The Library of Shadows

Este smelled the séance before she saw it.

It was her first shift alone, the whole night stretching in front of her, and she’d been shelving paperbacks on the third floor when she found them. All three of the Paranormal Investigators were crammed into a study that glowed beneath the flames of ultrafragranced candles and smelled like the lair of an eighth-grade girl.

“What are you doing? Trying to summon the dead with the entire Bath & Body Works Semi-Annual Sale?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Posy’s head whipped up, a smile fanning across her face. “Yes!”

Great. Este was one vanilla candle from being possessed.

She didn’t really have time for Posy’s antics tonight. What if Ives dropped by the circulation desk to see how her first night was going? But, even if it was all pretend, they looked like they were having fun. Arthur nudged a candle into her cupped hands and closed the door behind her. Open flames needed to be supervised by a library worker, after all—Ives would understand.

Around the room, windows stretched from the beamed ceiling to the creaking floorboards. Any trace of moonlight had been swept behind a cloth of bloated clouds. A storm brewing on the horizon crept closer with every passing second, the cold front swelling beyond the paned glass. Shepherd and Arthur scuttled around the room, pushing aside desks, and placing candles on every open surface.

At least if the power went out, they’d still be able to see.

“We just need to finish the summoning circle, and then we can start.” Posy pointed over her shoulder to a canvas bag spilling open with an assortment of things that looked like Arthur must have raided the theater’s prop loft—fake cobwebs, sparkly confetti, a Styrofoam tombstone. “Can you grab the snow globe for me?”

Este plucked the snow globe from the tote and shook it, watching the glitter swirl. She handed it to Posy, who placed it in the center of a confetti circle. It was a horrible excuse for a crystal ball.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked.

“Holding a séance is an art,” Posy said as she flattened a shag bath mat over the polished hardwood to use as a carpet, “and I am an artiste.”

“I think I prefer oil pastels,” Shepherd mumbled at the back of the room.

Este lifted a hunk of black plastic from the bottom of the bag. “I’m afraid to know what this is.”

Posy didn’t have to look at her to answer. “A fog machine.”

“Why do you have a fog machine?”

Arthur perched onto one of the tables next to Este. “For the vibes.”

Este laughed a little too hard for a little too long before she realized she was the only one.

Posy stood and stripped the box from Este’s hands. When she plugged it into an outlet, it sputtered to life. White mist spooled from its mouth and hovered around their ankles. “It’s symbolic for the veil between life and death. I learned it from my favorite podcast, Ghost with the Most. Shep, hit the lights, and we’re ready.”

He doused them in darkness and joined them at the center of the room. They lowered to the ground, sitting cross-legged, wreathed by flickering flamelight. Posy clicked a button on the side of a tape recorder, the cassette inside spinning, and she straightened a few extra gadgets: the infamous EMF reader, something with about ten antennae, and a compass that Este could only assume was a special Limited-Edition Ghost Compass that Posy had fallen for. Then, she grabbed Este’s hand, who grabbed Arthur’s, who grabbed Shepherd’s, and he closed the circle.

Why were Este’s palms so sweaty? “Don’t you need to salt the doors or something?”

“Salt is for keeping ghosts out. We’re trying to bring one in,” Arthur said, clipped. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Anyone in particular?”

Shepherd’s voice was barely audible when he said, “Lilith Radcliffe.”

Este’s eyes could’ve fallen straight out of her head, they were so wide. “No offense, but if I were the long-dead ghost of Lilith Radcliffe, I really don’t think I’d want people prodding into my personal life.”

“We could ask her if she knows anything about the boy you’re looking for.” Posy squeezed her hand. Gentle, affirming. “If she’s haunting the library, she would’ve seen where he went.”

Este hadn’t seen even a glimpse of Mateo since her training. Ordinarily, she’d have hunted him down the old-fashioned way. You know, Facebook stalking. But Mateo didn’t even have a cell phone. Ghost communes weren’t exactly her first choice for investigative work, but she didn’t have a lot of other options left.

It wouldn’t work. She knew that. The gleam in Posy’s eyes was convincing enough to play along, and the fact that they wanted to help at all . . . she hadn’t had that in a long time.

Fog shifted over Este’s skin, and she shivered. She might as well get this over with. A few harmonic chants around well-placed candles and she’d be back downstairs before Ives ever found out she’d left.

“Okay, how do we get started?” she asked.

“Close your eyes,” Posy instructed them, “and follow my lead.”

