Bane Page 2

  I step forward and run my fingers over the spines of the books, wishing my power would somehow let me know which volume, if any, holds clues. Why can’t I be more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and have a brainy Giles to go to for help?

  I pull a book about the families involved in the witch trials from the shelf and grab a collection of old maps on my way to the table in the center of the room. I lose track of time as I go back and forth from reading the book to examining the maps of 17th century land holdings.

  My heart speeds up when I see my last name, but then I realize the correct combination of letters doesn’t spell Pherson but rather MacPherson. Still, I make note of where I find it in case it’s a connection to my ancestors. Had our family changed our name in the intervening years? Lots of families did that to escape persecution of one type or another.

  When the door starts to open, I stiffen. But it’s only the friendly librarian again.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Am I imagining a hint of too much curiosity in her eyes? Or is it just a librarian’s natural need to know more?

  “No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind, this is my area of expertise,” she says as she taps the cover of one of the books about the Salem witch trials.

  My mouth opens a little, wanting to ask the dozens of questions that come flooding into my mind. But I only nod, not sure if this turn of events is lucky for me or something I should be concerned about.

  She crosses to the shelf on the back wall and retrieves a thin volume. She returns to the table where I’m sitting and places the book next to the ones already there. “This is one of the better ones, in my opinion.”

  I glance at the title. The Salem Witch Trials, a Concise History.

  “Thanks.” I glance past her toward the shelf. “There certainly are a lot of them.”

  “People are fascinated by the dark periods of history. The Plague, the Holocaust.” She motions toward the shelf behind her. “The infamous Salem witch trials.”

  She retrieves a book someone has left unshelved and puts it back in its proper place. “Are you visiting Salem? I haven’t seen you here before yesterday.”

  A frisson of unease makes me want to squirm, but she’s really given me no reason to think she’s anything other than a friendly, eager bookworm. Still, I have to be careful until I know more about my situation and what it means for not only my future but also Egan’s.

  “Yes.”

  The woman keeps watching me as if she expects more. When I give her nothing else, the librarian smiles and glances at the clock. “Okay. We close this level fifteen minutes before the library, so you’ve got five more minutes.”

  I glance at the clock and see that I’ve read the afternoon away. I nod then deliberately lower my attention to the book in front of me.

  “Well, if you come back and decide you need help finding anything, just let me know. My name’s Sarah.”

  “Okay,” I respond without looking up. I hope she attributes this to my desire to make the most of my research time and not rudeness or anything suspicious.

  When Sarah closes the glass door behind her, I stare after her. I don’t sense anything supernatural about her, so at least she’s not a coven witch.

  I return my attention to the materials spread out in front of me and feel suddenly overwhelmed, as if I’ve only taken a tiny bite out of an enormous pie. How in the world am I going to get through all this information without help?

  I press the base of my palm against my forehead to stave off an encroaching headache that feels like someone has started a jackhammer against the inside of my skull. I have to find some balance between wanting all the information right now and the reality of what I can do on my own.

  I glance toward the closed door, thinking about Sarah’s offer to assist me. Is there a way I can take her up on her offer without telling her the whole truth? I take a deep breath and tell myself I’ll think about it more after I get some rest. Since I can’t check out any of the special collections, I use my new phone to take pictures of several pages of the book and a couple of the old speeches by former mayors. In response, the jackhammer gets turned up a notch, and I grind my teeth to keep from screaming at the tiny jackhammer operator. Yeah, that wouldn’t make me look crazy at all.

  As I stare at the piles of research and think of the hours it’s going to take to sift through it, I realize that maybe I am crazy.

  Sarah and her fellow librarian are otherwise occupied when I head downstairs five minutes before closing time. I slip past the circulation desk and out into the night to find Egan waiting for me.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask as I descend the steps to the sidewalk.

  “I’m starving. Thought you might be hungry, too. And no offense, but you can’t cook. I’ve never known anyone who could ruin ramen noodles.”

  I shrug. “It’s a talent.”

  He snorts then nods toward the Jeep behind him.

  “Do I even want to know where that came from?” I ask.

  “Nope.”

  “We said no powers, Egan, not unless absolutely necessary.” Like when we’d used the tiniest sliver of our power of manipulation to maneuver our way into a rental cottage this morning. After several days of lying low after leaving Baker Gap and sleeping in my Volkswagen Beetle, we’d needed actual beds and to hide the Beetle and Egan’s Ducati. “We can’t afford for the covens to find us before we figure out how to defeat them for good.”

  “Have a little faith in me, will you? I don’t have to use my powers to be persuasive.” He gives me a wicked grin, and it makes my heart sink because it’s all too familiar. I’ve seen it at least a dozen times over the years—all before he met and fell for Toni.

  “Don’t give me that look,” he says.

  “What look? Oh, you mean the one where I can’t believe you’ve screwed around on Toni after only two weeks.”

  “Toni’s in the past, same as Keller.” He pauses, letting his words sink in. “And you’re making assumptions. You know what they say about that.” Egan climbs into the driver’s seat of the Jeep.

