“Sorry, Aralt,” I said. No question—the book had to burn.
I did let my fingers trace its intricate leatherwork. You didn’t often see craftsmanship like this—like our old house, stunning and ornate just for the sake of itself. Not a generic, mass-produced box, like the town house.
I gently lifted the front cover and looked at the title page.
In impossibly elaborate script, it read: LIBRIS EXANIMUS.
Exanimus …? I felt like I’d heard the word, but I couldn’t recall where.
What could be keeping Megan? I turned to look for her.
She was four feet away, standing perfectly still.
“Oh!” I said. “You startled me.”
Her eyes were wide and curious. In one hand, she held a book of matches. In the other, a bottle of lighter fluid.
“We protect your dwelling with our blood and our lives,” she droned.
Then she lifted the bottle of lighter fluid and doused me with it.
Time seemed to stand still, and I saw the moment suspended before me like I was watching it happen to someone else. Me, dripping noxious fluids; Megan, impassive as a statue.
“What—?” After a few blinking milliseconds, my brain caught up with reality. “Megan, stop!”
She stopped. Her blank eyes fixed on me. Then she raised the bottle again.
I didn’t try to talk anymore. I just ran.
She chased after me, flinging lighter fluid as she went. I felt the liquid in my hair, on my clothes. My shirt was soaked in it. The fumes rose up and stung my nostrils.
She cornered me against the wrought-iron fence and sprayed me with the last of it.
“Megan, this is insane!” I said. “Think about what you’re doing.”
She looked down at the bottle and dropped it into the soft grass, wiping her hands on her jeans. For a second, I thought I’d gotten through to her. She didn’t look homicidal; she looked perfectly normal.
Then she opened the book of matches and pulled one out.
Before she could light it, I plunged forward, dodging her, and raced across the street, down the sidewalk toward our town house. I could tell she was behind me, not only keeping up but gaining.
“Kasey!” I yelled, taking the front steps in one leap. “Kasey!”
She pulled open the door. “Alexis? What’s wrong? Why are you wet?”
“Megan’s trying to kill me!”
Megan came tearing up the front walk, trying to light a match as she ran.
I stopped and looked around the house for something we could use to defend ourselves.
But my sister had it covered. As Megan flew into the house, Kasey stuck her leg out, sending Megan sailing through the air and landing hard on her stomach. The matchbook skidded harmlessly across the tiles.
“What is going on?” Kasey asked.
I started tearing my clothes off. “Megan tried to kill me,” I said. “She was going to set me on fire.”
“What are you talking about?” Megan sat up, looking like she’d woken from a heavy sleep.
“You? Me? Matches?” I said. “Ring a bell?”
Megan looked up at me, wincing and pressing her fingertips to her eyes, as if to wipe away tears. “What? No…I just felt really peaceful all of a sudden.”
I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I was shaking with anger and residual fear. “Well, I’m glad you find tranquility in attempted murder.”
My sister’s face was gray. “Where’s the book? Did you burn it?”
“No.” I pulled off my pants and dropped the matches in the kitchen sink. “Megan had better things to burn. It’s still outside.”
“I’ll go get it,” Kasey said, backing toward the foyer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Do you mean, am I going to try to kill Alexis again?” Megan brushed her hands off. Her knees were hot pink, and a small bruise was forming on her chin. She touched it and sucked air sharply through her teeth. “I doubt it. I don’t even think I can stand up.”
Kasey skittered out the door and I stood at the kitchen sink in my bra and underwear, splashing water on my face, for once not caring if the floor and counters got sloshed. I could still smell the lighter fluid all over me, still recall the vacant look in Megan’s eyes. If I tried hard enough, I could imagine the brutal heat of flames coating my body like a second skin.
As I patted my face down, I heard Megan make a sound that was a cross between a grunt and a squeak.
“Want ice?” I asked. Not waiting for an answer, I got two bags of frozen peas out of the freezer and tossed them to her. She draped one over each knee.
“Sorry, Lex,” she said. “I swear, I didn’t mean it.”
My laugh came out like a huff. “Well, yeah, I hope not.”
