The Hidden Library

by Heather Lyons

  The thing is, I know, too. Actions, I want to tell him, speak louder than words most times.

  “Somehow, in the last half year, you’ve become my best friend. I’ve fallen in love with your laugh and the way you roll your eyes, but do it surreptitiously, because you think it’s rude but you do it anyway. I’ve fallen in love with how you always have a comeback, especially when you’re feeling exposed. I fallen in love with how you sink like a stone once you hit your pillow, faster than anyone I’ve ever met, and then snore like a lumberjack sawing trees.”

  It’s enough to make me gasp in mock consternation. But also to turn to mush, which is an altogether inconvenient situation when a person cannot wipe their own eyes or sniffly nose or burst out the feelings of their heart.

  “I’ve fallen in love with how you make the worst places incredibly romantic. And with the fact that, even though it doesn’t seem like it, we’re so damn alike. You get me when most people don’t.” More softly, “You stood by me in St. Petersburg. You didn’t even bat an eye when I hit that asshole. You—you trusted me, even though you had no idea what was going on. I know you have trust issues, but God, Alice. Your trust means the world to me.”

  This man. How I love this man.

  “I love you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. It’s the best damn feeling in the entire world.”

  I unleash another flurry of blinks. He lets go of the knob and comes back to exactly where I want him. When he kisses me, slowly yet gently, I feel it in every numb cell of my body. His touch is like those sparklers I saw people using on the Fourth of July this last year here in New York: beautiful, bright, and fizzy, so magical their light left lingering pictures in the air.

  They’d enchanted me. This man here? He enchants me more. He kisses me, because he knows. He knows me. He knows my heart.

  He has become part of my heart.

  My gravity pulls at his. His pulls at mine. We orbit one another, me and my north star, and I will be damned if anyone will ever tear us apart.

  “FINN, HOLD UP!”

  Victor jogs through the mess littering the basement to catch up with me. Thank God he’s back.

  “I’m gone three days, and everything goes to hell!” He’s not smiling, though. His voice is projecting, and there’s a level of irritability and anxiety to it that leaves me more worried than anything else. He’s on edge and so hopped up that I wonder if he’s slept at all lately, either. “I’m sorry it took me so long. It wasn’t the easiest to get hold of these supplies. There were a few times I was certain Mary and I were going to be captured.” He shudders, yet lifts a bag. “I come bearing many treats, though. And Mary’s bag is even more full than mine. She was like a kid in a candy store.”

  I could hug him, I’m so relieved. I know I ought to be busting his balls about taking his meds, but first things first.

  We make our way through the elaborate security measures that allow authorized Society members to access the Museum. If there’s anywhere in the building that is safe to talk about all the shit that’s gone down, it’s there. Brom and the Librarian are already below, getting briefed by Wendy and the A.D. I fill Victor in on the basics, and by the time the last set of doors slide open, he’s on board with what I’ve got planned for tonight. He’s also ranting and talking a million miles a minute.

  I’m surprised, to be honest. Mary is usually on him about his meds like white on rice.

  We find everyone crowded in the Librarian’s tiny office. Folding chairs have been squeezed in, and in between those and the chairs and table already present, knees are practically touching when we all sit down.

  “First,” I say, “explain to me what you meant about the Society being bugged.”

  Brom holds up a hand, getting his whiteboard ready. Victor pops out of his chair, though. “First,” he says, “let’s get Dad all fixed up so he doesn’t have to take ages writing this stuff out. From what I saw, the application is simple.”

  A slim bottle is extracted from his bag. Can it really could be as easy as just spraying something from a bottle on a wound to heal it? And yet, it is, because after Victor removes our father’s bandaging and sprays the stuff, the angry red line across my father’s throat fades away until all that’s left is smooth skin.

  Holy. Shit.

  “Try saying something!” Victor’s bouncing on his heels, he’s so pumped.

  Our father, our stodgy, cultured father, says in his distinguished voice, “Holy shit.”

