The Library of Shadows

Autumn wrapped around campus like a scarf. Overnight, the trees had shaken the green out of their leaves in favor of their finest golds. The air had a new chill to it, and Este cupped her steaming coffee mug closer to her chin on her way to Mr. Donohue’s English class. When she passed the Lilith, she scanned the windows for any trace of Mateo. The midmorning sun slanted through his usually shady alcoves, and she was pretty sure she didn’t imagine the way her shoulders sank when she didn’t spot him.

Although that could have just been the weight from her backpack. She’d barely been able to zip it shut around a stack of yearbooks they’d found listed on her dad’s card.

She and Mateo had made a plan. Este would start at the top of the list, and Mateo and the ghosts would start at the bottom. Together, they’d work their way through every book her dad checked out while at Radcliffe. There had to be an answer in the pages somewhere, and since the ghosts had forfeited their need for basic bodily functions like sleeping and eating when they’d also forfeited their lives, they could cover a hell of a lot of ground.

Este took the steps up to the humanities building two at a time. This part of the school grounds had an overgrown, lived-in feel to it. Ivy coated the handrails, climbed up the bricks. Inside, the floors hadn’t been polished, and Este followed them to the last door on the left.

On the first day of classes, Posy waved to Este when she walked in and pointed to the seat she’d saved next to her. Now, Este found herself migrating to the far end of Mr. Donohue’s classroom out of habit, a safe familiarity. Posy’s seat was still surprisingly empty—while Este had a study period before English (which today she’d used to refuel with stale coffee from the Vespertine Hall kitchen and cram a conclusion paragraph into her essay), Posy came from precalc nearby. Normally, she’d be here, halfway through a cranberry-walnut scone by the time Este walked in.

It was new, knowing the ins and outs of someone. She’d had friends before, girls who would ride the bus home with her and do braid trains at slumber parties, but no one she fought to keep after her dad died. Her grip had turned slippery, and it had been so much easier to let go than to hold on.

Besides, back then, part of Este had welcomed the chance to vanish. Fueled by the onset of puberty, a new pair of Doc Martens she needed to break in, and the sinkhole caving in behind her sternum, she’d wanted to become anyone but Este Logano, the girl without a dad. Spotty cell service didn’t make it easy to stay in touch either. When her mom started whisking her from city to city, her social media derailed into snapshots from D-list tourist attractions from around the country—the world’s largest wind chimes, two smiling dinosaurs on the side of an Oregon highway, a wax-museum homage to train robbers.

Letting herself get close to someone again felt like wearing a shirt with a scratchy tag. Her only options were to get used to it or cut it off.

While students trickled in and Mr. Donohue downed the pitch-black contents of his coffee mug like a shot, Este dipped into her backpack. Her dad’s circulation history included yearbooks from five school years—1967–68, 1969–70, 1977–78, 1978–79, and 1987–88. He’d had his finger on the pulse of the disappearances, that much was evident. Este went ahead and filled in the blanks, grabbing the decades he had been missing, and she’d tucked 1997–98 in for good measure, just to cover all her bases.

As Este flipped through the yearbook for the 1987–88 school year, she was whisked back through Radcliffe Prep’s timeless past. The buildings, the trees, they almost looked identical. There were cringeworthy school portraits, club photos, write-ups on homecoming and the prom. Snapshots that proved, at a finite point in time, the greater population had been convinced shoulder pads were a good idea.

As she scanned the pages, she recognized a wide-rimmed grin: Daveed in the stacks of the Lilith. He stood at the center of a group of students laughing like a bad stock photo. They all had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, and he was sandwiched between a boy with glasses that rivaled Elton John and a girl with dark hair and a big, blue costume ring on her finger. A bit gaudy for a study date, but who was Este to judge?

Este’s chest constricted with each turned page. Radcliffe Prep had seen so many generations pass through these halls. She could imagine it all as easily as if the clock hands wound backward.

