“ ‘The moon is distant from the sea, and yet with amber hands, she leads him, docile as a boy, along appointed sands.…’ ”

Katie Barton stopped. “C’mon, think,” she told herself. She had to recite the Emily Dickinson poem for a lit class the next morning. It was almost midnight, and she was having a hard time staying awake. Her brain felt like mush. She wished she’d smuggled in some coffee, even if it was the rank stuff from the cafeteria. Trying hard to focus, she squinted at the sputtering light over the metal desk, buried in the midst of the library’s upper stacks.

The stained-glass windows above the bookshelves had gone dark hours ago. The Whitney Prep library stayed open till midnight during midterms, and Katie was often the last one out the doors. She’d tried to study in her dorm, but she couldn’t escape the noisy girls at Amelia House. Besides, she liked the quiet and the smell of dusty old books.

It’s hopeless, she thought, and laid her head on her arms, closing her eyes. Forget Emily Dickinson.

Instead, she pictured the big grin on Mark’s face when the hockey team had clinched a spot in the state championship. He’d grabbed her hard and kissed her right in front of all of Whitney. “I’m the king of the world!” he’d said, and laughed. Katie had gotten chills. She was almost afraid someone would pinch her and she’d realize she had imagined it. Everything about being with Mark felt too good to be true. When it was still pitch-dark this morning, he’d texted her to meet him behind her dorm. Despite the risk of getting caught, Katie had snuck out. They’d huddled together on the bench in the shadow of Amelia House, shivering as they’d held on to each other. For a few hours, they’d whispered and kissed until the sky was streaked with pink.

It was no wonder she was so tired. She could hardly keep her eyes open.…

Kay-tee.

Did someone say her name? The floor made the tiniest creak, creak.

“Mark?” she said groggily.

The soft tread on the old floors stopped. She heard quiet breaths behind her. Then something brushed her hair with the lightness of a moth. She jerked around in her chair, her heart thudding.

Katie blinked into the darkness, hearing hushed footsteps, as if a mouse were scurrying across the wood. The bulb above the desk flickered and dimmed. She touched the pad of her laptop, waking up the screen to give herself more light, but her cozy niche in the stacks was still cloaked in shadows. She peered around, sure that someone else was there.

“Mrs. Ticknor?” she said. Only she didn’t detect the librarian’s telltale lavender perfume. She thought she smelled roses.

I’m so exhausted, I’m hallucinating, she told herself.

Or else she’d briefly dreamed that dream again, the one that always felt so real.

The hairs on her neck prickled. She reached down for her book bag, but instead of canvas, her fingertips touched something both silky soft and sharp enough to pierce her skin.

“Oh!” She drew her finger to her mouth, tasting blood.

Petals and thorns.

Her pulse thudded in her ears as she retrieved a rose from the floor. Its stem was freshly clipped, the petals damp. Suddenly, she was wide awake.

“Who’s there?” she asked the shadows, heart slapping hard against her ribs. “Tessa?” She said her roommate’s name. “Quit messing with me. It’s not funny!”

Katie waited for laughter, but there was none.

She thought she saw something pale move in the dark, and she dropped the rose. She snatched up her things and shoved them into her bag. Pushing back her chair, she ran through the dimly lit aisles.

Halfway down the stairs, she bumped into Mrs. Ticknor. “Oh, good, Miss Barton!” The librarian’s heavy perfume enveloped Katie in a lavender cloud. “I was just coming up to find you. The library’s closing, and you’re the last one here.”

“No.” Katie shook her head. “Someone else was in the stacks.”

“That’s not possible,” Mrs. Ticknor said, and gave her a funny look. “It’s just you and me—”

But Katie was already on her way out the door.