  The Librarian claps her hands and then covers her mouth. The A.D. whoops; Wendy is agog.

  “Take care of your brother’s hand while you’re at it.” Brom is clearly uncomfortable with all eyes on him. “He’s been too stubborn to have it looked at.”

  “Bloody hell,” Victor yells as he stares down at the mangled mess that I call a hand. “What did you do? Punch a brick wall?”

  “Two—named Tom Sawyer and Sweeney Todd.”

  Brom clears his throat. “And got himself arrested. Let’s not forget that.”

  I kind of love my father’s voice, even when he’s giving me shit.

  “Fine. I got myself arrested. I’m not sorry about it, though.”

  He sighs. “I only want what was best for you. I hardly think I ought to be stoned for such wishes.”

  What’s best for me is getting back upstairs and figuring out what’s wrong with Alice. What’s also best for me is to stuff all this shit back into the box I’ve kept it in. I just—I can’t process it all right now. I just can’t.

  Victor’s got my hand fixed in no time. It’s insane—it’s like my hand was never hurt in the first place. Damn, that Timeline has something good going. Okay, well, not the alien invasion or anything, but man. With drugs like this, our assignments will go a lot more smoothly.

  But, as fascinating as all that is, we’ve got much more important business to attend to. “Now, about the Society being bugged? Let’s make this fast. I need to get upstairs and interrogate Todd so we can try out Victor’s new medicine on Alice.”

  Wendy takes great offense to this. “My security system is unrivaled. I’ve cobbled together pieces of coding and technology we’ve gotten from various Timelines, making it impossible to crack. There is no way for anybody to have broken through it. No way.”

  Brom exchanges meaningful looks with the Librarian. “You are very right, Ms. Darling. We have no indication that anybody has broken in from the outside. See, it has come to our attention that there might be a mole—or moles—within our midst, working from the inside out.”

  That’s—no. No. No way.

  The Librarian opens the laptop sitting on her geode of a coffee table while Wendy’s eyebrows form a V. “I would know if there were any transmissions coming out of the Institute. All calls, even personal ones, are logged. My team goes over them at night to ensure nothing is off.”

  Before Brom can continue, she cuts him off. “We’ve also got video surveillance all over the building. All editing and retrieval information is downloaded off of pens after every assignment. If there’s a mole, he or she shouldn’t be too hard to find. I’ll get my team to start combing through our records.” She pulls out her phone. “Is there anything concrete you’ve found so far? Something we can maybe use as a springboard?”

  “Yes, Gwendolyn,” the Librarian says softly. “We have, in fact, found something quite troubling.”

  On the laptop screen is security footage of Wendy’s lab. She’s in there, tinkering with what looks to be a pen prototype. The timestamp says it’s nearly two-thirty in the morning. Wendy is a well-known night owl here at the Institute who rarely requires more than three, four hours of sleep at night.

  The footage glitches, wavy gray and black zigzags bend the picture. And then Wendy gets up and heads over to a window, punching in the code to still the alarms attached. Suddenly, she drops down to the ground, her back to us.

  In the room we’re in now, down inside the Museum, she whispers, “What—?”

  On the vide
o, somebody comes through the window. Somebody lean and young and whose feet do not touch the floor. He has pipes pressed to his lips, and Wendy’s head tilts back in awe as she gazes upward.

  “Oh my god,” the Wendy sitting in this room murmurs. “I—what?”

  Still playing his pipes, the boy drifts down, circling Wendy. His gaze is adoring, and within seconds, they head over to her laptop. Many minutes are spent with him looking at whatever she shows him before he finally sets down the pipes. Something is whispered in her ear; Wendy nods and smiles dreamily. Papers are printed and handed over. Another few minutes are spent talking. He nods often, eyes serious, as he takes in whatever she has to say.

  They head back over to the open window, and within seconds, the boy is gone. Wendy carefully shuts it, ensuring to punch in the security codes and reactivating the alarms. And then, as if nothing strange has just happened, she wanders back over to her laptop and types furiously for a good minute.

