Page 19

The mural I’d seen earlier stretches across the plaster, dark and lethal in its beauty. Recognition stirs. “Is that…The Inferno?” I ask, tracing the outlines of two figures near a cliff’s edge.

“You know The Inferno?” Daisy’s voice is soft with surprise.

“Yes. It’s an exact copy of Gustave Doré’s painting, isn’t it?” I focus on the figures. Dante and Virgil.

She looks at me differently then.

“Midway upon the journey of our life,” I recite. “I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward path had been lost.”

“You have a good memory,” Daisy teases.

A sharp pain slices through my skull. The scar along my cheek throbs, buzzing like a struck wire. Something pulls me inward, into the cold dark corridors of memory. Fragments flicker. Dark walls made of rock. Water filling my lungs over and over again. Men. Death. None complete, all fractured.

“Agh.” I press my palm to my forehead.

“You okay?” Daisy leans over, placing a cool hand against my temple. Her touch is soft, almost unreal.

“Yes. I’m fine.” I open my eyes. The mural swims, faces and tongues, before sharpening again. The devils leer down from where Dante hides behind Virgil.

“I remember reading the Divine Comedy,” I whisper. “Cover to cover. Once. Maybe more.”

“Victor Lazarus was obsessed with Purgatory,” Daisy murmurs. “I don’t know why. It is not as if anyone he loved was dying.”

My head quiets. I stare up at the devils. “What was his father like?”

“He was professor then a father as I said, his research consumed him.”

A log collapses in the fire. Daisy crawls forward to stoke the flames, but the stubborn wood refuses to catch.

I lean over and nudge it with the poker. Sparks leap, blooming into heat.

“I can understand that kind of curiosity,” I admit.

“Oh?” Daisy turns toward me. “Why?”

“Well…when you’re in the dark, you want to know what’s hiding there. Human nature pulls toward what is forbidden, even when warned away.”

Daisy purses her lips. “Philosophical too, I see.”

“I relate to Dante right now.” I laugh softly.

“But who will be your Virgil?” she muses.

“We will have to find out. As long as there’s no boiling pitch and demons that scale the cliff faces, I’ll be alright.” A yawn overtakes me. Doing nothing has somehow exhausted me more than nearly drowning did. I crave solitude, the library’s hearth and the book waiting for me like loyal pet. Answers might be hidden in its pages, and I cannot allow fear to lull me into complacency.

A question burns in my throat. “Is the room I am staying in…hers?”

Daisy sits up, pulling her knees to her chest. Firelight flickers across her eyes.

“That part of the house was hers once,” she says carefully. “But everything has been cleared out. There is nothing left of her.”

“Am I wearing her clothes?” I bolt upright.

To my chagrin, Daisy bursts into laughter. “Relax. Those are mine. And they emptied that wing years ago.”

“Yours?”

“Yes. I lived in that room for a while. The library is lovely, isn’t it?”