Witches & Words

by Elle Adams

  Since I’d never known otherwise, it often slipped my mind that Sylvester hadn’t always been able to talk. No wonder it’d taken so long for anyone to realise he was the living embodiment of the library’s knowledge. Even I’d only worked it out by sheer luck, and it didn’t make the owl any easier to figure out. I ignored his comments and returned to practising conjuring spells until Aunt Candace got bored and slipped away behind the shelves.

  “Try conjuring her,” said Sylvester, with a rather nasty cackle. “That’ll wake her up.”

  “You’re being particularly vindictive this year,” I told him.

  “It’s only been one day,” he said. “I’m just getting started.”

  Estelle pointed her wand at the owl. “Go on, stop hanging over us. I’m sure you can find something else to entertain yourself with. Like that book Rory put away yesterday.”

  I shuddered. “Don’t even.”

  “A book?” said the owl. “I require more excitement.”

  “What did you expect from a library?” Estelle rolled her eyes at him. “You might have joined a circus instead if you wanted more wild, hair-raising action.”

  The owl let out an indignant hoot. “I have never been so insulted in my life. Also, I don’t have hair. I have feathers!”

  He swooped off, forcing me to throw my arms over my head to avoid being clipped by one of his wings. “He and that talking book are a match made in hell. I’d better hope I don’t have to open that door again, or the two of them will either conquer or destroy the universe.”

  Speaking of the book… I still hadn’t told Aunt Adelaide about the odd similarities between the code on its cover and the text inside my dad’s journal. Everyone had been too wrapped up in the celebrations last night, and I hadn’t wanted to bring the mood down by mentioning secret codes or vampires. Besides, there were hundreds of books in the library which had been written in little-known languages. A book containing a code that looked vaguely similar to the one in my dad’s journal wasn’t worth panicking over.

  “You’re making me glad I didn’t volunteer to deal with it.” Estelle raised her wand. “All right, let’s get back to practising conjuring spells.”

  Without Sylvester or Aunt Candace hanging over me, my focus improved considerably—and as a bonus, none of the books started talking back.

  “We’ll try unlocking and locking spells another time,” Estelle said. “Those are easy to misfire, and we don’t want to set anything from the high-security rooms loose in the library right before we open for the day.”

  “No, we really don’t.” I returned each of the books I’d conjured to its place on the shelf. “Maybe we can practise long-distance conjuring when Sylvester’s in a better mood so he can fly off and return the books to their rightful places. I’m not sure where this one goes.” I held up the last remaining book.

  “By the reception desk,” she said, taking the book from my hand. “I’m going to open the library now, so I’ll put it back.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “That was much more fun than listening to one of Aunt Candace’s theory lectures.”

  A shrill noise came from inside the family’s living quarters.

  “Oh… that’s the phone,” said Estelle. “Would you mind answering? I have to check the sign on the door is off at noon, so people know the library’s open.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Who’d be calling the library on the morning of New Year’s Day? Everyone knew we weren’t open until noon, and half the town was nursing hangovers, too. Please don’t let it be another talking book with a time limit on it. Though at least if it was, the rest of my family was around to help me deal with it this time.

  As I headed into the living room, the phone gave another shrill ring. Since nobody else was in the room, I picked it up and answered the call.

  “Hello?” said a male voice.

  “Hello. This is Aurora Hawthorn, at the library. Who is this?”

  “It’s Mr Spencer. The man who returned a book to the library last night.”

  Wait. It was the guy who’d returned the talking book? I almost didn’t recognise his voice, since he spoke in an urgent whisper and I hadn’t seen his face last night.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. “Please tell me you don’t want me to fetch the book again.”

  “No,” he said. “The book—it’s—”

  The call cut out. I held the phone to my ear for another instant, then tried calling him back. The phone cut out again. I dialled again, but the dial tone went on for a moment and then ended.

  “Who was it?” Estelle entered the living room.

