The Mortal Heart(5)

Unfortunately, Lila Jane wasn’t. “Did you think I was too stupid to notice you were following me?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid.” Now he really did sound as if he was trying not to laugh. “I think you might be the smartest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of not meeting.” His words had become warm and low, almost conspiratorial. “Yet.”

Lila Jane slowly turned around.

The boy—or man, depending on your definition—in front of her was tall and lanky, with dark hair and even darker eyes. His oxford shirt was finely stitched, and his pants looked unusually well cut beneath the dark overcoat flapping open at his sides. She tried to piece the resulting picture together, but it wasn’t a familiar one. Lila Jane had never seen a boy like him at Duke, or anywhere else.

He doesn’t look like a murderer. But you never know.

Either way, he was still rude to follow her through the entire library without saying a word until now.

Rude, or very strange.

Lila Jane frowned. “I’m Lila. So now you’ve met me. Can you leave me alone?”

He tilted his head, watching her. His eyes were even darker than his hair, but his skin was pale, almost translucent. “If your name is Lila, why does your friend from the library call you Janie?”

The longer Lila Jane stared at him, the more she realized he looked like someone who never left the library. Had she seen him there?

“You mean Marian? She calls me all sorts of things,” she explained as if they were friends. “My middle name is Jane. Lila Jane.”

Why do I feel like I have to explain myself to him? she thought, her cheeks flushing.

“Like Jane Eyre. It suits you.”

For some reason she wanted to tell him that Jane Eyre was her mother’s favorite novel, and Jane her favorite literary heroine. Instead she asked him a question. “And you are?”

His mouth turned up at the corners. “Charmed.”

Lila Jane crossed her arms. “And rude. And you could be a murderer, for all I know.”

“A murderer? Is that what you thought?” The hint of a smile faded, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Actually, I want to help you.” She must have looked as confused as she felt, because he added, “With the Licentia in Lux Lucis.”

Lila Jane froze. He was referring to her parchment—the mystery that had consumed her for the past week. “What about it?”

“It’s not a poem. It’s a—it’s a kind of spell.”

“A spell? You’re serious?” She stared at him. He looked serious, but she couldn’t be sure.

He shrugged. “You took Fliegelman’s Text and Context seminar, didn’t you? I was in it, too. Back row.”

“I never saw you there.” She smiled. “But, you know. Front row.”

He looked at the ground. “I know. And I’m sort of an expert at not being seen, with tonight’s rare exception.”

“Go on.”

“Remember the week Fliegelman lectured on performative language? Incantations, spells, speaking in tongues?”

“Yes. Your basic “Madwomen in the Attic” syllabus week. I remember.”

“That’s when I figured it out. I’m not saying the Lux Lucis works as a magic spell—”

She laughed. “Of course not. That would be ridiculous.”

His eyes stayed locked on hers, steady through the dim light. “Yes. Of course. Ridiculous.” Then he smiled. “What I am saying is that’s the reason it was conceived.”

She frowned. “The Lux? A spell? How do you know that?”

“Because I think I’ve found the rest of the… well, I guess you’d call it a spell book.” He said the words as if they felt as strange to say as they were to hear.

A spell book?

As in magic spells?

Like the Salem witch trials magic? Like hypnosis and psychics and superstition?

It would make sense—and align with the rest of her research on the origin of American belief systems. In fact, it might be the perfect conclusion to her term paper.

Part of her wanted to run to the apartment and forget this entire conversation. But she couldn’t. The thing that burned inside her—the power that had demanded she leave behind the stifling smallness of her life and move to the big city of Durham—the same force that compelled her to return to the rare books library day after day—it had taken hold again.