Ink and Shadows(Secret, Book, & Scone Society #4)(74)

And it opened its fan

Like leaves to the light

And closed them beneath kisses of night.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley





Nora leaned over the book and inhaled the familiar scent of old leather and musty paper. There was a subtle odor of decay too. And a breath of dampness. The smell reminded Nora of fallen trees. Of bark and wood returning to the soil, bit by bit.

Every book was a tree living a second life. And the older the book, the more it smelled of the earth—the more the rustle of its crisp, yellowed pages sounded like the rustle of leaves.

Nora understood the convenience of digital books, but she needed to hold a book in her hand. She needed to study its cover, place her bookmark in its gutter, and inhale its timeless perfume.

Celeste’s book was very old. It had a supple, toffee-colored leather cover and was roughly the size of a single-subject notebook. It was untitled. No letters marched across its cover or huddled together on its spine, but there were plenty of stains. Owing to countless droplets of ink, water, and wine, the leather was as speckled as a bird’s egg.

The cover spotting was nothing compared to the inside. Some kind of liquid had seeped through the first fifty pages, causing the ink to run. By the time it had dried, hundreds of words had either been washed away or rendered illegible. As Nora turned page after ruined page, her heart sank. It hurt to see the evidence of so many lost words.

The title page hadn’t escaped the damage either, but at the bottom edge of a gray puddle of dried ink, she could just make out a name.





Nora knew the proper way to handle an old book. She knew that dirt or oil from a person’s fingers could mar a book like this. Even so, she couldn’t stop herself from lightly tracing the elegant dips and curves of Juliana’s name.

Imagining Celeste’s ancestor dipping her pen in ink and signing her name to this sheet of paper filled Nora with awe. Hundreds of years ago, a woman had sat at a table and, by daylight or firelight, prepared to fill a blank book with her first entry. A book of blank pages was such a precious thing at that time. To own a book was to possess wealth. And this book had belonged to a woman. To Juliana Leopold.

Nora gingerly turned pages until the damage from the spill was no longer evident. At last, she came to a page crammed with writing. Words stretched from edge to edge. Hundreds of words, just waiting to be read.

But as Nora continued looking, her excitement dimmed. She couldn’t read the words. Not on this page or on any page that followed. Juliana’s notebook had been written in German.

Still, Nora could marvel over the drawings. Most were of plants, but every so often, an insect or animal would appear in the margin. There were bees, birds, and several snakes. And then, quite abruptly, the style of handwriting changed. The new script featured a less stylized, compact script, whereas the first was all dramatic loops and curls. There were no plant drawings in this section, either. The only illustrations, a mortar and pestle and a glass bottle with a stopper, preceded another handwriting change.

“Three different women,” Nora whispered.

Based on what Celeste had said about her lineage, three women named Juliana had contributed to this notebook. The third Juliana had written the least, preferring to focus her efforts on illustrations of plants. These drawings, which were far more detailed than those made by the first Juliana, were carefully labeled from flower to root. There were ten in total. Some of the plants, like the dandelion and poppy, were easily recognizable. Others didn’t look at all familiar.

A list accompanied each plant, and Nora guessed that its purpose was to describe the medicinal uses of root, stem, and flower.

The fourth Juliana used only two pages, and these were filled with a confusing array of geometric shapes, symbols, and doodles. Next to a pair of overlapping circles featuring a series of glyphs, the author had drawn a bowl of liquid, a knife, and a burning torch.

Nora tried to understand what she was seeing.

Are these spells? Did the fourth Juliana walk a different path than these other women?

After digging her phone out of her pocket, Nora opened the image of the Potion Page. Whoever created the fake page had copied some of symbols and glyphs from Juliana’s book.

“Was it you, Bren? Were you trying to impress the Maestro? Is that why you showed him this book?”

It must have been Bren. Why would Celeste share her family treasure with Wolf Beck?

Then again, Nora had no idea how Still Waters functioned. Maybe the community members shared everything. Maybe they kept no secrets.

Everyone has secrets.

Nora examined the blank pages at the end of the book. If Beck had his way, they’d be used to make a counterfeit grimoire.

With this in mind, Nora turned to the last page where she found paper remnants attached to the binding. Someone had cut pages out of the book. She counted four paper spines, which meant Bren and Beck could have forged and sold three occult artifacts. The fourth was the Potion Page.

Sheriff McCabe joined Nora at the gift wrap counter. “Is it the right bait?”

Nora folded the white paper around the book like a mother covering a child’s ears.

“Beck won’t be able to resist it. I’ll send images to Bobbie, who’ll pass them on to Monkshood81. If he agrees to the asking price, she’ll let him know the time and place for the exchange.”

“Good. Go ahead and take your photos. When you’re done, I’ll go back to the station and work out the details of this meeting.”