Chapter 1
“Be careful where you point that thing, young lady. It’ll get you in trouble one day.”
The old man Crys had been stalking for twenty minutes glared at her through the lens of her camera. The deep wrinkles she’d found so fascinating now gathered between his eyes as he creased his forehead.
She snapped a picture.
“Thanks for the advice,” she said, flashing him a grin before she quickly made her escape.
It would be a great shot, one of her best yet. Eyes that had seen at least eighty years of life. A face, weathered and aged, with a thousand stories to tell. Definitely portfolio-worthy.
Crys passed a bank with a digital clock in the window and winced when she saw the time. Becca’s going to kill me, she thought.
The last class had let out at three o’clock, but because she hadn’t gone to school today, she’d completely lost track of time. She could smell spring in the air, finally, after such a long, cold winter. The cool breeze felt fresh and clean and full of possibilities, even beneath the scent of cement and dust and exhaust fumes.
It was five minutes to six when she finally made it to her destination. Five minutes to closing.
The Speckled Muse Bookshop was located on the west edge of the Annex, a Toronto neighborhood adjacent to the U of T campus and the Royal Ontario Museum. Busy streets, a young crowd—thanks to the proximity to the university—lots of restaurants and little independent shops.
Crys paused and snapped a shot of the weathered sign out front—she’d taken the same pic from nearly every angle possible over the last couple of years. Along with the name of the shop written in quirky, painted letters, there was an illustration of a little girl with big glasses, pigtails, and a sprinkling of freckles, sitting on top of a stack of books.
It was a caricature of Crys from when she was five years old, before she even knew how to read. Before she got contacts for her annoying nearsightedness and used her thick glasses only when she absolutely had to.
Back when the Hatchers were a whole family, not just three-quarters of one.
Something warm brushed against her leg, and she lowered her camera with a frown. “Who let you out, Charlie?”
Charlie, an adorable black-and-white kitten, replied with a tiny mew that seemed to have a question mark attached to it.
“Come on.” Crys leaned over and picked him up, pressing him against her chest. “You’re way too close to the street out here, little guy.”
A month ago, when it was early March and still freezing cold, she’d found the kitten next to a garbage can a block away from the store and next to her favorite sushi place. He’d been no bigger than the palm of her hand, and looked forlorn and miserable. She’d brought the shivering handful home and insisted they keep him.
Her mother had taken one look at him and said no. But Crys’s younger sister, Becca, immediately stepped in and argued on behalf of the tiny feline’s fate. Between her two daughters’ joint arguments, Julia Hatcher finally relented. It was the first time in ages that Crys and Becca had agreed on anything. Becca then named him Charlie after Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of her favorite books.
Now Crys pushed open the glass front door, triggering the familiar, melodious chime of the doorbell that signaled a customer had entered. Immediately, she felt the heat of Becca’s glare from across the shop.
Yeah, I know. I’m late, she thought. What else is new?
The mail lay on a small table near the door in an untouched heap. Several brown cardboard boxes of books were stacked next to it.
The Speckled Muse was housed in a historical three-story building—one of the oldest in Toronto, dating to the mid-nineteenth century. Crys’s great-grandfather, a man of wealth and influence in the city, had purchased the building seventy years earlier and given it to his book-loving wife so she could open a bookstore. The current sign was relatively new, but the name of the shop was more than sixty years old.
If only great-granddaddy hadn’t squandered his fortune on poor investments, leaving nothing for his family line apart from the bookshop itself.
The Speckled Muse—a Toronto landmark. One of the oldest bookstores in one of the oldest buildings and, as many ancient edifices were, rumored to be haunted. Crys had yet to see evidence of a ghost—apart from hearing the occasional groans and creaks that are normal in any old building.
All of this, both truth and rumor, helped to coax customers through the front door and into the maze-like shelves and nooks and crannies of the shop, which, contrary to its small and quaint storefront, had a massive interior that magically seemed to go on and on.
The first floor of the building was dedicated to the store, and the upper two made up the Hatcher family home, accessed by a winding iron staircase at the very back of the main floor. Three bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor, a kitchen, a living room, and another bathroom on the second. Plenty big enough for the three of them. And now Charlie, of course.
“Thank you so much for coming in.” Becca handed change to a customer from behind the register. She wore her honey-blond hair off her face, in a loose braid that fell across her right shoulder. There was a pencil tucked behind her ear that Crys would bet she’d totally forgotten about. “I hope you enjoy the book.”
