The Hidden Library

by Heather Lyons

  The uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach expands. Something is off here. Something is wrong.

  Pfeifer collects author artifacts. Everything in his collection, at least what I saw (and Alice and I were subjected to a lot of it), belonged to people who wrote the books. So, what in the hell is he doing with an allegedly ancient veil a vizier’s daughter would have worn on her wedding day to a sultan? The same woman who tricked her murderous husband to not kill her by spinning some of the most fantastical, edge-of-your-seat tales that made him desperate to listen to more?

  “Alice’s report doesn’t refer to Pfeifer correctly,” Wendy is saying. “Why does it say Lygari?”

  I refocus on the photo of the man she’d brought up on her tablet. It shows him shaking hands with the mayor of New York after a hefty donation to the city’s arts programs. Hell, he even looks smug and handsome in the photo. “She said they met before and he told her his name was Gabe Lygari.”

  Wendy’s nose scrunches again. “Weird. Dude is really well known in the literary and arts circles. I wonder why he would tell her a different name?”

  “Maybe he was afraid she’d only want to bone him for his money,” the A.D. interjects. “Gave her a nice lil’ free-fuck alias instead.”

  I smack him on the back of his head. He yelps and mutters out an insincere apology.

  Wendy shakes her head. “Why do I feel like you’ve done that before, Jack?”

  “A player’s gotta play,” he says mournfully.

  “Pfeifer is a German name,” Wendy muses. “I don’t think Lygari is, though. Which is bizarre, when you think his estate is also a German word.”

  Bizarre doesn’t even begin to cover all of this shit.

  For the rest of the ride, Wendy goes over the plan multiple times. Each time she points out the cameras and reminds us of the layout, the uneasier I get. It’s not the house I saw. It’s not the house I entered. I’m going in blind, and it seems like there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Alice is back at the Institute. She can’t move. I need to question Todd and then break every finger in his hands before ramming his own switchblade into his side.

  “You look really tired, Finn.”

  That’s a kind way of putting it. Exhausted is closer to the truth, but even that’s too gentle of a word. “Contrary to popular belief, beds inside jail cells aren’t too comfortable.”

  Wendy twists large chunks of her green hair around her fingers. “How’s the hand doing?”

  Honestly? It aches. I didn’t even think to have the doctor check it out, what with all the stuff going on with Alice. And I’m pretty sure I broke a knuckle or two. Fantastic. But I cleaned it when I took a quick shower and wrapped it before hopping on the helicopter, and that’ll have to do for now.

  But I shrug, refusing to tell Wendy any of this. I’ll have Victor look at it when he gets back.

  She’s wearing sunglasses, so it’s hard to see the emotion in Wendy’s eyes when she puts a hand out. “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry.”

  The knot in my stomach hasn’t loosened. If anything, it’s tightened.

  We land in a large field not too far from Bücherei that has no buildings nearby. The A.D. and I quickly change into our wetsuits and gear up with our visors and earpieces. Wendy assures us they’re all waterproof, so there shouldn’t be any difficulty with connectivity during the mission.

  It doesn’t take long to reach the edge of the hedge mazes surrounding the property. Wendy pulls out her surveying device and calculates the best way through to get us to the pool. “Make sure you let me know when you’re through. I’ll trigger the override blast. From there, you’ll have sixty seconds.”

  “How do you know the hedges don’t have cameras?” the A.D. asks.

  Sometimes, I don’t give the punk enough credit.

  “I found the landscaping permits for that, too. There are floodlights in certain sectors and cameras, but none on this path.” She glances down at her tablet. “This is a secretive back entrance, according to plans. A straight shot in. Why Pfeifer felt he needed it, I have no idea.”

  And secretive it is. Wendy sticks her hand into the bushes, winces, and suddenly a small panel toward the bottom more suitable for Wonderland than New York slides open.

  The A.D., nearly as tall as myself, must be thinking the same thing I am. “You want us to crawl through that wee hole?”

  She has no pity for us. “Get moving.”