  “The guy who returned that talking book last night, but I think he’s having trouble with his phone signal. Or we are.” I redialled again.

  “Hello?” said a breathless female voice that definitely didn’t belong to the man I’d spoken to. “Who is this?”

  I frowned. “Aurora Hawthorn. Who is this?”

  “This phone is… it’s… what’s his name?” I heard more voices in the background. “Spencer. Mr Spencer. I’m sorry, but he’s dead. He had the phone in his hand when he fell downstairs. I think… what is it, Frederick?”

  There was the sound of muffled voices and clattering, then the voice of Frederick, the owner of the town’s main seafront hotel. “Who are you?”

  “It’s Aurora, from the library,” I said. “What happened to—Mr Spencer, the guy who was calling me?”

  “There was an accident. It seems he tripped downstairs. Why did he call you?”

  My grip on the phone tightened. He’s dead?

  “He didn’t say,” I said. “He visited the library last night, and when he called today, he said he had something urgent to say. But I lost the connection before he could finish his sentence. Is he really…?”

  “Yes,” said Frederick. “He seems to have fallen… are you sure he didn’t say what he was calling you for?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” What else could I say? I lowered the phone and turned to Estelle. “We have a problem.”

  3

  “He’s dead?” Estelle’s eyes widened. “We just opened, so one of us will have to watch the desk. I’ll tell my mum…”

  “I’ll head to the hotel,” I offered. “It was me he spoke to, and I should go and explain before anyone comes here asking why we were the last people he called before he died.”

  “Fair point,” she said. “Be careful, Rory, okay?”

  “I will,” I promised.

  It’d be a fine start to the year if we got involved in yet another murder case, but last night’s events took on a whole new meaning now the last person who’d checked out the talking book was dead. Not to mention he’d been trying to tell me something about the book when he’d died.

  I hurried out of the library and crossed the silent town square. No signs of yesterday’s festivities remained, few people were around, and almost all the shops were closed. The clock tower struck noon as I walked down the road to the seafront, where Frederick’s hotel stood on my left-hand side.

  Before I reached the door, I came to an abrupt halt. The entryway to the hotel was smothered in thick shadows, and within, I saw two things. One was the man who’d come to the library last night, and the other was the Reaper.

  My entire body locked to the spot as a deep, intense shiver ran through my bones. The shadows resolved into the outline of a shimmering doorway in mid-air, and the man stepped through it, sending a torrent of icy air blasting into me. My limbs unfroze and I took a step back, my teeth chattering. What was that?

  The door vanished and the shadows cleared, revealing the hotel’s entryway looking the same as it always did. Except for two things: a sprawling body lying at the foot of the staircase in the lobby, and Xavier standing next to it, holding his scythe in both hands.

  Xavier, the Grim Reaper’s apprentice. I’d know his golden hair and aquamarine eyes anywhere. No other Reapers looked that distinctive. Granted, the only other one I’d met was the Grim Reaper,
a fearsome figure who lurked in shadows and terrified the living daylights out of anyone who set eyes on him.

  Speaking of shadows… had I just witnessed Mr Spencer pass onto the next world? I’d seen him step through a door, yet his body lay solid and unmoving at the foot of the stairs, and the shadowy door was nowhere in sight. All that remained behind was the tall blond Reaper, whose eyes widened at the sight of me.

  “Rory? What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question.” The old hurt came rushing back, momentarily overtaking my shock. He’d been gone for nearly two weeks—though it felt much longer—and he’d left without so much as a goodbye, as though our friendship had meant nothing at all. Why hadn’t he told me he was back in town?

  “I’m here for the usual reason.” He lifted the scythe over his head to return it to the sheath on his back. “At least he died quickly.”

  “What did he tell you?” Despite my hurt, curiosity won out. “Before he passed on?”

  His hands froze on the scythe. “You saw?”

  “I saw the guy step through a door, yes.” I rubbed my chilled hands together. “Was that the afterworld?”

  Xavier lowered his arms. “Yes, it was. Why did you want to know what he said to me?”

