“It’s not here!” Harley’s muffled voice barked from below. I leaned over the balcony of the weird study-cum-platform to look at her.
“No luck?”
She glanced up at me and shook her head. “It’s not on any of these shelves. They’ve got a few Grimoires, but none of them belong to my parents. Do you think they might have locked it away somewhere else? They thought my dad was a murderer, so it makes sense that they’d want to keep it away from snooping eyes. Although, we don’t know what’s in it, so maybe not.” She grunted. “But then, why would Salinger have said it was in here?”
“If Salinger said it was in here, then it has to be. I don’t see why he’d lie about it. Plus, he mumbled something about it again after his third whiskey sour,” I replied. “I’ll keep looking up here. Shout if you find anything.”
I wandered to the back of the enclosed platform. Two bookshelves jutted out at the far side. Curious, I skirted around them, only to find a glass display case behind each stack. The one on the right-hand side was empty, but the one on the left… I approached it cautiously; a weird vibe was emanating from inside. A closed book rested on a golden stand, but there was no card or description. The cover was bound in a beautiful, cream leather, embellished with swirling vines of silver and gold. A glittering jewel had been embedded in each corner of the front cover—sapphire, ruby, emerald, and diamond, to represent each of the elements. In the very center, a white pearl and a black pearl, side by side.
“Harley!” I hissed, hurrying back over to the balustrade. “Harley! I think I found it!”
She darted across the room below and pounded up the stairs, following me back to the glass display case. It didn’t seem to be locked with any kind of magical prevention system, though I presumed that would be triggered if we tried to take anything out of the Special Collections room. That’s what I’d felt on my way in—the defense mechanism to prevent theft. Everything in here had to stay in here. And besides, there’d be no point in putting a magical lock on something like this. It wasn’t finished, by all accounts, and Grimoire spells couldn’t be used unless they’d been finished by the creators. This was, for all intents and purposes, a really pretty book with no actual purpose.
“Oh my God, this is it,” she gasped. “I can feel their energy pouring out. This is it. This is my parents’ Grimoire. The black pearl and the white pearl—that’s Hester and Hiram. Light and Dark, two sides of the same coin.”
I smiled. “Nice catch, right? There’s always something hidden behind bookcases in creepy places like this.”
“But how do we get into it?”
“I was thinking about phasing through the glass to try and grab it, but those spells are way too advanced. I’d give myself a cardiac arrest just trying it, even with the Orishas protecting me,” I replied reluctantly. “Plus, they’re kind of split at the moment, with half of them watching our fake counterparts.”
She exhaled. “What if we just smashed the glass and took it?”
“I think we’d have half the coven in here before we even reached the stairs.”
“I’m not coming this far only to fail now.”
I peered at the padlock that held the glass door closed. It wasn’t charmed or engraved with runes. It appeared to be a simple, run-of-the-mill padlock. “How controlled is your Telekinesis these days?”
Harley frowned. “Pretty good. Why?”
“How would you feel about picking the lock with your powers?”
“Won’t that set off the alarms?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The padlock doesn’t seem to be charmed at all.”
“I’ll give it a try,” Harley said, after a moment’s pause. The poor girl was desperate. I could see it in her eyes. To be honest, after all this hassle, I was getting a little too eager for my own good, as well.
A sliver of shimmering air snaked out of Harley’s palms, the pearl on her Esprit glowing bright as she fed the thin stream of Telekinesis into the padlock. Her brow furrowed with the strain of fiddling with the finicky lock pins inside. In the silence of the second floor, I could almost hear them moving.
“Well, this is infuriating,” she muttered.
“I’m guessing this isn’t hairpin easy?”
She shook her head. “Nope, this is next-level lockpicking. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve broken a lock or two in my time, but this is ridiculous.”
“You’ve picked a lock or two?”
She smiled. “Sometimes, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Mainly foster parents confiscating my stuff, but there’ve been a few secret trips to the principal’s office to change a few grades, too.”
I kept quiet as she continued, her face contorted in a mask of pure determination.
“Can you say something?” Harley asked. Her voice startled me. “You’re freaking me out, standing there watching over me like a ghost.”
