Phantom of the Library

by Lidiya Foxglove

  “And, and now you’re saying my style is Pennsyltucky,” I said. “I grew up in one of the most beautiful homes in New York State.”

  “Ohh ho,” Kiersten said. “I guess, if you like to live in an old lady house with parlors and ghosts and gloomy wallpaper.”

  “When I’m done with them, they’re gorgeous,” I said. “I would live in any one of them. Who let you into the neighborhood anyway?”

  “It’s not gated,” Kiersten said.

  “It’s magically gated. But you snuck in anyway. I don’t trust it. Are you going to introduce me to your baby?” Maybe the baby was just a ruse. A baby illusion to throw me off my game.

  “You don’t even like babies,” Kiersten said. “Why would I introduce you?”

  “Hey, ladies…” Caleb tried to interrupt to keep the peace again. We ignored him.

  “How do you know I don’t like babies? I always pretend I do. And the fact that I’m bad at lying has never stopped you before.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Kiersten said, smoothing her head again. “So it would be nice if you didn’t yell. This is little Lucie. The other kids are with Grandma.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I guess it’s a real baby.”

  “They told us what you did,” Kiersten said, shooting me a dark expression. “For the sake of my children, and their familiars, and their future as Ethereal witches…. I mean, you’re a traitor, Helena. But we’re not here to do anything about it. You already did whatever you did.”

  “I’m putting the world back together.”

  “Well, I’m protecting my babies. And I’m buying this house and we’ll be watching you. We’re going to make way more money than you on this house, I bet.”

  “Fine. Let’s bet. The loser promises to never buy a property in the winner’s entire region ever again.”

  “Okay, great,” Kiersten said. “Good luck with that, sweetie. I can’t wait to see you try to put your old-fashioned tastes on a Frank Pedrewsky original.”

  “Great! I will! And I’m going to sell my house to the most fabulous wizard in the Valley!” I fumed back to the van. “I don’t even know if this is ‘the Valley’,” I muttered. “I hear people say that on TV and I just blurted it out.” My feelings were conflicted in that I had never liked Kiersten one bit, but I also realized that mostly I was just jealous of her gorgeous family and her success.

  “I love you,” Jake said.

  “Wha? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Because of your temper. And your competitive nature. And everything.” He laced his fingers with mine as he pushed me back against the van and kissed me.

  “You were so upset a minute ago.”

  “Because you make me so competitive,” he said. “I want to win you. Every inch of you. Body, heart, mind…ego. I want to be good enough.”

  “I’m not that great,” I said. “Jake…” By now I had this strong sense that my royal blood really affected Jake. The wolves had been oppressed by families like mine for a long time. At the same time, he seemed to have some genuine…what would you call it? Maybe not respect. Maybe not quite envy. But Jake was a striver. I think he wanted respect and wealth and all the things I’d grown up taking for granted. I didn’t want to say this to him outright. I didn’t want to say it was meaningless to be a ‘Baroness’.

  Frankly, it was a lie. I didn’t want to have that power to wield, but that didn’t change a thing.

  He gave me a kiss that was almost more of a bite, his tongue forcing into mine, and as soon as I responded, he nipped my lower lip.

  He reached behind him and opened the van door.

  “We’re late hitting the road, Hel.” He got in the passenger seat and stroked the hard shape of his erection, tight in his jeans. “But I don’t know if I can drive like this.”

  I chewed my lip. “Oh, so what do you want me to do about it?”

  “Plenty of room in these old van seats,” he said. “So I think maybe you should drive.” He held out a hand and when I took a step up, he pulled me into his lap. “You might not want to go too fast…”

  He tugged up my skirt, pulled down my panties, and gave me a look. Sure, I knew what to do here. I also knew it was probably a bad idea. But I did it anyway. He started driving slowly down the road, and I unzipped his pants and climbed on top of him.

