I stared at him as if a bolt of lightning had just come out of his mouth and hit me in the head. “It’s a holiday. Nothing’s open,” I repeated back to him.
“Yeah. I just said that. So what do we do?” He looked miserable.
“Link, you’re a genius. You’re a freaking genius.”
“I know, man, but what does that have to with anything?”
“You got the Beater?” He nodded.
“We gotta get outta here.”
Link started the engine. It spluttered, but caught, like it always did. The Holy Rollers blasted out of the speakers, and for the record, this time they sucked. Ridley, she must seriously rock the whole Siren gig.
Link ripped down the gravel drive, and then looked over at me sideways. “Where are we goin’ again?”
“The library.”
“Thought you said it was closed.”
“The other library.” Link nodded like he understood, which he didn’t. But he went along with it anyway, just like old times. The Beater shredded down the gravel drive like it was Monday morning and we were late to first period. Only it wasn’t.
It was 11:40.
When we skidded to a stop in front of the Historical Society, Link didn’t even try to understand. I was out of the car before he could even turn off the Holy Rollers. He caught up with me as I rounded the corner into the darkness behind the second-oldest building in Gatlin. “This isn’t the library.”
“Right.”
“It’s the DAR.”
“Right.”
“Which you hate.”
“Right.”
“My mom comes here like, every day.”
“Right.”
“Dude. What are we doin’ here?”
I stepped up to the grating and pushed my hand through. It sliced through the metal, at least what looked like metal, leaving my arm looking like it was amputated at the wrist.
Link grabbed me. “Man, Ridley must’ve put somethin’ into my Mountain Dew. Because I swear, your arm, I just saw your arm—forget it, I’m hallucinatin’.”
I pulled my arm back out and wiggled my fingers in front of his face. “Seriously, man. After all the things you’ve seen tonight, now you think you’re hallucinating? Now?”
I checked my cell. 11:45.
“I don’t have time to explain, but it’s only going to get weirder from here on out. We’re going down to the library, but it’s not, like, a library. And you are going to be freaking, most of the time. So if you want to go wait in the car, that’s cool.” Link was trying to absorb what I was saying as quickly as I was saying it, which was rough.
“Are you in, or not?”
Link looked at the grating. Without saying another word, he stuck his hand through. It disappeared.
He was in.
I ducked through the doorway and started down the old stone stairs. “Come on. We gotta book.”
Link laughed nervously as he stumbled after me. “Get it? Book? Library?”
The torches lit themselves as we scrambled down into the darkness. I grabbed one out of its metal crescent holder and tossed it to Link. I grabbed another and jumped the last stairs to the crypt room. One by one, the wall torches ignited as we stepped into the center of the chamber. The columns emerged, along with their shadows, in the flickering light from the mounted torches. The words domus lunae libri reappeared in shadow on the entranceway, where I had last seen them.
“Aunt Marian! Are you here?” She tapped my shoulder from behind. I almost jumped out of my skin, bumping into Link.
Link screamed, dropping his torch. I stomped on the flames with my feet. “Jeez, Dr. Ashcroft. You about scared the pants offa me.”
“Sorry, Wesley—and Ethan, have you lost your mind? Do you have any recollection who this poor boy’s mother is?”
“Mrs. Lincoln’s unconscious. Lena’s in trouble. Macon’s been hurt. I need to get into Ravenwood, I can’t find Amma, and I can’t find a way inside. I need to go through the Tunnels.” I was a little boy again, and it all just came tumbling out. Talking to Marian was like talking to my mom, or at least like talking to someone who knew what it was like to talk to my mom.
“I can’t do anything. I can’t help you. One way or another, the Claiming comes at midnight. I can’t stop the clock. I can’t save Macon, or Wesley’s mother, or anyone. I can’t get involved.” She looked at Link. “And I am sorry about your mother, Wesley. I mean no disrespect.”
“Ma’am.” Link looked defeated.
I shook my head and handed Marian the nearest torch from the wall. “You don’t understand. I don’t want you to do anything, other than what the Caster librarian does.”
“What?”
I looked at her meaningfully. “I need to deliver a book to Ravenwood.” I bent down and reached into the nearest stack, and randomly pulled out a book, singeing the tips of my fingers. “The Complete Guide to Poisonous Herbiage and Verbiage.”
Marian was skeptical. “Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight. Right away. Macon asked me to bring it to him personally. Before midnight.”
“A Caster librarian is the only Mortal who knows where to access the Lunae Libri Tunnels.” Marian looked at me shrewdly and took the book from my hands. “Good thing I happen to be one.”