  Both of us have to slither in on our bellies, and even then, I’m positive the wetsuit gets ripped up from the sharp branches we’re barreling through. There isn’t a spare inch of wiggle room to be found.

  “Blimey hell,” the A.D. chokes out from behind me.

  The path we emerge onto is extremely narrow, only wide enough for one person at a time, and even then, it has to be traversed walking sideways while sucking your stomach in. Getting up from the ground is no easy feat, and I’m regretting not seeing the doctor before I left because I think I’ve done even more damage to my hand just in standing up. The A.D. struggles in his efforts, so I basically have to squat down and haul him up. He yelps a few times, only going quiet once I elbow him in the ribs. We slowly make our way forward, each crunch beneath our feet and snap of twigs from above leaving our heartbeats racing faster.

  Finally, after what feels like nearly a half hour, we make our way to the pool on Wendy’s blueprints. It’s massive, with a pair of waterfalls. Just like Wen said, it feeds straight into the house.

  I feel like the biggest idiot as I take it in. This isn’t right. This—this can’t be here. Have I hit my head and just don’t remember doing so?

  “WD, we’re in position,” the A.D. says on his comm.

  Wendy’s voice fills our ears. “Copy that, JD. Sixty seconds on my count, beginning now. Three . . . Two . . . One . You are clear for transition.”

  We spring from the tiny slit in the maze, barrel forward the twenty or so feet, and dive into the pool. Long, powerful strokes pull us forward quickly, and soon enough, we’re beneath the metal and glass barrier and emerging inside the house.

  “Outside security cameras resuming in three, two, one,” Wendy says. “Triangulating scramble for inside feed. You have ten minutes to complete the retrieval.”

  I want to laugh. Ten minutes. Ten minutes to find, what? A veil inside a massive library that houses hundreds of objects, spanning three floors? We’ll be damned lucky if I can figure out the weird mechanism Pfeifer used for his doors in such a tiny timeframe. He had a key, and those things had to be one, two feet thick.

  We’re out of the pool, winding our way through an empty kitchen. There aren’t even appliances. We find a sitting room with a threadbare couch and nothing else. A bathroom. I spin around, trying to get my bearings. I track myself to the front door and then to the right, toward the imposing fairy-tale-inspired wooden doors, only to find . . .

  A bedroom.

  I wrench open the standard, cream-colored door to find the entire room to be empty. There isn’t one damn piece of furniture within. A ceiling hovers directly above me, also cream in color, featuring a fan.

  I’m out of the bedroom and down the hallway. A hallway I don’t remember seeing. Another empty bedroom. Another bathroom. I sprint back up the hallway, toward the front door. Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe . . . Maybe we went to the left? But going down that short hallway leads me back to the kitchen.

  There are no looming, carved doors anywhere. There is no library. There is—shit, Wendy was right. This is just a house.

  Wendy’s voice crackles. “Five minutes.”

  “Where the hell is this library?” the A.D. whispers. “I thought you guys said it was big?”

  I’m up a sprawling staircase just off the sitting room, a staircase that I never saw on my first visit. There are more rooms up here, sitting upon carpeted floor. There are no mosaics of fairy tales scenes. The ceiling above is flat and filled with fans. No eyes hidden in the forest are watching me.

 
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!

  I head up another set of stairs. The same setup is on the third floor as well.

  I’m back down the stairs, nearly colliding right into the A.D. He’s just as frustrated as me. “Finn! Where is it?”

  “Two minutes,” Wendy informs us.

  Everywhere I look is just rooms. Regular floors. Regular ceilings. Regular doors. There is no library, no . . . This is a house. This is just a house and nothing more. What is going on here? What—

  “Sixty seconds.”

  The A.D. knocks my shoulder, pretending to tap on an imaginary watch. And then, when I don’t move, he physically yanks on my arm.

  “Forty seconds.”

  He jumps in the pool first. I’m just about to jump in after him when I see something on the ground, near the entrance to the room. It’s—it’s a photo? How did I miss this the first time through?

