Page 13 of Witchlore
“No,” I say. I walk away from him, thinking about how Bastian Chevret must have a few screws loose, because who else but a deeply warped person offers to resurrect the girlfriend of someone they’ve just met?
When I return to college, I see none other than Carl Lord outside the door, kissing a pretty first-year.Poor sod,I think. It doesn’t bother me, seeing Carl with someone else (other than vague disgust) but the look on this tragic first-year’s face—the excitement, the gratitude—brings the past back to me. I used to look at Elizabeth like that and suddenly I am heavy with everything that’s been taken.
One thought crystallizes in my head: at least with Bastian’s plan, I wouldn’t be standing here, so weighed down by all the broken things. At least I would be moving, I would bedoingsomething. Which is better than what I am right now, bloody useless and utterly helpless. Even if he is weird, what does it matter? Everything worth losing I’ve already lost. I pull out my phone and send a message to BBB:I’m in.
CHAPTERFIVE
I’m in.
Cool. Meet me next Monday
at the John Rylands Library
at 4:30 p.m.
Why?
Meet me there and find out.
I nearly back out. I lie awake in the middle of the night between nightmares and write Bastian messages saying I’ve changed my mind. But on Monday morning I get up and go to work at the vegan supermarket, since I don’t have a class at college until Wednesday. (Counselor Cooper suggested I get a part-time job before college started to stop me wallowing, and I’ve decided to stay on.) Suddenly, it’s four o’clock and I’m finishing at work, catching a tram into town. I shove my apron into my tote bag and run from St. Peter’s Square to the John Rylands Library.
It’s one of the most beautiful buildings in Manchester, in myopinion, particularly in a slightly pinkish afternoon light like today. It’s a lump of dark red brick that over the years has shaded with industrial soot to a deep mulberry shade, almost black on gray days, with spires that look like stalagmites. Some people say it looks like a purple armchair, with its stacked, square shape, but I’ve always thought there’s something almost organic about it, as if it grew like coral out of the earth rather than being built in the nineteenth century.
Bastian is standing outside the entrance. He’s still annoyingly handsome in all black with a velvet waistcoat, and it looks like he’s washed his hair. The shiny curls catch the dying light. There’s something about him, reminding me of a debonaire time-traveling librarian, that makes me feel very shabby, in my same old jeans and boots. I stop in front of him and he smiles, tugging at something by my armpit.
“Is that an apron?” he asks. “Are you a baker?”
“I work at a vegan supermarket in Chorlton.” I blush and stuff the apron back into my bag. “Why am I here?”
“It’s a library, why do you think we’re here?” He smirks. He really is very self-satisfied.
“The grimoire’s in here?”
“Yep.” He holds out his phone. It’s a John Rylands web page that has a picture of an old book open on it.
“But the John Rylands isn’t a lending library.” I fold my arms and look at him sharply. Bastian grins.
“We’re a solution-orientated team here, Orlando,” he says.
“Lando, I go by Lando.”
“Yeah, but it’s still your name, right?” He tilts his head to one side. I imagine he does this because he thinks it makes him look cute, and it does, but it also makes him look like a cocky wanker.
“Do you want me to give you the statistics about trans teenagers and depression and chosen names?” I demand.
“Yeah, sure, go for it.” He shrugs. He’s got me there. Usually people just mumble apologies and move on. I grimace.
“I don’t know them,” I say sulkily. “But they’re really bad.”
“You don’t know them?” Bastian grins some more. “You’re clearly a very bad gay, then, aren’t you?”
I can’t help myself. I snort with laughter.
“Are you going to tell me how we’re getting the book?” I ask.
“Live a little.”
“I don’t want to live at all,” I quip back and then realize, too late, that superdark suicidal jokes aren’t funny to anyone but me.
