Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I inhale the scent of old polished floors and old books and even older stone, and the librarian glances over at me.
It doesn’t sound like anyone else is here, but I offer a wave to him instead of a verbal greeting just in case and use the moment as an excuse to look at him. To admire him even.
Finley is tall and dark haired and as quiet as the library itself. There’s an air of mystery and power that clings to him. There are secrets in his dark eyes, and I’ve wanted to know what they are since I moved back here after college. He’s fit and broad shouldered, and I often wondered how his chest would feel. How his full lips would taste on mine.
And I’ve tried—God, I’m embarrassed to admit this—I’ve tried to flirt with this man more times than I can count. I’ve asked him questions about the notebooks he’s always writing in. I’ve asked him his opinion about the historical books I spend most of my time poring over. I know he’s enjoyed similar books on herbalism.
I’ve tried and tried to get him to let me in, and he doesn’t seem to pick up on the fact that I’m…interested.
Very interested.
Tall, secretive men with dark hair are my type, and I haven’t met many men who frequent the same sections of the library as I do and who have an air around them like…
Like it’s magic. I’m drawn to him in ways I cannot explain. He feels like shadowy, illicit magic. Like he knows more than his own secrets. Like he might know secrets about the library and the town, and possibly even me.
A burst of laughter echoes out of one of the side rooms, interrupting my thoughts. The library isn’t empty after all. I sweep my hood off my hair and make a beeline for the very back, which is where the oldest books are kept. The ones you have to have permission to open.
I put my bag and coat at my usual table at the end of the row, then take out the little notebook I’ve been carrying with me for years and page through it, my heart pounding. I barely see the notes I’ve written on the most recent pages. I’m far too busy with wondering what it is he’s reading.
This is getting me nowhere. I close the notebook, close my eyes, and breathe.
I can smell his cologne.
It’s faint, as if Finley walked through this aisle a minute or two ago, and yet it’s totally distinct from the woodsy smell of the shelves and the old-paper scent of the books.
Oh, God, I cannot be smelling his cologne right now.
But it’s good. It’s subtle and historical, like the library, but there’s an element to it that I can’t name. It reminds me a little of my shop, but what?
I inhale again but still can’t name it.
Okay. That’s enough. I can handle being in the library with Finley, and I can handle what I came here to do, which is research on all the town’s most infamous families.
The most powerful magic comes from working together, and not all of that magic has to do with spell-casting or glimpsing the future. Sometimes, it has to do with the bonds we form from being in a community together. Helping one another in times of need or just times of togetherness.
That’s what covens are for. Companionship and togetherness are their own form of rituals.
I came across a small box of letters shortly after I moved back that hinted at the existence of a coven in a town over in the late 1700s. After I got settled in, I started to explore its existence more deeply and found strong ties between many of the families in that town. The wealthier families left more records, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones. There are mentions of the other members if you know where to look.
For example, most families—wealthy or not—kept some kind of record of their business dealings, and you can find all sorts of clues in those ledgers. A bundle of garden plants sold here, a silver spoon sold there. A deal made between two families, one supplying glass and one supplying silver to make a perfectly circular mirror. Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, someone will have made a note about a deal being made at a weekly meeting and listed the names of the women in attendance.
I open my notebook again. I have a rough sketch of the town as it used to be in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds—scans of the real documents are on my computer—and a list of names I want to research on the opposite page. I read over them one more time, then get to work.
The laughter in the rest of the library fades away. I barely notice Finley’s voice as he speaks to someone at the circulation desk. Although, I do notice. I take down one old volume after another, bring them to the table, and go through them page by page.