  The picture glitches again before the Librarian presses pause. All eyes now shift to Wendy. She’s still staring at the paused footage, like she can’t believe what she’s just seen. And then she says something that is absolutely the wrong thing in a moment like this. She says, her voice soft in disbelief, “He came. He finally came for me.”

  The A.D. explodes out of his chair. “What in the blimey hell is that, Wen? He came for me? You were just obviously fucking around with some guy, some kid who—who broke into the Institute, from the looks of it! And you gave him God knows what, told him even more, and all you can say is: He came for me?”

  The A.D. and I don’t often agree on everything, but I’m going to have to concur with him on this one.

  Wendy’s unfazed by the hostility rolling off him, though. Unfazed at how everyone is now staring at her like she’s some kind of stranger. She stands up, whispers, “Pan came,” and then promptly faints.

  No—not faints. Victor’s immediately on the ground with her as she convulses. Her eyes roll back and her arms twitch. “She’s having a seizure,” he tells us.

  We all just sit there, not knowing what in the fuck is going on. Because, Wendy is the mole? Wendy is giving out information to Peter Pan of all people, if that’s, in fact, what she was even doing?

  Maybe I really am going crazy. I’m going into empty houses looking for libraries that don’t exist, for catalysts for books with Timelines I don’t know exist, and one of my oldest, dearest friends looks like she’s been sharing secrets with Peter fucking Pan of all people.

  Quiet horror fills the room as we wait until Wendy’s body slows its shaking. Tiny choking noises escape her; there’s white spittle ringing her lips. Victor is calling her name, but she’s not answering.

  “Use the spray!” the A.D. yells.

  Victor doesn’t even look up from her body. “From what I can tell, the spray is more for things like cuts or physical injuries, not internal ones. We don’t know what’s causing the seizure, or what could happen if we try to use the spray on something other than a physical wound.”

  “How did you find this?” I round on my father and the Librarian. “What even made you suspect this was happening?”

  “They’re editing.” Brom is utterly unapologetic. “When I tried to take him down, before he attacked me, I saw Todd with a pen that appears far too similar to our own. That cannot be coincidence, Finn.”

  Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?

  “It wasn’t easy to find proof.” The Librarian says this like she’s talking about the weather. “But once we discussed the situation, I was able to locate a number of discrepancies with documents. I contracted a discreet liaison from another Timeline to look into the matters for me. Time jumps and corrections in surveillance videos were difficult to detect until we knew what to look for. Edited call logs, whose keystrokes traced back to Gwendolyn, had to be hacked. Society equipment that the registers show are in storage, gone without any indication where.”

  “This is bloody bullshit.” The A.D. looks just as blown away as I am. “Wen—she’s one of us!”

  “What liaison?” I demand. When my father and the Librarian merely look at one another, I’m firmer in my request.

  Eventually, my father says flatly, “Marianne Brandon.”

  What? “Marianne is a Janeite! She’s from Georgian England where the biggest inventions in technology had to do with—shit, I don’t know! Probably something to do with carriages!”

  “We’ve been discreetly training Mrs. Brandon for years.” He doesn’t break eye contact. “She’s been a field agent for some time now, and her technological know-how rivals, if not supersedes, that of Ms. Darling’s.”

  My brother is just as startled as I. Even more so. Marianne has . . . Jesus. Where the hell does she hone this skill? It’s not like the early 1800s in rural England had the Internet!

  “I know this is a lot to take it—”

  I don’t let my father finish. “Is it your assumption that Peter Pan is a suspect in the Timeline attacks?”

  “We don’t know. This is the only video Marianne was able to recover. All the rest were successfully scrubbed, and all that’s left is a series of timestamp jumps to indicate anything amiss. If our suspicions are right, there are a dozen such jumps. Who knows what could have happened during any of those time periods? Some lasted not more than sixty seconds. Some lasted upward of sixty minutes.”