“I don’t understand what happened.”
“We were threatening the power center,” I said. “It reacted, that’s all.”
“I guess,” she said.
The front door opened and Kasey came in, the rectangle of blue velvet tucked under her arm. Now her colorless face was punctuated by two pink cheeks from the effort of running back to the park. “You guys, look,” she said, her voice hoarse.
She set the book on the countertop and flipped the cover open to reveal the title page. LIBRIS EXANIMUS.
I was about to say I’d heard the phrase before when Megan made a fist in front of her mouth. “The Ouija board!”
I felt supremely stupid for not making the connection myself.
Kasey was already headed back to our parents’ bedroom, where Mom’s laptop was. It was the only computer in the house. The fact that it lived in our parents’ domain meant our research options would be severely limited once the workday was over.
Megan held on to my arm and limped along beside me down the hall. Not wanting to drip lighter fluid on my parents’ carpet, I stayed in the tiled hallway with a towel wrapped around me, while Megan hovered over Kasey’s shoulder as she typed.
“‘Libris,’” Megan read. “‘Book or volume. Exanimus’ . . .”
Kasey sighed and sat back.
“‘Lifeless,’” Megan said. “‘Dead.’”
“So we have a dead book,” I said. “Or a live book with somebody dead living in it. Somebody who doesn’t want anything happening to his ‘dwelling.’”
Megan turned back to Kasey. “So what was the oath for? What did we promise?”
“Hold on,” Kasey said, running back to the kitchen. She returned with the book and opened it next to Megan on the bed. “Can you read to me?”
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said. “If I got a static shock right now, I’d go up in a fireball.”
I shampooed my hair three times and loofahed my body to a bright shade of coral before I was satisfied that I was really noncombustible. By the time I put on a new shirt and a clean pair of jeans and set my other clothes to soak in a cold tubful of water, twenty minutes had passed. I went to my parents’ room and plunked down on the bed next to Megan. “Any progress?” I asked. Kasey was too busy studying the screen to look up.
Megan shot me a heavy glance and handed me her notebook, where she’d been jotting notes as they worked.
I PROMISE LOYALTY TO HE WHO GIVES ABUNDANT (JEWEL/COSTLY GIFT/TREASURE?) AND (GRACE/FAVOR?).
I INVITE HIM TO A (UNION/CONNECTION?) AND SWEAR THAT UPON HIS CALL I WILL RETURN A (JEWEL/COSTLY GIFT/TREASURE?).
TOGETHER WE WILL (GROW/PRODUCE?) AND BESTOW HONOR TO HE WHO IS _________________ IN THIS SACRED VESSEL.
THIS I SWEAR TO THEE, ARALT.
“It’s Gaelic,” Megan said. “Irish.”
“What’s the missing word?” I asked.
Suddenly, Kasey raised her head slowly and turned to look at us, her lips open. She licked her dry lips and shook her head.
“Kasey, spit it out,” I said.
“Noble,” Kasey whispered. Just as I was thinking, Well, that’s not so bad, she went on. “Vigorous…lusty.”
“Lusty,” I repeated.
M
egan sat back. “Ew.”
Kasey was starting to look like this was all too much for her. I was about to suggest we take a break, when the doorbell rang.
We broke into action all at once. Kasey scrambled with her notes at the computer, Megan wrapped the book up and limped back toward her book bag, and I ran to Kasey’s room to peer through the blinds.
Tashi stood on our front porch, looking radiantly serene in the way only a Sunshine Club girl could. Her dress, a dark sky blue, was cinched to show off her tiny waist, and her curly hair gleamed in the sun like something out of a Renaissance painting.
The three of us met at the door at the same time. Megan smoothed her hair, and Kasey straightened the sleeves she’d pushed up over her elbows.
Tashi didn’t ring again. When I opened the door, she wasn’t even looking at me. She gazed out at the sky, which was streaked with the first pink clouds of sunset.
“Hi, guys,” she said, turning around.
“Hi,” we all said at once.
