Page 6 of Definitely Dead

“Lizzie? How did you get in here?”

Elizabeth Nelsen had been a regular at the library since he had started working there. Sixteen now, with a new driver’s license and her own vehicle, her visits had become even more frequent since her birthday. And concerningly, had involved a lot of trips to the restricted section.

She didn’t look up or acknowledge him. Instead, she spoke faster, her cadence hurried and clumsy as she stumbled over words she clearly didn’t understand.

“Lizzie, look at me.”

Still, she chanted, her face so close to the book, her lips practically kissed the pages.

After placing the case of new releases on top of one of the display shelves, he shuffled closer, moving slowly so as not to startle her. Nearing the desk, he could better make out her frenzied mumblings, but it only raised more questions. He recognized a few words and phrases as Latin, but he didn’t know what most of them meant.

Judging by the charged atmosphere and icy temperatures that enveloped that corner of the room, however, he had a feeling it was nothing good.

“You need to stop.” He placed his hand on the edge of the desk but didn’t reach for her. “Lizzie, look at me.”

Instead, she mumbled even faster, her voice rising in volume, every syllable laced with desperation. Trails of vapor streamed from her lips as the temperature continued to plummet, and veins of ice encircled the spellbook, spreading across the surface of the desk.

While Sunne didn’t know exactly what she hoped to accomplish, he had a vague idea as to what had started her down this path.

The past year had been a dark one for the entire town, but especially for Lizzie, beginning with an accident on a construction site at the edge of town. Three men, including her father, had been lost in the tragedy, and the rumors that followed only made matters worse. It had started with whispers, with quiet speculation, but the ponderings had quickly grown louder and more confident with each passing day.

Many of the townspeople had blamed Lizzie’s father for the incident. Some claimed he’d been negligent. Others insisted he had known the risks but didn’t care. Whether true or not, it didn’t matter. Their musings wouldn’t change what had happened, and no one had stopped to consider the effect their words had on a grieving teenage girl.

Then, barely six months later, Lizzie’s mother had remarried, rekindling the gossip mill. While the town had collectively decided they liked her new husband, they disapproved of the timing of the union.

Not uncommon in a small town, where Saturday night mishaps made Sunday morning headlines. That didn’t make it right, though, and he would never understand that kind of callous disregard for someone else’s pain.

At the same time, no one talked about the fact that Lizzie had visibly lost weight, or that she looked paler these days. They didn’t mention that she had been skipping school frequently, or that her grades had been on a steady decline since the start of the new year.

“Lizzie, please stop. Talk to me. Whatever’s going on, this isn’t the answer.”

Ice crystals crawled across the carpet and up the walls, spreading like glistening spiderwebs. The windows crackled as the glass froze beneath an opaque layer of frost, and the light from the desk lamp surged and flickered.

A heaviness settled over the room, a physical manifestation of the magic Lizzie conjured. Sunne’s shoulder rounded from the weight, and pressure built in his temples as he fought to pull oxygen into his lungs.

Lizzie’s fingers had turned an inky black where they gripped the edges of the grimoire, the rot spreading across her skin like a disease. A trickle of crimson seeped from her nose and spilled over her lips, and while she didn’t seem to notice, Sunne couldn’t ignore it.

He had tried to be gentle, to give her agency to do the smart thing, to make the right choice, but he refused to watch as she continued to hurt herself.

“Enough!” Lunging across the desk, he reached for the book, only to be knocked back by an unseen force.

Lizzie’s head snapped up, her powder-blue eyes wide and glazed. She opened her mouth again, but no words came out this time. Only a rasping, inhuman scream that resonated through every corner of the building and rattled the windows.

Not knowing what else to do, Sunne rushed forward again, his hands reaching for the spellbook. Nothing tried to stop him this time. No magic forced him back, but the tome glowed with a blinding light as he tried to wrest it from her grasp.

The pages heated beneath his touch, scorching his fingers and palms, but he didn’t let go. “Lizzie, stop!”

Tendrils of green smoke curled from the book, as if the very words had been burned away, and a deafening, high-pitched whine filled his ears. The pressure in his head continued to build, the pain nearly unbearable, and every panted breath came shallower than the last.

They wrestled for control, Lizzie fighting him with an unnatural strength. Fire seared through his hands and up his arms, though it felt more like being burned from the inside out. Still, he kept fighting.

“Give it to me, damn it!” Tensing every muscle, he yanked on his half of the book, rending it right down the middle.

A heartbeat of stillness followed, a sigh before the storm.

Then he was flying, soaring backward through the air from the force of the explosion.

Glass shattered. The walls cracked. Shelves toppled, spilling their contents across the floor, and the library groaned as it shook from the blast.

---