  I’m tempted to just walk home, but it’s flipping cold. I can’t imagine what full-on winter is going to feel like. Of course, I might be nowhere near Salem then.

  I slide into the Jeep and shut the door harder than necessary.

  “You don’t have the right to be mad at me. It was your idea to leave,” Egan says.

  “You agreed.”

  “I did, and I’m moving on. You should, too.”

  I stare at him. “How do you do that, just turn off emotions?”

  I expect him to give some flippant answer, but instead he stares out the windshield. “Lots of practice.”

  So he isn’t over Toni, no matter how much he might act otherwise.

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing, considering who we are.”

  He looks at me then. “There’s a difference between turning off what has to be turned off and giving in to our darker natures.”

  I don’t respond, instead looking back at the thus-far useless library.

  “No luck?” he asks.

  “Not yet, but I’m not giving up.”

  “We can do the impossible, and it’ll make us mighty?”

  I shift my gaze to Egan and laugh a little. “You got that from one of Toni’s Firefly T-shirts.”

  His eyes dim, and my new sensory abilities tell me he is hurting the same as I am. But before I can pull a girl move and ask him about his feelings, he turns the ignition key.

  “Where to?” he asks.

  “Wherever. I’m not all that hungry.”

  “You better fuel up because we’re going to have a long night,” he says.

  “You got something planned I don’t know about?”

  He nods toward the library. “I figure it’s time I fall on my sword and drag my ass back here. We’ll get a lot more research done if we both go at it without interruptions.”

  “Y
ou know they’re closed, right?”

  He smiles that wicked grin of his. “And I know the security in some rinky-dink library is no match for me.”

  I shake my head. “Okay then, I’m going to need some industrial strength coffee if I’m going to stay up all night. And an ibuprofen the size of a grapefruit.”

  “I have the perfect place.” Egan puts the Jeep in gear and drives away from the curb.

  As we stop at the end of the street, I look over to find Sarah the librarian standing next to her car in the parking lot. Despite the dimness of the light out there, I get the weirdest feeling that she’s watching us. And that she knows exactly what we’re up to.

  In that moment, I wonder if our new sensory abilities extend to regular humans. Or if Sarah is much more than a helpful librarian.

  Chapter Two

  Thanks to Egan’s breaking-and-entering abilities, we are able to examine the majority of the books and documents in the Salem History Room in three nights. What little is left, I plan to get through today. I try not to feel discouraged that so far nothing has given me anything approaching the answers I need.

  Egan’s mood isn’t faring any better. This newfound ability to sense each other’s feelings isn’t really a blessing. I don’t know if his sour mood is because of our lack of progress or him missing Toni, but I can’t take much more of it. I’ve already nearly bitten his head off half a dozen times. So I send him off to play tourist at the various witch-related sites around town to see if any of them hold anything more than hokey dramatizations of the infamous Salem witch trials.

  When I enter the library, I don’t see Sarah. The librarian isn’t on the second level either. Finally, something is going my way.

  Of course, that thought jinxes everything. When I open the door to the Salem History Room, someone is already seated at the table, a guy about my age. By the time I see him, it will draw more attention to me if I turn around and leave. So I make my way toward the drawers of maps.

  “Hey,” the guy says.

  “Hey.”

  “Figured I’d be the only teenager spending my Saturday afternoon in here,” he says.

  I turn toward the table with a stack of old property maps. “Guess not.” Come on, dude, take a hint. Short answers mean I don’t want to talk.

  He taps the book in front of him. “History homework. You?”

  “No, I’ve graduated.” It’s the first time I’ve had to use the story Egan and I concocted on the way to Salem, that we’re brother and sister and already eighteen. We can’t risk compelling someone to help us enroll in school, so we have to rely on our fake IDs to keep away the questions about why we aren’t living with adults.

  “Just a history lover then?”

  Chatty, isn’t he? I meet his gaze for the first time and realize not only is he good-looking with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes, but he doesn’t have that stunned look on his face that most guys get around me. I don’t know whether to be wary or thankful.

  “Yeah. Doing a bit of genealogy.” I’m not sure why I added that last bit, but it’s out there now, and I have to go with it.

  “Your family’s from here?”

  I nod.

  “Maybe I could help. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’m Rule, by the way. Rule Latimer.”

  Odd name. I nearly laugh at the irony of a girl named Jaxina thinking anyone’s name is unusual.

  “That’s okay. Don’t want to keep you from your homework.”

  “It’s no problem.” He knocks his knuckle against the book in front of him. “I’ve got plenty of time to work on this.”

  He seems so open, so willing to help that I find myself smiling. At the same time, I let a minuscule fraction of my power reach forth to examine him. When I detect no power signature, I make an executive decision. After all, I’ve been able to ask Sarah a question here and there without revealing too much of the truth. Maybe this Rule Latimer will prove useful.

  “I think my family lived in this area ages ago, maybe in some of the earliest settlements.”

  “What’s the family name?”