Instead of focusing on the words Posy recited, something that sounded like it had been stripped from a Halloween storybook, Este counted her breaths. In through her nose, and then out through her mouth. A constant, steady rhythm. Practical, dependable, physical. A trick her dad had taught her years ago when her ribs felt too tight. It grounded her in reality and did a half-decent job of staving off the memory of the archives’ depths.

She filled up every corner of her lungs and released a jet stream, imagining inside of it were all her worries. The missing book, Ives’s ultimatum, ditching her shift so that her roommate could dabble in dark arts like it was a sideshow circus act. In and out. In and out. In and—

“Este, stop,” Posy groused. Este pried one eye open. “You blew out the candle. Now we have to start over.”

The storm’s first thundercrack rattled the windowsills, and Arthur’s grip tightened around hers. The rain came next. Wind howled, brushing tree limbs against the building.

Once the candle was relit, Posy began the ritual again, this time going until the EMF reader blared. She grinned. “I think she’s here.”

A quick look around the room confirmed that no ghosts had, in fact, entered the study room. The EMF reader was probably thrown off by the lightning storm happening outside.

“What now?” Shepherd asked.

“Este, you think about Mateo. I’ll try to talk to her.” Posy held up one of the antennae like Lilith’s ghost was on Dish TV. She rattled off question after question, each more invasive than the last.

When Este closed her eyes, she was back in the stairwell, tracing the slender lines of Mateo’s body in the darkness. The chiseled edge of his jawline caught in the moonlight. A hand half-tucked in the pocket of his pressed pants. The curl of his lips matching the curls of his hair. He moved with an easy, well-worn grace, a soft confidence. As if he’d roamed the halls a hundred times and a hundred more.

“Is it working?” Este whispered.

Posy shushed her. “Maybe you aren’t thinking hard enough.”

Este blacked out the background, picturing only Mateo. The dimple in his chin, the lilt of his laugh and the way it followed her. She envisioned the buttons on his shirt, the width of his shoulders, the broad span of his chest beneath as he guided her into the spire. He was magnetic, tugging on the iron in Este’s blood, a pull she couldn’t resist.

No, no, no.

She pinched her eyes tighter. He was a lying, thieving pain in the ass who almost cost her everything she was working toward. Who still would if she didn’t find him, if he didn’t cooperate. It didn’t matter how handsome he was—she would never forgive him.

“Nothing’s happening,” Este said as she yanked her hands out of Posy’s grasp. This needed to end now. The room was exactly as it had been when they started—a forgotten classroom at the end of the hall, drenched in fog. No specters, no spirits. She dabbed her thumb against her tongue and snuffed out a flame as she stood up. “That’s enough for tonight.”

Posy’s jaw dropped open, and Este could practically see the defiant argument waiting on her lips, but her words were drowned out by whipcrack thunder followed by a resonating hum, like the skies were singing. Everywhere and nowhere at once, a bellowing tenor thrummed. Este heard it inside and outside her as if the vibrations absorbed into the Lilith’s walls and floors and then through the soles of her feet.

Crossing her arms against her chest, Posy said, “We can try again tomorr—”

A trill of high notes trickled in from somewhere above, cutting her off.

Arthur reached for the tape recorder. “What was that?”

“Mr. Liebowitz’s choir practice,” Este said, rolling her eyes.

“This late at night?” Her roommate’s face scrunched up, eyebrows wagging. She was really milking this. “Sounds like it’s coming from the computer lab. Let’s go check it out.”

Packing up, Arthur shoved the fog machine back into his tote bag, grumbling something about how if they found out he stole—borrowed—from the props department, he’d be understudy until he died. Este offered to shelve the books they’d pulled and pack up the candles because the wax needed to cool. Shepherd trailed behind, shaking the snow globe like a Magic 8 Ball, and nearly rammed into the others when Posy skidded to an abrupt stop.

Looking back, she asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“I’m on the clock. You’re looking at Radcliffe’s newest archival assistant.” Este shrugged to cover up the way her throat constricted around the words. It should’ve been an achievement.

Something like hurt or pity flashed behind Posy’s eyes, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. She nodded and ushered the boys out.

Alone again, Este collapsed into the nearest chair. She could use a few moments to herself. Between Posy’s unshakable belief in life after death and the nauseating scent of twenty lit candles, a headache bloomed behind her forehead.

