed to be opaque in the sunlight.” Posy clamped a hand down on the brim of her Paranormal Investigators hat so that it didn’t fly off. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to judge.”
“You can’t get in.” Another head popped into view. Arthur. “They evacuated the whole library.”
Este’s squinted expression was questioning enough for Posy to add, “We hid in the storage closet.”
“We?” Este asked.
Two more faces appeared, Bryony next and then Shepherd. The sight was enough to make Este’s chest cavity feel like a butterfly sanctuary, fluttering and filled with light. She never thought she’d be so glad to see the two of them in her life.
Este held a hand up to shield her eyes. Droplets clinging to her lashes made their faces all swirl together, one stacked overtop another, and they all wore their PI hats over their brows. “Can you come unlock the door, or are you just going to leave me stranded out here?”
“We can’t,” Bryony said, and Este tried not to roll her eyes at her signature sass. At the back of her brain, she wondered how Posy convinced her to ditch their trip to Paris at the last minute, but maybe Bryony and Posy were more alike than she realized. Neither of them could turn down a good ghost story.
Shepherd clarified, “That library lady is guarding the front.”
On cue, the front door’s lock unlatched, and Este dove for the shrubs to hide herself as the hinges yawned open. If her side could speak, it would have been screaming a string of curses, each one ruder and louder than the last. Brambles shredded through the paisley costume, pricking her skin as Ives stepped out.
Her falcon eyes scanned the perimeter but never once looked down. The rest of campus was mausoleum quiet as icy rain splattered against the cobblestones. Ives had no reason to believe there was a junior hiding in the bushes. Este held her breath, staying perfectly still, until the door closed behind the head librarian.
Posy jutted her head back outside. “You’ll have to come in another way.”
Este’s arms felt like overcooked spaghetti noodles and reaching the second story window looked like a Herculean task for which she was ill-prepared, but she couldn’t think of a better option, and the pages in her pocket were dangerously close to disintegrating to a fine-print pulp.
The only way out was through, and the only way through was . . . up.
Her fingers searched for grooves in the Lilith’s facade, fitting into the mortar. Fragile flesh ripped around her waist as she twisted to grab Posy’s outstretched hand. Her side was not happy with her, but if she could make it a little farther.
Her hand should’ve gripped her roommate’s, but instead her skin slid through Posy’s. Este plummeted back to the muddied ground. Every ounce of air in her lungs was knocked out with a whoosh. The costume tangled around her body a little too like mummification linens.
“Are you okay?” Posy called.
“Do you have anything that isn’t alive that I can reach for?” she asked from her pitiful place on the ground. “I forgot that I’m halfway haunted.”
Everything hurt. Everything was wet. And if she didn’t find a way inside soon, everything would be over. She lay there, unmoving, as Posy ducked back inside the classroom. Este nearly submitted to the swallowing soil, resigning her bones to become worm food, when a lacrosse stick poked out the window.
“Grab on!” Shepherd yelled.
With a moan, Este hopped to her feet and reached, reached, reached, but her hand missed every time. “Can you lower it?”
Posy turned back, saying something to the others that Este couldn’t make out over the howling wind and the pounding rain, and then Posy hooked her legs around Shepherd’s waist, extending down and down again until the lacrosse stick bobbed within grasp.
Posy lurched downward as Este caught the stick, eyes wide, but they didn’t fall. The handle was solid in her hands, but slippery. Coated with rain, Este’s white-knuckle grasp nearly skidded right off the pole, but she laced her fingers through the netting and kicked her feet against the Lilith’s wall. Shepherd reeled Posy back inside the window until Este clamped onto the windowsill and hiked herself up and over.
She lay flat on the floor, sufficiently soaked and her body throbbing. Between labored breaths, she huffed, “Thank you.”
A wad of fabric dropped on her stomach. “Get changed,” Posy said. “I don’t know if the living dead can get pneumonia, but I don’t want to find out.”
Este pulled herself up until she was sitting straight, and for the first time, she took a good look at the Paranormal Investigators. Not only did each of them wear the caps sporting the familiar flashlight logo, but they’d tucked themselves inside a matching set of purple coveralls. Their names were stitched in gold over the breast pocket.
“Plumber chic,” Este said.
Posy smiled. “I was going more for Ghostbusters.”
Este spread out the coveralls on her lap, brushing over the back panel. Paranormal Investigators had been embroidered around the beaming flashlight. When she flipped it over, she found her name. A bubbling joy spilled into every part of her.
“I thought you’d have kicked me out by now,” Este said as she traded her ghost costume and drenched clothes for soft, dry cotton. Modesty was the least of her concerns right now.
Posy rattled her head left and right. “Once a PI, always a PI.”
After she buttoned up, Este fished the soggy pages out of her pants pocket and carefully spread them flat across the nearest desk. They were damp around the edges, fragile and flecked with rain, but the ancient ink didn’t run—Este wasn’t even sure if it could—and the pages didn’t tear. It was more than she could have hoped for.