“Sure… uh… you know, it’s one of my goals in life to create a Grimoire someday. Most of my ancestors forged one—be rude not to keep in line with some Catemaco traditions. That one I’m down with. The arranged marriage, not so much.”
Harley laughed tightly, straining with the lock. “Where do you even buy the kind of blank journal you need to start one? Do they, like, sell them at a magical store?”
“In a way,” I replied. “There are magical bookbinders out there who specialize in Grimoires. They make the special paper and bindings to accommodate powerful Chaos energy, judging the levels of protection needed based on the magical who’s making it. You can’t just grab a notepad from any old stationery store and jot down your spells and charms. Well, you could, but they wouldn’t work the way a Grimoire does. It’s not just normal paper. There’s an artistry to the work, which is why all the Grimoire covers are so intricately designed. The bookbinders work with the creators to forge the right book for their needs, matching it perfectly.”
“All that work for one book?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right about the white pearl and the black pearl having something to do with your mom and dad being of Light and Dark. The intertwining vines of silver and gold probably represent their unity and love,” I said, pointing to the symbolic details. “This star up here likely has something to do with your mom, as Hester means ‘star’ in Persian. And this triskelion down here, that’s an ancient druid symbol that has been linked to the Merlin mythos for centuries. So, that’s probably your dad.” I gestured to an image of three connected swirls, curving out like the coiled legs of a starfish.
“How do you know so much about Grimoires?”
“Like I say, they’ve been in the family for generations. Call it a professional interest.”
Just then, something clicked inside the lock, the heavy part sagging as the top came loose.
“I did it!” Harley whooped, covering her mouth quickly in case the sound alerted anyone.
Eagerly, she tugged open the glass door and reached inside. I stepped back, giving her a moment alone with the Grimoire. She ran her hand across the cream leather, over every indented embellishment and jeweled detail, before opening the cover to reveal the first page. I could only imagine how it felt to hold something like that—something so special and intimately crafted.
“‘With you, I am never in darkness. With you, there will always be a guiding light. With you, I fear no shadows. With you, I am whole.’” Harley’s voice caught in her throat as she read the dedication aloud. “‘With you, the night becomes a gift. With you, I will always find balance. With you, I do not need to hide. With you, I am whole.’”
“They dedicated the Grimoire to each other,” I whispered.
Harley nodded. “Their love… I can feel it, rolling off the pages. It’s… it’s almost too overwhelming. I can feel them in here. They’re in every word. All the love and power and time they poured into it… I can feel every little bit.” Her breathing became ragged, her eyes blinking rapidly. “The intensity… it’s… I can’t put it into words. Every part of who they were… it’s all—” She stumbled before she could finish, gripping the book as she swayed to the side. Her knees were shaking, her whole body drenched in sweat.
My hands shot out to grab her around the shoulders and set her upright. “Hey, take it easy. If it’s too much, put the book back.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. I want to keep looking. We’re running out of time here.” Her gaze fixed on me with a fierce defiance. “I haven’t come all this way just to put the book back, not until I’ve seen more.”
“I get it, believe me, but I don’t want to have to carry you out of here.”
“Let me try again,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine.”
I let go of her as she started to flip through the book, settling on an index of spells. She ran her finger down the list, her mouth moving as she read each one. Halfway down, she froze.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling nervous.
“There’s a section dedicated to the Children of Chaos,” she replied, turning to the corresponding page. The sweat poured off her, her cheeks a worrying shade of red, like she’d fallen into a fever of some kind. As she scanned the pages, I made out a blur of colored ink and haphazard illustrations, before Harley settled on the right one. At the very top, someone had sketched an inky image—a wispy rendering of shadow and darkness, hooded and winged, holding a scythe in one hand. Erebus, the Child of Darkness. No one else would give me shivers like this… aside from my mom.
I peered over Harley’s shoulder and tried to read the words beneath the sketch. My eyes drifted across the first few lines, which spouted the usual mythos: “From Chaos came forth Erebus…” I was about to read on when I became aware of Harley murmuring the spell under her breath. The whites and irises of her eyes had turned a worrying shade of black, her body fixed in a trance-like state.