Burning Books Read online

  “It was very targeted magic, aimed at just the memory of what she’d seen, but not strong enough to thoroughly repress her shock. So, as I said, the magic unraveled. And once she remembered, she confronted him about both his sexual depravity and her strange memory loss. She thought perhaps he’d drugged her, until she followed him one day, and he led her to the Augury Group.”

  “He’d commissioned a spell to make her forget what he’d done.”

  “Worse than that, Molly. This magic comes at great cost. It takes great energy to bend the fabric of the natural and the supernatural to your will. The child died within a week of the woman walking in on her husband having sexual relations with an eleven-year-old boy and two twelve-year-old girls. That week was the one she’d been spelled to forget. What little we discovered led us to believe that the magic had been powered by the life force of the child.”

  Her stomach lurched. She darted a glance at Cary and read her own question in his eyes: what kind of life force would it take to make the whole world forget thirteen months?

  Cary spun his near-empty mug around between his hands. “Dad, we suspect the missing year wasn’t caused by a solar superstorm, but by magic.”

  “Impossible. If the life force of a child was able to make the mother forget one week for only a few months, then the life force required to make the whole world forget a year indefinitely would be horrific, even cataclysmic.”

  “Unless their magic has not only evolved, but increased in power,” said Molly quietly. “Now I’m wondering what I saw that was so awful, the whole world had to forget an entire year.”

  “Impossible,” Ed muttered again. “They’d have to kill the entire population of a small nation to power an event like that. Now, your magic wasn’t triggered until recently. I’m betting that something happened that you don’t remember, which suddenly allowed you to read the words in the books. You’re the catalyst for the magic in your books, but something else was the trigger that activated that magic. What did you do before the words made sense?”

  Molly thought back. “My brother wanted me to return the books. I agreed to. Then he wasn’t feeling well, so he went up to bed, and I opened the first book and was able to read it.”

  Ed tented his fingers together, leaning his forehead against them, frowning thoughtfully. “There must have been something you or your brother did to trigger the magic.”

  But try as she might, Molly could remember nothing else of the moments before the books made sense, but at the bookshop . . . hadn’t the shopkeeper . . . “He said, ‘You chose this, Magnus.’ The shopkeeper, I mean. I hadn’t remembered it until just now. It seems . . . like a dream, like maybe I imagined it.”

  Ed stared into his coffee for a while, thinking. At last, he shook his head. “I can see the magic targeting you, the trigger being either your brother or you, but I can’t see that it has anything to do with the memory loss of the entire world. They can’t have progressed to such a degree in just three decades. It took them at least a hundred years to be able to wipe one week out of the mind of one woman for three months.”

  “Maybe it’s like computer science,” Molly suggested. “Once you learn the basics, the advanced tasks and techniques build upon them at a rapid rate. Look how quickly we’ve advanced as a society from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age.”

  Ed looked startled at that thought. “Let’s hope not.”

  “Molly found an article about the Augury Group. It named one of their attorneys. Perhaps we could talk with him, see if we can get a meeting with someone from the group.”

  All the color drained from his father’s face. “Out of the question. You’ll be lucky to live long enough to make it to the parking lot after leaving the lawyer’s office. The woman I knew . . . she died in a convenient car accident shortly after she followed her husband and saw him meeting with one of the group. They value their secrecy to the point of murder. Do you have the article?”

  Cary motioned at Molly, who delved into her purse and handed over a legal-size envelope. Ed read it fast, his mouth tightening as he handed it back over.

  “Wilhelm,” he snarled.

  Cary set his coffee down with a clunk. “You know this guy?”

  “Met him once. Vowed never to repeat the experience. He came to warn me away from a client. Told me it was best I tell my client I didn’t know what we were dealing with and drop the investigation. Said it would be my only warning. Ever.” He leveled a look at his son. “I’m passing on that warning to you. You won’t live through a meeting with Wilhelm, let alone live to meet with anyone from the group. Don’t even try. People pay good money for their services. One of those services is confidentiality, and they will kill to maintain that. You’re better served letting the magic run its course by reading the rest of those books. Or better yet, by forgetting about them.”