In 1987, Daveed might have skated through the courtyard, a boom box perched on his shoulder. Maybe his peers glared, but he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Aoife could have been coiled onto a stone bench in 1967, lost in another world, one of parchment and pen. She’d have thumbed through the pages as fast as she could.

When the glow from incandescent light bulbs lit the narrow halls in 1927, Luca might have spun through the oiled stacks in her heels and her drop-waisted dress. The tassels at the hem must have fanned out as she twirled, sliding books from the shelves as she went.

Then, in 1917, Mateo probably split his time in half, either needling his professors or parading around campus like the Chosen One. He’d have had an easy posture, a feverish laugh—the kind that was too contagious to ignore. Honestly, he still did.

Posy slammed her books down on the desk next to Este’s, rattling her back to the present day. ”I think I found your Mateo.”

If Este had been drinking her coffee at that precise moment, it would have shot out her nose. “Excuse me?”

“Shepherd told me you still hadn’t found him, so between first and second periods I went to the computer lab to do some digging on my favorite forum. Here, I’ll pull it up.” Posy squeezed down into her seat without even bothering to take her backpack off as she plucked her phone from the side pocket. “The Mateo you met? Totally Mateo Radcliffe. The Mateo Radcliffe.”

If all but two of Este’s brain cells hadn’t decided this was the right time to go completely dormant, she would’ve said anything except for, “Whaaaaat? No way.”

“Yes way. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. It was right in front of my nose. I knew you saw a freaking ghost.” Posy pried up the cover of the yearbook, as if only now registering she’d been in the middle of something when she barged in. “What are these?”

Este snapped the book closed and shuffled them aside. “Nothing. I’m, um, considering joining the yearbook staff.”

“Good morning, class,” Mr. Donohue said, a yawn behind his words. His head was bald as a cue ball, and, like most of them, he wore a thick-knit sweater to fend off the brisk morning. He dragged his coffee mug with him to the podium. “Pass up your essays, and we’ll get started.”

When Este twisted to get the papers from behind her, Posy slid her phone onto Este’s desk. Judging by the blocky text, the wretched color scheme, and the fact that it was called Ghoul School, there was a solid 95 percent chance that the website Posy referenced had first been coded back when people still relied on dial-up internet.

Este scanned a stream of recent threads with varying degrees of scientific validity. “Unveiling the Ghosts of Radcliffe’s Past,” “Everything You Need to Know About Radcliffe Prep’s Disappearances,” “Which Radcliffe Child Are You Most Like?” She clicked the last one, and a series of generic this-or-that questions spawned (early morning or late night, tea or coffee, sweet or salty). She tapped in her answers—for science, obviously—and she handed up the finished essays while her results buffered.

When it loaded, she wished it hadn’t.

You are: Mateo Radcliffe.

Underneath, they’d included a photo, and there was no denying it was him. Mateo gripped a book in one hand and the rungs of a rolling ladder in another. He wore a knit Radcliffe Prep sweater with the school’s crest embroidered into the chest, and his cheeks creased with dimples. The comments section was riddled with If he’s a ghost, he could haunt me any day posts that made Este’s breakfast turn to toxic sludge in her stomach.

All it would take was one look at the boy Este had been spending nights with at the library, and Posy would know she was right.

“Phones down, Miss Logano,” Mr. Donohue said as he pulled down a series of paper maps, unrolling them in front of the chalkboard. The first revealed a topographically accurate portrayal of Radcliffe Prep’s corner of Vermont, where Sheridan Oaks was nestled between Montpelier and Burlington. Then, one of the United States at large. Finally, a world atlas blanketed both, and Mr. Donohue jabbed a wooden rod toward the Greek peninsula. “Who here knows how to read ancient Greek?”

Este handed Posy her phone back, pointedly avoiding the way her roommate mouthed, “Is that him?” because it totally was, and Este wasn’t ready to say those words out loud yet. Not when her future at Radcliffe hung in the balance, and definitely not when it would mean admitting to Posy that she was right. Then, she’d really never shut up about ghosts.

