Ink and Shadows(Secret, Book, & Scone Society #4)(50)
“True. The Juliana in this portrait is the patron saint of sickness. Her unwavering faith allowed her to subdue the devil. A lesser-known legend speaks of a beautiful, young Turkish woman with the gift of healing. This woman’s desire to convert her new husband to Christianity was seen as a betrayal by her non-Christian family, so she was first tortured and then put to death. According to this story, the devil offered to end her suffering, but she refused. Her husband fled to Europe where he remarried and tried to honor his first wife by becoming a healer.”
Though Nora was captivated by the Juliana tales, she didn’t see how they led to an identification of the book page. She said as much to Bobbie.
Bobbie shrugged. “When you mentioned Juliana’s name, I just got this feeling that she and the book page share some common thread. I’d have to do more research on Juliana legends to figure out what it is. And I’m not going to bother unless that sheriff lets me have that page.”
“Did you ask him?”
“When I got to town yesterday, I marched right down to the station. The sheriff and I had barely finished shaking hands before I asked him to introduce me to you. We walked to your darling bookstore and, well, you know how that went.”
Heat rushed to Nora’s cheeks. “I couldn’t face you. I’d just gotten off the phone with Jed and I was shell-shocked. Then I saw you. It was too much.”
Bobbie squeezed Nora’s hand. “Looks like neither of us got our Mr. Darcy. Good thing we can have as many book boyfriends as we want. We can have a whole harem.”
“In the romance genre, that’s called a reverse harem.”
“Really?” An expression of wonderment crossed Bobbie’s face. “If I live to be a hundred, it won’t be long enough. There will still be too many new things to learn about books. Too many books I’ll still want to read. I’ll have to be buried in one of those big mausoleums so I can take all the unread books with me. Just in case I can read in the afterlife.”
Bobbie’s comment sparked a memory in Nora. “Back to the grimoires. Weren’t they burned after their owners’ deaths? Or is that something I read in a novel?”
“If the grimoires belonged to a witch, then yes. They’re meant to be used by one person, and one person only. Anyone else is immediately cursed. We’ve seen examples of these curses in nineteenth-and twentieth-century grimoires. If you open the cover, the warning is right there. The wording changes, but the message is always the same. Mess with this book and you die.”
“Is that why these books are so rare?” Nora asked. “Not because of the curses, but because so many were burned?”
Bobbie grunted. “No historian worth her salt believes that theory. Grimoires are rare because occult books were never popular. Before Gutenberg, the Church was the primary source of written material. Fast-forward a few centuries from that first printing press, and you’re still risking your life by penning a grimoire. The last official witch trial held in the United States occurred in Salem. But it wasn’t the Ipswich trial of 1878. There was a civil case as late as 1918. Grimoires are rare because they’re dangerous. To the authors, the readers, and those who profited from their sale.”
Nora had a vision of Bren’s face, pale as the moonlight washing over her smooth skin. Had a single page from a grimoire led to her death? And if she’d been murdered, then why was the ME having such a hard time figuring out what had killed her?
There were too many questions, and Nora was too drained to think about them anymore.
“You’re exhausted,” Bobbie noted. “You should hit the sack. But if you want to help Celeste, then you should use me. That page must be the key to this mess. If I’m going to unlock its mysteries, then it has to go to New York. You need to convince your sheriff to let me take it.”
Nora walked her friend to the door. “Someone wants that page, Bobbie. Either because it’s valuable, or because of what’s written on it. I think Bren hid it under my mat moments before she was killed. What if her killer learns that you have it? You could be putting yourself in serious danger.”
Bobbie’s gaze turned fierce. “I’ll take my chances. Do you know why? Because I have a daughter, and that girl makes me happy to be alive. No mother should lose her child the way Celeste lost hers. I will carry that page to the ends of the earth if I have to. To find the answers. For Celeste. And for the child she lost.”
Nora walked Bobbie to her rental car, which was parked in the lot behind Miracle Books. After embracing her old friend, she hurried home, eager to reach the safety of her tiny house.
As she locked her door and turned off the lights, she realized that she’d never been afraid of the dark.
Until now.
Chapter 12
The best safety lies in fear.
—William Shakespeare
The next morning, the light bored holes through Nora’s closed eyelids. Her tongue felt like a cotton ball and the hot needle pain inside her head throbbed like a thousand drums. No amount of water could quench her thirst, and her stomach roiled at the thought of food.
Coffee didn’t seem like a good idea either, so Nora dropped a teabag into a mug and filled the electric kettle. Moving slowly, she went outside to get the paper. She waited on the deck with the door open and her eyes closed, until the kettle’s whistle stopped shrieking.