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Still jogging, I trot past more titles than I would have guessed had been written since time began, until I reach a section with wooden boxes stacked on the shelves instead of books. I pause to open one and squint at the contents. I see dozens of heavy gold coins and am hit with a strong feeling that this treasure isn’t meant for me.
That it may, in fact, be cursed.
I shut it fast and back away, my pulse racing in my throat. But as soon as I’ve put a few feet between myself and the box, the “Do Not Touch” feeling fades away.
Silently, I vow not to take anything with me when I leave. I’ll snap pictures of items of interest and return later with a professional if needed.
Surely, if I tell Sophie or Fern that I think I’ve found a way to protect the town without a witch marriage, they’ll help me fetch what I need. My ancestor’s spell has worked well for hundreds of years, but a back-up plan is a good thing to have, and Sophie is becoming Annie’s friend. She wouldn’t want her friend to be forced into a loveless marriage if there’s another way for everyone to get what they need.
Possessed by the certainty that what I’m looking for is tucked away in one of these boxes, I methodically work my way through nearly a hundred before I find something of witchy interest.
It’s a collection of watercolor paintings of a building infested with house kraken. They’re so old, I’m careful to touch them at one corner with only the tips of my fingers, but I do take snapshots of each one.
The descriptions scrawled in cramped cursive beneath the paintings are in French, so I can only make out a few words here and there, but they seem to be instructions for the care and feeding of the creatures. As well as a list of the benefits of keeping a kraken in your home, which, if the author is to be believed, include musical entertainment, protection against other supernatural pests, and…cake?
I’m not sure what the image of a kitchen filled with tentacles and cakes of various shapes and sizes is meant to symbolize but I wouldn’t complain if my home was filled with cake when I woke up each morning. And if I can make friends with my kraken and avoid replacing the pipes, I won’t have to depend on Darcy’s charity.
Spirits buoyed by the useful discovery, even if it wasn’t what I was looking for, I keep exploring. Just three boxes later, I crack open a container nearly as big as I am.
It’s on the bottom shelf and covered in dust that slides from the grooves in the top as I lift the lid. Coughing into my elbow, I hold the container open with my other hand, my throat squeezing tight with a mixture of shock and terror as I see what’s inside.
What the unholy fuck…
Chapter Eighteen
Blaire
At first, my brain refuses to believe my eyes.
But the longer I stare, the more undeniable reality becomes.
There really is a body tucked away down here. It’s a mummified body and looks positively ancient—the leathered skin on the face is barely clinging to the bones beneath—but it’s still a corpse, and I’ve never seen one of those this up-close-and-personal before.
Gorge rises in my throat and my heart turns to jelly in my chest.
Letting the lid slam shut, I scuttle backwards on my bottom until I smack up against the shelf on the other side, wincing as I hit my head on another box hard enough to send pain flashing behind my eyes. I curse, wincing and touching gentle, probing fingers to the spot as I will my heart to start beating again.
Yes, a body is scary, but it’s a dead body. It isn’t going to hurt me. And I’m sure the librarians have a good reason for keeping a corpse in a box on a shelf and presumably available for check out.
I can’t imagine what that might be at the moment, but…
With a final shiver, I start to stand—it’s past time to jet or I’ll be late to meet Annie—only to hit my head on the box behind me again. It leaps off the shelf, one sharp corner clocking my knee before it tumbles to the floor and falls open, spilling papers across the stone.
Grumbling and rubbing at my smarting kneecap, I reach down to gather the papers and tuck them back inside when I see something that stops me in my tracks.
It’s a Wonderfully family tree, stretching all the way back to the 1600s, when my first ancestors immigrated here from Ireland. Seeing the list of names, paired with darling sketches of baby rattles and wedding bouquets and other decorative accents makes me feel connected to my legacy in a way I haven’t before.
As strange as Nightfall still feels at times, I really am part of its history. I belong here, even if I haven’t quite found my place yet.
The reminder helps banish a little of the corpse-discovering terror. I linger another beat, taking a closer look at the women who came before me. Most of the names are unfamiliar, but the last entry on the tree is my great-great-great grandmother.
This box must have been tucked away for several hundred years.
A quick skim through the rest of the papers reveals a list of familiars who faithfully served the Wonderfully witches, a set of architectural plans for an older version of the mansion—probably the one that stood there before it burned to the ground and was rebuilt in the Victorian era—and several marriage certificates.
Huh.
No, they’re not marriage certificates…
