Page 72 of Scars Like Wings

I arrived at the table Simone and Maisie had picked to set up. It was one of the long tables close to the circulation desk. Maisie had already assembled our favorite bagels with spreads in front of our seats. Simone had notebooks and pens set up for each of us for any notes we needed to take. She also had a speaker quietly playing Lorde radio, her favorite to read to. I nodded to them both.

“Okay, dolls, let’s do the damn thing.” I opened the book to the back cover and set the book down in front of us. Then I looked up toward the branches reaching to the blue sky and the galaxy of stars sparkling inside. “Archive, please send us everything you have about runes and the witches who write them.”

For a long moment, the Archive was silent, almost eerily so. The sounds of flapping papers quieted. The rustling of the branches and leaves were nonexistent in the air. Even Journee’s various machines stopped brewing and baking for the briefest moment as if to listen for what the Archive sent. The entire Library stilled with bated breath.

Then the sound of a book sliding from the shelves nearby on the main floor. And another. And yet another. Soon, books were flying above us. They swirled around, fluttering like a migration of butterflies in the sky. It was a stunning dance, a show of wonderful magic that took my breath away. And then, without much more ceremony, the books gracefully dropped onto the large and sturdy table. Each book stacked onto the last until the tower grew too tall to be safe and then a new stack would be made beside it, and the process would start over again. They surrounded the three of us, stretching down the table. Gods, it had to have been at least a hundred books with more steadily incoming. By the time the last book landed, our jaws were on thefloor. Journee whistled from behind her counter at the daunting task before us.

I took a long swig of my coffee before holding my hand out before me. A book somersaulted from the nearest tower and landed with its spine in my palm. One of the Archive’s branches pulled the chair out for me to sit. Simone and Maisie grabbed their own books, and we got started. Caffeinated with the best bagels in the world nearby, we were energized and hopeful that we would find something, some answers, at last.

The sound of Simone’s head hitting the open book in front of her was not only loud enough to reverberate throughout the empty library, but also to almost knock over her iced matcha. Without looking at the tipping cup and staring at the ceiling with her chair tipped back, Maisie flicked her finger toward the cup to right it and save the books.

Maisie leaned her chair forward and sighed. “I’m a witch, and I feel like I knowwaytoo much about witches right now.”

I chuckled softly before it became a groan. “All these books and absolutely nothingagain.”

“No similar runes. No similar spells. No similaranythingto this. It’s another dead end.” Simone raised her head from the open book, the exhaustion and boredom clear on her well-highlighted face.

I shook my head slowly. It was another wall between me and my mom, another obstacle, another dead end.Ha. I almost wanted to laugh in spite of myself at my words. My mom had been taken away from me over fourteen years ago. At this point, I had been alive longer in a world without her than a worldwhere she was my center, my everything. That truth alone hit me hard enough for me to have to blink back tears. When she was ripped from me, so were all her secrets, all her stories, all her life including her past. They were all gone.Shewas gone. No matter how hard I tried to dig upsomethingto find out more about her, to feed this gnawing hunger I had for anything to solve the mystery of her, there would always be something to stop me. Even now, with a book that had my mom’s handwriting in it, asking me if I wanted to know the truth, I couldn’t read it to find out more. I was stuck. I would never be able to get past any of this, now would I?

Do you want to know the truth, my baby Byrd?

More than you could ever know, Mom.

“No, no. There has to besomething. Therehasto be.” I stared at the book, specifically at the rune that had been vexing me, Maisie, and Simone since we first saw it on Saturday. I still felt that draw to the book, to its pages. It was a tug that pulled me in, like finding just the perfect thing at a thrift store and just having to buy it. I put my hand on the rune. My necklace warmed further at my touch of the book. Using only my fingertips, I traced the indent of the ink on the page and the cover.

Wait.

What wasthat?

I could feel something. It was faint, pulsating softly like a tiny heartbeat, but it was there. I felt it. I almost second-guessed myself, but the obsidian started to hum in harmony with whatever I felt, sending waves of heat throughout my chest. How? How did none of us feel this the other night?

I scooted my chair from the table so suddenly the Archive’s branch had to save it from clattering to the floor. I picked upthe book and walked around to the other side where Maisie and Simone were sitting. Even I could hear the quiver in my voice as I asked. “Hey, Maze? Do you feel this?

The glaze in Simone’s eyes cleared as interest took its place. “Feelwhat?”

Maisie stood and placed her hand on the rune, just like I had done a few moments before. She frowned, her eyebrows knitting together in thought and confusion. “Why didn’t I feel this before?”

“Feel what before? What’s there?”

Maisie handed the book to Simone, who put her hand on the rune like me and Maisie had done.

“I don’t feel anything. What am I supposed to feel?”

“It’s magic,” Maisie answered. “It feels like a pulse coming from the page.”

“Magic? I thought that all runes have magic in them by design, so aren’t they all supposed to feel like that?”

“Theydohave magic in a way,” Maisie said. “But that magic is embedded in the pages or whatever has been spelled.” She glanced at me. “Youshouldn’t be able to feel it. It shouldn’t be this powerful at all.”

I grabbed the pendant. Warmth still rippled from it, feeling stronger as I felt the bite of the stone in my grip.

“So, what does that mean?” Simone asked.

“No fucking idea.” Maisie and I sighed at the same time. Maisie laid the book flat on the table once again.

Simone pursed her lips. “Well, there has to besomethingwe missed here. Did we miss something in these books?”

Maisie shook her head, while I replied, “No, there’s no way.”