“I have to get these to the fifth floor,” she said.
Arthur laughed. “You really do have a death wish.”
Este turned to Posy for reassurance. If her roommate was still mad at her for pushing her away, it didn’t show. Posy had a tape recorder strapped to her belt, an electromagnetic field reader clutched in one hand, and a headlamp looped over the brim of her hat. This was her Super Bowl.
“Arthur’s right. I don’t know how we’ll get up there without being seen,” Posy said, “but we’ll help any way we can.”
A lightning strike like a street race gunshot jolted them into action. Este gently refolded the stolen chapter and tucked it safely inside the deep pockets of her coveralls. Posy doled out ghost-hunting gear like a hot dog vendor at a baseball game until everyone was fully loaded.
“Ready?” Este asked. This was it. When everyone nodded, she didn’t walk toward the classroom door. Instead, she skirted around the edges of the room, pushing on each wall panel until one gave. The pocket door slid back into its catch, opening to a dark hall. “After you.”
As they stalked through the service hallways, Posy lighting the way with her headlamp, Este caught everyone up to speed—the red herrings and the riddle, the true Heir and the mark of the Fades on her skin, the missing pages in her dad’s book. Saying it out loud made her feel like she really had a chance.
The corridor led them right to the fifth floor like Este knew it would. She’d learned the ins and outs of the Lilith, every winding passageway, every labyrinthian floor, every alcove and atrium balcony. Este peeled open the hatch just enough to peek into the staunch darkness. So far, so good.
Este said, “The senior lounge is on the other end, back behind the dictionaries. That’s where we’ll meet up with the ghosts.”
“We get to meet them? Real ghosts? Live ghosts? No, wait. That’s an oxymoron.” Posy froze, nothing but her mouth moving. Este wasn’t even sure if she was breathing or if that part of her brain had malfunctioned.
“I always knew there was something weird going on over there,” Arthur said.
Posy’s lips were blabbing a mile a minute. “I need to document this. I could set up a tripod to record heat-sensing video. Arthur, you brought the high-sensitivity microphone, right?”
Bryony reached into the fanny pack she’d strapped around her hips and handed Posy a pair of geothermal goggles. “Here, so you can see them.”
“You won’t need those. Trust me.” Este intercepted the goggles. “Pose. Pull it together. You look like you’re going to burst a blood vessel or seven.”
Swatches of bright, burning red splotched Posy’s porcelain skin. “Sorry, it’s just that this is the biggest moment of my entire life.”
“Well, it might be the last moment of mine, if we can’t—”
Her sentence was cut off by the distant wailing of the Fades. They sounded hungry, harshness marring their words. Bryony perked an ear upward, listening. With a sinking stomach, Este recognized the glazed look in her eye.
Thwacking Bryony on the shoulder with the goggles to break the seal the Fades had on her, Este asked, “What are the chances that Mary Poppins fanny pack has earplugs in it?”
“One hundred percent,” Bryony said with a thick swallow. She pulled out a new pack of earplugs and dished them out to everyone. “Always thought we’d use them for banshees.”
“If you hear singing, put them in. If the Fades come near, our thermometer readings will nosedive,” Este said, quieter now. “Shepherd, you keep an eye on average temps. Bryony and Arthur, you two keep an eye out for Ives. Posy, your EMF reader has never been wrong. If we get separated, use that to find the ghosts.”
Este took the first step onto the fifth floor. The storm outside had only grown darker. Heavy winds lashed against the atrium ceiling as they slinked through the stacks.
“Sixty-eight-point-eight, sixty-seven-point-two,” Shepherd whispered as they tiptoed.
Every dropping degree made Este pick up her pace. By the time they turned the last corner, the green door to the lounge coming into view, she was sprinting. She blazed into the room, skidding to a stop in front of the ghosts.
Luca, Aoife, Daveed, and Mateo huddled around the chalkboard, turning at the commotion. Behind her, the Paranormal Investigators were hot on her heels, each of them wide-mouthed and stunned silent. Este wedged in the middle, the bridge between them.
“Posy, Arthur, Shepherd, Bryony,” Este said, “meet the Radcliffe disappearances.”
For a long moment, the ghosts watched the Paranormal Investigators, and the Paranormal Investigators stared back at the ghosts, blinking like they weren’t sure if they were hallucinating. Este must have looked the same way a few weeks ago.
Posy’s voice shook when she finally said, “Big fan of your work.”
Mateo stepped forward. “What’d you find, Este dear?”
Reaching into her pocket for the pages, Este smiled. “Who’s ready for resurrection?”
Thirty
Everyone huddled around Este’s shoulders, craning for a better view of the pages. Daveed’s eyes shifted from the paper to Este’s face one, twice, before he finally said, “But what do we do with them?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out.” Este sagged against the shelves. Her waist rioted beneath the weight of her own body, begging for relief. “This chapter is about summoning the Fades—the ceremony, the smoke, the whole shebang. It’d make more sense for my dad to steal it if he were trying to rule the Fades, not escape them.”