  “But what if those books are an essential part of what happened to the world? What if they’re the key to restoring everything?” Molly moved her coffee and empty toast plate out of the way and brought the books back onto the table, her hand resting on the black-wrapped bundle. “What if only good can come of reading through to the end?”

  Ed Welch’s expression twisted into pity. “You think so, Molly McK? Keep them wrapped in black silk to contain the magic. Hide them away somewhere you never go. Then forget them. Nothing good comes from the Augury Group. Ever.”

  He left them with the bill, which Cary paid with an irritable scowl.

  “His name’s not Ed,” he said as they walked back out to his car.

  “I didn’t think so. His middle name?”

  “It’s none of his names. He lied.”

  He didn’t offer his father’s real name. Molly didn’t ask. Her mind had just started circling the mystery of this article being in her mother’s possession. Had her mother sought the Augury Group’s services, and if so . . .

  Cary slid behind the wheel and started the engine as she climbed in the other side and closed her door. As he shifted into gear, he gave her a speculative look. “Your parents died in a car crash, right?”

  Molly nodded. Perhaps Eloise hadn’t employed their services but had been asking questions that had made them nervous. She couldn’t imagine her mother keeping an article about them if she’d been involved with them.

  “I wonder how one does come into contact with them,” he murmured. “I mean, it’s not like they’d advertise in the papers. What would an ad even say? Dirty Magic Done Dirt Cheap?”

  She snorted. “Somehow I doubt it’s done dirt cheap.”

  He drew in a breath. “I hope you don’t think me a coward, Molly, but I have to consider my children. I’m their only remaining parent, so far as anyone knows. I won’t be chasing after the Augury Group. I don’t want to have a convenient car accident.”

  “Been there, done that, despised the recovery.”

  Her gut twisted on a sudden horrifying thought, a swell of nausea bringing a cold sweat all over her body. Her skin tingled as black dread coiled through her.

  “Oh God, Cary—what if I was supposed to die in that accident? And since I didn’t, what if the books are a way of ensuring that I do?”

  ∞2∞

  They parted ways at Cary’s house, Molly heading home and Cary going to retrieve his children from his in-laws’ house.

  “They spend way too much time there lately. I’m starting to feel like a deadbeat dad.”

  “You’d never be.”

  She left him with a kiss and a promise to call him later with her decision regarding the last three books. As she drove home, she reflected that the black silk shielding the two books in her purse was largely ineffectual, judging from her compulsion to pull to the side of the road, rip open the covers, and read until they burned. When she pulled into the garage, she clicked the door opener to close the door behind her, eying with relief the empty space where Magnus’s car usually sat. Still at Cecily’s, thank God.

  Her brow drew down in a frown. Before she mad
e a decision about the books, she ought to do a little investigating. Cary had wanted a detail of her book purchases since her car accident—though she wasn’t certain he still wanted anything to do with the books, since that meant some involvement, however removed, with the Augury Group. Still, it couldn’t hurt to be aware of the scope of the magic surrounding her.

  Also high on the agenda should be figuring out her connection to Magnus’s friend Cecily. How had she come by Cecily’s necklace? Or perhaps Magnus had given them both an infinity-knot pendant, although that seemed unlikely. It wasn’t the kind of gift a man gave his sister.

  Topmost on her to-do list was finding a hiding place for the remaining three books. Their father had a safe in his den, but since Magnus had the combination, that was surely one of the first places he would look. Anywhere in Molly’s room was out of the question. Given enough time to conduct more than just a quick grab from her purse, he was sure to toss her closet or jimmy the lock on her desk drawer and find anything hidden there.

