The Library After Dark: A Novel(100)
At the end of life, what a small thing it is.
Take this letter to my lawyer, Anthony Harrow, within one year of my passing, and he will explain the procedure for your probationary period on the Daedalus board, and then as heir. The only thing I have left is to give you what I promised you all those years ago: a home.
Love eternal, from life through death,
Evangeline
* * *
Jasper wraps me in his arms, my cheek pressing against the smooth wool of his coat. Two words knock aside the foundation of my fractured mind and all that I thought about myself, and reassemble it into something else. Something whole.
Evangeline knew.
And she forgave me.
“What does it say?” he finally says into my hair.
When I shift back, brushing at my eyes with the letter still clutched in my hand, I’m smiling through the tears. “That I can go home.”
Chapter Seventy-six
Evangeline
September 27, 2025
Michelle Baudelaire perched on the precipice of the velvet chair across from me. I’d been delighted when she suggested coming.
After all, I wouldn’t have any friends come tomorrow.
“Right,” she said, knuckles worming over her knees. “I need to ask you about something. And I realize it perhaps makes me insane, but I must know the truth.”
A lump of coal turned in my stomach. “You’re welcome to ask,” I said cheekily, “and I’m welcome to respond or not.”
A smile flashed across her lovely face. “I’ve spent years learning about The Dark Hearth Tales, ever since you recommended them to me, when I came fifteen or so years ago.” One of her eyes squinted as she leaned forward, long-nailed fingers interlacing over one knee. “You told me I might find comfort in these horrific tales.”
I held her gaze, my expression smooth against a thrumming heart. “I don’t recall being wrong.”
“The one that really impacted me was ‘The Wood-Carved Rabbit.’ It…Well, you know.” Her mouth twitched, more pain than smile. “I was the rabbit. With Jake. And I didn’t know it, until then.”
She looked so much like my Alice, I realized. Perhaps that was what I’d always seen in her.
She weaved a bit on the chair, uncomfortable. “I’ve seen your tattoo. A rabbit, made of wood.”
Gracious. I didn’t think there was a person alive who knew of that poor decision; I’d had it done on my ankle, but after Thomas and I eloped, I began to cover it up. Ink wasn’t favored in high society then. “Something I had in my youth. I’ve mentioned to you one of my relationships, which went south.” I gave her a pointed stare to mean that it wasn’t up for discussion. “In the aftermath, I found comfort in that tale, and thought you might, as well.”
She appeared unfazed. “Where did you get it? The tattoo?”
I hesitated, sifting through the murky truth. Romania might be my homeland, but the media didn’t know I’d been raised here, in America. I only returned to Bucharest as a twenty-year-old, with a broken heart and a criminal record, and no intention of ever setting foot on American soil again. How fickle the tides of life. “Bucharest.”
“And that was before you met Thomas, and came to live in the States.”
My husband’s name still brushed a tender part of me, one that never quite managed to scab over. How I missed that man. “Yes.” That was the narrative we’d agreed to, at least.
“So you got the tattoo before the seventies.” The younger woman leaned in, eyes bright. “The Tales weren’t discovered until 1996.”
The clock on the wall ticked more insistently, as if struggling to fill the silence. Aha. At my age—or perhaps it’s the medication—I wasn’t quite as sharp as I’d once been.
“The Dark Hearth Tales aren’t really from the eighteenth century.” Michelle’s statement seeped into the walls, into my skin. “Are they?”
A slow, rueful smile traveled to my lips. What did it matter, really, if one person knew? I hadn’t quite decided what I’d tell Rory, when she arrived later tonight. Perhaps as Ruth said, this was the time for confession.
“You wrote them,” Michelle pressed.
I wasn’t sure I deserved the honor of confessing to this one.
“No one was ever supposed to see them,” I finally allowed. “Only my…lover, partner in crime. Abuser, in some ways.” The words wavered like smoke; I’d never spoken them aloud. “Grant Iverson—though back then, that wasn’t his name—and I met as children, who grew up together. Our years together were not aboveboard, I’m afraid. We often got into trouble. The stories were my way of telling him why I left, and I kept a reminder on my skin.”
The exhale slid out of Michelle. She was nearly hovering on the edge of her armchair, fingers knuckling against her knees. “The stories are about you.”
Part of me hoped that in reading these tales, Grant would understand how I’d watched him carve out every piece of himself that I’d loved, and sacrifice it on the altar of want.
I nod slowly. “Thomas and I met overseas, fell in love. We’d been married for a year or so when Grant finally reappeared from his…rehabilitation. Although, perhaps it wasn’t so successful, considering he had my stories—my journal, in essence—fabricated into a long-lost historical anthology to build his name.”