  My blood runs cold when I stare at the small, glossy paper in my hands. It’s a photo of Alice and me. Together, in the coffee shop we like to go to. I’m—I’m going crazy, right? Because how in the hell is this here? This was taken . . . Jesus. Was this from the first time we ever went? That dress. I recognize the dress. How could I forget? She—

  “Ten seconds. Switching to blitz. Remember, sixty seconds once you’re through the pools.”

  I stuff the photo into the bag that was supposed to hold Scheherazade’s veil and dive into the pool. I swim faster than I think I’ve ever swum before. And then, my hand aching like a sonofabitch, I pull myself out of the pool and launch myself into the barely noticeable crack in the hedge, scraping the shit out of my face while doing so. The A.D. is already there and also bleeding, his breath coming in hard bursts.

  We look at each other, but I have no answers to give. Not one single goddamn answer.

  “Victory, gentlemen?” Wendy asks once we’ve belly crawled our way back through what would make a better dog door than anything for humans to traverse.

  “Wen,” the A.D. says quietly, “there was nothing there.”

  “You couldn’t find the veil?”

  “No, Wen.” He’s uncharacteristically serious. “You misunderstand. There wasn’t anything there. That house ain’t lived in, luv. There’s a shitty couch better suited for the gutter and nothing more. Not even toilet paper in the bathrooms, let alone a fancy library and collections. No furniture, no appliances. Nothing.”

  We stand there, in that cold field, with the hint of snow in the air, none of us knowing what to say. In all our combined years in the Society, in all the various and fantastical and technologically advanced Timelines we’ve ever been in, nothing has even come close to what we’ve just experienced.

  Just who in the hell is Gabriel Pfeifer? And why is his library now missing—or hidden?

  I AM CHILLED, AND I cannot tell anyone of this.

  The kindly doctor—whose name I keep forgetting, but I suppose does not matter, since he is apparently on good terms with Van Brunt—is once more examining me. Marianne is in the room, scandalized probably more than she has ever been in her entire life, as the doctor peruses my semi-nude body garbed in one of those dreadful backless gowns they’ve forced upon me. One would think that, in such situations, especially in winter, the heat would be turned up to increase a patient’s comfort, but alas, neither Marianne nor the doctor have thought of such comforts. My goose pimples, which I know must have risen to their stiffest peaks, failed to alert the doctor as well.

  This is the second examination in, well, I don’t know how long exactly. Several hours, I would imagine. Each time the doctor comes in, mumbling about tests and results and inconsistencies, he requires another perusal and yet neglects to inform me exactly what he is searching for. It’s tiny, whatever it is, because his face is extremely close to my skin whilst using a magnifying glass.

  He makes a small grunting sound. “Help me turn her over, Mrs. Brandon.”

  Marianne springs out of her chair, toward the bed I’m on. I like her—she’s passionate about her beliefs and yet compassionate, too. She’s read to me, discussed a variety of things (albeit one-sidedly), and ensured I am given every comfort a person who cannot move an inch of her body can be afforded.

  “Gently now,” he murmurs. “We must be careful of her stitches.”

  They roll me so that Marianne bears my weight as I rest on my side, allowing the doctor full view of my back. She pets my hair, as if I am a dog—and I know she means well, but honestly. The indignities are frightfully too much, especially as something cold runs along my spine, perilously close to my bare buttocks.

  Marianne peeps her head up and over my torso. “Have you found anything yet, Doctor?”

  The doctor says nothing. A click sounds, as if he’s taking a photograph with a cell phone. Another series of clicks, and then, as if having a man I do not know hover above my buttocks wasn’t bad enough, the door swings open.

  A sigh of relief heaves out of me. It’s Finn. Son of a jabberwocky, being paralyzed has made me overtly emotional, because seeing him now has my vision blurring.

  When he notices the doctor’s position, his eyes narrow. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “I’m examining the patient,” the doctor mutters. “What the hell does it look like?”

