“Hello, Vicky.”
“Took you long enough,” Vicky said as she limped past him to the checkout counter.“It’s been months!”
“I know, I know.I brought company to make it up to you.”He pointed toward Kimmy and Hana in the cat carrier, both adorably looking back at her with their enormous eyes.
Vicky’s eyes seemed to sparkle at the sight of them.“Their names?”she asked, peering curiously through her thick spectacles.
“Kimmy is the small one, Hana is the fluffy one.”
“Hmm…” She gave him a cursory glance from behind her large spectacles.“What do you want?”she asked.
Rafa let out another smile.“Watch the cats for me while I check the archives?”he tried.
“Whatcha wanna check the archives for?”she said with a raised brow.
“I want to read about Autumn Town and its history.”He scratched his head.“I’m in a bind and—”
Vicky raised her hand.“The less I know, the better,” she said, grabbing a ring of keys.“I’ll watch the cats, and you’ll have the archive room to yourself.You know how to work the machine?”She started walking to the end of the library.
Rafa followed.“Yes, I do.”
***
Rafa got to work as soon as Vicky closed the door to the archive room.He carefully sorted through the bound news clippings, scanned ones from decades past, and any books that had markers of how the town started, who founded it, and how the establishments came to be.
Hours and hours passed, and the archive room felt smaller and smaller.The only natural light came from the single window as the afternoon sun slowly disappeared behind the clouds.Rafa had learned much about St.Stephenshire but not as much about the land beneath Autumn Town.He learned only that Auden’s family had inherited the land from her forefathers as a donation.Donated by whom?His questions led him to an article that piqued his interest.The article was about Cedarthorne Estate — “Town Benefactors Gain Five Hectares of Land Near the Emerald Lake,”the article read.The rumors about the house being built by a wealthy family were true.It read that they hadgainedit; but from whom and how?
Leafing through other newspaper clippings, he discovered a list of St.Stephenshire’s old guard.He recognized some names there; there was Willow’s family, the Nolans, who had moved there from Ireland as merchants and tradespeople; the McGuirres, a family of academics and professionals, serving St.Stephenshire with their expertise; and then the Campbells, Auden’s family, one of the founding members of this town, with generations spent in public service.But one family name struck him—the Spencers, old friends of the Campbells and one of the earliest settlers and founders of St.Stephenshire.There was a photograph of them in the archives, and he traced it back to the article about Cedarthorne Estate.The Spencers had that ornate house built.What happened to them?Where were they now?
He dug for more information about the Spencers only to find a dead end.For whatever reason, there was little information about them, only that they had been friends with the Campbells.It was almost as if all mentions of them had been removed or erased.
A gust of wind creaked through the door.Rafa snapped his head toward it.That door wasn’t open a while ago,he thought.
“Hello?”He opened the door fully and stepped out of the archive room and into the darkness.It was already evening, and the back of the library was nearly pitch black.“Damn,” he said under his breath.He lifted his phone, and the screen lit up.It was 6:00 p.m.and he only had an hour until the library closed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his phone light glint off something shiny at the far end of the library, where it was the darkest.He pointed his phone flashlight toward it and saw an entire shelf of black books with what looked like gold buckles on their spines.As he approached, the scent of musky old books filled the air.He looked at the shelf labels:Old Accounts of the Occult.The small hairs on his skin raised, but he ignored them as he ran his fingers along the spines.One by one, he read them until he eyed a book titledCedarthorneand another, next to it, calledConjurers.
The old make-believe tales his father told him spoke of St.Stephenshire and its women of magic, who cast a spell of eternal autumn on the town.But now that Rafa was older, he knew better.They were witches—even if it sounded ridiculous to him—his heart pounded as he took both books from the shelf, feeling the rushed sense of excitement of finding something he had set out to find.
Rafa emerged from the back and placed the books on the library counter.“Can I check these out?”
Vicky peered over her thick glasses.“What do you need these for?”she asked.
“For research.”
“Sorry, you can only read them here.”She blinked as she leafed through the back of the first book and pointed at the stamp, which readReading Copy Only.
“Can’t you make an exception just this once?”
Vicky took hold of both books.“I don’t trust what you’re up to, kid.”She squinted.“Anyone who comes trying to dig up crap about that place ends up in a heap of trouble.”
Rafa leaned over the counter with a brow raised.“What do you mean?Did someone get into trouble about this before?”
Vicky gripped the edges of the book as though trying to figure out if she should say something.
Rafa sensed her reticence.“Vicky, look…do me a solid, please?I’m doing this for my fiancée.I’d tell you more but—”
Vicky raised her hand as though to shush him.“If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t do this…” she began.“But there are strict rules here, and while regular folks can’t check these books out, thelibrariancan.”She looked at the cats and then back at Rafa again, and said, “You look like you’ve got a lot of time.Come over for dinner.Bring the cats, and I’ll bring the books.”