  Jake didn’t say a word. He looked a little tense with concentration. His eyes were fixed on the road but his jaw flexed, he briefly wet his lips, and he swallowed, as I started slowly grinding up and down his length. I don’t know why but that turned me on even more.

  “Oh, fuck…” He dragged a hand through his hair and then clamped it back on the wheel. “Move…move your head over a little; I can’t see the road.”

  I lowered my head, kissing his neck as I pumped my hips faster.

  “Oh, fuck yes,” he breathed. “You do owe me one…sneaking off with Jasp like that…”

  “I don’t owe you anything…but you do trust my multi-tasking skills by now, I would hope…”

  “Fuck…”

  “At least there’s no one behind us.”

  “Faster.”

  “Only so fast I can go in such close quarters…”

  But I rode him faster anyway, as I was feeling sweaty and urgent. I didn’t want to get in an accident. But I was going to get it done.

  He was going about ten miles an hour when we hit a climax. A car pulled in behind him and honked.

  “That’s not a cop, is it!?” I scrambled into my seat, now feeling very embarrassed. I tried to help him zip up his pants, but he batted my hand and did it himself. He was cracking up laughing now. Thankfully, not a cop.

  “That was both the sexiest and stupidest thing I’ve done in a while.” He slung me a grin as he picked up speed. “You are…something else.”

  “You are all turning me into something else,” I growled, but then I started laughing too.

  He put a little more distance between us and Avalon Woods, and then he said, “The truth is…I…I can’t read your notes.”

  “My notes?”

  “I can’t read,” he said. “At all. Well, some. But not…I don’t know. What would you call it? Not functionally.”

  “You can’t read?”

  “That’s what I fucking said.”

  “And you were worried I would think less of you?”

  “I think less of me.”

  “Is it a learning disability? Or an education thing? Jasper…?”

  “He didn’t have my problems, no,” Jake said. “I guess it’s a learning disability. Maybe both. Our village schools aren’t the best for that.”

  “Could I help you?”

  “I don’t want help,” he said. “I could never focus or connect the dots between the words I speak and the words on a page. It’s so fucking frustrating. So Jasper just covered for me. Still does.”

  “I’m relieved!” I said. “I thought it would be something worse! I mean, it must cause you trouble, but…Jake, it’s okay. You’re good at so many other things. And if you ever do want help, I’d help, but if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  He didn’t look happy. “Do you think you’d react that way if Graham couldn’t read?”

  “Of course I would. Graham said he had troubles in school, too. I know you heard him.”

  “But he definitely turned out academic enough for you. He was in government. He’s not stupid, he was just distracted by his demon side. Byron was a damn librarian. I see the look in your eyes. You don’t think it’s that strange for me to be illiterate because I’m a werewolf anyway.”

  “False!” I cried. “Totally false! I don’t care if none of you can read! I’ll do all the reading. Puh-lease. Just keep looking good and swinging tools around and you never have to read a single word ever again.”

  A small smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “So I’m just a piece of meat to you?”

  “I’m just saying, every good house flipping team has brains on one end and then brawn on
the other, and never the twain shall meet.”

  He laughed. “Like I said…I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I whispered. “And I’ve never been happier since you came to help me with Lockwood House. I want to meet your family.”

  “Hel…”

  “Eyes on the road!” I snapped before he could kiss me again.

  “Okay.” He reached for my boob instead.

  I rolled my eyes, grinning.

  “When we have kids, can I get in bed with you when you read to them?” he asked me. “Just to listen. Not to traumatize the kids.”

  I glared at him sideways. “You know, I’m aware that wolves usually don’t just have kids. They have litters.”

  “You have a litter of dads,” he said.

  I snorted. “I have a dad. It doesn’t always mean that much.”

  “I’ll be as good as two dads,” he said. His tone had softened and I knew we were having a serious discussion behind it all.

  If I didn’t want kids, I should probably tell him now. Spare us both that heartbreak when our paths didn’t match.