  Victor finally looks up from Wendy. “No matter what she has or has not done is irrelevant right now. I need to get her upstairs and in the medical wing.”

  “You didn’t tell me.” My words ring in the small office. “You put me in charge of the Society while you were out, and you never told me any of this. What the hell?”

  “I’ll help,” the A.D. is telling Victor.

  “I’m supposed to be the great successor. You’ve groomed me to run this fucking place from day one. And you couldn’t tell me any of this? You kept me in the dark about your suspicions?”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

  “You sent Wendy with me earlier. To Pfeifer’s. Why would you do that if you thought she was the mole?”

  “We needed to see if there were any communiqués sent out indicating the change of location. There is fear that our whereabouts have been passed out ahead of time, enabling our foes to catch us off-guard. How else could Todd have found you in not one, but two different Timelines?”

  I stare at the Librarian and wonder how she can just say something so flatly, so . . . I don’t know. So clinically, when there is a woman we’ve known for years on the floor, having a seizure, and another upstairs, paralyzed.

  Fuck it. Fuck them. I’m—I need to get out of here. My brother and the A.D. are already carrying Wen through the door, and I’m here, arguing with two people I always looked up to about how they’ve being keeping secrets from me.

  The Librarian tries to block me as I leave. “We have yet to discuss the failed retrieval.”

  Is she kidding? “You try stealing something from a library that doesn’t exist. Hell, maybe it’s hidden,” I snap. “I don’t know. More power to you if you’re able to do what I can’t. Or—wait. Did you already know that that was going to happen to me today? Maybe you can tell me why the only thing in that damn house was this.” I pull out the photo I’d found in Pfeifer’s house and fling it on the table.

  My father picks it up, surprise flickering in his bright eyes. “Finn, I know you are upset, but there is much to discuss. We—”

  Now he wants to talk? “I’m going to help get Wendy upstairs. And then I’m going to interrogate Todd and figure out what the hell is wrong with Alice.”

  The Librarian gently touches my arm. “You may not like what you hear.”

  I let out a bark of laughter. “It wouldn’t be the first thing today that’s sucked, would it? This whole day has been filled with a bunch of shit I wish I’d never heard.”

  She actually looks hurt. Forget her, then.

  “My mother is dead,”
I say in a low voice. “The woman I love is upstairs, paralyzed. My friend just had a seizure, right before our eyes. And the guy behind it—at least one of them—willingly let me capture him today.”

  They simply stare at me. But I’m right. Todd avoided the Society for months. He allowed himself to be cornered in a small room, and although he fought back, it was nothing like our previous struggle in the attic of Ex Libris.

  I want to know why.

  I’m out the door and running my security card through the scanner to get the hell out of the Museum when the Librarian calls out, “Some secrets are hidden for a reason, Finn.”

  Then maybe it’s time to blow them open sky high.

  FINN IS IN A state. Wendy has just been brought in and strapped (strapped!) down to one of the beds in the medical wing. The tiny area is now crowded with so many patients.

  Marianne has rolled me into the room, considering she knew I wanted to be present during Todd’s questioning, but the moment Finn sees her, she shrinks back in the face of his vehemence.

  Her voice is steady when she speaks, though. “You know, don’t you?”

  “Not now, Marianne,” he snaps.

  “But—”

  “He said not now!” Victor barks. He rounds on the kind woman who has been taking care of me since my arrival. “Honestly, though, he’s right! How in the bloody hell could you keep this from us?”

  Something is off with Victor. He’s—he’s manic, almost. And what has Marianne failed to admit?

  She steps to the side of my wheelchair, so I can just see her out of the corner of my eye. “I would think—”

  “Marianne, a word of advice.” Mary says as she leans against the wall by the door, uncharacteristically serious. “Shut up right now.”

  And then, from Todd as he lays in his bed at the other end of the room, sung in a high-strung, warble-y voice:

  “Second star to the right,

  and then, ‘till morning, straight on.

  Bonfires alight,