  Her eyes bounced wildly around the garage, glanced over a blue interior door with a splintered crack near the knob hole and the storm windows Magnus had removed just a couple of weeks ago so that she could enjoy the spring air. She sought inspiration from the metal shelving units that organized the garage.

  Her father’s toolbox? No, Magnus used it. One of the many boxes of paperwork their parents had left behind? No, they both still needed to sort through those and put together a comprehensive report of their parents’ assets. Her eyes drifted past paint cans, smeared with dried yellow paint on the sides, past dusty bike helmets and boxes of mason jars. She spied some black garbage bags on a shelf, stuffed with what appeared to be clothes or bedding. They’d been there for a long time—at least as long as the missing year. She couldn’t remember if they’d been there before then. The layer of dust on them assured her no one had bothered them in months, if not years. Perfect. Magnus would have no interest in them, and Annis bothered nothing in the garage or attic, the house proper being her purview.

  Molly set her purse on the floor and lifted the front row of bags off the deep shelf, dislodging a loose layer of dust. Careful not to touch anything but the excess bag above the knot, she set them carefully, one by one, on the floor. She took down the first bag in the back row, working her fingers into the knot to loosen it, then spreading it open like a dark, plastic blossom. Old clothes of Magnus’s, still in good condition. She twisted the top of the bag closed and knotted it again, putting it back on the shelf.

  The next bag held a bedding set, packed so tightly into the plastic confines that she could barely insert a finger, let alone two books. She secured it again and put it back. The third bag was packed loosely with old clothes of Molly’s. Excellent. She could put the books near the very bottom; even if Magnus opened this bag for some reason, he wouldn’t do more than look in the top, see her clothes, and move on.

  She pulled out handfuls of clothing and piled it next to her on the garage floor, took the silk-wrapped books and laid them on a layer of worn and faded fleece wear, then started stuffing clothes back into the bag. An item dropped from the last handful, falling on her foot. She stuffed the other clothes in and then reached down for it. Her hand froze as her eyes landed on lace. Blood-red lace.

  Her fingers grabbed it, following some dim order from her brain that Molly was unaware of giving. Her other hand let go of the bag to join its mate in holding up the lace garment. The garage light shone through the sheer camisole in spots, backlighting the floral pattern of the fabric.

  A memory flashed in her mind: her dream of a man hovering beside her bed, his fingers toying with the pendant before yanking it to break the chain. This very camisole was the one she’d worn in her dream; she recognized the scalloped lace above each low-cut bra cup, the satin bow between the breasts, the lace flowers strategically covering the nipple area.

  This was the kind of thing worn to feel sexy. Worn, perhaps, to stimulate a lover. The neckline should have been called a breast line, for it would barely cover the nipples. A sweeping, sheer triangle spread from the center of the cleavage to each hipbone. A lacy skirt covered the hips and upper-thigh areas, just barely enough to shield more private areas.

  She inserted a hand between the layers and stared down at her flesh, exposed under a fine-mesh netting except where the flower patterns were. It had the feel of a brand-new garment, but it was torn between the breasts from neckline to navel, a jagged tear that suggested impatience. Had he torn more than the necklace from her body? But no . . . in her dream, he’d pocketed the pendant and left the room, locking her door behind him.

  Her frown returned. How would Cary—for presumably, it had been him in her dream—how would he have a key to her room? And why would he lock it as he left? More important, why would he be in her bedroom at her house with her parents and brother in residence?

  She shook her head, dispelling the question. The bedroom in her dream had been blue, like the broken door, and now it was yellow, like the paint cans. Her gaze bounced between the two, her heart pounding anxiously, her mind making disturbing connections.

  Abruptly, she dropped the camisole into her purse, tied the bag closed, and hefted it back onto the shelf, returning the others to the shelf in front of it. The dust was barely disturbed on the front row of bags. Magnus would never think to check them for the hidden books.

