The Hidden Library Read online

  I fumble for the switch to illuminate the chandeliers. Original to the building, they’re old and beautiful, the kind that splatter refracted, soft light in enchanting ways a disco ball can only ever dream about. I take Alice’s face in my hands and whisper against her mouth. “I know we should be resting before we leave, but . . . maybe we can have that first date tonight. Here.”

  Her hands come to rest over mine. We’re standing so close to one another that I can feel her heart racing against mine. She’s trembling—just a little, but enough to make me think my parents were on to something after all.

  She must hear me and all my crazy, jumbled thoughts, understand what I mean, because she murmurs, our lips still just a hair’s breadth away, “I don’t need courting, Finn. I just want you.”

  I kiss her again, long and slow until we’re both panting. I pull away and it’s then she sees the room for the first time.

  Eyes wide, her lips curve upward in delighted surprise. Maintaining a hold on one hand, she pulls me to the middle of the room and then to the windows. Like the night of my parents’ anniversary, NYC has brought its A-game with its city lights.

  I dig into my pocket and tug out my phone. As she stares out at the vista, I quickly scroll through my song playlists until I find the right one. One I haven’t heard in years, one I haven’t been able to delete because I couldn’t say goodbye.

  Strains of music fill the air. The look of absolute delight on Alice’s face is worth the ruthless reality of going on an assignment on little to no sleep. “You know how to waltz?”

  I leave my phone on the window ledge, the speakers facing outward. “Katrina loved to dance. She would bring me and Victor up here, and then Brom would come, and we’d be laughing by the end, but damn, it was wonderful to see her so happy.”

  Her hands curve back around my face and she stares at me. My heart thumps painfully within my chest, because I swear she’s not just looking at me, she’s unraveling me. Her lips touch mine, and it somehow feels different from any of the others we’ve ever shared. It’s almost as if she’s trying to memorize this moment, like she’s scared it will disappear or be taken away from her. Like I’ll be taken away from her.

  It’s something I will never let happen.

  “You told me once you liked to dance.”

  “You are mistaken. I love to dance.” She pulls away from me and holds her arms out. Her eyes, those gorgeous blue eyes of hers, shine in the chandelier light, and it’s then I know this room really is magical. Because how else can I explain what’s happening between us? This pull, this understanding. It’s the best kind of magic. It’s the kind that makes me want to believe in fairy tales—the good kind. The kind where the endings have hope.

  A hand curves around her waist. The other meets hers, and although she’s not in a ball gown and I’m wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, I spin her across the parquet floors. It feels like I’m falling into that fairy tale, it’s so right here between us.

  She smiles at me as we dance. There are no words, but her smile tells me everything I need to know. There are a thousand words in that smile, and three that matter more than any of the rest. Because of that smile and what I feel toward this woman, my heart feels like it’s going to beat straight out of my damn chest.

  Dancing transitions to kissing. Kissing transitions to want and need. My shirt comes off. Her dress. My pants, her bra. My underwear, and then her panties. We’re naked and on the floor, and the strains of waltzes drift softly throughout the room, and I’m worshipping her body, it’s so fucking gorgeous. Her breasts, the curve of her hips. The slope of her neck, the way her clavicle forms an imperfectly perfect line. The tiny outie of a belly button, the small constellation of freckles that ring it. I trace it all with my hands and my mouth until she’s writhing beneath me, hot and wet and hungry. My hand is between her leg, and I’m circling and rubbing her clit, one, then two fingers in, and wanting to see her come more than anything else right now, because it’s the most fantastic sight in the entire universe. She arches her back, her hands going from my hair to my shoulders to my chest, and I’m sucking and licking as she moans and, damn, I’m so hard it’s not even funny. I want nothing more than to bury myself in her, but there’s this need to see her, hear her come. It’s like a drug, I think. A high I can’t resist. Finally, she explodes in my hands, her scream of pleasure ringing out across the empty floors and over the strains of Mozart, but before she’s fully down from her high, she’s already got me in her hand.

