Chapter 20 Nevermore

It was getting late, and the well-behaved witches of Oak Haven had all gone home. Scarlett, on the other hand, ambled along the lonely streets toward the park. She studied the sigils carved into the streets, crosswalks, and doorways as she went. She lacked her sister Del's instincts about whether the sigils were functioning properly or not. But it worried her.

Nothing else in this town is functioning properly, she thought. What happens if these sigils lose their tiny minds, too? How long until some developer replaces our grove with a shopping mall? Aphra had projected such confidence that Oak Haven would never go the way of Jacksonville. It was a feeling Scarlett sorely wished she could share.

The CLOSED sign was posted at the bookstore, but there were dim lights on in the shop. Scarlett glanced across the street at Williams Hardware, which was likewise closed but had lights on anyway. She wondered whether Polly was visiting Nate's shop or he hers.

How sweet. Two small-town shopkeepers, situated right across the road from each other. Maybe they used to be rivals and are now falling in love. That's how it works in movies, right?

Feeling annoyed—partially at them but mostly at herself for caring so much—Scarlett gave a brisk knock on the bookstore's door.

The door swung open.

"Hello?" Scarlett stepped gingerly over the threshold. "Anybody home?"

No response arrived. The store was dimly lit and deathly silent.

She made her way past the construction area by the entrance—the piles of lumber and bags of unmixed concrete, the table saw awaiting its next victim. There were abandoned coffee cups and scattered sawdust on the floor. Scarlett could see that all the old sigils had been removed, but most had yet to be replaced by anything new. Whatever Polly was hoping to accomplish in terms of keeping magic out of the store, she hadn't done it yet.

"Anybody here?" she called again. "It's Scarlett! I'm just looking for a book—Aphra suggested you might have it. The Myrmex Arcana ? So, I'm just going to look around if that's . . ." She sighed and stopped yelling. "Stop talking to yourself, Scar."

The shelves along the front of the store were all covered with tarps, which made it tricky to figure out which books were kept where. Then it occurred to Scarlett that well-loved books and best-sellers tended to populate the front: a reference book about magical insects would probably be shelved somewhere at the back. She made her way through the store, her eyes darting left and right in search of a reference section.

In the labyrinth of shelves, Scarlett scarcely noticed the shadows deepening, the air taking on a strange, briny smell. A loud noise startled her—it came from somewhere in Classics of Literature. She turned a corner to find a heavy hardback had somehow landed on the floor as if it had jumped off the shelf on its own. She approached it slowly—feeling a bit sheepish for fearing a book. It was a thick, leatherbound copy of the Greatest Works of Jules Verne . The book flipped itself open, pages turning on their own.

A massive, papery form unfurled from the open book—a giant squid formed from Jules Verne's own printed words, its monstrous eye fixed squarely on her. Scarlett screamed as a tentacle, impossibly long and assembled from the book's pages, whipped out and coiled around her waist.

She gasped, the weight of the enchanted paper crushing her. The squid, its beak snapping menacingly, dragged her back toward the book.

Scarlett grabbed the side of a shelf and hung on tight, trying to keep calm and focus her powers, willing the tentacle to loosen its grip. The monstrous limb twitched, and the paper relaxed momentarily but then clamped down with renewed pressure. Tiny printed letters dug into her skin.

That's ink, she thought angrily. Ink is not supposed to be sharp!

Which gave her an idea.

She focused her power on the ink, turning it liquid and slippery. She began wriggling, hoping to free herself, when two more tentacles joined the first. The more Scarlett struggled, the more entangled she became.

"I will not die at the hands of an old book," she cried out. "Let me go, you overwritten pile of—"

Paper, she thought. This is just enchanted paper.

Scarlett snapped, and a spark leapt from her fingertips. Success! Tiny crackles of flame danced along the tentacle, singeing the edges of the pages. The squid recoiled, allowing her to scramble free.

"Ha!" she pointed at the squid. "Haaaaaa ha ha!"

Her pride was short-lived. An errant spark had landed on a nearby shelf, and now flames licked at old, dry book bindings. The fire spread with alarming speed, filling the air with choking smoke.

You can be careless with fire sometimes, Luna had said.

Goddammit.

A fresh tentacle snapped from the book, coiling around Scarlett's feet. She leapt away, grabbing for as high a shelf as she could reach and pulling downward. A pile of books crashed atop the tentacle, and the squid gave a high-pitched squeal.

Scarlett glanced around in desperation. The heat was rising. The fire made its way to the construction area, consuming lumber and books with equal enthusiasm.

From the smoke, Scarlett heard three voices. "All for one and one for all!"

The Three Musketeers materialized amidst the rising flames, composed of the very paper and words that Alexandre Dumas had used to create them. Ever the tactician, Athos climbed atop a bookshelf to assess the situation. Porthos, with a bellow, waded through the smoke, the bulk of his papery form thus far resistant to the heat. In a flash of white paper, Aramis brought down his gleaming blade, severing one of the tentacles.

