Page 34 of Witches of Dubious Origin
Jasper barked a laugh at my pointed glance. “It does not say that.”
I held the book out to him, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he leaned forward and read the passage over my shoulder. “Raw quail eggs and fermented pig’s bollocks?”
“Don’t forget the salt.”
He made a gagging sound, which made me laugh. I turned to face him and found, again, that we were standing entirely too close. I took a not very subtle side step away from him. He tipped his head, watching me as if trying to determine the cause of my discomfort.
“Apologies if I crowded you,” he said. “Sometimes I forget how big I am. I didn’t mean to loom.”
“No, it’s fine.” There was absolutely no way I was going to admit that it wasn’t his height and broad shoulders so much as my awareness ofhimthat had me stepping away. I wasn’t accustomed to being in close proximity with men around my age. The most constant male in my life being my coworker Bill, and he was more like a funcle—a fun uncle.
Living in a small town didn’t offer me a very large dating pool and when I considered it, I realized I hadn’t dated in months and months, possibly over a year. I suspected my libido had been dormant until yesterday, when this freaking guy rolled into my orbit.
I shook the thought away and turned back to the bookshelf. “And you’re showing me these books because?”
“This is our French collection of grimoires, journals, and histories, which includes several volumes about the Donadieu coven. I thought you might find these books helpful in your research. Maybe there’s something that can assist your translation of your book.” He tapped the volume in my hands. “Of course, if you need to use that spell on your boyfriend—”
It was my turn to laugh. It was as loud and jarring as gunfire. I cleared my throat. “Sorry, but there is no boyfriend.”
“Reeeeally?” He drew out the one-word question as if savoring the information.
One thing became glaringly apparent, at least to me, and that was that this guy was so far out of my league I had no idea if he was flirting with me or not. Given our disparate levels of attractiveness, it seemed unlikely, but I was really bad at reading people, so the potential for embarrassment was at an all-time high.
I studied the glint in his pale blue eyes and the small smile that played on his lips. Flirting or friendly? I had no idea. Give me an entire calculus textbook to memorize—no problem. Ask me what my calculus professor was thinking judging by the expression on their face and I’d suffer a full-on brain hemorrhage.
I turned back to the bookcase—because books I understood—and began to pull volumes that I thought might be helpful. Since Mamie was a Donadieu and from France, I agreed with Jasper that the best place to start my quest to crack the code of the grimoire was with contextual and historical research centered on the Donadieu coven. Then I would have to do a symbol analysis of the code used, comparing it to known alphabets and historical systems.
These French books would hopefully give me the cultural clues I was seeking. Somewhere there had to be a reference to the point of origin for the symbols used in the Donadieu grimoire, and I was going to find it. The familiar old thrill of researching a particularly thorny information request filled my soul and I left the stacks with a decided bounce in my step.
Cradling my armful, I turned toward the stairs. Jasper stood in my path and when I went to walk around him, he plucked the books out of my arms and turned to lead the way.
Unsure of what to do with my hands, I tucked them into my pockets until we reached the spiral staircase and I grabbed the railing. As we walked by what I now recognized as the ancient Norse section, I looked for the fuzzy gray book, but there was no sign of Freya. Was someone using her or had she left on her own? She was a book with catitude, so I assumed the latter.
When we reached the bottom floor, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Eloise standing in front of the collection of horrible books Olive had shown me the day before.
She was holding her hands clasped in front of her chest. I wondered if she was praying. I certainly couldn’t blame her if the malevolence coming from the books caused that response.
I remembered the vision I’d had of a beating heart encased in ice trying to punch its way out of the book Olive had calledEl Corazón. Was Eloise having a similar vision? Did she feel the same tendrils of evil reaching out from the books as if trying to find purchase outside their cloth and leather bindings? In Eloise’s undead state, could she feel it, too?
“It’s quite the collection, isn’t it?” I stopped beside her.
She turned to me. Not a hair of her ash-blond bob was out of place, but her eyes were wide. Her lipstick was the same pink as the night I’d met her, but when she smiled tentatively, there was no trace of it on her teeth. For the first time, it struck me how desperate she must have been to knock on the door of a stranger and ask them to help her move forward from the undead trap she’d been stuck in for decades.
“There are so many overpowering emotions coming from these books,” she whispered, as though she didn’t want the books themselves to overhear. “And yet, I find it difficult to move away.”
I blew out a breath. I knew exactly what she meant. My entire life, books had been my safe space, my sanctuary, my area of temporary refuge. And now I was in a library filled with books whose purpose and provenance were dubious at best and evil at worst, and I had no idea what to make of it all.
Jasper deposited my stack of books on a nearby table. He joined us, staring at the shelves. I saw his mouth tighten, as ifthis section made him as uncomfortable as it did me. I turned back to Eloise, and keeping my voice low, I asked, “Does this section frighten you?”
The books unnerved me, but I didn’t say so. I supposed I was hoping Eloise would say they alarmed her, too, so I wouldn’t feel alone in my unease, but she didn’t.
“No, it doesn’t.” She shook her head. “I’m already dead, after all. What could any of these books possibly do to me?”
• • •
Decrypting a cipher was likely not everyone’s idea of a good time, but for me, a person who lived for the Sunday crossword and had never met a puzzle I could resist, it was fascinating. I thought about the symbols in the grimoire when brushing my teeth, riding the train, and searching the museum’s collection for any books that might help me understand it.
Sitting at a table in the main room of the BODO, I had the stack of French witchcraft books Jasper had shown me as well asThe Black Pullet, an eighteenth-century French grimoire full of magical symbols and diagrams—because it seemed logical to start researching the source materials from the region of France where my family had originated. I’d also reached farther back into the collection to examineThe Picatrix, an ancient Arabic grimoire also known asGhayat Al-Hakim, but was disappointed to find that none of the symbols on its pages matched the ones in Mamie’s grimoire.