  My breath is stolen. My eyes roll back, and it’s my turn to groan, because holy hell. I have to fight back the urge to give into the orgasm already clamoring for release—I’m not ready for this to end. I’m kissing her again, kissing and sucking her breasts and neck and she’s writhing once more, arching once more, this time even more frantically.

  She says my name, says, “I need you in me. Now.”

  I slide in, but as soon as I’ve pushed all the way to the hilt, I have to stop. I’m on my elbows, above her, staring down at her sweaty, flushed face, and my heart contracts and expands so quickly that it’s a miracle I’m even still alive.

  I love her. I’m so crazy in love with this woman, I want to scream it from the rooftops.

  She traces her hands up my back, so lightly goose bumps flare to life. She’s got that look again, like she’s so afraid that this isn’t real. That it’s a dream. Like somehow, I’m not in her, like somehow, we’re not connected by more than just our bodies.

  I wish I knew what to say to her to let her know that I’m not going anywhere. There isn’t a single damn prophecy in any Timeline that would ever keep me from her. But I’m not good with words. I slowly start to pull in and out, my rhythm steady and strong. Her hips match mine, and we move to more than the music—we move to the sounds of one another’s heartbeats. My mouth is on hers again, and I pray with each thrust, with each stroke of my tongue, with each beat of that muscle in my chest, she understands what she means to me. How she has stolen my heart in the months she’s been here at the Institute, and how I don’t ever want her to give it back. How she made me believe in love, made me believe it’s real. That’s it’s worth fighting for. That it’s worth holding onto with both hands.

  Her body shudders as waves of ecstasy wash over her once more. I push more, thrust harder. Her hands curl around my face, like she’s afraid I’m going to float away. We kiss, we kiss, and when I follow her into the undertow, when her name falls from my mouth like it’s a wish, I hold on tight.

  Later, when the sweat on our skin turns cool and the floor turns hard, she murmurs, “Someone should write a book about how Alice Liddell from Wonderland falls in love with Huckleberry Finn. I might rather want to read that book.”

  I bury my face in the curve of her neck. She smells so goddamn good right now. “What would it be called?”

  She’s quiet for a long moment. I run my hands along her body, memorizing the planes the best I can. A sigh of contentment floats between us, and I have no idea if it came from her or me.

  I can’t remember being so happy.

  “It would be a love story,” she finally says.

  “That’s the title? A Love Story?”

  “No, no. It would be called An Ode to Polaris.” And then, “Polaris is the name of the North Star.”

  I kiss the hollow of her neck. “I know what Polaris is. We’re binaries, remember. Can’t it be An Ode to Binaries?”

  “The point is, it would be a love story. And it would be my favorite.”

  The breath in my chest stills. Is she—is she saying what I think she’s saying? I have to swallow before I can talk. I’m reminded of how my father looked at his wife when she was telling all the revelers at their anniversary ball of how he proposed to her. He looked at her like she was the most important thing in his world. Like she was the most precious. Like the sun rose and set on her.

  As much as I loved them both, it was alien to me then. But I get it now. I absolutely get it.

&nbs
p; When I answer her, my words will only come out as whispers, there’s so much emotion in me. “It would be my favorite, too.”

  AFTER A QUICK SET of introductions, a woman with blonde curls motions to a pair of chairs nearby. “Please, come and make yourselves comfortable by the fire.” Her vision flicks away from us to briefly settle on one of the windows in the room. It’s blustery beyond the thin pane, the sky menacingly dark. A tiny sigh of pity stays trapped within my chest as I imagine Finn and myself going back out into such conditions. Our host agrees, as she adds earnestly, “It’s not a good time to be out on the moors. You two must be chilled to the bone. Let me order you some hot tea.”

  Catherine Earnshaw is around my age and quite pretty, if not a bit guarded. Finn says to her, as she moves toward a bell, “We would appreciate that very much.”