She looked slightly embarrassed. “So…Adrienne just called me in a panic. She can’t find the book, and she thinks you might have it, but none of you are answering your phones. She asked me to walk over and check, because I live right down the road.”
“Oh, you do?” I asked. “Which unit?”
“One thirty-three,” she said. She peered inside my house and gave a short laugh. “It looks…the same as this one, actually.”
“Big surprise,” I said.
That was when I noticed her eyes on my wet hair. I froze.
But she didn’t ask about it. “So…my mom’s holding dinner for me,” Tashi said. “I kind of have to go. Do you guys have it?”
“The book?” I asked, glancing behind me into the house. “I don’t think so…”
Tashi raised a finger and pointed. “Could that be it? In that purple backpack?”
We all three spun in place to see a tiny piece of blue velvet sticking out of Megan’s bag.
“Oh, my gosh!” Megan exclaimed, walking over to it. “Wow, how weird is that? Yeah, look. Somehow it ended up in my bag. I’ll drive it back over to her house right now.”
“I can take it,” Tashi said. “I’m going over there later to study.” She had a slow, easy energy about her—like a cowboy. You got the idea that nothing ruffled her. But then I noticed how her left hand was gripping her skirt so tightly that the fabric was wrinkled and sweaty when she let it go.
“But if Adrienne wants it now—” Megan said.
Tashi rolled her eyes, which seemed to me to be pushing the outer edge of Sunshine Club decorum. “Adrienne needs to learn to relax,” she said. “She’s way too obsessed with that book. It’ll be good for her to see that she can take her eyes off it for twenty minutes.”
There was a pause.
“Are you sure?” Megan asked.
“Honestly?” Tashi said, “I don’t care. But there’s no reason for you to drive all the way out to Lakewood when I’m going over after dinner. If I tell her I have it, she’ll be fine.”
Megan hesitated.
“Do whatever you want,” Tashi said, starting to turn around. “At least call her.”
“No,” Megan said. “Here, you can have it.”
She stepped out into the golden evening light, holding the book like an offering.
Tashi laughed again as she took it. “Adrienne would die if she knew you were just carrying it around. She thinks if somebody sees it, they’ll automatically guess it’s a sacred vessel and want to steal it or something.”
As the door started to close, she reached out and stopped it.
The energy in the room seemed to crackle.
Tashi squinted. “Megan, what happened to your knees?”
“I tripped,” Megan said. “Getting out of the—on the—tile. I should probably wear a long skirt tomorrow, or I’ll get massacred in Betterment. Bruises are totally un-sunshiny.” Then she faked a laugh. Ho ho ho, massacres are hilarious.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Tashi said. “But your shirt is stained.”
We all looked at Megan’s light green shirt. On each side, near the hem, were a pair of grayish smudges.
“You’re right,” Megan said.
“That might not come out,” Tashi said, turning to leave.
I took that as a personal challenge.
“Stay sunny,” I said. She gave me a wry smile and started for the sidewalk. We watched her go all the way past the park before breaking formation.
“She knows we took the book,” Megan said. “She totally knows.”
“I’m sure she thinks it was an accident,” Kasey said, still gazing out the window. “She’s very trusting.”
“Here’s what we know,” Megan said. “Until we can figure out how to safely destroy the book, we’re somehow connected with Aralt. We swore that in exchange for all the fun stuff, we would give him some gift. And…” She made a disgusted face. “He’s lusty.”
Fun stuff? I gazed at Megan for maybe a millisecond too long before I started talking. “We can keep researching libris exanimus,” I said. “But maybe we need to face the fact that we can’t fix this tonight. And we definitely can’t destroy the book.”
“Because it’s gone,” Megan said.
“Even if it were here,” I said. “It’s too risky.”
The thought popped into my head like a hunch: But we’ll be fine.
“But we’ll be fine,” I said.
Megan and Kasey shrugged.
“I guess,” Kasey said, not totally convinced.
For the next hour we searched for more information. Kasey manned the computer while I worked on Megan’s shirt.
