A sour taste fills my mouth; anger fills my veins as I take in the images. Coincidences, the Caterpillar often told me, are never really coincidental at all.
“How very curious,” is my flatly stated response. Is he playing a game with us?
“Your collection seems well curated,” Finn says in a deceptively light yet inquisitive voice. “Do you allow the public to view it often?”
Lygari, for his part, seems less than devious as he talks about these abhorrent items. There is no hint of specificity, no clue that he has any inkling as to who we are when he informs us that the collection is a personal one. There is merely a sincere joy in his tone indicating that, to him at least, artifacts such as these in this room are to be cherished.
I study him as he talks, search for some tic that illuminates proof of subterfuge, that there is more to all of this than mere coincidence. And yet, I can detect none. His eyes do not shift. His attention does not waver. He does not stammer out well-rehearsed prompts. What he does say flows easily, and with great ease.
I sorely regret dancing with him.
Eventually, Finn offers a yawn I suspect is manufactured. And I am frustrated that I can tell this about him—a smooth-talking liar when necessary—and yet cannot ascertain the slightest bit of off-ness from our host. “It appears it’s finally started to snow,” my partner says, his attention lingering on a darkened window nearby. “We really should be on our way now.”
Although clearly disappointed, Lygari goes to fetch the books we’d been sent to retrieve. I turn to Finn, troubled.
“Do you—”
His head angles to the side. A surreptitious glance shows a security camera in one corner. A few more perusals show more cameras. The eyes above me, glowing softly in the fresco, appear to track our every move in the room.
Lygari, it seems, takes no risks with his possessions.
The next few minutes are tense. Neither of us talks. Neither of us peruses the room further. We stand there, surrounded by objects belonging to those who may have crafted our lives without our permission or knowledge. It does not feel like a place of worship, though, not like Lygari surely means it to be.
It feels like a mausoleum.
Finally, Lygari returns. Gloved hands present us with two books. While obviously old, neither is in poor condition. In fact, I’d hazard to suggest neither has even been fully read before.
Finn extracts a cashier’s check; books and money are exchanged. At the front door, Lygari murmurs, “It was a pleasure seeing you again, Alice. May our next meeting not be so far into the future.”
It most assuredly will, if I have anything to say about it.
In the car, silence reigns until we’ve made our way back to the main road. Lygari was right—the route to his home is difficult to maneuver in dark and icy conditions, even for a driver as good as Finn. But once we are officially off Bücherei lands, with our GSP telling us how to get to a nearby bed and breakfast we’ve reserved, Finn mutters, “What an asshole.”
It is a kind assessment. “How did the Society become affiliated with such a man?”
He fiddles with the heat settings without taking his eyes off the road. “The Librarian seeks out different buyers for books she needs, and this guy has been on her radar for some time. Only, he’s never been willing to sell anything before. It hasn’t stopped her from trying, though. Apparently, he’s got one of the best private first-edition collections in the country, if not the world.”
“He has two names.”
This makes Finn laugh, although there is not much humor in it. “One could say most of the people you know have two names.”
“Society members, yes,” I allow. “People from different Timelines than this, yes. But how many people native to here utilize multiple names? Is this a common occurrence?”
Lygari’s reasoning why he had two quite distinct surnames wasn’t valid reasoning at all. As are many of us, I am a man of many names. Be rest assured, both are applicable.
“A lot of artists are like that. Actors, actresses, authors . . . Pseudonyms allow anonymity in an increasingly small world that doesn’t tolerate much privacy.”
“He is a book collector,” I point out. “Not an artist. Do people such as he require much privacy?”
“Pseudonyms aren’t uncommon in the auction world. Identities are often withheld. When a lot of money is at stake, privacy is desirable.”
It still does not sit well with me. “You believe Lygari’s collection is worth much.”
“Alice,” he says softly, “I wouldn’t hesitate to claim he has nearly fifty-million dollars of books and collectibles in there. And that’s a conservative number. Some of the items he has are considered priceless. He had handwritten letters from some of the most famous authors in the world. Pieces of furniture associated with the writing of classics. Typewriters. Pens. Coupled with first-edition books, all in amazing condition?” He shakes his head. “A lot of first editions look exactly as you expect them to, especially if they’re classics. The covers aren’t in the best of conditions, the pages are worn and possibly torn, and a lot of times, people have scribbled their names within or used bookplates or stamps. Each one of those things can depreciate the value of a book. His collection, though . . . I’m not going to lie. I’ve seen a lot of book collections, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in such good condition. It’s almost like he got them from people who bought the books on release day and then put them immediately into storage. The Librarian’s collection isn’t as good. She’d kill for that library, to be honest.”
I just bet she would.
“It was strange how obsessed he seems to be with fairy tales, though, wasn’t it?”
The suspicion in his voice is obvious.
“What do you mean?”