Link and I followed Marian through the twisting tunnels of the Lunae Libri. At one point I counted the oaken doors we passed through, but I stopped after we got to sixteen. The Tunnels were like a maze, and each one was different. There were low-ceilinged passageways where Link and I had to duck to walk through, and high-ceilinged hallways where there seemed to be no roof over our heads at all. It was literally another world. Some passages were rustic, adorned with nothing but their modest masonry, while others were more like the hallways in a castle or museum, with tapestries, framed antique maps, and oil paintings hanging from the walls. Under different circumstances, I would’ve stopped to read the tiny brass plaques under the portraits. Maybe they were famous Casters, who knew. The one thing the passageways had in common was the smell of earth and time, and the number of times Marian found herself fumbling for her lunae crescent key, the iron circle she wore at her waist.
After what seemed like forever, we arrived at the door. Our torches were nearly out, and I had to hold mine up so that I could read Rayvenwoode Manor carved into the vertical planks. Marian twisted the crescent key through the final iron keyhole and the door swung open. Carved steps led up into the house and I could tell from the glimpse of ceiling above that we were on the main floor.
I turned to Marian. “Thanks, Aunt Marian.” I held out my hand for the book. “I’ll give this to Macon.”
“Not so fast. I’ve yet to see a library card issued in your name, EW.” She winked at me. “I’ll deliver this book myself.”
I looked at my cell. 11:45 again. That was impossible. “How can it be the same time that it was when we arrived at the Lunae Libri?”
“Lunar time. You kids never listen. Things aren’t always as they seem, down below.”
Link and Marian followed me up the stairs and into the front hall. Ravenwood was just as we had left it, down to the cake left out on plates, to the tea set, and the stack of unopened birthday presents.
“Aunt Del! Reece! Gramma! Hello? Where is everybody?” I called out, and they came out of the woodwork. Del was positioned by the stairs, holding a lamp over her head as if she was going to whack Marian over the head with it in another second. Gramma was standing in the doorway, shielding Ryan with her arm. Reece was hiding under the stairs, brandishing a cake knife.
They all started to talk at once. “Marian! Ethan! We were so worried. Lena has disappeared, and when we heard the bell from the Tunnels, we thought it was—”
“Have you seen Her? Is she out there?”
“Have you seen Lena? When Macon didn’t come back, we began to worry.”
“And Larkin. She didn’t hurt Larkin, did she?”
I looked at them in disbelief, taking the lamp out of Aunt Del’s hands, and handing it to Link. “A lamp? You really thought a lamp was gonna save you?”
Aunt Del shrugged. “Barclay went up to the attic to Shift some weapons out of curtain rods and old Solstice decorations. It’s all I could find.”
I knelt down in front of Ryan. There wasn’t much time, about fourteen minutes to be exact. “Ryan. Do you remember when I was hurt, and you helped me? I need you to come do that right now, over at Greenbrier. Uncle Macon fell down, and he and Boo are hurt.”
Ryan looked like she was going to cry. “Boo’s hurt, too?”
Link cleared his throat in the back of the room. “And my mom. I mean, I know she’s been a pain and everything, but could she—could she help my mom?”
“And Link’s mom.”
Gramma pushed Ryan back behind her, patting her on the cheek. She adjusted her sweater and smoothed her skirt. “Come, then. Del and I will go. Reece, stay here with your sister. Tell your father where we’ve gone.”
“Gramma, I need Ryan.”
“For tonight, I am Ryan, Ethan.” She picked up her bag.
“I’m not leaving here without Ryan.” I held my ground. There was too much at stake.
“We can’t take an Unclaimed child out there, not on the Sixteenth Moon. She could be killed.” Reece looked at me like I was an idiot. I was out of the Caster loop again.
Del took my arm reassuringly. “My mother is an Empath. She is very sensitive to the powers of others and she can borrow those powers for a time. Right now, she has borrowed Ryan’s. It won’t last for very long, but for now she is capable of anything Ryan can do. And Gramma was Claimed, obviously quite some time ago. So we’ll go with you.”
I looked at my cell. 11:49.
“What if we don’t make it in time?”
Marian smiled and held up the book. “I haven’t made a delivery to Greenbrier, well, ever. Del, do you think you could find the way?”
Aunt Del nodded, putting on her glasses. “Palimpsests can always find ancient lost doors. It’s just brand new ones we have a little trouble with.” She disappeared back down into the Tunnels, followed by Marian and Gramma. Link and I scrambled to keep up with them.
“For a bunch a old ladies,” Link panted, “they really know how to move.”
This time, the passageway was small and crumbling, with speckled black and green moss growing in sprays across the walls and ceiling. Probably the floors, too, but I couldn’t see them in the shadows. We were five bobbing torches in otherwise total darkness. Since Link and I were at the back of the pack, the smoke was wafting into my eyes, making them tear and sting.
As we got closer to Greenbrier, I could tell we were there by the smoke that started seeping down into the Tunnels, not from our torches, but from hidden openings leading to the world outside.
“This is it.” Aunt Del coughed, feeling her way around the edges of a rectangular cut in the stone walls. Marian scraped off the moss, revealing a door. The lunae key fit perfectly, as if it had opened just days ago, rather than hundreds of thousands of days ago. The door wasn’t oak, but stone. I couldn’t believe Aunt Del had the strength to push it open.