“Perhaps that’s exactly why he didn’t want my sister to have them.” Mateo hummed, thumbing through the chapter again and again until handing it back to Este. She stuffed the pages back into her pocket for safekeeping. “Maybe we missed something in an earlier chapter that will tell us how to release the souls? It’s all connected.”
“We need the rest of the book,” Este said, the realization hitting her with the weight of an encyclopedia. “You’re right. Ives told me the book needed to be returned in one piece. It didn’t matter which chapter he took. They need to be bound together again.”
A deep-bellied groan cut off her thought and scattered the ghosts, each drifting out of sight. The Fades’ cold front swept down the hallway, and the Paranormal Investigators pressed themselves into the shadows of the bookcases. The figures haunted toward the senior lounge, knuckles clicking and a putrid breeze preceding them.
Este pressed a firm finger to her lips, begging Shepherd not to say something stupid and get them all killed. She didn’t come this far for a your mom joke to ruin them. Only after the Fades swiveled right, following the scientific journals toward forgotten histories, did Este fill her lungs again.
“Since I gave the book back to Ives, I’m sure it’s already back in the spire,” Este said, focusing on the scuff marks her shoes left on the floor rather than the inevitable way that everyone’s faces fell.
“Can we sneak up there somehow?” Arthur asked.
“The door’s locked, isn’t it? That’s, like, its whole thing,” Posy said, picking at the hem of her sleeve. Nervous, maybe, finally facing the spirits she’d been so keen to hunt at the beginning of the semester.
“There’s another way up,” Este said as Mateo’s shape re-formed next to her. He had told her the truth the first day she met him, whining as they hiked the spiraling stairs to the archived collection. “There really is an elevator in Ives’s office, isn’t there?”
Mateo’s hand fit into hers, skin against ancient skin. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles, the sensation swirling fizz through her entire body. “Este Logano, you’re a beautiful mastermind.”
But Bryony made a hideous noise of disbelief. “Breaking into the head librarian’s office is Mission: Impossible.”
“We could take the long way,” Daveed offered. “Go through the service hallways. They connect to her office, don’t they?”
Mateo released Este’s fingers so that he could grip his hands behind his back and stretch the lengths of his neck. “Via brick wall. We’d have to deconstruct century-old masonry to even enter.”
“Not to mention,” Luca said, “what would we do if she goes back inside her office?”
“We split up,” Este said. All eyes on her. She straightened her shoulders. They were relying on her. Yes, it meant she might let them down. But it also meant that she had backup. “One group will distract the Fades and preoccupy Ives, while the other goes to the spire, finds the book, and finishes this before she realizes we’re there.”
“How are we going to keep her busy?” Posy asked.
Este swiveled to face Arthur, her mouth scrunched up in a devious grin. She raised her eyebrows, and his furrowed.
“Oh, no,” he said, elongating each vowel.
“You’re the best actor I know,” she said, laying the charm on, heavy as honey on a biscuit. It didn’t matter that he was, in fact, the only actor she knew.
Arthur nodded once and fastened a serious expression on his face. He shook out his neck, circling his shoulders. His lips flapped together as he warmed up his vocals. “Peaches and princes, peaches and prunes.”
Shepherd squinted. “That sounds like the worst fruit salad in existence.”
“Do you need medical attention?” Aoife asked.
Arthur held out a flat palm to shut them up. “Let me warm up. If I’m doing this, I need to get into character.”
“While you do . . . whatever that is,” Luca said, “Daveed, Aoife, and I can distract the Fades.”
Aoife’s flat expression didn’t shift when she added, “It’s not like they can kill us any more than they already have.”
Mateo wrapped his arm around Este’s shoulder. “Then, we’ll take the elevator.”
All nine of them nodded, each with their own mission. This wasn’t a job for one person. Too much was at stake for that. They could do this if they did it together.
The ghosts vanished, trailing the scent of molding bouquets through the stacks, which left Este and Mateo with a loose-lipped Arthur, Posy and her headlamp, and Shepherd, who clutched his lacrosse stick with both hands.
When they reached Ives’s office, the door was closed, and a thin strip of yellow poured out from the seams in the threshold. She was inside. A cold chill on the back of Este’s neck told her that the Fades weren’t far, but she could only hope the others were masters of distraction.
As Arthur approached Ives’s door, the rest of them crouched behind the nearest bookshelf. Posy flipped off her headlamp as the office’s light flooded the dark floor.
“What are you doing here?” Ives barked.
Arthur launched straight into a fabricated sob story about failing his acting midterm because he was in the middle of memorizing his monologue when the power went out. He wept believable tears, gripping onto Ives’s shoulder and dragging her by the sleeve of her silk blouse toward the stairwell.
Arthur flung his hands around in wild gestures, but his words were muffled with dramatic sobs. It wasn’t enough. Ives’s smile turned sinister. “Tell me where Este Logano is, and I’ll make sure you get the leading role. How does that sound?”
