Page 58 of Grimoires & Glamoury

With a sigh, I let my head drop back against the rocking chair. The mint leaves had taken the edge off, but if I moved my head too quickly I’d probably heave again.

Valentin gently cleared his throat. “Did Lorna learn anything that can help us?”

Oona explained to the others that I had confirmed there’d been coercion—Fae Magick— at play in Shelby’s death.

“So, she was Faery led. The Accords have been broken, then.” Valentin sounded none too happy about that.

I kept very still and breathed slowly, hoping that the last of my nausea would fade. Charles dropped his hand on my shoulder and soon I felt steadier. He was sending me some healing energy.

Although I was surprised at his kindness, I did not comment on it in front of the others. While I sat, the other group discussed the ramifications of the light court being involved or getting their hands on the grimoire.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling very well,” I told the group after a few minutes. “Damien, could you drive Charles and me back to town? I’d like to go back to our hotel and lie down for a while.”

“I’ll do it,” Giselle offered. “I need to get back anyway.”

We said our goodbyes, and Giselle drove us back to town. I sat in the front, kept my eyes on the road, and managed not to get any more nauseous than I already was. Once we picked up our rental car and arrived back at the hotel, I took off my shoes, went directly to the bed, and lay down.

Charles went to the bathroom and came out with a wet washcloth.

“Thanks,” I said as he sat beside me. Gently he brushed my bangs back from my face and lay the cool damp cloth across my forehead.

“You are still pale,” he said.

I made a face. “Yeah, I bet.”

“Here,” he said and took a pillow and propped up my head. “Is that better?”

“It is.”

“Now that we’re alone, tell me what you discovered.”

I filled him in and he sat quietly listening. After a moment he offered to go and fetch me a lemon-lime soft drink for my stomach which sounded great to me.

“Take some time,” he said. “Gather your thoughts, the answers will come.”

He slipped out, and I lay there in the dark, going over what I’d learned that day…

Shelby had told me the grimoire was hidden in plain sight, that,‘It’s right under his nose. All mixed in with the others.’ And she had also claimed that he’d never find it. What else had she said? I struggled to remember her exact words.

‘If anyone can find it, you can,’ she’d told me. ‘Look for the row with the horseshoes. They won’t be able to touch it there.’

Row as in a row of books? I wondered, Like from a store or public library?

Oh my stars, she’d said she had swapped the book out! Perhaps she meant that she’d switched the cover of the book, making Sawyer think he’d still had the grimoire in his possession when in actual fact, he’d had the cover with very different interior pages. If she’d hidden the grimoire in plain sight, she could have actually meant it was in the middle of a collection of books. And I knew books.

Pulling out my phone, I did an online search looking for the nearest public library in Hemlock Hollow. It ended up that the closest public library was one county over, in Salem County.

My lips twitched at the coincidence. “Of course, it’s Salem County.” I chuckled to myself. Shelby had said an ‘appropriate name.’ A Missouri county with the same name as the town where the Witch-trails were held in New England in the 1600s certainly fit the bill. On a hunch, I quickly searched the address of Sawyer’s parents’ property, checked the local maps online, and saw that the library was only a few miles away.

Shelby told me that she’d run from him, and I’d wager that she’d probably been on foot. What if she’d taken the grimoire to a public library, to hide it and had tucked it into the stacks?

A full body chill washed over me as my intuition kicked in. “I bet that’s exactly what she did.” Rolling to my feet, I ditched the washcloth, put my shoes back on and quickly packed up our bags. Once I was finished, I grabbed my purse and the knapsack that held my magickal supplies.

When Charles returned, he opened up the door and found me sitting on the end of the bed waiting for him with the bags beside me. “I think I know where to look for the grimoire,” I told him without preamble.

In response he simply handed me the soft drink, grabbed the bags and said, “Tell me on the way.”

The Salem County Public Library was a lovely library housed in a beautiful old Victorian. We strolled through the door about a half hour before close. Once we were in, we both began to wander through the stacks, and I kept a close eye out for any vintage horseshoes that might be used for decoration or even as part of a sign for different genres of fiction, like Westerns.