The housekeeper sent her a questioning glance.
“An Ouroboros is a serpent eating its own tail. It is a symbol from ancient Egypt.”
“Is it?” Mrs. Abernathy studied the key. “What’s it a symbol of?”
“Eternity,” Isabella said softly. “But eternity is only a circle that devours itself. My father found references in old texts that said it marks completion, warding, a safe ring where nothing escapes.”
“What is safe for the living can be a prison for the dead. Imagine being trapped in the in between, unable to escape,” the housekeeper murmured, then gave a start, as if her own words distressed her.
Isabella made no reply, thinking that the wraiths were trapped exactly like that. Memory flared of herself at fifteen, pointing out the symbol to Papa. “Life feeds on death and makes more life,” she had said, bold with theory. “Ghosts are where the bite halts, where the circle cannot close. Break the ring, open the smallest gap, and the restless will slip from repetition into rest?—”
Papa’s pen had jerked, blotting the page. “Hush. Do not speak of such things, Isa.” His eyes had begged her silence. She had still been learning then. Never say it. Never show it. Papa was adding a new rule to the list. Never speak of it, even obliquely, even in philosophical terms.
Now she said gently, “Continuity, Mrs. Abernathy. Beginnings swallow endings and turn them into beginnings again.”
The housekeeper turned the key in her palm, thoughtful. “A comfort, put that way.”
She slid it into the library door’s lock, the metal scraping softly before the mechanism gave way with an audible click.
The doors groaned as they swung inward, revealing a cavernous room beyond. A draft rose to meet them, dry as sand, carrying the scent of dust and neglect.
Mrs. Abernathy hesitated for just a heartbeat, just long enough for Isabella to take note.
“There you are, Miss Barrett,” she said.
Isabella stepped across the threshold into the library. Mrs. Abernathy did not join her.
When Isabella glanced back at her over her shoulder, she had the odd impression that the woman was listening for something. The housekeeper’s gaze flicked to the lintel, then Isabella’s eyes, then away.
“Well,” she said softly. “I will leave you to it.”
With a nod, she turned and walked away, the heavy ring of keys clinking as she turned the corner at the end of the corridor.
Isabella stepped deeper into the library’s waiting gloom. Inside, the air felt heavier, as though it carried centuries of secrets trapped between the rows of towering shelves.
The room stretched vast and hollow, its corners lost to shadow. The floor was laid with wide planks of ancient English oak, the brown surface darkened over the centuries to near black, the rich patina lending a sense of silent grandeur. High windows, partially veiled by brocade curtains, let in thin slashes of light.
Shelves climbed toward the arched ceiling. To Isabella’s surprise, they were mostly empty. A thick coating of dust had settled in the vacant spaces where books had once rested.
Against one wall sat dozens of crates, lids pried open and leaning, nails half drawn, straw spilling across the carpet. Volumes lay strewn across the floor or perched precariously in disordered piles. Papa’s collection, rifled in haste.
On a side table was a deliberate heap: Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy; Barrett’s The Magus; Kircher’s Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae; pamphlets on angelic alphabets and natural sympathies. The pile included only titles that touches on the supernatural. She knew every spine at a glance. All were part of Papa’s collection, as were the books left on the floor in disrespectful disarray.
Anger rose beneath her ribs at such rough handling, bright as a blade.
Had Mr. Caradoc created this mess himself? Or had someone else unpacked the collection, someone unfamiliar with the delicate nature of aged tomes? Instinct bid her immediately begin setting all to rights, but practicality made her finish assessing her surroundings first. She could not put the books on the dusty shelves and packing them back into the crates only to unpack them once more after she had properly cleaned the room would be a ridiculous waste of her time.
A lone desk sat at the far end, angled toward one of the tall, arched windows. A straight-backed chair waited beside it, its wooden seat worn smooth, the armrests polished to a subtle shine from years of human touch.
The desk bore evidence of recent occupation. A leather-bound ledger lay closed, a crimson ribbon marking an unseen page within. Scattered papers, their edges bearing smudges of ink, rested like fragile wings across the polished surface. Beside them sat an empty glass decanter, the bottom stained amber, and a tumbler etched with faint fingerprints.
Isabella approached, dust motes dancing around her. Her fingertips grazed the desk’s surface, leaving trails in the layer of dust. The scent of leather and aged paper filled her senses, mingling with something very faint, something that made her pulse quicken…citrus and mint.
Her hand hovered over the closed ledger, her index finger brushing lightly against the crimson ribbon. A flicker of temptation curled through her. What secrets lay bound within these pages?
They were not her secrets to know.
A glimmer of metal caught her eye. Nestled in the corner of the desk, almost hidden behind the pile of papers was a small, ornate box.
