Page 35 of Hell Bent

Dawes drifted slowly back into the parlor, the towel still dripping in her hands. “John Sterling donated the money for the library.” She sat down. “He was in Skull and Bones.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” Alex said cautiously. “There are a lot of rich guys in Skull and Bones.”

Dawes nodded, still slow, as if she were underwater. “The architect died suddenly and someone else had to take over.”

Alex waited.

“James Gamble Rogers took the job. He was in Scroll and Key. Punter is another word for a gambler.”

Johnny and Punter’s friends built a Gauntlet. On hallowed ground.

Dawes was clutching the towel with both hands now, as if it were a microphone she was about to sing into. “Would that I might make thee love books more than thy mother. That quote is above the entry, above the scribe. It’s written in hieroglyphs.”

Stories were immutable. And what was a library but a house full of stories?

“It’s Sterling,” Alex said. “The library is the portal to hell.”

Erected in memory of

JOHN WILLIAM STERLING

BORN 12 MAY 1844

DIED 5 JULY 1918

B.A. 1864: M.A. 1874

LL.D. 1893: LAWYER

LOYAL FRIEND

TRUSTED ADVISER

AGGRESSIVE LEADER

DEVOTED ALUMNUS

James Gamble Rogers Architect

—Memorial inscription, entrance to Sterling Memorial Library

If I must be a prisoner I would desire to have no other prison than that library.

—James I, engraved above the entrance to the exhibition corridor of Sterling Memorial Library

11

Alex had every intention of helping Dawes research, but the next thing she knew she was waking up in the parlor at Il Bastone, morning light drifting through the windows. A copy of the 1931 Yale Gazette article detailing Sterling’s decoration rested open on her chest as though she’d tried to use the book to tuck herself in.

She felt warm and easy, as if she’d imagined everything at Black Elm, and this morning could just be simple, an ordinary Sunday. She touched her hand to the floorboards and they seemed to hum.

“Did you do that?” she asked Il Bastone, staring up at the coffered ceiling and the pendant lamp that hung high above her from a brass chain. The bulb flickered softly behind its frosted glass globe. The house had known she needed rest. It was looking out for her. At least, that was what it felt like and maybe what Alex needed to believe.

Dawes had left a note on the coffee table: Going to Beinecke. Breakfast on the counter. Call me when you’re up. Bad news.

When wasn’t it bad news? When was Dawes going to leave her a note that said, All good. Go work on that paper so you don’t fall further behind. Left you fresh scones and a couple of puppies?

Alex needed to get home, but she was famished and it would be a shame to waste a breakfast, so she shuffled into the kitchen in Dawes’s giant Tevas.