I must solve it.
We reach the staircase farther away.
The steps creak beneath our weight.
The air grows thick with the smell of musty books.
At the top, Jude reaches past me toward the light switch and I catch a subtle note of his cologne— a luxurious scent that has no business smelling so good. Dusty bulbs flicker to life inside a cobwebbed chandelier. While the light is minimal, it’s enough to see that this is more than a simple balcony. It’s a proper research space with a long table and rows of shelves crowded with leather-bound tomes, a collection vast enough to chronicle centuries. I pull out the nearest one. The cover is stamped with gold lettering.
Vandenberg Correspondence, 18thCentury
It contains letter upon letter written in faded cursive on pages made of thick parchment, yellowed and warped by time. Many are datedbeforethe Revolutionary War.
“How did these survive the fire?” I ask.
“The original home sustained damage, but most of the records remained intact.” Jude removes one of the tomes and brings it to the table like a man determined to find logic.
Meanwhile, my mind is spinning with one fantastical explanation after another.
“What do you know about doppelgängers?” I ask.
“As a literary device?”
“As an actual phenomenon.”
He doesn’t look up. He just turns a page like the idea isn’t even worth his consideration.
I grab a tome for myself and sit across from him. “They’re almost always associated with bad omens. Evil shadow-selves. Ghostly doubles. I don’t feel particularly evil or ghostly.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“Don’t you think the situation warrants it?”
“According to Rafe,” he replies, his jaw tightening over his cousin’s name, “Ezra came back from the war consumed with a woman nobody knew. Which means he probably had an out-of-town mistress. If I had to guess, she was a relative of yours.”
I set my elbow on the table. “How would that explain ouridenticalresemblance? No genes are that strong.”
He ignores my objection and turns another page.
“Okay. Let’s say you’re right. Your ancestor Ezra had an affair with my ancestor, some ladyunknown. What are the odds, statistically speaking, that our paths would cross two hundred something years later?”
“I’ll take them over doppelgängers.”
Of course he would.
Just like he’ll take chemical imbalances of the brain over the reality of evil.
I narrow my eyes at the top of his head as he pores over the archives in front of him.
For the past few years, Twig and I have made it our mission to prove the supernatural. We always thought we’d do so by capturing the Woman of the Woods on camera. But maybe there’s another way. Maybe this is it. Maybe somewhere in all these towering bookshelves, I’ll find the proof we’ve been looking for. Something supernatural is going on here. And Jude Vandenberg will have to eat his skepticism.
With a thrill of anticipation, I open the volume.
I dive in with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning, expecting to unwrap all the gifts I’ve ever wanted. Only to discover a bunch of socks. The reading turns out to be frustratingly dull and hard to decipher. So much squinting, only to learn about crop yields and estate repairs and land disputes. Thank-you notes for dinner parties that sadly, are every bit as generic and mundane as thank you notes today.
“Not as riveting as you expected?”
I look up.