“Thank you for helping me find it!” The woman—a redhead with ruddy cheeks and a toothy grin, whom Crys immediately recognized as a regular customer—clutched the plastic bag bearing the store’s logo to her chest. “My mother read this to me when I was just a little girl. It’s an absolute treasure. And such a good price!”
With a bright smile, and a friendly nod in Crys’s direction, the woman left the shop with her reasonably priced treasure firmly in hand.
“Becca Hatcher—making dreams come true, one book at a time,” Crys said with amusement.
She received no response, just an intensified glare as her younger sister moved from behind the long wooden counter toward the door, sidestepping the books that had piled up and needed to be logged and shelved. She flipped the sign to CLOSED.
It smelled musty in here—like old paper and leather. It was a smell Crys used to love, since it smelled like home, but now she thought they needed to give the shop a good airing out.
“No greeting for your favorite sister in the whole wide world?” Crys pressed.
“You were supposed to be here two hours ago.”
Crys shrugged. “I was otherwise occupied. I knew you could handle things on your own.”
Becca groaned. “Unbelievable. You don’t even care, do you?”
“About what?”
“That you . . . you . . .” Becca’s cheeks reddened with every sputtered word. If there was one thing that could be said about the Hatcher sisters, it was that they didn’t try too hard to keep their emotions hidden.
“I . . . I . . . ?” Crys prompted. “What? Forced you to spend two extra hours around your favorite objects while Mom’s out doing her daily chores?”
“You made me miss book club.”
Crys inwardly cringed. Becca loved her stupid book club like a six-year-old loved gummy bears. “You know, you really should try to find a hobby that has nothing to do with books. Expand and grow. Live a little.” She gestured toward the front window, which looked out at the always-busy Bathurst Street. “There’s a whole world out there to discover.”
“You’re right. I do need another hobby,” she replied. “Maybe I should take up photography.”
She said it as if it were an insult.
“Whatever.”
“You’re so much like Dad—you know that?” Becca added.
Great, Crys thought. Twist that knife in just a little more.
Suddenly, Crys wanted to put down the camera—a Pentax from the eighties that took film that had to be developed in a dark room. It wasn’t fancy, and it definitely wasn’t digital. The flash had broken long ago and been discarded, which, because Crys liked using natural light for her shots anyway, didn’t make any difference to her.
Instead, she held the device up with one hand while still cradling a purring Charlie with the other and snapped a picture. Becca raised her hand to block her face, but it was too late.
“You know I hate having my picture taken!”
“You should get over that.” Crys had found that most people hated having their picture taken, which was why she much preferred taking stealth shots of strangers all around the city. She had no idea why Becca was so camera-shy. The girl could be a model. The lion’s share of the good looks in the family had gone to the younger daughter, a fact Crys tried very hard not to let bother her.
“You’re such a jerk. You know that?” Becca replied. “You only think about yourself.”
“Bite me.” Despite her bravado, a trickle of guilt soured Crys’s stomach, like always. It was definitely time for a subject change. “Did you know Charlie got outside?”
“What?” Becca glanced at the kitten, and her face blanched. “I didn’t even realize . . . If he’d been hit by a car—” She reached across the counter so she could gently pet the top of his head. “Oh, Charlie, I’m sorry.”
“He probably just slipped out with a customer. It’s fine. He’s fine.” The kitten began to squirm, so Crys gently set him down on the floor. He flicked his tail and sauntered away, down a long aisle of crammed bookshelves toward his favorite napping spot in the mystery section.
Becca swept her serious gaze across the front of the store until it fell again on Crys. Her dark blue eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head as if seeing her sister for the first time today. “You changed your hair again.”
Crys twisted a finger around a long pale lock. Normally her hair was a medium ash blond, just like their mother’s. A year ago, she’d started to dye it whenever she felt a whim, and it had since been black, dark brown, red, and, for a short time—and much to their mother’s dismay—bright purple.
Last night she’d gone platinum blond. Her scalp still burned from the peroxide, and she resisted the urge to scratch it, hoping her hair wouldn’t start falling out from the abuse she’d heaped upon it.
Although . . . bald might be cool to try out for a while.
“Yup,” she said. “You like?”
“Sure,” Becca replied after a moment. “It makes your eyes look even lighter.”
“Thanks, I think.” Crys didn’t know if that was a compliment or simply an observation. She had the same eyes as their father—icy blue and so pale they nearly lacked any color entirely. Some people said her eyes were spooky.
She was okay with this.
“Mom’ll be back in an hour,” Becca said, glancing down at her watch.
