Page 2 of Haunted Desires
I put my bag and coat at my usual table at the end of the row, then take out the little notebook I’ve been carrying with me for years and page through it, my heart pounding. I barely see the notes I’ve written on the most recent pages. I’m far too busy with wondering what it is that he’s reading.
This is getting me nowhere. I close the notebook, close my eyes, and breathe.
I can smell his cologne.
It’s faint, as if Finley walked through this aisle a minute or two ago, and yet it’s totally distinct from the woodsy smell of the shelves and the old-paper scent of the books.
Oh, God, I cannot be smelling his cologne right now.
But it’s good. It’s subtle and historical, like the library, but there’s an element to it that I can’t name. It reminds me a little of my shop, but what?
I inhale again, but still can’t name it.
Okay. That’s enough. I can handle being in the library with Finley, and I can handle what I came here to do, which is research on all the town’s most infamous families.
The most powerful magic comes from working together, and not all of that magic has to do with spell-casting or glimpsing the future. Sometimes, it has to do with the bonds we form from being in a community together. Helping one another in times of need or just times of togetherness.
That’s what covens are for. Companionship and togetherness are their own form of rituals.
I came across a small box of letters shortly after I moved back that hinted at the existence of a coven in a town over in the late 1700s. After I got settled in, I started to explore its existence more deeply and found strong ties between many of the families in that town. The wealthier families left more records, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones. There are mentions of the other members if you know where to look.
For example, most families—wealthy or not—kept some kind of record of their business dealings, and you can find all sorts of clues in those ledgers. A bundle of garden plants sold here, a silver spoon sold there. A deal made between two families, one supplying glass and one supplying silver to make a perfectly circular mirror. Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, someone will have made a note about a deal being made at a weekly meeting and listed the names of the women in attendance.
I open my notebook again. I have a rough sketch of the town as it used to be in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds —scans of the real documents are on my computer—and a list of names I want to research on the opposite page. I read them over one more time, then get to work.
The laughter in the rest of the library fades away. I barely notice Finley’s voice as he speaks to someone at the circulation desk. Although, I do notice. I take down one old volume after another, bring them to the table, and go through them page by page.
At some point, the front door of the library closes with a loud bang, and a new silence settles over the stacks. A whisper of cold air brushes the back of my neck, but I don’t pay attention. It must be a draft from the front door.
I’m almost finished with another volume when I inhale more cologne.
Finley is on the other side of the narrow aisle, reshelving some books. He scans each shelf slowly, carefully, his eyes landing on every spine as he goes past.
He’s still there when I get to the last page in the volume and close it as quietly as I can.
And then…
I have to go over there.
Because he’s standing at the shelf where this book goes.
Finley glances at me as I approach, his dark eyes flickering up and down my body. Heat floods my body and there’s a little flip in the pit of my stomach. He gives me a terse, professional nod.
I nod back at him, ignoring the blush rising in my cheeks.
The gap where my book belongs is right in front of him.
I swallow thickly, suddenly unable to function normally. “Excuse me,” I murmur, and step closer. It’s a thick book, so it’s heavy, and I need both hands to lift it back to its place.
He’s so close.
There are only inches between the books in his hands and my back. Only inches between the heat of his body and mine. He’s holding his breath.
I lift the book, and then his hand is over mine, helping me push it onto the shelf.
“Thank you,” I say, and take a quick step to the side. We’re still so close in the aisle. “I was also looking for…”
My face is so hot that it’s hard to see the call numbers on the spines of the books. I have to pull out my notebook to double-check it, and?—
