“I’ve been for a walk in the cemetery.” On Jet’s last night in the world she saw everything with clear eyes, including her beloved niece. How kindhearted Sally was. How vulnerable beneath all that bluster. Sally had been the one who had found the aunts listed in their mother’s phone book, and had called clear across the country to inform them that she and Gillian would be coming to stay. Their aunts had loved them beyond measure ever since.
Sally narrowed her eyes, wondering if Jet was trying to pull a fast one. She had always been wary, certain that Jet wasn’t exactly what she seemed to be. Once, in the year when she’d turned thirteen, Sally had gone so far as to follow Jet into Manhattan, breaking into a run to catch up with her outside Penn Station. Jet had surprised her by being furious.
“I want one day a month to myself,” Jet had said as they stood on Eighth Avenue, nearly deafened by the roar of the traffic. “If I want to go to a museum or take a walk in Central Park, it’s no one’s business but my own.”
Sally had been embarrassed and had quickly apologized. They’d gone to a coffee shop where Sally had been treated to an ice-cream soda, then she had taken the train home, leaving Jet to do as she pleased. But Sally had the sight, and she knew there was more to the story, then and now. She so rarely used her bloodline talents, that the sight came to her in little sparks, almost as if she’d had a slight electric shock. She blinked and took a step closer to her aunt. There was the scent of smoke and the ceiling above them was shadowed with a black smudge. Could it be that the room needed to be repainted? Hadn’t they had the Merrill brothers do so only two years earlier?
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Sally mused.
“Gillian and the girls are joining us for the evening,” Jet explained. “Isn’t that a lovely surprise?”
“Why didn’t you mention it this morning? I have nothing to serve for dinner other than canned soup!” Antonia was such a picky eater now that she was pregnant and Kylie was a vegetarian, and lately Sally and the aunts had mostly eaten pasta and tomato soup, quick easy meals that took no care or thought.
“We’re meeting Franny and having dinner at the inn.”
“Franny loathes the inn,” Sally said, even more suspicious.
“We want it to be a special night,” Jet explained. “We’ll all be together.”
“Well, then, the inn it is,” Sally agreed.
While Sally saw to her end of the day’s duties, Jet sat down and observed the room. She took in everything she usually would have ignored: the skittering sound of mice beneath the floorboards, the clock ticking off seconds, the wind hitting against the cloudy windows. There were fingerprints on the glass cases of the rare books, and the ceiling fan spun in a cockeyed circle. She noticed that the hems of the curtains that were original to the library were decorated with an intricate pattern of moons in every phase. Funny how she’d never seen that before; she’d never looked deeply enough. Jet gazed around the room, wondering what else she had never noticed, and there it was. The bricks directly beneath Maria’s framed journal page were not fitted properly. The mortar was a dark crimson. Jet crossed the room so she might place a hand on the wall. You can live a whole lifetime without knowing what was right in front of you. Seeing has little to do with opening your eyes; it’s what you feel inside that counts, it’s what you know without anyone telling you.
Behind the bricks there was a steady rhythm, the pulse of a book that had been hidden for more than three hundred years. Jet loosened one of the bricks by scraping a pen against mortar. She wriggled the brick back and forth until it gave way and could be pried loose. The space behind the wall was dank and icy cold. It appeared to be empty until Jet reached her hand inside. A shiver ran through her as she brought forth a small black book. The Book of the Raven.
Maria Owens might have rid the world of this slim volume, for it had nearly ruined her daughter Faith’s life, but to destroy a book seemed an unnatural act, especially one written by a woman of great talent and skill. Instead of burning it, Maria had come here to the library, then set to work hiding The Book of the Raven, a dark spell book that had brought her daughter to the left-handed side of magic long ago. She’d deposited this Grimoire behind the loose bricks, mixing in three drops of her blood to seal the mortar, well aware that some things should stay hidden until they were meant to be found, for the knowledge this book held was so dark it was intended for a reader who possessed the ability to handle its power. Maria had just had a child with the man she loved and was in no position to use The Book of the Raven. In time, however, an Owens woman would discover the book, and use it as it should be used, with love and courage.