Beautiful Redemption (6 page)

This wasn’t just any map.

It was a map of the
Lunae Libri
.

“How can there be a
Lunae Libri
in the Otherworld? It’s not a grave, right? Nobody died there?”

My mom didn’t look up from her copy of Dante. She hadn’t looked up when I swung open the front door either. She couldn’t hear a word anyone said when she was lost in those pages. Reading was her own version of Traveling.

I stuck my hand between her face and the yellowed pages, wiggling my fingers. “Mom.”

“What?” My mom looked as startled as a person could look when you hadn’t actually snuck up on them.

“Let me save you some time. I saw the movie. The office building catches fire.” I closed the book and held out Aunt Prue’s folded paper. My mom took it, smoothing it out in her hands.

“I knew Dante was ahead of his time.” She smiled, turning over the paper.

“Why was Aunt Prue drawing this?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. She just kept staring at the paper.

“If you’re going to start asking yourself why your aunt does anything, you’ll be busy for the rest of eternity.”

“Why did she need a map?” I asked.

“What your aunt needs is to find someone else to talk to besides you.”

That was all she said. Then she gave up, standing and slipping her arm around my shoulders. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

I followed my mom right down the street that wasn’t a street, until we came to a plot that wasn’t just a plot, and a familiar grave that wasn’t even a grave. I stopped walking as soon as I saw where we were.

My mom laid her hand on Macon’s gravestone, a wistful smile creeping across her face. She pushed on the stone, and it swung open. Ravenwood’s front hall stood there, ghostly and deserted, as if nothing had changed except that Lena’s family had gone to Barbados or something.

“So?” I couldn’t bring myself to step inside. What use was Ravenwood without Lena or her family? It almost made me feel worse to be here in her home and still so far away.

My mom sighed. “So. You’re the one who wanted to go to the
Lunae Libri
.”

“You mean the secret stairway into the Tunnels? Will it lead into the
Lunae Libri
?”

“Well, I don’t mean the Gatlin County Library.” My mom smiled.

I pushed past her into the hallway and took off running. By the time she caught up to me, I had made it all the way to Macon’s old room. I flipped up the carpet and yanked open the trapdoor.

There they were.

The invisible stairs leading down into the Caster darkness.

And beyond, the Caster Library.

CHAPTER 5

Another
Lunae Libri

D
arkness, it turns out, is about as dark as usual no matter what world you’re in. The invisible steps beneath the trapdoor—the same ones I’d stumbled and climbed and half-fallen my way down so many times before—were every bit as invisible as they’d ever been.

And the
Lunae Libri
?

Nothing had changed about the moss-covered, rocky passageways that led us there. The long rows of ancient books, scrolls, and parchments were hauntingly familiar. Torches still threw unsteady flickering shadows across the stacks.

The Caster Library looked the same as always, even though now I was far, far away from every living Caster.

Especially the one I loved most.

I grabbed a torch from the wall, waving it in front of me. “It’s all so real.”

My mom nodded. “It’s exactly as I remember it.” She touched my shoulder. “A good memory. I loved this place.”

“Me too.” This was the only place that had offered me any hope when Lena and I faced the hopeless situation of her Sixteenth Moon. I looked back at my mom, half-hidden in the shadows.

“You never told me, Mom. I didn’t know anything about you being a Keeper. I didn’t know anything about this whole side of your life.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry. But you’re here now, and I can show you everything.” She took my hand. “Finally.”

We made our way into the darkness of the stacks, with only the torch between us. “Now, I’m no reference librarian, but I know my way around these stacks. On to the scrolls.” She looked at me sideways. “I hope you never touched any of these. Not without gloves.”

“Yeah. I got that down, the first time I burned all my skin off.” I grinned. It was strange to be here with my mom, but now that I was, I could tell the
Lunae Libri
had been every bit hers, as much as it was Marian’s.

She grinned back. “I guess that’s not a problem anymore.”

I shrugged. “Guess not.”

She pointed to the nearest shelf, her eyes bright. It was good to see my mom back in her natural habitat.

She reached for a scroll. “C, as in
crossing
.”

After what seemed like hours, we had made zero headway.

I groaned. “Can’t you just tell me how to do this? Why do I have to look it up for myself?” We were surrounded by piles of scrolls, stacked all around us on the stone table at the very center of the
Lunae Libri
.

Even my mom seemed frustrated. “I already told you. I just imagine where I want to go, and I’m there. If that doesn’t work for you, then I don’t know how to help you. Your soul isn’t the same as mine, especially not since it was fractured. You need help, and that’s what books are for.”

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t what books are for—visitations from the dead.” I glared at her. “At least, that’s not what Mrs. English would say.”

“You never know. Books are around for lots of reasons. As is Mrs. English.” She yanked another stack of scrolls into her lap. “Here. What about this one?” She pulled open a dusty scroll, smoothing it with her hands. “It’s not a Cast. It’s more like a meditation. To help your mind focus, as if you were a monk.”

“I’m not a monk. And I’m not any good at meditating.”

“Clearly. But it wouldn’t hurt you to try. Come on, focus. Listen.”

She leaned over the parchment scroll, reading aloud. I read along over her shoulder.

“In death, lie.

In living, cry.

Carry me home

to remember

to be remembered.”

The words hovered in the air, like a strange silvery bubble. I reached out to touch them, but they faded out of sight as quickly as they had appeared.

I looked at my mom. “Did you see that?”

My mom nodded. “Casts are different in this world.”

“Why isn’t it working?”

“Try it in the original Latin. Here. Read it for yourself.” She held the paper closer to the torch, and I leaned toward the light.

My voice shook as I said the words.

“Mortuus, iace.

Vivus, fle.

Ducite me domum

ut meminissem

ut in memoria tenear.”

I closed my eyes, but all I could think about was how far I was from Lena. How her curling black hair twisted in the
Caster breeze. How the green and the gold flecks lit her eyes, as bright and dark as she was.

How I’d probably never see her again.

“Oh, come on, EW.”

I opened my eyes. “It’s no use.”

“Concentrate.”

“I’m concentrating.”

“You’re not,” she said. “Don’t think about where you are now. Don’t think about what you’ve lost—not the water tower or anything that came after it. Keep your head in the game.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if you were, you wouldn’t be standing here. You would be halfway home, with one foot back in Gatlin.”

Would I? It was hard to imagine.

“Close your eyes.”

I closed them obediently.

“Repeat what I say,” she whispered.

In the silence, I heard her words inside my mind, like she was speaking aloud to me.

We were Kelting, my mother and I. In death, from the grave, in a faraway world. It seemed familiar between us, something from long ago, something we had lost.

Carry me home.

Carry me home
, I said.

Ducite me domum.

Ducite me domum
, I said.

To remember.

Ut meminissem
, I said.

And be remembered.

Ut in memoria tenear
, I said.

You remember, my son.

I remember
, I said.

You will remember.

I will always remember
, I said.

I am the one
, I said.

You will—

I will—

Remember…

CHAPTER 6