There wasn’t much to be learned about a libris exanimus. All we’d been able to look up were the definitions of the two words and a paragraph at an occult website making them sound like some urban legend of the dark side: If any went undiscovered long enough to escape the most common form of destruction (burning by pious locals or clergy), they were generally believed to have been so well-hidden as to have almost certainly decayed completely.
“Well, ours isn’t decayed,” Megan said, a hint of defiance in her voice.
But if something was dead, how would you keep it from decaying?
By connecting it to something that was alive?
I sat straight up.
Maybe the oath allowed Aralt to feed off the girls, sort of the way they were feeding off of him. They tapped into whatever it was that made you popular, pretty, and smart, while he got to suck on their life energy. Symbiosis. Like hippos and those little birds that eat their fleas.
“Hey, guys. Listen,” I said, picking up the notepad where Megan had written down the translation. “‘I invite him to a union.’ ‘Together, we will grow. ’”
Kasey’s lips turned down in dread.
I was breathless. “The power center,” I said. “It’s not the book. It’s the girls who took the oath. The Sunshine Club.”
“All of us,” Megan said slowly.
Not all of us. I avoided meeting her glance.
“So what does that mean? What do I look for?” Kasey asked.
“It means there’s no point in burning the book. It’s just a glorified instruction manual. Maybe it’s where he lives when he doesn’t have a Sunshine Club to leech off of.” Energized by my own insight, I took Kasey’s chair at the computer. “Here, let me try.”
I typed Aralt. But that produced too many results. So we added various words, from oath to ghost. Nothing worked, until I typed in Aralt + Ireland + book.
There was a single result: THE FAMILY HISTORY OF THE O’DOYLES OF COUNTY KILDARE.
I clicked the link and got an error message saying,
Page not found.
“Dead end,” Megan said. She sighed and turned toward the mirror over the dresser, combing through her hair with her fingers.
“Not necessarily,” I said, going back to the search engine. I clicked on the link that said CACHED, which pulled up an archived version of
the page. That brought up the image of a single paragraph of all-caps red writing on a black background.
I AM REMOVING ALL CONTENT DUE TO EXTREME PRIVACY VIOLATIONS WHICH I FEEL HAVE GONE ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT I WOULD OF CONSIDERED POLITE OR MAYBE EVEN LEGAL!!! BUT I DON’T FEEL LIKE FIGHTING U FASCISTS ANYMORE ITS JUST A STUPID WEBPAGE!
“Um…interesting guy,” Kasey said. “But it still doesn’t tell us anything.”
Searching the phone directory for “O’Doyle” produced thousands of listings.
“Hold on,” I said, directing the browser to another website. I typed in the domain name where the error message had been posted, and the registry information popped up.
ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT:
123 N0NE 0F YOUR BUS1NESS STREET
N0WHERE, USA
…And a fake phone number.
“Oh, now we have all the answers,” Kasey sighed, flopping onto the bed.
I stared at the administrative contact name. It was just a bunch of letters, numbers, and symbols, but something about it was familiar. All of the Os were zeroes. And the i in business was a one.
“It’s leet.” I wrote l337 on Kasey’s notebook. “L-e-e-t. One of the guys in the Doom Squad thought he was some mastermind hacker. He wrote everything that way.”
I went back to the search engine and typed in ZEERGONATER.
A list of results popped up—Zeergonater’s postings on various Internet forums, mostly about urban legends and conspiracies, with a good dose of video game chat thrown in besides.
“This doesn’t help us,” Kasey said. “It’s not like he posted his real name anywhere.”
“Yeah, but…he had to slip up sometime,” I said. I read through some of the postings. Zeergonater had a chip on his shoulder the size of San Francisco, and he seemed hyperaware of covering his tracks, staying anonymous.
Finally, we found a clue. On a post he made about why he chose to live where he lived, Zeergonater wrote that in the span of three hours he could be skiing, surfing, or camping—plus, there was no sales tax.
“Oregon,” Kasey said.
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“No sales tax,” she said. “Mountains. Ocean. Forests.”
Searching for O’Doyles in Oregon still left us with hundreds of results.
From Bad to Cursed Page 10