  And then, nearly immediately, Marianne says, “I have been present the entire time, Finn. No improprieties have occurred.”

  It must be enough for Finn, because he wiggles his way around Marianne so that he is now holding onto me rather than our colleague. “You’re awake.” A kiss is pressed against my mouth, and the urge to cry intensifies. “Are you in pain?”

  Two blinks. And then, wondering how many blinks it would take to indicate how cold I am, I unleash a flurry of them.

  He kisses me again, this time on the forehead. And then, blast it all, my eyes do well up with bloody tears when my north star quickly drags a blanket over. Because somehow, he knows. He knows what I need.

  “Finn,” the doctor says, his voice low and creaky from age, “have you talked with your father or the Librarian yet?”

  “I just got back.” Frustration colors his words, though, and in a way that makes me distinctly uneasy. “I wanted to come and check in on Alice first. But I plan on going to see them in a few minutes. Why?”

  More coldness spreads across the base of my spine. “Can I confirm that you were in 1876/96TWA-TS when Ms. Reeve was attacked?”

  When Finn runs his hands through my hair, it feels more loving and less like petting than when Marianne attempted her kindness. “Yes, but the asshole who did this is not from 1876/96TWA-TS. It’s assumed he’s from 1846/47RYM/PEC-SP, although I ought to note he’s been in multiple Timelines over the past few years. Why?”

  The doctor sighs so loudly that I feel his breath spread across my bare skin. “I’m not able to identify whatever is in her system. I’m working on breaking down the compounds, but . . .” He blows out another breath. “Whatever it is seems to be organic in origin, although from what I cannot identify.” There’s a bleakness to his voice that has me shivering from more than just cold. “I also have reason to believe there’s a parasite in her system.”

  . . . What?!

  “I’d like to do some scans to verify, but it doesn’t appear Victor has the necessary materials here at the Institute. Here, let’s get her comfortable again. I’ll take these cultures back home with me and use my own machines. Maybe that will help.”

  When the doctor leaves, Finn asks Marianne to step outside for a few minutes. Once she’s gone, too, he sits down in her chair next to my bed. My hand is in his, and his forehead comes to rest on our conjoined fingers.

  The other hand, I can tell, is still a bloody mess. “We’re going to fix this,” he tells me quietly. “I’m going to question Todd tonight with the truth serum. This is going to be fixed. You’re going to be okay.”

  Oddly, I am not as worried about my situation as I ought to be simply because I believe in him. He will not give up on me, just like I will n
ever give up on him. I have nothing concrete to base this overwhelming yet wonderful piece of faith on, but it’s curling throughout me like sips from a cup of cocoa on a frigid day: comforting and warm and perfect.

  Gravity is a beautiful thing, I think.

  I want to ask him how he is. How he’s feeling. Yesterday was a raw day for him, in ways I fear came from years of pent-up anger and grief. I want to comfort him, hold him. I want to tell him that it’s going to be okay, too. That I’m here for him. That, together, we will work through all of this tomorrow.

  And that, maybe, just maybe, if I ever see Tom Sawyer again, I’ll kick his arse, too.

  But all I can do is just stare at him, hoping he can somehow sense all of this and know the depths of my love for him.

  Bloody paralysis having to go muck everything up.

  “I have a lot to tell you.” He kisses my hand again. “But I need to go talk to my dad and the Librarian about some shit that’s just gone down.” He pulls back so he can see my face. “Do you want to be present tonight when I question Todd?”

  I give him the firmest blink I can. Hell yes, I want to be there to hear what’s going on.

  He reluctantly stands up, placing my hand back on the bed like it’s the most priceless thing in the world to him. And then I unleash another flurry of blinks.

  He says, “I promise that as soon as Victor gets here, I’ll have him look at my hand.”

  My eyes fill with tears again. He knows.

  Finn’s at the door, his hand on the knob, when he stops. He turns around, rare vulnerability on his face. “Before I go, there’s something I need to let you know. Something that’s taken far too long to be said.”