“The doors. The floors. The ceiling. They all depicted scenes from fairy tales, which was weird considering I didn’t see a single case highlighting any of the books they come from. Even we have first editions of Children’s and Household Tales by the Grimm Brothers and the three booklets that comprise Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales for Children. New Collection, as well as the compiled version he put out a year after the last booklet.” And then, his wry smile visible in a passing car’s headlights, “Surely even you had fairy tales in your Timeline.”
“You mean in my England? Of course,” I admit. “But I never read or heard them. My father, being a learned man, preferred me reading Greek and Roman philosophers. My mother found children’s tales to be too dark for proper families. I suppose, having now viewed such images in Lygari’s library, I can see why.”
“Are you serious?” His head briefly tilts toward me. “You honestly don’t know who people like Cinderella or Snow White or Rapunzel are? What about the phrase once upon a time?”
I shrug. “Some of the names are familiar, but as I grew up surrounded by mostly my siblings, who were raised in the same way I was, and those children whose fathers also worked at the University, we did not spend much time talking about such things. And then I left England for Wonderland at eighteen, and all of those sorts of tales became irrelevant, anyway. Wonderlandian fairy tales are much different from those I believe we just viewed. I have read many of those.”
“So you never imagined yourself to be a princess when you were a kid?” He’s amused. “Never imagined some prince came to save you or you saved him?”
My fingers twist tightly in the fabric of my dress. “I am a Queen. I was crowned during my second trip to Wonderland, when I was nearly eight. To pretend I was anything less than would have been ridiculous. And I quickly learned I could save myself.”
“Right.” He sighs quietly. “Sorry.”
I place my hand on his knee. “Why are you apologizing?”
He bites his lip and stares ahead, saying nothing. And still, I interject before he can answer. I know it is unbearably rude, but I cannot allow him to assume anything otherwise. “Finn. You must surely know that my Wonderlandian status has no
thing to do with my role in the Society. Or with us.”
One of his hands lies upon mine and squeezes.
“I am not your Queen,” I say quietly. Meaningfully. “I am simply your Alice.”
And that, to me, makes all the difference.
WHEN WE GET BACK to the Institute, my father and Victor corral me in Brom’s office. Sawyer has called again. The Widow Douglas, the town doc says, has two, three days tops—if even that.
Brom writes on the little whiteboard he carries around with him everywhere lately: You need to go immediately.
“Are you crazy?” I can’t even believe I have to bring this up to them. “There are interrogations to continue! We still haven’t found Todd!”
We will hold down the fort until then.
They won’t let this go, will they? I switch subjects. “Avery mentioned to me a book she’d read recently that had some kind of futuristic medicines that heal people right away.”
Brom sighs, but this perks Victor’s attention. “Elaborate.”
I shrug. One of our shared friends from our university days, Avery Lincoln, is always reading popular young adult novels. “It’s like I said. I think they’re sprays or shots—she wasn’t too clear, and I haven’t gotten hold of a copy of the book yet—but whatever they are, they heal somebody immediately. I think it would be a good idea if we get us some in light of. . . .” I try to phrase it kindly. “Todd’s abilities with a knife.”
Poor Brom. He’s still utterly mortified he let some guy get the drop on him and slash his throat.
Thankfully, my urging does exactly what I wanted it to. Victor is all abuzz about this possible wonder drug, and before long, I’ve given him the name of the book and he’s out the door in search for a copy.
Brom frowns at me.
“Look, do you want to get back to work or what? This way, we’ll have all hands on deck in our search.”
He sighs again as he scribbles: Nonetheless, u need 2 go & pay ur respects. It will help u move on.
“Since when do you write like an illiterate teenager?”
He rolls his eyes. Erases the shortened words and replaces them with: You need to go and pay your respects. It will help you move on. And then he adds: I’m tired. Forgive me my poor grammar.
“You should be resting.”
My throat was affected, not my legs! I don’t need this BLASTED CHAIR.
He probably doesn’t, but Victor and I also know he’ll pretend he didn’t just go through a horrific attack and overdo it if we don’t get him to take it easy. “Mom would make you rest.”
Sadness fills his eyes. She would also tell you to get your ass to 1876/96TWA-TS.
“I was kidding about the text lingo. Feel free to shorten your words. Or, you know, not cuss out your son.”
Stop avoiding.
I drop down into the chair across from his wheelchair and really take in my father. My strong, smart, learned father is mostly out of commission, his head propped up and his throat still bandaged. And it infuriates me to see him like this and know that the psychopath who did it is still on the loose.
I’m fine, he writes, like he’s reading my mind. And then: Go. It’s hard to move on when your past is unsettled.
“I don’t see you going and apologizing to Ichabod Crane for scaring the shit out of him.” Honestly, though, it always has cracked me up that my father was actually the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
He died before I was mature enough to do so. I regret that. You can also stop cussing out your old man.
“He and I will never be friends.”
Brom knows I’m talking about Sawyer. No one said you had to be.
“I won’t forgive him.”
Jim would want you to.
My words are venomous. “Jim’s dead because of that asshole!”
My father is dogged as he writes faster. Jim loved you. He wouldn’t want this to eat at you your whole life.
