“I eat a lot of protein bars,” he says, and for some reason Trevor’s gaze narrows on William, like the latter just said something strange. I’m actually impressed the vampire came up with that save; I didn’t think they had those in the 1700s, but who knows—maybe protein bars are another thing that got written out.
“The LUB tonight?” I ask the others.
“What is the LUB?” asks the vampire.
Trevor glares at him. “None of your—”
“A library of unwritten books we found in the manor’s basement,” says Salma. “Want to join our secret club?”
“We said it would just be us!” Trevor cries out.
“Just ourtable-mates,” clarifies Salma, who looks unimpressed with his outburst. “Lore, show William where to go after dinner. We can meet tonight at ten.”
When the hall empties out twenty minutes later, William and I stay seated.
“The LUB is where we found you,” I tell him. “My friends have been going back there every night, checking out the books. They—well, mostly Trevor—seem to think there might be text written somewhere. Maybe there’ll be something about your kind.”
“They are all blank. I checked.”
Remembering what he said aboutDracula,I say: “If the LUB revealed everything, it wouldn’t be a secret.”
A FEWhours later, we find the vampire waiting by the red rope. I told him to act surprised when he sees the place.
We cut down the passage to the dusty room with the tarps scattered onthe floor because we never bothered replacing them. The guys are waiting for us in here. William goes straight to the wardrobe, and Trevor looks at me. “You told him this part, too?”
He sounds disappointed.
“Sorry,” I say.
Clearly, William was not an actor in his day.
When we get to the LUB, there’s something different about the bookshelves from the last time I was here.
“We’ve been rearranging them,” Salma says, answering my unasked question. “Those shelves are the ones we’ve already looked through.”
“The coffin’s empty,” Zach tells William as if to assuage any anxiety it might provoke. “We’re not sure why it’s here.”
Then he, Trevor, Tiffany, and Salma start pulling books off shelves and flipping through them. Like it’s old habit by now.
Yet as I look around, I notice something else that’s changed—the framed portraits are missing. I wonder if William took them and why none of my friends have mentioned it.
“Check this out,” I say to the vampire, leading him to the reading armchair. Under the guise of showing it to him, I ask under my breath, “Where did the three portraits go?”
“I have them.”
“But my friends would’ve noticed.”
“They came back the night after I awoke. I hid and watched to see what they would do. Zach noticed they were missing right away, so I had to compel them all to forget.”
My mouth goes dry. He changed my friends’ memories without a second thought. He shifted their realities.
And now I’m an accomplice to his crimes.
“Since you’re here,” Trevor calls out to us, “why don’t you help us look through these books?”
“Seems like a waste of time,” says William. “If most of them are blank, what makes you think there is a hidden message?”
“Haven’t you seen movies where they pull out the right book, and a secret door opens?” asks Trevor, and I’m fairly certain the answer is no. “We already found a tricked-out reading chair and a weird-ass coffin, so I’m pretty sure there’s more to these books, too.”