  “He called the library,” I explained. “Before he died. I came here to see if I could find out why.”

  I had an inkling Xavier wouldn’t be able to call him back through that door so easily, but why had I seen it at all? According to the Reaper’s rulebook, mortals weren’t supposed to be able to see the world beyond the realm of the living, where the Reapers escorted the souls they reaped into the next world.

  Xavier’s brows rose. “Rory, how do you always end up involved in these situations?”

  “If you mean situations involving dead bodies, you tell me.” I had wondered who would take the Reaper’s place, but that didn’t ease the shock of his return. My chest ached, as though a physical force had punched the air from my lungs.

  Footsteps came from within the hotel, where Mr Spencer’s body lay sprawled at the foot of the main staircase. The hood of his long cloak had slipped when he’d fallen, revealing an ordinary man with blond hair, maybe in his early forties. He didn’t look distinctive in any manner, so it seemed odd that he’d wanted to hide his face. To keep from being recognised, perhaps. Several of the other guests milled around the lobby, talking in hushed whispers to Frederick, the hotel’s owner. The kindly wizard wore a lopsided grey hat perched on his mat of brown hair.

  “Who’s out there?” Frederick looked over at us. “Oh—it’s you, Reaper. Who are you talking to?”

  “It’s Aurora—Rory.” I stepped into view. “Mr Spencer called me this morning about a book he returned to the library yesterday. He was on the phone to me when he…” I broke off, indicating his fallen body.

  One of the guests spoke to Frederick, who nodded. “I’ll get everyone out of their rooms and inform them. Can you do me a favour and knock on all the doors, Reaper? I think some of the guests may have over-indulged last night and didn’t hear me calling them.”

  “Sure,” said Xavier.

  Since nobody told me otherwise, I followed Xavier into the lobby. Few people would be awake at this hour on New Year’s Day under normal circumstances, but the thunder of footsteps above suggested most of the guests at the hotel had woken up at the sound of the furore downstairs.

  Xavier and I rode the lift to the first floor and knocked on the first door. As we did so, a loud crash sounded from inside the room.

  “Sorry,” said a female voice. “Be out in a second.”

  A moment later, the door opened, revealing a young woman with long dark hair and pale features. She wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and looked ordinary enough to pass as a normal, were it not for the wand in her left hand. A tall dark-haired man appeared behind her. He wore jeans that were muddy around the edges, a tough-looking jacket, and a shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders.

  “I’m Blair,” she said. “And this is Nathan.”

  “I’m Rory.” I startled when a small black-furred shape brushed past my ankles.

  “Sorry, that’s my cat,” said Blair. “My familiar. He’s called Sky.”

  “Miaow,” said the cat.

  “Has he been in your room the whole time?” I asked. “I mean, Mr Spencer tripped downstairs, didn’t he?”

  There was a good reason none of my family members had chosen a cat as their familiar. Climbing staircases that moved was hazardous enough without adding felines into the equation.

  The cat at my feet let out a hurt miaow, as though he resented the implication that he’d caused the man to trip and fall to his death.

  “Sky was in our room,” said Blair. “Trust me, we’d know if he left.”

  “Sorry, I just wondered,” I said. “Did you see or hear anything at all?”

  Like Death, for instance? The thought entered my mind, unbidden, bringing a chill to my arms. There seemed no reason for me to have seen what I had, and the fact that I’d viewed Xavier in his role as Reaper had spooked me easily as much as the body itself did.

  “No,” said Blair. “I woke up to the sound of raised voices somewhere on this floor. Then a minute or two later, I heard a crashing noise.”

  “Voices?” I asked. “Mr Spencer’s voice?”

  “One of them might have been,” said Blair. “I don’t know who the second voice belonged to, though. I was half asleep. I didn’t look outside until after the crash.”

  “Who was the last person to see him alive?” asked Xavier.