  I don’t immediately answer, wondering if I am about to make a huge mistake. But what I’ve done so far has yielded next to nothing of use. Maybe it’s time for a leap of faith. And if it is a mistake, I’ll deal with it then.

  “Pherson.”

  Rule doesn’t respond. Instead, he stares at me long enough to make my senses twitch. But then he scrunches his forehead for a moment before standing and crossing to the shelf next to the map cabinet. He scans the spines of several large books, and I get the distinct feeling the gears in his head are turning faster than normal. He seems to find what he’s looking for and pulls a book from the shelf. He places an old, fragile-looking text on the table in front of me.

  “These are some of the oldest land records for this part of Massachusetts.” He opens the book to the index and starts running his finger down a list of names written in that old-timey, flowing script that’s hard to read.

  I don’t move, don’t even dare to breathe too much. Rule stands close enough that I feel the warmth from his body and smell the scent of some sort of woodsy soap. It would be an intoxicating combination were I not in love with someone else. Even so, I can appreciate his attractiveness and wonder if I read too much into his initial reaction to my surname.

  “I’m not seeing any Phersons.” Why doesn’t he sound surprised? Is it just because he’s never heard it before, or because he has? He straightens, giving me room to breathe. I glance up at him, trying to read his expression. While he wears a friendly smile, it seems . . . more reserved.

  I shrug. “Oh, well. Guess they must have been from somewhere else. Thanks for looking.” I’m not giving up, just not involving this boy, this stranger any more than I already have. No matter how cute he is.

  He seems to shake off whatever was bothering him and smiles, and I find myself liking him on no more than instinct. I just hope my instincts haven’t been compromised by drawing in all that dark energy at Shiprock. I hate that I don’t know the extent of the effects on me. I feel different, but I can’t totally put my finger on it. Sort of tense.

  “No problem. Happy to help.” He shifts to return the book to its spot on the shelf.

  As he stretches his arms above his head, I notice just how tall and lanky he is. When I see how well his jeans fit, I jerk my gaze away and hate myself. How can I even notice another guy, especially when I scolded Egan for moving on from Toni so easily? Maybe my attraction to him is what’s making me tense, because in my heart it feels wrong.

  Needing some fresh air and a lot of distance from Rule, I stand.

  “You’re leaving?” he asks.

  I don’t look at him. “Yeah. Just remembered I’ve got to be somewhere in a few minutes.” That excuse probably sounds as lame as it feels coming off my tongue, but it doesn’t matter. Something about Rule is putting me on edge, and the last thing I need is one more reason to feel fidgety.

  “Okay. See you around,” he says.

  “Yeah, maybe.” I quickly return the materials I pulled. I don’t exactly run out the door, but Rule would have to be oblivious to not notice how quickly I make a getaway.

  Halfway back to the cottage, my phone rings.

  “Tell me you’ve got something,” I say when I answer Egan’s call.

  “Sorry to disappoint. I’m beginning to think this town has never seen a real witch.”

  “I know the feeling. I don’t think there’s any doubt about the covens doing one heck of a cover-up.”

  “Why do you think they did it? I mean, if they were suddenly more powerful than everyone else, why hide it?”

  I think for a moment about all the coven members I know, their personalities, their tendencies. “Maybe it started out as protection or even some leftover fear from the trials. But now, I just think they get a kick out of it, watching the non-witches go about their days totally in the dark.”

  “Hard to believe no one has let it slip in three hun
dred years,” Egan says.

  “You know what happens if someone makes a wrong step and goes against the covens.”

  We both knew it all too well.

  “Do you think we’re even looking in the right place? What if every single thing we’ve been told is a lie, and we’re on a wild goose chase?”

  I shake my head at that possibility, refusing to believe it. “They’ve lied, yes, but if there’s one thing I think the covens told the truth about, it’s that they began in Salem.”

  “Then they’ve been damn good at covering their tracks.”

  “We just have to dig deeper. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong places, the obvious places. It would make sense that if there’s information to be had here, it’s shoved away somewhere we’d never think to look.”

  Egan makes a sound of frustration. “Pick up a six-pack of Dr. Pepper on the way back.”

  “What am I, your errand girl?”

  “You owe me after all the garbage I forced myself through today. Seriously, some of these displays haven’t been changed since Kennedy was president. And the hyperbole is crazy. One dude wrote about how the witch trials were God’s way of cutting out the black heart of Satan. I bet he was a barrel of laughs at parties.”

  “Pretty sure they thought parties were of Satan, too.”

  My stomach churns at the thought that despite my desire to be different, I am still a product of the dark covens. It’s in the blood, and that’s one thing about myself I can’t change. Does that make me a part of the black heart of Satan? Even if I am a white witch, can I ever really leave all my darkness behind?

  After I end the call, a prickle of awareness skitters along my skin, that same feeling of being watched again but slightly different. This time I stop and turn quickly, hoping to get a glimpse of whoever is there. But when I search the shadows next to the buildings lining the street, I don’t see anyone. I risk letting go of the tight rein I have on my power and let it sizzle at my fingertips as I retrace my steps and use my senses to search for another witch.