The Library After Dark: A Novel(14)

Movement out of the corner of my eye—a flash of blue, in a face that should be still.

Jasper collides with my back, a sound dying in my throat.

“Easy,” Jasper says, catching me. “All right?”

“What is it?” Callum asks, keen. “Did you see something? Tell us!”

“Yes, tell us,” Wes echoes, nostrils flaring with stemmed laughter.

Saskia bustles back to us, concern etching her face. “Everything all right, Ms….”

“Aria. I don’t—” I stare at the familiar face, bone white against a bed of crushed velvet the color of blood. The mask is ethereal, eyes closed as if in sleep. Death Mask of William Blake, the gold plaque next to it reads.

I could swear Willy’s eyes popped open for a second.

“Nope, I’m good,” I say, turning on a megawatt smile. “Just really excited to see the dead face of one of my favorite poets.”

Callum’s eager face falls, and I feel like I just snatched a bag of M&M’s from a toddler.

I fall into step beside Michelle. “You knew her?” Evangeline’s name sticks on my tongue.

“I did.” She nudges a stray wispy curl from her face, expression sad. “She changed my life, you know, selecting me as a writer in residence here. We kept in touch over the years, and I like to think we became friends, these last few. I’ll always regret not coming to see her before she passed.”

Friends.

What would it have been like for Evangeline Riordan to have something so normal, so every-person as friends? Did they go for lunch, sit for tea and discuss literature? The library? Michelle’s writing? Their deepest, darkest secrets?

Surely not. She’d never risk losing the library, and seeing death on the horizon wouldn’t have changed that. Would it?

Dim recognition scratches long fingernails at the back of my skull. Michelle and I could’ve overlapped here, at the library. Which could be a problem.

I’d agreed to this, thinking we’d inevitably see The Tales, then stop at an exclusive lounge for cocktails, Jasper and I and a third-wheel librarian who would hopefully let us gaze adoringly into each other’s eyes or some shit. Encountering people from the past is not what I signed up for.

A vintage elevator comes into view, the brass framing carved into bold art deco lines. The carriage itself is an intricate tangle of brass bars; when I was a kid, it reminded me of one of those antique birdcages.

Now, it looks like a cage for humans.

In fact, with the tangle of brass bars forming the accordion door, it reminds me a hell of a lot of “Alisa and the Fox,” the first fairy tale in The Tales. I never liked that one. Fairy tales were supposed to give protagonists at least one good choice, weren’t they?

Saskia nudges aside the door and steps in, holding it open for us. On second thought, it looks extremely…fragile.

I feel like Alisa, going from one bad decision to the next.

Following the others, I step inside. The elevator drops an inch under my weight, and my stomach plummets with it. I squeeze myself between Jasper and the carved wood of the elevator cabin, the scent of dust wafting from the desaturated cloth coating the walls.

Saskia unfolds the door with all the care of unraveling a wrinkled map and turns the lever, sealing us inside.

My back’s flat against the wall, the stuffy air pressing against my lungs and Jasper’s body pressing against mine. The pronged ceiling chandelier is far too close to our heads, a spider descending.

They aren’t meant for you.

A shiver rattles down every vertebra. Evangeline is dead. And this library is not alive.

A jingle of keys, metal against metal. A dull little ding nearly stops my heart and the elevator lurches and the lights flicker.

Crank-crank-thud.

Through a gap between Callum’s and Jasper’s shoulders, Piper’s wide eyes meet mine.

“Hmm.” Saskia frowns, gives the wheel another turn. “I’m sure it’s—”

The lights go out, and beneath our feet, the elevator drops to our screams.





Part II





Down the Rabbit Hole





Chapter Eight


Piper

My spirit literally just left my body.

The elevator floor slams into the soles of my sneakers and my heart goes supernova behind my eyelids. Something gigantic flattens me against the wall, squeezing all the air out of me.

“Aria?” Jasper’s voice cracks like a whip.

“I’m fine.” She does not sound fine.

“Lights, lights, anyone?” the enormous thing flattening me exclaims rapidly in a Scottish accent. He scoots, and oh, sweet oxygen. “Who turned them off?”

“Did we just fall?” I wheeze, volume hiking up.

“Everyone okay?” Heavy shuffling from Saskia’s direction.

Light spears my eyes.

On the other side of the elevator’s cage, the floor is up to my waist, and oh my God, we didn’t just bungee-bounce a couple of feet, we’ve literally sunk through the floor. I absolutely hate heights, I hate roller coasters, and while I like the theory of adventure, what fresh hell was I thinking, coming tonight?

“Gonna guess that wasn’t part of the tour.” The pep leaks out of Wes’s voice.