My galloping heart careens.
The clock chimes a second time. A third. A fourth. Each metallic gong echoing through the room, the halls, the home. My body.
Outside, the Midnight Garden is no longer a shadowy blur. It’s begun to take shape—wrought iron benches, frost-covered moonflowers, that twisted tree. A chorus of birds chirp as the dusky sky melts into ribbons of peach.
Jude clears his throat and picks up the key, which has slid onto the velvet cushion between us. He peers down at it. “Think this could unlock the book at Evermore?”
It seems too big, but it’s the only lock we know to try.
31
RETURN OF THE RAKE
Maggie greets us with a look of utter bewilderment. She’s unused to teenagers banging on her front window this early in the morning. She’s hours away from opening, and we’ve just interrupted her favorite part of the day. I know her well enough to know her routine. She arrives around seven. She feeds Poe. She sorts books that have lost their way. She brews herself a cup of lavender tea. Then she heads up to the second floor and drafts letters to long-dead historical figures on the typewriter in her office. It’s her way of conversing with the past, she says, to which Walt rolls his eyes.
When she swings the door open, she clutches her planner like someone clutching their pearls. “What in the name of Amos Vandenberg do the two of you want this early in the morning?”
Poe meows in the doorway.
“I’m sorry, Maggie, but wereallyneed to check something.”
She scowls, and while I’m ninety-five percent certain she would tell any other person to scram, she invites us in with a harrumph.
We don’t waste time. We make a beeline for the locked tome, but the key doesn’t fit. It’s too big. While I suspected as much, disappointment settles all the same. Judging by the look on Jude’s face, he feels it, too.
“Still obsessing over this book, I see,” Maggie says. “What do you think’s in there, anyway—a summoning charm for that ghost lady you’re always chasing?”
Jude lifts the tome. “Can I have this?”
Maggie harrumphs again.
“I gave you that sketch of Molly,” he says.
“In exchange for her identity,” Maggie replies, pointing her bony finger at him. “Not that tome.”
Jude tucks the book under his arm. “Okay, then. Name your price. What’ll it take to get this?”
She narrows her eyes.
“A portrait from our collection? There’s a giant one of Amos and Ida hanging in our library. It might be hard to get it up those stairs, but I’m sure we could figure something out.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
She studies him some more in that unblinking way of hers. “You’re telling me, in exchange forthat book, you’d be willing to part with, say, some of those letters and journals the pair of you have been poring over these last few weeks?”
“Let us make copies first and I’ll throw in the seal stamp Amos used on the rebuild plans after the fire.”
She leans forward slowly, her eyes locked on his. “You have that stamp?”
“In our study. Top drawer of his original writing desk.”
Maggie wets her lips like a cat who’s cornered the canary. She doesn’t need anymore convincing. The two of them shake hands, and no sooner is the deal struck than Jude starts prying at the lock.
Maggie’s delight turns to horror.
She protests as Jude makes his way to the front counter in search for something that might break the book open. He tries a letter opener, but that doesn’t work any better than his hands.
