Page 63 of She is the Darke

She read the entire article, but when she flipped to the next page of it, the rest of it had been cut out neatly and completely removed. What the heck? She flipped through every page of the newspaper, but the missing piece was nowhere to be found.

Okaaaay. Stacia replaced that one on the tracks and found one a couple papers down.

Another article had been removed. It was the lower half of the engagements and marriage announcement section.

She spent the next three hours scouring newspapers, but only found the name Ashbrock mentioned three more times, and only in meaningless articles.

Huh.

It seemed like someone wanted the Ashbrock mystery to remain just that.

But she hadn’t gotten a B plus in her library science class for nothing, and she was hopped up on this morning’s coffee and the three bite-sized candy bars she’d found in the bottom of her purse. She was ready for the next hurdle.

There was something in this room that would point her in the right direction, she just knew it.

Another hour and a half later, and she knew for certain there was literally nothing in this room that pointed her in the right direction.

Feeling defeated and bedraggled, she did her walk of shame out of the Room of Dead Ends and marched clumsily down the stairs. By the time she got to the bottom stair, Burt was already glaring at her.

The purple pen was still sitting in the middle of the tiles, halfway from here to the door. Double defeated, she sat on the bottom stair and pulled her shoes off, then padded silently across the floor, stooped to pick up the pen, and turned to wave to Burt.

He set a huge book on top of his counter and placed his hand on it, then patted it twice, his eyebrows arched up.

What was he doing? She made her way to him and looked at the title of the text. The cover was dusty, so she had to wipe it with the sleeve of her lab coat to read the gold filigree writing.

Tales and Potions from the Other Side

By Matilda Altendark

She moved to open the book, but Burt looked around quick and put his hand on the cover to stop her. He shook his headand lifted his finger to his lips, then twitched his head toward a private room.

Okay, that was some rocket-science sign language. “What?”

Burt whispered, “Take the damn book in the private room and bring it back when you’re done. And don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.”

“Ooooh, okay. Thanks Burt-Burt.”

“It’s just Burt. Lady,” he whispered, stopping her from lugging the book away. “Page 152. You look like her.”

Okaaay, page 152, probably a pin-up picture of a hottie with a body.

“Close the blinds in there,” he whispered after her.

Duh. She’d already been planning to do that. She was a super-spy, after all.

Stacia set her sequined spy shoes on the floor inside, closed all the blinds like Burt-Burt had asked, and then sat down for a little light mystery solving. Except when she opened the book to the first page, she realized it wasn’t light at all. It was a hand-drawn picture of a skinned animal. With a gasp, she stood and took a couple steps back from the table. A queasiness took her stomach, and she had to wait a few seconds for it to settle before she read the words. Or tried to. They weren’t in English.

She flipped to the next page, and it detailed ingredients and had little hand-drawn pictures of raven skulls.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she murmured to herself in horror.

The next few pages seemed to be detailing the parts of a dead, and sometimes living, animal and its potency for some kind of power. Those pages were in broken English.

She flipped faster, aiming for page 152. When she stopped on it, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

It was her.

Right?

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