  The anxiety accompanied her inside, ever-present as she retrieved the sixth book and stowed it with the others. She studiously avoided looking at the door or the paint cans again, but they were never very far from her mind, even as she went about the tedious task of tallying up her book purchases before and after the superstorm. With that task completed, she set it aside without trying to analyze the results; her brain spun in what seemed like a dozen different directions until it thumped in pain.

  She arranged to meet Lynda for lunch, arriving first and claiming a semisecluded booth. When she caught sight of her friend breezing through the restaurant toward her table, looking elegantly carefree with her blonde hair billowing behind her in a corn-silk cloud, Molly pulled in a deep breath of fresh air as though breaking the surface of some dark, noxious lake.

  “You,” Lynda accused as she slid into the booth opposite Molly, “have a lot of explaining to do.”

  Molly set down her iced tea, taken aback. “I do? About what?”

  “I saw you leaving the Red House on Tuesday with some thoroughly-sexy-in-a-geeky-kind-of-way man. Do tell, Mols.”

  Her face flamed. “Oh. That’s Cary Welch. He’s a professor at U-Dub.”

  Lynda examined Molly’s blush with avid interest. “What does he teach? Anatomy?”

  Molly ignored the innuendo. “Anthropology.”

  “You took anthropology, didn’t you?”

  “Stop. I’m confused enough already. Are you ready to order?”

  They came here often enough that neither needed to look at the menu, but Molly buried her face in it anyway as Lynda motioned to their server. She chose a dish at random, relinquishing her laminated paper shield with reluctance. A knowing smirk curved her friend’s mouth, but she moved on to other topics. She griped good-naturedly about work and her coworkers and the complete troll at her favorite espresso stand who adamantly refused to give her an extra shot in her already-four-shot mocha aptly named Adrenaline Spike and the lack of dating prospects within her field of vision and what was her gorgeous brother up to these days, anyway?

  Lunch arrived by this time. They had both ordered breakfast for lunch, and now Molly swallowed a bite of French toast and waved her syrup-smeared fork at her friend. “Please. Don’t even mention him. I’m on the verge of throttling him.”

  “Could you just seriously maim him below the shoulders? Wait.” She reconsidered. “I want to see him with his shirt off first.”

  “You’re shameless.” She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Magnus being the object of someone’s sexual fantasies was unusual; most often, he was the object of someone’s i
re—usually hers. Her mind flitted to the red silk ties on Cecily’s headboard and a slow flush radiated outward, blushing her skin. She wished she’d never seen that.

  “What does go on in that head of yours?” Lynda chewed her chicken-fried steak idly, eyes narrowed on Molly’s face.

  “Please. Let’s not talk about Magnus.”

  “So, conversationally speaking, Cary Welch is off-limits, and Magnus is off-limits. What did he do, anyway?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. Magnus.”

  “He pitched a fit about my reading those books, and then he stole the next one in the series. I had to steal it back.”

  “It’s got to be better than Grapes of Wrath,” Lynda muttered. “When did we become a classics book club, anyway? We haven’t read a book published before 1940 in seven months.”

  “The shift happened when I was in the hospital. I missed three meetings and came back to . . . what was it again?”

  “Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. That was actually pretty good.”

  “Yes, it was well written. I just find that era rather misogynistic.”

  “Don’t even get me started. Why don’t you want me to date your brother?”

  “Because I love you, and I want you to be happy.”

  “And you think that can’t happen with Magnus?”

  Molly laid down her fork. “You really like him, don’t you?”

  “I do. We had some long and interesting talks while you were in the hospital last year. He was pretty scared for you.”

  “I’ve no doubt that he cares about me, but you have to understand some things about him, Lyn. He doesn’t function in a normal way. He—”

  Lynda interrupted, a hard edge to her voice. “He doesn’t like to be touched unless he initiates it. He doesn’t like anything to upset his routine. He dislikes textures and crowds and noise. He feels on edge all the time and knows he’s unable to calm himself. It’s all part of his diagnosis.”