  “That would be me, I believe,” said a voice from behind the door next to Blair’s and Nathan’s room. It opened, and a tall, thin man walked out. His thick dark hair was laced with grey, putting him at around Mr Spencer’s age, and his sharp green eyes raked over Xavier and me. “I saw him this morning.”

  “You did?” Out of the corner of my eye, Blair looked at him with an odd expression, a mixture of interest and wariness. “When? Do you know one another?”

  “We’ve travelled together before,” said the man. “I’m Henry Blake.”

  “You’ve travelled together?” I said. “Wait, does that mean he’s not from Ivory Beach?”

  Why, then, had he borrowed a book from our library?

  “No,” said the man. “I’m not sure where he’s living at the moment. I came here from Birmingham.”

  “You came all the way here over the holidays to return a book to the library?” I said, nonplussed. “What are you, work colleagues?”

  They couldn’t be romantically involved, surely, because they had separate rooms. But it seemed a weird time of year to take a trip to the beach for the sole purpose of returning a book. Admittedly, since the book in question started screaming when it was returned late, perhaps they did have a good reason to schedule a last-minute trip, but still.

  “Not exactly,” said Mr Blake. “We once worked in the same area of business. I was travelling in the region and offered to meet up with him…”

  Blair cleared her throat, and everyone looked at her. “Nothing. Carry on.”

  “…and we arrived here last night.”

  Right, of course. If they’d arrived any earlier, I imagined he would have returned the book sooner. It didn’t make it any less odd that they’d arrived in town at night-time on the last day of the year, when they must have known the library would be closed—and now, less than twelve hours later, one of them had ended up dead.

  “You arrived here last night,” I repeated. “So he returned the book to the library—”

  “How do you know about the book?” he said.

  “Because I work there,” I said. “I was on the phone to him when he—”

  His eyes widened. “You were? What did you hear?”

  “He started to speak, then the connection cut out,” I said. “Any reason?”

  “No, not at all,” he said, a touch too quickly.

  Blair fidgeted. “You sure abou
t that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything except his voice and then a crash.” I watched Mr Blake’s face carefully. “When did you last see him alive?”

  “This morning,” he said. “I was under the impression he was going to take an early-morning walk. He was on his way downstairs, but he didn’t say where he was going. Are you two coming?” He addressed Blair and Nathan.

  “Ah, I need to find my shoes first,” said Blair, ducking back into her hotel room. “Sky, why did you knock over my suitcase?”

  “Miaow,” said the cat, rubbing against my ankles. Animals usually didn’t flock to me the way they did to Cass, but Sky lay down on the floor with a clear indication that I should stroke him. Mr Blake, meanwhile, headed for the elevator and out of sight.

  “Here,” said Nathan from behind the door. “Your shoe was under the bed. I think Sky was sleeping in it.”

  “I forgot I used the other one to prop the window open.”

  There were a few more shuffling noises, then Blair hurried out of the room, pulling on her shoes as she did so.

  “Miaow,” said Sky, as though to say, hurry up.

  Blair looked between me and her fluffy black cat. “Sky doesn’t normally trust strangers, but he seems to like you.”

  Sky let me give him one last stroke, yawning. He had oddly coloured eyes—one grey, one blue—and a single white front paw. Then, at Nathan’s prompting, he sauntered back into the hotel room to let them lock the door.

  Blair finished adjusting her shoes. “Just so you know, that Mr Blake guy? He was lying.”

  I frowned. “How do you know?”

  “My witch talent lets me tell if someone’s being truthful or not,” she explained. “Comes in handy sometimes.”

  “I bet it does.” I’d never heard of that particular witch talent before. “What was he lying about, then?”

  “I know he was lying about how he was travelling in the area and happened to run into Mr Spencer by coincidence, but I’m not sure which bit was a lie,” she said. “He also lied when he said he didn’t know what the other dude was doing when he left his room. I’ll try to ask him more questions, but…” She broke off as Nathan cleared his throat. “We came here for sun, sand and sea, not murders, so I should probably stay out of this one.”