Well, we won’t ever know for sure if that’s the truth or not, will we? Because Jim is dead and Sawyer isn’t, and no apologies can ever bring back my friend or rationalize how or why his family didn’t even have a body to mourn over. “The situation was beyond my control,” Sawyer had the nerve to say when I called to confront him. “What would you have done in my place?”
That selfish justification only highlighted the difference between Sawyer and me. He saved his own skin by allowing an innocent man to be lynched and then burned. I would have rather died than betray somebody who gave me his or her trust.
Jim was, for a long time, the only person who treated me like their equal. The kindness and love he showed me kept me afloat.
I miss my friend. Desperately.
My stomach churns. Old, familiar anger sears my veins. And yet, my father continues to sit there, watching me expectantly. I’m pissed off he had to go and bring up how Katrina would have wanted me to go, or that Jim would somehow believe I should forgive the person behind his death.
Regret, Katrina once said, means nothing to the dead. But to the living? It’s the worst of demons, because it takes up residence inside your head and heart and whispers gleefully about your darkest pains. Victor and I never really paid much attention to this, because what would Katrina have to regret? She was a good woman with a huge heart. She held nothing against anyone, at least, not like the rest of us do.
My biological father regretted not figuring out how to steal all my money before he died.
My adoptive father regrets dressing up like some headless ghost and scaring some schoolteacher so bad, he left town and became a recluse (a rich one, but still).
My brother regrets that he’s let biology trump love and happiness time and time again, and that for some asinine reason, he cannot symbolically overcome his biological father’s genes and reputation enough to take hold of what he wants most.
And my regrets are so vast sometimes I wonder if they’re going to swallow me whole. If only I’d been there to stop what happened. If only I knew ahead of time. If only I’d thought to suggest Jim and his family move to New York City and get the hell out of a racist, antebellum South. If only I’d told him what he’d meant to me, what he still means. If only I’d kicked Sawyer’s ass. If only I knew my mother’s Timeline was being targeted. If only she had stayed here, instead of going to visit her ailing father. If only I got to see her one last time, so I could tell her how much I love her and how that love changed my life.
She was right, though. If only is a beast.
Sawyer is in St. Petersburg. But so is the widow. And she took me in when I was nothing and did her best when pretty much nobody else gave two shits about my welfare. I may have loathed living with her, and resented the hell out of what she was trying to do to me, but years removed have allowed me to understand the expanse of her heart.
I can’t let another if only rot away my insides.
“I’ll leave in the morning,” I tell my father, only to clarify quickly that I’ll be gone, at the most, one night. “There’s stuff to be done around here. I’ve already been gone too much.”
He gives me a thumb’s up.
“First text lingo, now thumb’s up?” I round the wheelchair. “Dad, I’m worried that Todd did more to you than cut your throat. Is this like when some coma patients wake up, they can speak in a foreign language they never knew before?”
Har har.
It isn’t until we’re in the elevator do I tell him, “I’m worried about Victor. I don’t think he’s taking his protocol regularly. I’m afraid there’s going to be a whopper of a high before the crash comes.”
I’m worried, too.
“Maybe,” I say quietly, “whatever this miracle drug is can also help him.”
Brom’s quiet sigh fills the elevator. His scrawl across the whiteboard is something we Van Brunts are all too familiar with when it comes to Victor.
He writes: Genetics.
IN BETWEEN THE MANY meetings he’s been resigned to over the course of the day, my par
tner reminds me that tonight will be the first time an official status report with 1865/71CAR-AWLG is logged.
As if I could forget.
We are once more in the ballroom, indulging in a small picnic I hastily put together when I learned he’d have forty unaccounted for minutes between meetings. I’ve spread out a blanket, and with warm, golden sunlight filtering in through the windows, the specks of dust in the air around us sparkle like diamonds.
I like these moments when it is just him and me.
“I was thinking you might want to be the one to take the report?”
The cup of tea I’d been set to drink from pauses halfway to my lips. And yet, although conflicted, I calmly confirm my acceptance. The following minutes are spent on clinically stated details and a preview of what to expect. The report is done via video, and both the caller and the receiver will be able to see one another. It will be recorded and possibly viewed by other members of the Society who are working on 1865/71CAR-AWLG’s case files.
Status reports are typically short. The Society, he reminds me, has no say, influence, or an official/unofficial position in political or global matters in Timelines. The Society is at all times neutral to such things but will record events in status reports to inform agents who possibly travel to these locations. He points out I am an exception, one that both Brom and the Librarian agreed does not fall within normal restrictions due to my Queenly status. Most agents within the Society are given a caseload of Timelines they are responsible for working with. Many agree to work with their own worlds, although there are some within active duty who refuse to.
I pick at the buttery, chocolate-filled croissant sitting on a gleaming white plate before me. “Who shuns their original Timeline?”
Finn wraps his hands around the cup of coffee I’ve just poured him. “Victor, for one. Brom oversees 1818SHE-F.”
Interesting. “Has he even stepped foot in it since he was originally brought here?”
The Hidden Library Page 10