“Let’s get some sushi in the meantime. I’m starving.” Walking around all day would do that, and Crys had forgotten to have lunch.
“I’m sick of sushi. Let’s figure out dinner after we finish with the store.”
How could anyone ever get sick of sushi? Crys could happily eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if given the option. “Fine. Just tell me what to do, boss.”
“Sort the mail.” Becca gestured toward the pile near the front door. “And I’ll . . . I guess I’ll shelve these.” She grabbed a cardboard box and hoisted it up onto the counter. “A customer came in and had a bunch of used children’s books she wanted to unload. Mom wasn’t here to vet them as quality, so I took them all. I don’t know why anyone would want to get rid of all these books, but I guess it’s good for business, right?”
“Sure,” Crys replied distractedly, eyeing the mail. She’d spotted a suspicious-looking letter at the top of the pile and started walking toward it. “Shelve away.”
The letter was addressed to her mother, and it was from Sunderland High—Crys’s school.
She ripped it open without a second thought and scanned the contents, which informed Mrs. Hatcher that her daughter, Crystal, had a questionable attendance record. She’d missed three weeks’ worth of classes since the year began. The principal wanted to meet to discuss her frequently truant daughter’s choices and how it could put her graduation in June at risk.
Crys ripped the letter into tiny pieces and threw it in the garbage can. She didn’t need to graduate with top marks to be a photographer. And ever since her two best friends, Amanda and Sara, had both moved away in the last six months, classes held no interest for her anymore.
She only needed to survive until June to leave school behind her forever.
And in seven months she’d turn eighteen. That number meant the freedom to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Eighteen meant she could finally leave Toronto and travel around the world, taking pictures, fleshing out her portfolio, so she could get a job at a magazine such as National Geographic.
That was both the dream and the plan. And only a matter of months and the occasional annoying letter from school stood in her way.
Along with letters and bills there was a larger parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It was covered in what looked like European stamps. She recognized the sender’s handwriting immediately.
It was from her aunt Jackie.
Again ignoring the fact that the parcel was addressed to her mother, not her, Crys tore off the paper, curious to see what her aunt had sent. Crys felt it’d been forever since she’d seen or talked to Jackie, who lived in Europe most of the time, exploring and having adventures and romances and getting into trouble like the free spirit she was. Jackie hadn’t graduated high school, either, and her aunt was the coolest and smartest person Crys had ever known. She’d received her education from living life, not from reading textbooks.
“And you’ve sent us . . .” Crys pulled the object out of the packaging, her enthusiasm quickly fading. “. . . a book. Hooray.”
The book did look very old—which meant it might be valuable on the secondhand market. That was one point in its favor. Its cover was smooth brown leather. Handmade, by the feel of it. It was the size of an old atlas and as thick as a dictionary. As heavy as one, too. It had cost Jackie a small fortune in postage to send this overseas.
Affixed to the cover was a metal relief of a bronze bird, its wings spread in flight. Crys traced it with her index finger.
There was no title, and nothing was written on the weathered spine.
A piece of paper fell out as Crys opened the cover. She snatched it up off the worn hardwood floor.
This is it, Jules. I finally found it. Grandma would be proud. Keep it safe, and I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. —J
Crys opened the book. It appeared to be a one-of-a-kind text, similar to the ones ancient monks slaved over all their lives, with decorative calligraphy, careful penmanship, and intricate paintings. The pages felt as fragile as onionskin, but the words inside were crisp and clear, the illustrations of flowers and plants, green landscapes, robed figures, and unfamiliar furry animals as sharp as if they’d been rendered this week.
The language, however . . . Crys frowned down at it. It wasn’t recognizable to her. Definitely not Latin. Or Italian. Or Chinese.
The alphabet was odd, made up of curls and swashes instead of discernible letters. There were no breaks between words; the text looked like lines of gibberish and nonsense rather than an actual language. But it was all rendered with a fine hand as if it might make perfect sense to someone, somewhere.
Some of the text was printed in gold ink, some in black. The gold ink shimmered even in the most shadowy areas of the overstuffed shop as Crys walked it back to the children’s section, easily navigating the maze-like shelves without looking up.
Becca was there, on her knees, sliding the new books into place after noting them in the open ledger beside her. Crys glanced around at the shelves, which were painted pink and blue and green in this area, rather than the standard brown and black in the rest of the store. Kid-sized chairs and a small sofa, both upholstered in bright polka-dotted fabric, were there for reading comfort. A decade ago, on the wall next to the large, round window that made this alcove the brightest part of the shop, her father had painted a mural of a fantasy land with a golden castle and two princesses who looked a great deal like Becca and Crys. The painted words Imagination is Magic curved around the fluffy white clouds in the bright blue sky.