“No one?” Mr. Donohue prompted. He wafted his pointing stick around like a magic wand as if he could bibbidi-bobbidi-boo them into paying attention. “Then, how can you read The Odyssey?”

“Translations?” someone in the back offered.

“Precisely!”

For the better part of an hour, Mr. Donohue droned about how translation inherently breathed new life into old texts, about the historical significance of the Oxford English Dictionary for its lexical bookkeeping, and how, to his dismay, literary criticism often derailed from the source text with every generation and to get to the heart of the story, you need to read the original work. Este only half listened, spending the better part of her hour with a yearbook slotted inside her textbook, scanning spread after spread for any smudge of her dad’s handwriting or trace of the missing pages.

Posy glued herself to Este’s side as soon as Mr. Donohue dismissed them. ”Dr. Kirk’s leading our first Paranormal Investigators ghost hunt Saturday at five. I bet we can find Mateo.”

“That really won’t be necessary because—”

“Seriously, Este. I want to help you. Imagine if I’m able to prove the Radcliffe ghosts are real. The forum would freak out.”

Este opened her mouth to clarify that she didn’t need Posy’s help finding The Book of Fades anymore, even if she wasn’t ready to reveal that it was because she was in cahoots with the thief, but Posy squealed, riled up from her own excitement.

“I bet I could guest star on Ghost with the Most. I need to buy a better microphone. Do you think omnidirectional or unidirectional would be better?” Posy’s phone was in her hand in an instant, and she asked it, “Best mic for podcasting?”

In her back pocket, Este’s phone vibrated, and when she reached for it, her mom’s contact flashed on the screen. Her options were simple: listen to her mom harp about gas prices for twenty minutes or pretend she never saw the call.

Her mom could have texted, like any other parent in the twenty-first century, but Este could practically see her: phone cradled between her chin and shoulder, counting change at a toll booth and sipping flat gas-station soda. Phone calls had become her mom’s preferred method of communicating since most of her days were spent driving eighty-five in a seventy. She’d ask Este how school was going, and Este would have to lie and say everything’s fine because she couldn’t exactly tell her mom the truth either.

Este let it ring for three buzzes before she sent the call to voice mail.

“Let’s wait here,” Posy said once they were outside, evidently satisfied with her podcasting research. “Arthur and I are going to walk to history together.”

The humanities building sat adjacent to the Hesper Theater with the fountain of the same name standing sentinel out front. Rivulets of water pooled beneath the carved stone feet of Robin Radcliffe. He’d been depicted behind a desk. One of his hands pressed a quill to the pages of a book, and the other outstretched poetically while his eyes gazed upward as if monologuing to the midday sun. The fountain’s well was filled with coins, the sanguine wishes of students sparkling like gems. If she dug to the bottom, Este wagered she could find coins from the very first class at Radcliffe Prep.

Posy’s eyes glistened up at the statue when she said, “Dr. Kirk said there’s this school tradition about how if you kiss someone at the Hesper Fountain, your love will last forever.”

Forever, Este neglected to remind her, was an impossibly long time.

Arthur breezed out of the Hesper Theater, dressed head to toe in black, and linked arms with Posy. “Daydreaming about kissing Shepherd again?”

“No!” An undeniable blush bloomed across Posy’s cheeks, and she swatted Arthur’s arm. “Okay, maybe. We’d make a cute couple, don’t you think?”

Este let them walk on without her. Her next class was in the opposite direction—an elective on the basics of library sciences before lunch—and, besides, Arthur was already rambling about disembodied voices he’d heard in the prop loft and how he needed to take the voice recorder up next time.

Este stifled a laugh. The only real ghosts were perched in the senior lounge, probably playing a game of makeshift darts with mechanical pencils or practicing their two-step to one of the Etta Jones vinyl records in the music collection.

Before they drifted totally out of sight, Posy hollered over her shoulder, “Ghost hunt on Saturday. Don’t forget!”

