“I just need asecond.”
Maybe he heard her porcelain words for the fragile things they were, because he didn’t argue further. As soon as he left the room, panic crashed over Ellory in tidal wave tremors. She collapsed to her knees, burying her face in her hands to wait it out. She had held herself together well, too well, because she cracked apart in seismic pieces now. Her body was a prison of short breaths and a roiling stomach, of sudden chills and heavy sweat. She wanted to lie on the floor, but it was filthy and unwelcoming. Her mind screamed at her to breathe. Her nerves simply screamed and screamed and screamed…
Until now, part of her hadn’t truly believed her episodes were a sign that magic was real. It was easy to put forth a theory when it felt unlikely, easy to dig into the past when it had been laid to rest. If magic was real, if magic was the reason for her lapses of memory, then it was not only extant but actively being used against her. And until she knew who, how, or why, she was in danger.
Ellory’s throat closed. She gripped her curls tightly and counted her breaths.Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
It took five rattling minutes before she felt steady enough to get to her feet. Seven before she was able to stuff the last of her macabre theories into a box at the back of her mind. Ten before she felt normal enough to go and find Hudson.
“Want to grab dinner?” he asked. If he cared how long she had taken or about the patches of dirt smeared against the knees of her pants, it wasn’t enough to take his mind off food.
“Sure,” said Ellory. “You’re paying, since I was right.”
“Wow.”
“You can pick the place.”
“Your generosity knows no bounds…”
***
It wasn’t until they were sitting across from each other in a diner that Ellory realized how odd this was. Or, rather, how odd thiswasn’t.
Hudson had chosen a diner called Little House, which was every bit as cozy as its name implied. If not for the window booths and wrought iron marble-top tables scattered around, she would have thought that she was in someone’s dining room. The floors were dark wood, and the walls were deep blue, with what looked like family photos for decoration. Brown lanterns dangled in a line from the center of the ceiling, and a bloodred curtain hid the back—where Ellory assumed there was a kitchen and bathrooms—from the front. The waiters were wearing all black with deep blue aprons that matched the decor. She half expected someone’s grandmother to breeze in and set a fresh pie on the center of their table.
Ellory hadn’t even known this place existed, and yet, when Hudson had pulled into the parking lot, she had been struck by a sense of familiarity. She steered them toward this booth tucked away in one of the back corners, with a view of the street instead of the cars. She’d absently ordered without even looking at the menu. And it wasn’t until now that the strangeness of it finally hit her.
After all, she was having a strangeyear.
“I feel it here, too,” she said. “I don’t recognize this place, but I feel like I do.”
Hudson set down his own menu, which he’d asked to keep in case he wanted dessert. Apparently, Little House had phenomenal desserts. “Are you sure you haven’t been here before?”
“I’d remember being here in the last three months. Everythinglooksnew to me, but I know things I shouldn’t know. Like what’s on the menu.”
“I thought you’d looked it up in the car.” Hudson looked down, like he expected to see her phone somewhere on the table. Ellory showed him both hands, her phone safely tucked away. He frowned. “I’ll admit that’s bizarre.”
“More bizarre than the museum?”
“The museum was not in itself bizarre,” he said. “The fact that they hid an entire wing in it was.”
“I was thinking the same.” It would be one thing if the room had been demolished. To be taken seriously as an Ivy League institution, Warren wouldwantto hide its occult origins. But they had created a tomb, a forgotten memory waiting to be found by those who knew where to look. “Are we going back after lunch?”
“That would raise some suspicion, even from the most apathetic student worker. No one ever goes in there, let alone twice in one day.” Hudson rubbed his face, and Ellory was suddenly reminded that, every time she saw him, he looked more and more exhausted. “I think it’s best if we take what we saw and do some independent research.”
“I don’t know if there are any other books on Warren’s supernatural history. Even the one I read was pretty bare,” Ellory admitted. “Maybe there’s something in the library? It’s haunted, after all, somaybe—” She sat up straighter as an idea struck her. “Do you think we should try talking to the Graves Ghost?”
Hudson’s mouth twitched. “Of course you want to talk to the Graves Ghost.”
Ellory had been thinking of ancient texts and digitized newspaper articles, but the Graves Ghost was possibly as old as the library itself. If she could communicate with it the way she had with Miss Claudette years ago, maybe it would tell her something as impossible as its existence. Maybe it would point her in the direction of books that could help. It spent more time in the Graves than any librarian did, after all.
“I think that maybe we should start with living people,” Hudson deadpanned. “For example, maybe my logic professor can tell us more about the symbols we saw. I can ask her over fall break.”
“Fine,” Ellory said magnanimously. “I’ll need that week to get the materials for a séance anyway.”
He rolled his eyes, probably sensing that she had never been to a séance and was going to have to google what materials she would need. While American children feared the boogeyman, Ellory had grown up with stories of duppies. The spirits could be malevolent or benevolent, and the former type had been used by her parents as a cautionary tale, especially after she’d come home claiming to see one. She’d memorized all the tricks to keep them away—the herbs, the chants, the number of the local obeah man. She’d never seen herself growing up to summon a duppy of any kind, but desperate times…
At least the Graves Ghost didn’t seem wicked.