Daniel Hatcher used to organize and host readings every Saturday in this kids’ nook, free for all children and parents. He always made sure there were drinks and snacks available. Local children’s authors would visit and talk to the kids and sign books. And this had also been the place Crys and Becca had lounged for hours in their childhood, spending time together reading and discussing book after book after book.
Times had changed. The nook, once a place of magic and fairy tales, now looked weathered and old. The only ghosts to be found back here were memories of a different time.
“What’s that?” Becca asked, drawing Crys out of her reverie.
“Good question. Jackie sent it. I don’t know what it is, but I hope it’s worth big bucks.”
Becca stood up and brushed some dust off her jeans. “Let me see it.” Crys handed it over, and Becca’s eyes widened as she took it. “Wow. It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I wonder how old it is.”
“Very old,” Crys replied. “That’s my professional opinion.”
Becca sat down on the small sofa and began to carefully flip through it. “I wonder what language this is.”
“No idea whatsoever.”
“This is like something you’d find in a museum.”
“Do museums pay lots of money for ancient books no one can read?”
This earned Crys a sharp look. “It’s not all about money, you know.”
“Let’s go ahead and agree to disagree on that.”
Becca traced her hand lightly over a fully gold page, the writing so tiny and cramped that there was barely any of the thin paper showing. The ink shone bright in the light from the window, even as dusk had started to descend over the city.
“Don’t get your greasy fingers all over it,” Crys said. “It’ll decrease the value.”
“Quiet.” Becca’s voice was hollow now, distracted, as she peered at the pages, her brows drawing together.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“You look constipated.”
Becca shook her head, not bothering to respond to Crys’s smart-ass comment with even a glare. “This book . . . I feel like I can . . . I don’t know. Sense something from it.”
“Sense something?” Crys laughed and looked up at the ceiling. “Spirits, come to us now! Speak to us through the pages of this weird old book.”
“Shut up. It’s not like that. It’s not . . .”
“Not what?” Crys prompted when Becca fell silent.
Becca’s breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
That was alarming. “Becca, what’s wrong?”
“This book . . .” Becca whispered hoarsely, as if the words were getting stuck in her throat. She began to tremble. “It’s doing something . . . to me. I can feel it . . . pulling.”
“Pulling? Pulling what?” In seconds, a chill spread through Crys, bringing with it a dark and heavy feeling of dread. “You’re starting to freak me out. It’s just a dumb book. Give it back to me.” She held out her hand and waited for her sister to hand it back to her. “Come on! What are you waiting for?”
Becca lurched up to her feet off the small sofa. “I can’t seem to let go of it. I’m trying, but I can’t.”
The golden page began to glow.
Crys swore under her breath. What the hell was going on?
She reached forward to grab it out from her sister’s grip. The moment she touched the book this time, a violent shock tore through her, as if she’d jammed her hand into a light socket. It knocked her backward, and she fell flat on her back on the far side of the alcove. The wind had been knocked from her lungs, and she struggled to find her breath. As fast as she could, she scrambled to her unsteady feet.
“Get that thing away from you, Becca!” she gasped.
Becca’s eyes had filled with the bright golden light from the book. “I don’t know what’s happening. What . . . what is it doing to me? Help me!” Her voice broke with fear. “Please, Crys, help me!”
Crys lunged toward her sister just as light started to stream out of the book, momentarily blinding her and making her stagger back again. She blinked, rubbing her eyes, only to see that sharp beams of this impossibly bright light had wrapped around Becca, slithering around her chest and arms and face like a thousand golden snakes.
Becca screamed, and the bone-chilling sound drew a frightened shriek from Crys’s throat. The book finally dropped from Becca’s hands as she crumpled to the floor in a heap next to it.
Crys scrambled to Becca’s side and grabbed her sister’s shoulders, shaking her. “Becca! Becca, look at me! Look at me!”
The golden glow from the book coated her skin and gathered in her eyes for a moment longer before it finally extinguished.
Becca stared straight ahead, her expression slack.
“Please!” Crys yelled, shaking her harder. “Please say something!”
But her sister didn’t respond. She stared, she blinked. She breathed. But Becca Hatcher was gone—mind and soul.
Gone. In an instant.
Leaving Crys behind, alone . . . with the book responsible.
Chapter 2
The Raven Club wasn’t his favorite bar, but it was the noisiest one he knew. Silence meant thinking. And thinking meant remembering.