Disoriented, the squid thrashed wildly. Books rained from shelves, their pages scattering like burning moths. The Musketeers' swords flashed, slicing through the creature. Still, the squid's pages mended themselves as quickly as the Musketeers could attack.

Suddenly, a strange rumbling swept through the shop. The flames wavered, and a great wave, formed of book pages, surged from a copy of Jaws that had fallen off a shelf in Contemporary Fiction. Riding the wave's crest was a fishing boat, the Orca , its sides dripping with ocean-soaked text. As the wave crashed over the battle, a man sang out, "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!" The wave swept the squid away in a deluge of seawater-splashed paper. Then everything dissolved back into the chaotic arrangement of scattered books and wrecked shelves. The Musketeers' battle cry faded as they disappeared back into their novel.

Scarlett coughed, struggling to breathe in the smoke-filled air. Despite the wave, the flames continued to spread, consuming books and shelves with terrifying intensity. It sickened her to realize that this fire was her doing, yet another of her failures.

Luna was right—I am dangerous.

Scarlett glanced at the shop's front door, wondering if she could make it past the flames and out onto the street. She saw a shadow moving outside the shop window—then the shadow took form.

It was Nate.

He charged into the store, brandishing a cherry-red fire extinguisher from Williams. Fear and guilt warred within Scarlett, with an unexpected flare of something else—something hot and undeniable at the sight of him.

"Scarlett, what in hell are you doing here?!" He moved with determination, the extinguisher spewing a white cloud as he fought the flames. "Are you okay?"

"I am now," she called out. "But when Polly sees this, she's gonna literally kill me."

Nate sprayed foam across the burning shelves. "I'll tell her it was my fault."

"You'd do that for me?"

He paused, turning to look at her. "I'd do anything for you. Don't you know that?"

She wanted to go to him, but the air was thick, her vision blurring. Scarlett stumbled, landing on a pile of books. As she pulled herself to standing, she felt a change in the air—a new danger sending vibrations through the smoke. Nearby books shivered and danced upon the shelves, pages rustling with an eerie rhythm.

"Scarlett, watch out!" Nate's warning came just as a creature emerged, a grotesque mix of ink and paper. It was Edgar Allan Poe's raven made monstrous, horrifying—its form dripping midnight ink, its talons gleaming with the sharp edges of razor-thin pages.

The raven shrieked and swooped at Scarlett. She tried to conjure a hasty, protective shield, but it shattered like glass.

Nate charged. He swung the empty extinguisher, striking at the raven's papery wings. The giant bird screeched in rage, flapping wildly. He flung his body at a nearby bookcase, pulling it down with a thunderous crash and pinning the raven beneath. Loose pages scattered, showering the room with a flurry of old tales and biting words.

Scarlett lunged forward, seizing her chance. She focused her power to draw out the bird's essence, pulling Poe's very words out of the creature and into the air. The monster thrashed, its papery form dissolving in a whirlwind of swirling text.

But it wasn't enough. With an ear-jolting shriek, the raven wrenched itself free and aimed its sharpened talons straight at Scarlett. Nate leapt at the bird, putting his own body between her and the creature, a shield of flesh and blood. With one final, desperate surge of magic, Scarlett yanked out the raven's remaining essence, which exploded in a ball of pages, letters, and evil black ink.

The impact knocked them both to the floor. The extinguisher clattered away, and they landed hard, a tangle of limbs and flying paper.

"Nate, are you—" The words caught in her throat. He was on top of her, solid and strong, his chest heaving from exertion. They were surrounded by smoldering books, the air heavy with the scent of old paper and smoke.

His eyes, dark and fierce, locked on to hers. The chaotic room seemed to swirl around them. "Don't worry," he breathed. "I've got you."

Scarlett's heart frantically battered her chest. Desire, wild and undeniable, flared hot inside her, born of danger and adrenaline, of shared battles and unspoken longings.

Nate cupped her face with his hand, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. "Scarlett . . . I . . ."

His touch ignited a longing in her, a need that overrode the danger, the fire, her own common sense . . . everything. With a gasp, she pulled him toward her.

His lips met hers, hard and urgent. Scarlett arched into the kiss, her body melting against his, every inch of her clamoring for more. His hands moved along her body, pulling her into him—a desperate, hungry claiming.

This was madness. This was exactly what she wanted.

They shifted, rolling together across the damaged books, a tangle of limbs and ragged breaths, hands exploring each other in the darkness. Scarlett tore at his shirt, and he at hers, both desperate to feel their skin against one another. If there was fire, it was in them now.

Just then, a voice shattered the spell like a bucket of icy water thrown over their writhing limbs.

"What the hell is going on?" Polly stood in the doorway, eyes wider than ever, staring in outrage at the disheveled pair. "What in the hell are you people doing here? What have you done to my store?!"

Scarlett gasped, her face flushing crimson as she scrambled upright, hastily pulling her blouse back into place.

Nate, though sheepish, held a flicker of defiance in his eyes. The wreckage, the burning embers, Polly's fury . . . none of it could change what had just happened. He reached for Scarlett's hand.

"I'm so sorry, Polly," he said, a half-smile playing on his lips. "But please believe this is all my fault."