The bottom of the stairs opened into a surprisingly warm and dry basement, filled with bookshelves. It smelled distinctly of burning leaves, so much so that Harper began to fear that something was on fire.
“What’s that burning smell?” she asked.
“It’s just the potions,” Lydia replied, as if Harper would know what that meant. “They keep the books safe.”
While the books took up the majority of the basement, there was a small room to the left of the stairs. Lydia opened the door and gestured inside. “Won’t you join me in my office?”
Harper went inside, and it was what she’d expected Lydia’s office to look like. Three of the walls were painted pale pink, but the one behind her desk was wallpapered with a black-and-white fleur-de-lis pattern. Posters of book covers for J. M. Barrie’s
A computer and a framed photo sat on the simple black desk, but other than that, and the two office chairs, nearly everything else in the room was books. Books stacked in piles on the floor, on the desk, on overburdened shelves that were slouching on the walls. Three boxes sat on the floor behind the desk, and Harper couldn’t see their contents, but she assumed they were more books.
“Are you sure it’s okay that we’re down here?” Harper asked as she sat down. “I mean, because of the customers. I don’t want to take you away from your job.”
“This is my job, too,” Lydia explained as she moved the towers of books from her desk to the floor so she’d be able to see Harper when she sat down. “As much as I love uniting readers with their new favorite books, the reason I opened the bookstore is to help people like you. Selling books is a front for my
“What do you mean?” Harper asked.
Lydia sat down and gave her a knowing smile. “There are just some problems that you can’t go to the police for. There’s no one you can call to help if you’re a troll or a witch. It’s not like the Ghostbusters are real, and even if they were, sometimes the ghosts need help, too.”
“Do I owe you anything for all of this?” Harper asked. “You’re doing so much work for us, and I’m so appreciative, and I feel like I should compensate you or something.”
Lydia had never made mention of any form of payment, but now that she had referred to this as a job, Harper began to worry that she was taking advantage of her.
“No, no, don’t be ridiculous.” Lydia waved it off. “Nana always said that if we did the things we had to do and help those that needed it, then everything else would fall into place. And she was right.”
“Thank you,” Harper said emphatically. “I don’t know what my sister or I would do if we didn’t have you helping us.”
“You’re very welcome.” Lydia smiled. “Now on to what I wanted to show you.” She reached over to pull the lid off one of the boxes, then she stopped. “But you came here. Is there something you wanted to tell me?”
“Mostly just to ask you about your progress,” Harper said. “And to tell you something about the scroll.”
“What about it?” Lydia let go of the box lid and sat back in her chair.
“I brought the scroll to school yesterday to show a teacher, Professor Pine. He said he knew you.”
“Oh, yeah. Kipling.” Lydia smirked. “We go way back. He’s a good guy.”
“While I was talking to him about the scroll—I had it with me, so he could look at it—he accidentally spilled Red Bull all over it,” Harper explained. “It didn’t damage the scroll, of course, because nothing seems to be able to. But the ink began to glow, like a real vibrant crimson wherever the liquid touched.”
“Did anything else happen?” Lydia asked.
“No, it just glowed for a few seconds. Then stopped,” Harper said. “When I took it back to my dorm room, I tried a few other things on it. Water seemed to have the same effect, but milk did nothing.”
“Hmm.” Lydia seemed to consider it for a moment. “Do you have it with you?”
Harper frowned apologetically. “No. Sorry. Gemma was worried about having it out of her sight, so Marcy came by and picked it up this morning.”
“That’s fine.” Lydia brushed it off. “Even if I had the scroll to look at it, it probably wouldn’t matter. What happened with Pine and the Red Bull is normal.”
“Scrolls glow when exposed to energy drinks?” Harper asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, the writing reacts to different things, especially if the thing is related to the curse,” Lydia said, and Harper just stared at her blankly. “Take Medusa’s curse. You remember her, right? The chick with all the snakes in her hair?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of Medusa.”
“With hers, the paper would get incredibly warm, like scalding hot, when it came in contact with snake venom. I have no idea why or how anybody would put snake venom on it, but according to my research, that’s what happened,” Lydia said.
“So what does that mean?” Harper asked.
“I don’t actually know for sure.” Lydia shook her head sadly. “In Medusa’s case, I believe that venom had been used in the ink or mixed with the papyrus or something. But I highly doubt that Red Bull was used in the creation of the sirens’ curse.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t think so.”
“But maybe something in it was,” Lydia said. “What’s in Red Bull anyway? Water, sugar, caffeine?”
Harper nodded. “Pine said he thought the ink might be made of blood.”
“Yeah, that would be in line with what I know about the sirens,” Lydia agreed. “That could be the connection. Carbon dioxide is a waste product contained in blood, and it’s also abundant in carbonated beverages, too. That would explain why Red Bull affects it, but milk doesn’t.”
“Yeah…” Harper said hesitantly. “But … so it doesn’t mean anything?”
“Like is it some clue about how to destroy the scroll, thereby breaking the curse?” Lydia let out a long breath. “I honestly can’t say one way or the other.”
“Well, what about Medusa?” Harper asked. “Did venom help her destroy her scroll?”
“She didn’t destroy her scroll,” Lydia said. “I think she tried to for a while, which is probably how the venom experimentation came into play. But then she and Perseus fell in love—he liked the snake hair or something—so she stopped fighting it.”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same thing?” Harper asked. “I’ve been reading a lot of mythology lately, and I’m pretty sure that nobody loved Medusa. In fact, I thought Perseus killed her.”
“Originally, mythology was spread by word of mouth. In the days before the printing press, that’s how information got around,” Lydia said. “And some of the mouths spreading the word had their own horse in the race, and things got twisted up.”
“How so?” Harper asked.
“Athena hated Medusa, and Athena was a much more powerful goddess, so what Athena said became the truth,” Lydia explained. “Medusa was just a beautiful young girl, and she had an affair with Poseidon. And that pissed Athena off ’cause she had a thing for him, so she turned Medusa into the gorgon. Then, later, Athena sent Perseus to kill Medusa, but he fell in love with her instead, so then Athena finished the job herself.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Harper asked. “That’s not written down in any of the books I’ve read. Some of it sounds similar, but Medusa’s always described as a monstrosity, and Perseus as a brave hero for slaying her.”
“That’s because Athena was a huge asshole,” Lydia said. “Think about it. She twisted their love story and made it into the exact opposite, so the rest of history would condemn Medusa. It’s pretty sick.
“And as for how I know it, it’s because that’s what my family does,” Lydia went on. “For centuries, we’ve been collecting all the information, all the truths from the supernatural elements of the world. We’re the record keepers for the things in the world that the rest of humanity doesn’t—or can’t—properly record.”
With that, Lydia swiveled her chair and took the lid off the box. As she began to rifle through its contents, Harper noticed the scar on Lydia’s shoulder, red, beveled flesh protruding from around the strap of her tank top. Lydia had told her it was a werewolf bite, and Harper wondered about the price of being the paranormal world’s memory keeper.
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lydia said. She pulled out a green file, worn around the