Tonight he wanted to forget.
Half a bottle of vodka also made forgetting a lot easier. And the club offered its fair share of dark-haired beauties to help take his mind off the date on the calendar.
“You are very helpful, you know that?” he said to the girl on his lap, weaving his fingers into her long hair, which was stiff with hair spray. She wore a low cut, sparkly top and a skirt short enough to get her arrested in many places around the world. Luckily, Toronto wasn’t one of them.
She brushed her lips against his throat. “I aim to please.”
“Aim a little lower, would you?”
“Anything you want.”
He did another shot and glanced at the time on his phone. Midnight. He’d successfully made it through the third of April.
Suddenly, the sickly sweet scent of the girl’s floral perfume had begun to chase his buzz away. Girls, thinking it made them smell like money, piled that garbage on way too thick for his taste.
“Enough,” Farrell said as he pushed her off his lap.
“Oh, come on. We’ve barely gotten started.” She stroked his chest and unbuttoned the top of his white Prada shirt. “Here we are, all alone, just the two of us. It’s destiny, baby.”
He tried not to laugh. “I don’t believe in destiny.”
The private lounge he’d reserved offered a sliver of privacy, but Farrell would hardly call them alone. Only twenty feet away, through a shimmering curtain, was the rest of the club. The sound of throbbing music had begun to make his head ache.
He’d kill for a cigarette, but he was trying to quit.
The brunette had caught his eye when he’d gone to fetch a bottle of Grey Goose from the bar. He had no idea how old she was under all that makeup. Maybe twenty. Maybe thirty. He didn’t really care.
“The night’s still young,” he told her. “We have time, Suzie.”
“It’s Stephanie.”
He gave her one of his best smiles, which never failed to work wonders with difficult females. Right on schedule, her serious expression faded and her eyes sparkled with interest. He didn’t have many talents, but effortless charm and a way with women were two of them.
Also, the public knowledge of Farrell Grayson’s upcoming inheritance helped get him all the female attention he’d ever want.
One hundred million dollars of his grandmother’s vast estate, left to him in her will—with a stipulation: He didn’t get his hands on it until he turned twenty-one.
Only 576 days till he finally had the freedom to do as he pleased without being caught under his parents’ thumbs, totally dependent on his monthly allowance.
“Suzie . . . Stephanie . . . Sexy . . . come back over here, whoever you are,” he said, patting his knee. She did as requested, smiling now.
Her tongue tasted like rum, he thought absently. And Diet Coke.
His phone vibrated and he glanced down at it. It was a message from his kid brother, Adam.
im in big trouble can you come get me
It included an address to one of the seedier neighborhoods downtown.
Another text message swiftly followed: never mind im fine
Yeah, right. Farrell slipped the phone into the inner pocket of his jacket. He grabbed the bottle of vodka and took a swig from it, feeling the pleasant burn all the way down his throat.
Fun was over. Duty called.
“Got to go,” he said.
Stephanie’s eyes widened with surprise. “What? Where?”
“I need to deal with a family thing.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No thanks,” Farrell said without hesitation.
“Oh, come on.” She traced her long fingernails up his arm. “We’re having such a good time. You really want it to end so soon?”
“I really couldn’t care less.” He kept his smile fixed as her expression fell. “What? You thought this was an open casting call for the role of Farrell Grayson’s girlfriend? Sorry to disappoint you.”
Her surprise faded and her eyes flashed with anger. “Asshole. Everything they say about you is true.”
She got up from his side and stormed out of the lounge, shoving the curtains out of her way, but her arms and hair still got caught in them in her furious need to make a dramatic exit.
Fine with him. He’d never liked the taste of rum anyway.
Since having his license suspended four months ago, Farrell had had to get used to having a chauffeur. It was either that or take public transit—and both of his parents were appalled by the thought of a Grayson riding the subway.
Not that any of this was their fault; it was entirely his. Wrapping his Porsche around a tree had totaled the car, landed him with a DUI the family lawyers were still sorting out, and sent him into the hospital with a serious concussion.
You’re damn lucky you didn’t hurt anybody else, the voice of his conscience snarled. It sounded exactly like his older brother, Connor. All their lives, he’d been the one offering up such pearls of wisdom, whether Farrell wanted them or not.
When the limo reached its destination, Farrell, unsteady on his feet from the amount of liquor he’d consumed, approached a low-rent apartment building.
Out front, several of the streetlamps were broken, casting the treeless area in darkness, apart from the light of the nearly full moon. Shado
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