  “I want to see you as a dad,” I said. “I’m realizing I definitely want that. I’m not as confident in myself as a mom. I didn’t have the best role models. And I’m pretty obsessed with work.”

  “I like that about you. I know you’d be a good mom too. You’d be as attentive to a baby as you are with masking off the trim and fixtures before you paint. Which you’re great at, by the way.”

  “Oh, thank you for noticing.” I looked at my hands. “I just don’t think I know yet. I know how much you want a family. I think family was something I was running away from. I’m not sure what to say. If I never want kids, I don’t want to feel like I jerked you around.”

  “You don’t have to know yet,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It takes time to figure it out,” he said. “Maybe I love you enough that you can’t get rid me that easily.”

  I smiled. “You’re such a softie, Jake Sullivan.”

  “Some of me is soft,” he said. “Other parts are getting pretty damn hard again…”

  “It would be dangerous to stop, with council wizards looking for us,” I said. “And—we’re not doing anything else without stopping.”

  “Yeah, I fucking know it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Helena

  “None of these cabinets are right. None.”

  “I think these might work if we swapped out the handles,” Jake said, but he seemed unhappy with our choices too. “Maybe we need to keep driving. I’m sure Los Angeles has every cabinet you can imagine, somewhere.”

  “Like we have time for that. This is the third store already. We can’t keep driving around. Before I was just thinking about making a nice space. But now, Bel Tramonto absolutely needs to sell for more than Kiersten and Caleb’s house.”

  “So you admit that you don’t usually make the most marketable decisions,” Jake said. “Not until someone lights a fire under your ass.”

  “I just happen to think that I shouldn’t ruin perfectly good houses for the sake of buyers’ temporary whims.”

  “It’s called a design trend, you know,” Jake said. “Maybe you should go work for a museum instead. When you move in with us we could hook you up with a museum in Salem.”

  “Oh, you think we’re all moving to Boston?”

  “Well, Graham definitely isn’t moving back to Philly after he trashed his campaign, is he? And…where do you live?”

  “I’m…nomadic.” I guess he might be right. Boston. A wolf clan right on top of us. I was quite excited to meet the Sullivan family, but to actually live there was an overwhelming thought. “Let’s get serious. We need a new plan. Light kitchens are trendy.”

  “What if we split the difference? White cabinets with wooden countertops. If we were home and I had the shop, I’d make them myself out of our salvage pile.”

  “Ohhh, you have your own salvage pile?”

  “You bet your boots I do. All those old houses in Boston? We have so many old floor planks and doors…”

  “Stained glass windows?”

  “Stained glass windows. Oh yes. Try not to have an orgasm right here in Home Depot.”

  We were both laughing. “Okay, maybe settling down isn’t such a bad idea if it means I can have a workshop and a stash of old doors.”

  We ordered the cabinets in off-white and a light wood for the countertops for a clean look that still had a Scandinavian design vibe and came home with the van stuffed and stacked with as many materials as we could carry. Jasper was bummed that his first vision didn’t work out but he agreed that we’d found a decent compromise. Now it was just a matter of divvying up the work. Byron and Graham were good for extra muscle and Graham had learned how to do tile in the last house, so he was going to work on the bathroom while Jake went to get a permit for the new structure. Jasper and I were doing the kitchen. Billie and Gaston put down new flooring in the living room.

  We got back into a groove easily. The work was going fast. I think we were eager to get out of this neighborhood and return to the northeast where we felt like we were on home turf, although we weren’t actually any safer there.

  Actually, we were probably safest here.

  The old people were heartily pissed off about Kiersten and Caleb buying the house. They were starting to like us more every day that we were not Kiersten and Caleb. But I knew those two. They didn’t do things in the same style I would do them, but they were good at their business. Probably better than me. Like the Sullivans, they didn’t wrap up their own emotions into a job. If people wanted stupid barn doors, they got barn doors.