She stacked up the history books Posy had placed in the center of the summoning circle. As she thumbed through the pages, Este stopped at a photo of Radcliffe’s front entrance. With his back turned to the camera, a student looked through the wrought-iron gates. He stood with a familiar self-assured posture, one hand in a pocket, and the other wrapped around one of the metal beams.

Below, the text read: The land had been in the Radcliffe family for generations but remained untouched, the mountains too steep and the forests too wild to build until Robin Radcliffe first cleared the school grounds. Constructed at the end of the nineteenth century, Radcliffe Preparatory Academy opened its doors in 1901. Sixteen years later, Robin and his wife Judith died from tuberculosis, leaving behind two children: Lilith and Mateo.

She read the last sentence again, just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

Mateo?

No. It didn’t mean anything. There were probably hundreds of Mateos in the state of Vermont, thousands between now and 1901. Not a chance was her Mateo a ghost. He’d leaned against the bookcases, rested against the marble statue, and stripped The Book of Fades from her hands. He had been there, right beside her, completely and irrevocably real.

But if Posy was right and ghosts were real somehow, then her dad truly might be out there somewhere still listening. And god, she needed someone to talk to.

She reached across the desk for a lavender candle, cradling it beneath her chin. That kind of hope was like a flame lolling on its wick, as likely to light her path as it was to burn the whole library down.

Was she really about to hold a freaking séance all by herself?

She drew a shaky breath. “Look, I know this is stupid and useless and that I should be getting back downstairs so that Ives doesn’t expel me, but I really wish you were here, Dad.”

Este spoke to the shadows at the corners of the room, the way they ebbed beneath the candlelight and grew back deeper, darker. Each word was slow, precise. She knew her dad wasn’t listening. Somehow that made it easier to speak.

“I miss you.” She clutched the candle tighter. “I’m still mad at you for leaving. I still want to make you proud. I’m not really sure how I can feel both those things at once. I didn’t mean to get in trouble, I promise. And I really don’t want to mess this up. Any of it.”

Jagged lightning illuminated the room in electric blue, and in the span of three breaths, thunder crashed. The storm was getting closer.

“I wish you could tell me everything. Why you hid the keys to the spire in your old picture frame. How to convince that jerk to give back the book he stole. Maybe even the answers to the first precalc quiz if you’ve got them.”

Talking out loud softened the calcified layer around her heart. If her dad could hear her beyond whatever veil Posy had been talking about, she wished she had a way to know. If only the dead had cell service.

Then, a pulsing wind wrenched one of the window latches free, and the glass pane swung back and forth with the tides of the storm. Gooseflesh rose on Este’s arms as a damp draft swirled through the leftover fog machine mist. Like a stiff exhale, every candle extinguished, plunging the room into darkness.

Licks of rain splashed against Este’s hair as she reached for the pane. Straining against the gusts, she tugged the window to its latch. The cold clawed through her sweater, but she tried to shake it off by rubbing her palms down her arms.

The wind had shuffled through the pages of the book, and she thumbed back to the photo at the gates. Beneath the shimmer of the candlelight, she noticed something new. It was a low-res copy, largely reduced to grain and grit on the page, and the faded writing had been easy enough to miss at first glance. Tucked in the corner of the scanned image was thin script, nearly indecipherable but there nonetheless—someone had written “September 1917” in the same lopsided lettering she’d seen on the call number Mateo handed her in the spire.

Holy shit. Este’s blood pounded through her head, black edging her vision.

It was probably a coincidence. People’s handwriting looked similar all the time. Mateo Radcliffe in the photo from 1917 couldn’t be the same Mateo who led her into the spire with a sparkle in his stupid, blue eyes.

But maybe she’d show Posy. Just to be sure.

Through the walls, the singing she’d heard in the archives returned, its own rumble of thunder. Different, now. Closer.

Este scrambled to pick up the books and cocked them against her hip. She flipped the overhead light back on, evaporating the shadows on the floors. She pressed her ear to the seam between the door and its frame, listening. There was the distant tap of a few scratching pencils, the swish of pages turning as students got a head start on their studies. The century-old staircases groaned, settling.

She let out a slow breath. Ordinary library noises. All this ghost talk made every shadow sinister, every sound despairing. She was just imagining things.

But when the winds rose and rattled the windows, she backed away from the door. The light from the chandelier fizzled out like a cigarette butt in the bottom of her mom’s Diet Coke. Este barely had time to scream as the door burst open and Mateo barreled into the classroom.