  I’m startled to hear his voice alter from his American accent to something much more like his brother’s or mine. And it isn’t false, either, not like so many one hears in the movies or upon television. The lilt that spills from his lips sounds natural, like he’s spent his entire life in England

  Once her housekeeper has come and left, Mrs. Earnshaw sits down in a chair across from us, and Finn spins a yarn explaining our presence. Hailing from Oxford, we are recently married and honeymooning in the region. I’m shocked when she accepts his tale, especially since I myself would find two strangers on foot out in the isolated moors to be more than a bit suspicious. But our hostess is not so jaded as I, because she kindly insists we must stay the night at Thrushcross Grange as her guests.

  “My husband will be home shortly. He’s visiting tenants over at the Heights, but I am sure he would be just as delighted as I to wish you much joy on your union.”

  Truthfully, I am glad that we are here instead of at the foreboding Wuthering Heights estate. A brief overview of 1847BRO-WH’s story the night before left me atypically apprehensive about our destination and assignment: death, obsession, ghosts, jealousy, and violence plagued the people within its pages. Jabberwockies and bandersnatches I can deal with; specters, in my opinion, are better left to tales told in the dark of night to those who have yet to witness true atrocities. Wonderlandian soldiers delight in spinning stories over campfires of ghosts of beasties and those whose lives were cut tragically short, and although most were spellbound by such suppositions, I nearly always found something better to do with my time. There was strategic planning, maps to pore over, and wounded who needed comfort.

  I wonder if Mary and Victor are dealing with ghosts in India.

  Finn peppers Mrs. Earnshaw with polite questions about the area, and a good three-fourths of an hour is spent on sly reconnaissance despite us already having an asset in place. Mr. Earnshaw arrives soon after, and we are invited to join the couple for supper. Hareton Earnshaw is a quiet man who is more than content to allow his wife to embrace the role of hostess. The hearty stew offered to us is oddly comforting: simple yet reminiscent of meals spent with my family during my youth. For a moment, pangs of what if and what could have been and what once was pluck at my insides. For all I know, my parents still assume I am safely housed within the walls of the Pleasance Asylum back in my Timeline. I can’t help but wonder what they are doing right now, what my siblings are doing. Do they miss me? Or have the years spent in Wonderland left them accustomed to my absence from their lives?

  “Mrs. Van Brunt?”

  I blink rapidly, refocusing on the woman sitting near me. There are lines of concern decorating her forehead, and all eyes in the room are angled at me.

  She called me Mrs. Van Brunt. My alias name, yes, and a married one, to boot, but with its vocalization, a slight flush tinges my cheeks. For the few hours I slept last night, I happily dreamed of a long life with this man. “Forgive me,” I murmur. “I suppose I am more tired from our journey today than I previously thought.”

  “I will have our housekeeper show you to your room,” Catherine Earnshaw says quickly. “My apologies for keeping you up when I ought to have known you would have been exhausted from the day’s journey.”

  I smile and thank her. Would she still feel so generous toward me if she knew I was about to dig up her mother’s grave this night?

  Upstairs, Ellen Dean, who has off-and-on served as housekeeper, confidant, and maid to the Earnshaw and Linton women for decades, quietly closes and latches the door behind us once we are in the room. Her worn face eases into a small yet somewhat timid smile. “Mr. Van Brunt, it is a pleasure, and may I say, relief, to have you here tonight.”

  Finn turns to me. “Alice, this is Nelly Dean. She’s been our liaison here in 1847BRO-WH for several years now and was instrumental in helping the Librarian identify the catalyst so quickly.” His English accent is gone, reverting back to the warm, familiar American twang I’m accustomed to hearing from his lips. “Mrs. Dean, this is my partner, Alice Reeve.”

  Her curtsy is exceedingly proper, and it only solidifies the inopportune pangs of homesickness—not to England, as one might assume, but to the Courts of Wonderland. I give a gentle nod of my head in return. “I am most pleased to meet you, Mrs. Dean.”

  “You’re not like Mr. Van Brunt here or his father, are you?” she asks. “From America, I mean. Are you from another Timeline, then?”

  “The sun never sets on the British Empire—in any Timeline.” I’d heard this phrase on a television program I’d watched about my homeland recently and found it both amusing and satisfying.