  Forget the whole magical world. I wanted to win at house flipping right here in California, on their ‘turf’.

  As with so many houses, the biggest problem was the uninvited inhabitants. Your ghosts, demons, and in this case, a pesky water nymph. When I was in the grotto taking measurements, tMaya sprung out of the water, saw me, and said, “Oh. You again.”

  “Hi,” I said, not wanting to get too conversational with the undine. We had to get rid of her but I wasn’t sure how.

  “What are you doing to Sam’s house?”

  “Measuring for a new work island.”

  “An island? What do you mean?”

  “Like a work table. Not an island in the sea.”

  “Oh.” She watched me for a little while as I tried to ignore her. The undine looked like every other undine, or maybe I was racist for not being able to tell undines apart, but she was cute, although she had a lot of vicious teeth. “Are you going to stay here?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Good,” Maya said. “This is my home and I don’t need any girls living here. Sam gave me all the attention, until…well, I guess he forgot me.”

  “Don’t feel bad about it,” I said. “Humans get old.”

  “I wish I could get old. I wish I was old with him.” She let out a sad, musical wail.

  How was I supposed to get anything done? “Well, he wasn’t willing to marry you, so you can do better,” I said. “You deserve someone who loves you.”

  She looked at me a little coolly. “Love? I can’t love. Not until I get a soul. So I don’t care about that.”

  “Ah…so…you can’t love back until after the wedding…” I frowned. “That’s awful. But you want a soul?”

  “Of course,” the undine said. “Of course I want a soul!”

  Such spirits were an odd paradox. They were born with a desire to earn souls but didn’t know what the soul would feel like. They didn’t really know love, only a driving desire to seduce so they could get the soul. It was some odd biological evolution. If the magical world had evolution. Or biology. I wasn’t sure how it worked.

  “Sam used to bring me foods,” she said. “And little spangles.” She held up a diamond that looked expensive and she seemed to pull out of nowhere. “I want foods and spangles…”

  I didn�
�t want to piss her off. I felt sorry for her, really. “What foods do you like?”

  “Any foods Sam made me.”

  I didn’t remember seeing any cookbooks around. “What did he make you?”

  “Roasted meats and sandwiches and pas-ghetti…” She frowned. “Or something like that.”

  “Spaghetti.”

  “Yes!” she hissed, like she was mad at me for knowing the right word. “Spaghetti! About now at the cold water time, he made little potato cakes.”

  “Oh, for Hannukah maybe? That’s so sweet. I don’t know how to make latkes. They’re a little different. I can make Austrian potato pancakes for you.”

  “I don’t want girl pancakes!” Maya screamed.

  “You really imprinted on Sam, huh?”

  I don’t think she knew what ‘imprint’ meant, but she nodded anyway. “It’s not fair! Why would he just leave me here alone? He visited me every day for a long time. How could he just forget me?”

  “He couldn’t help it.”

  “You’re a witch and you’re in love with that ghost man, aren’t you?”

  “He’s not a ghost now, but yes.”

  “So could you summon Sam’s ghost and bring him back to life?”

  “Doesn’t work like that,” I said.

  “You’re not taking out those cabinets, are you?” she said, her eyes cutting to my next move as I measured the wall.

  “We’re putting in nicer, newer ones. Like these new lights.” I pointed to the boxes of new fixtures waiting to be installed. “They’ll have a starry look.”

  She let out this horrid, if still somewhat musical, screech and flung pool water at me. Being a water spirit, she could manipulate water on a massive level and a basement-sized tsunami came at me before I could even react. I was drenched so thoroughly that even my underwear was soaked through under my jeans.

  “Everything stays as is!” she shrieked. “You can have the artifact like Sam wanted, but everything stays as is!”

  “What the hell, man?” I screamed, flinging out my arms, as she dove back into the pool and vanished, eluding punishment. Water was still dripping into my eyes off the strands of my hair popped free from my braid.