And because every good ghost hunt required a ghost, Este invited Mateo to join them—invisibly, of course. If she was going to spend her Saturday night entertaining Posy’s antics, then at least they could multitask and search for the pages.

The club met, like Posy had instructed, at exactly five o’clock in the lobby of the Lilith two days later, and Dr. Kirk wasted no time before handing out buzzing gadgets for the club’s inaugural ghost-hunting expedition. The look on Posy’s face when Mateo’s presence sent their machines beeping made it all worthwhile.

As they careened through the library, Arthur, Shepherd, and Posy existed as one unit, clumped together around Dr. Kirk and her tall tales of school legends and ancient hauntings. And Este shifted uncomfortably when she realized not all of them were completely made-up. A few extra faces made appearances tonight, new Paranormal Investigator initiates. Este let them all surge ahead, cranking the volume on her EMF reader down to zero so that it wouldn’t go berserk with Mateo next to her.

“That’s where I skinned my knees trying to slide down the banister,” he said for her ears only. Este found the curve in the staircase—she could practically see a younger Mateo, lip buckled beneath the fright of the fall. “And that’s where I had my first kiss. Fifteen, Helen Ruth. Scandalous little thing.”

“Did you use tongue?” Este goaded, wagging her eyebrows.

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, Logano.”

It was a dangerous thought. What Mateo’s bowed lips might feel like against hers. A daydream that had no right to take up real estate in Este’s mind. For starters, he was practically a million years old. Secondly, she’d only had one kiss, a terrible, wet thing that scarcely qualified so much as a kiss to begin with and veered closer to the definition of excited Saint Bernard. She wouldn’t consider herself an expert.

But from a strictly objective perspective, Mateo was handsome—at least when he was visible.

They turned the corner to a windowed corridor where campus stretched out underneath them, now pooling with dazzling reds and yellows in the evening light. The school was a mosaic of golden knolls and shade-tree shadows, and a layer of fog swept through the courtyards and draped over the brick and limestone buildings.

“This is home,” Mateo said, his voice sinking to a whisper. “My father bought the land and built the house before I was born. These have always been the corners of my world. And now . . .”

If only she could see him, search the slant of his mouth for any unspoken emotion. He had died only a year before selective service would’ve whisked him to the war, but he also never had a chance to experience the fanfare of the roaring twenties, sneaking speakeasy absinthe and dancing to syncopated jazz standards. The school grounds were a hand-blown snow globe, a picturesque miniature of life, protected but confined.

“They always will be,” she finished for him.

“Miss Logano, did you find something?”

Este whipped her head toward the group. Dr. Kirk and the others faced her, waiting. She double-checked to make sure Mateo hadn’t decided now was the perfect time for his big entrance, but thankfully he had the good sense to stay invisible.

“No, sorry.” She wiped on an apologetic smile and scuttled to catch up. “Just recalibrating the reader’s solar input for night mode.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Dr. Kirk said, continuing to pace down the interlocking shelves, and Este let her shoulders relax. “As I was saying, banshees may roam the Radcliffe halls.”

“This is a personal affront to my existence. Banshees, really?” Mateo said, much closer than Este anticipated. She upped the reader’s volume back to 20 percent so that it chirped like a personal doppler radar and she knew he was nearby.

Dr. Kirk prattled on, unbothered by the sound. “Some say you’ll hear tortured singing coming from study rooms upstairs. Perhaps the spirit of someone who forgot to study for midterms.”

That earned a couple laughs.

“What about Fades?” Este asked.

Dr. Kirk twisted the knobs on one of her tools and then traded it for something sprouting with antennae. “Those are a unique type of spirit, typically bound to something physical—jewelry or a sculpture, trapped inside a mirror, perhaps—that belongs to a person who controls them, the Heir of Fades. They’re very rare. It’s not likely we’d have any Fades on campus.”

Yeah. Right. Este blanched at her nonchalance but nodded, tight-lipped, so that Dr. Kirk would continue spouting off about wraiths or orbs or whatever else it was that she wrongly believed roamed campus while missing the truth. When had Este become the resident paranormal authority?