  Finn rolls his eyes, and I can’t help but shrug.

  Mrs. Dean informs us she will be waiting in the kitchen in two hours. The Earnshaws will be in bed before then, and so will much of the rest of the staff save an elderly man named Joseph who will accompany us to the church graveyard in a nearby small town. When she leaves, I ask Finn, “Have you ever dug up a grave before?”

  “No.” He clears his throat. “But there have been a few other Society members who have.”

  How positively ghoulish. “Do you think your brother and Mary are robbing graves in India?”

  He lets out a small laugh, one that is a warm balm for a cold, blustery night on the moors. “Uh, I doubt it.”

  “Catalysts are funny, aren’t they? Ever so random, too. To go from carpetbags to play books to crowns to lockets. It would be much easier if it was a consistent item, wouldn’t it?”

  He nudges my shoulder with his. “Impractical, though. Something found in a book like Wuthering Heights would probably not be found in one like others in something like The Sentinel.”

  I lift my eyebrows up and he gifts me with another of his lovely chuckles.

  “Sorry. The Sentinel is a short story by a science fiction writer that talks about an object found on the moon, presumably left by extraterrestrials. My point being, items in space wouldn’t be found in the moors of Nineteenth Century England.”

  I nudge his shoulder in return. “Have you been to the moon?”

  “I have not had that pleasure yet,” he says with mock solemnity.

  “And space? What about on a spacecraft? Or any of those,” I flash air quotes with my fingers, “science fiction stories you’re referencing?”

  “Once. I had to get a piece of a super computer that was programmed to determine the meaning of life. It was surprisingly cooperative with my request once I told it my purpose, and seemed to run just fine without the small chip I took.”

  “The computer talked to you?”

  “Actually, it did. We didn’t chat long as, you know, I wasn’t supposed to be there or anything, but it didn’t even blink an eye when I told it there were many universes.”

  I hope he’s being metaphorical when he talks about a computer blinking. Truthfully, modern technology mystifies and unnerves me; to know that there is a talking computer that searches to solve lofty questions that surely people of all Timelines have sought answers for? I shudder softly. “Did it ever find what it sought?”

  His eyes sparkle in the dim candlelight. “You mean—to the meaning of life?”
I nod, and he says, “Well, yeah, I guess. Only, it doesn’t really make sense.”

  “To you, perhaps.”

  Once he explains that, according to this particular Timeline, the answer to the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything else comes down to an even number and nothing else, I find I must agree with him. Although, wouldn’t Wonderland approve of that absurd yet mathematically attractive answer?

  Once I’m done chuckling, I ask, “What was the catalyst for your Timeline? I don’t think I’ve yet to learn what it is.”

  The humor we’ve just shared slowly eases from his face. “It wasn’t anything exciting.” He pauses, then says, almost as if I’m forcibly extracting the answer from him, “Just a needle.”

  I’m a bit disappointed. Finn’s stories are, from what I can ascertain, quite popular—and the catalyst ends up being nothing more than a needle? “A sewing needle?”

  He nods, but offers nothing else. Charged, uneasy silence fills the space between us. Manners dictate I let the subject rest. He is clearly uncomfortable with discussion of said needle, and it is not as if I am wholly unaware of his overall yet mysterious discomfort surrounding his past. He has been so forthcoming and generous with details of his life, all excepting his childhood. For a moment, I am ready to let the matter go, but then . . . then I remind myself that this is not just a colleague. This is not an acquaintance. This is a man I have let into my heart, and has allowed me access into his as well.

  I want to know him, all of him: good and bad and all that lies in between. And in return, I want him to know and feel the same way toward me.

  I want the life I dreamed of last night.

  I prod softly. “What is the significance of such a catalyst?”

  Long seconds tick by, leaving me sorely regretting how I blocked him at every turn for months, holding him at arms’ length whenever he inquired about my past. I should have trusted him, known that he would hold my pain and past and fears and experiences gently in his hands and do nothing more than simply support me. I ache to do the same for him.