“We don’t have time for this,” Mateo muttered. “Follow me.”

While the rest of the group trickled upstairs, Este and her chiming EMF reader clung to the shadows. And once they were finally out of sight, Mateo flashed back into vision, equal parts curls and cheekbones.

He trailed ahead of Este with his long strides. For a split second, Este’s muscles flinched as if she might grab his hand, tug on his shirtsleeve to pull him alongside her as they drifted through the shelves. That could obviously never happen. She wrapped the bells of her shirtsleeves around her palms instead and clenched them into fists.

“Let me guess,” she said when they reached the northern end of the library, desperate to break the silence. She pointed to the tufted window seat in his favorite alcove. “That’s where you read Milton for the first time.”

Mateo shook his head singularly, focused somewhere in the distance, past the brick walls and the bookshelves toward something even farther away. “‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’”

“Thoreau,” Este said. As the first starlight sifted through the stained-glass windows, it was all too easy to imagine Mateo, legs folded to his chest, dreaming of escaping to Walden Pond. To let the water lap at his bare ankles, to lounge beneath the red maples.

“I wish I’d read it sooner.”

Mateo dipped into his pocket for a creased sheet of paper and held it toward her. As Este wrapped her hand around the paper, her fingers brushed the place his should’ve been, and it was like dipping her hand in a wellspring of cool water. Her heartbeat hopscotched.

She unfolded it to find a handwritten list, a floor-by-floor collection of nooks and crannies ranging from the first floor’s loose floorboard next to the bust of Oscar Wilde to the trick mirror in the men’s restroom on the fifth floor. She thumbed over the writing, feeling the grooves where his pen had pressed into the paper. “Places we can look for the pages?”

“I’ve been trying to undo what happened a hundred years ago every moment of every day since then,” Mateo said, his head craned down toward her. “But I’ve never done it with you.”

Heat rushed toward Este’s face, prickly and pink. She rolled her eyes to bat away the cloying bashfulness. ”So, your newfound motivation has nothing to do with the three demonic pop stars who have decided it was time for their comeback hit? What was all that Dr. Kirk said about the Heir of Fades anyway?”

Mateo shuffled his weight from foot to foot. “It’s probably not important for finding the pages.”

“What would they even inherit?” Este wrinkled her nose at the memory of their sweet-pea fragrance, putrid as a funerary bouquet. “Besides bad fashion sense and an even worse stench.”

Mateo leaned against the wall next to a draping tapestry, one hand slipped into the pocket of his wool trousers. She’d spent enough time with him in the last two weeks to recognize the stance was his own version of a yogi power pose. A shield to cover up whatever tender thing he kept hidden underneath. “Life. Mine, Luca’s, Aoife’s, Daveed’s. They took ours in exchange for immortality.”

“The Heir is real?” Este asked, and Mateo’s grimace was enough of an answer. “Do you . . . do you remember who it was?”

“They killed me, Este. Not exactly a memory I tried to hold on to.”

Este stepped closer, wanting to be closer to him. “Do you remember anything?”

“Well, I know I was in the spire, everything smelled like smoke, and then I woke up dead. Unless we find those pages, I always will be.” He scrubbed a hand through his curls and shrugged away his train of thought. Este got the hint: touchy subject. “The Heir is only human. According to the book, without the Fades spoon-feeding them souls every ten years, the Heir would eventually grow old and pass. They only became like this because of what they summoned out of those pages, and the Fades are bound by ink to the book of their creation, so I think the missing chapter will tell us how to stop them—why else would Dean separate it from the rest of the book?”

Este nodded, throat dry.

“If we don’t find those pages, the Fades might never be contained and the Heir never stopped.” Mateo twisted a stone in the wall beneath the tapestry, and a trap door slid open on the floor in front of them. When he smiled, it was hard to look away. “Want to start from the bottom?”

She didn’t exactly have much of a choice.