The big table in the middle of the bookstore’s main floor had always been a joyful place for Roni. As a girl, she would bring her stack of books to the table and let the day drift by between their pages. As a teen, she would sneak a boy underneath the table for a stolen kiss, and in later years, for more. But as an adult, sitting on one side along Sully and Elliot, the table made her feel small and foolish. Gram’s beady-eyed rage probably had something to do with that, too.
“Of all the stupid, idiotic, addled-brained things to do!” Gram paced the length of the table as she blasted her sternest looks at each of the men. “I can comprehend on some ridiculously childish level why Roni would think that going off to face this creature without any sort of plan or forethought might be a good idea, but you two? You should have known better. Haven’t you had enough bad experiences to know that your little foray into stupidity would end badly?”
Sully’s top lip lifted. “You would rather we left your granddaughter to face all of that alone?”
“Don’t you dare try to pretend that this was all in her best interest. If that were true, you would have come to me, told me what was going on, and we could have dealt with it together — as a team. You remember that concept? We’re supposed to act like a team instead of going behind my back.”
“Teammates don’t give ultimatums.”
Gram’s face reddened even as her eyes blazed. “You’re going to lecture me now on the choices I give my granddaughter?”
Elliot splayed his fingers wide on the tabletop. In a thoughtful delivery, he said, “I believe you know that Sully did not mean that. Rather, he is trying to point out to you, in his own way, that you should be less upset that we did this behind your back and more concerned with what circumstances existed in which Roni felt it necessary to enlist our aid without you.”
“Oh? Is that right? I see. After all these years raising her into a bright and capable woman, I’m suddenly no longer a good judge of her best interests. She’s facing a shift in how she will perceive the world from this point to the end of her life, a shift I myself made decades ago, but I don’t have the skill to guide her through it. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Though he continued to speak calmly, the mounted tension could not be missed. If not in his voice, then certainly in his fingers. They clawed into the table as he spoke. “I always have said the words I mean to say. Your inability to understand them or willfully misinterpret them is something I have no control over.”
“Enough,” Roni said. She tried to stand but Gram’s cold glare kept her seated. “You all can argue about me when I’m not around.”
“Young lady,” Gram said, thumping the table with a meaty fist, “I don’t think you are in a position to —”
“You’re wrong. I’m in the perfect position because I am the one at risk here. Darin isn’t interested in coming after you or Sully or Elliot. He wants me — either to love or kill, he may not even know, but he wants me.”
“Then why did he let you go?”
“Maybe he believes in the old set it free and see if it comes back kind of love.”
“Perhaps,” Elliot said, “we should focus on steps forward.”
“I would love to do that,” Gram said, “but unfortunately, my granddaughter and my two imbecilic friends decided to challenge a creature from another universe before knowing the first thing about it and what it can do.”
“I only meant that —”
“I know, I know. I’m not done yelling yet. Can I have that? Is that okay with you? Or if I don’t shut up and follow your lead on this, do it exactly how you think it should be done, are you going to go off and take Roni and Sully behind my back again?”
Breathing hard, Gram glowered at them. Nobody said a word.
She looked off to the side, her face going through several awkward motions as if she had a conversation with herself. “Well, I guess I’m done.” She sat at the table. “Now, if I can trust that you’ve all learned your lesson here and that you’ll be more open, more forthcoming, in the future, let’s get moving forward on this. Do we know where Darin is right now?”
“No,” Roni said. “I would hazard a guess that he’s either back at his apartment or at his mother’s house. Those were the places he went before.”
“He also went to the zoo. And those places were part of Darin, not this creature. He only went there to bide time while he adjusted to our world.”
Sully pushed his chair back as he stood. “I’ll get to work on it.”
Gram wagged her hand at him. “We can’t afford to waste your time on that. You need to get in your workshop and build us something to handle this. Or did you boys not get beat enough to know that you’re not young anymore? The days of you knocking out a threat in one punch left us long ago.”
With a bashful grimace, Sully said, “You will mock us with that for years, won’t you?”
“If I’m lucky.” As Sully left for the elevator, Gram turned her attention to Elliot. “I want you to track down Darin.”
Elliot’s mouth dropped as if he had been slapped. “Shouldn’t that be Roni’s job?”
“Roni has shown us that she is not ready to handle jobs on her own. Look at how she botched up this one.” She raised both hands to stop anybody from talking. “She’s made it clear that her only interest in helping us goes to the end of this current job, so let’s not get dependent on her aid. Of course, if you don’t agree with me, we have procedures for challenging the leader of the group — procedures you should have followed instead of running off to the zoo. Do you want to do that now, or can I trust that you’ll follow my orders?”
Elliot grabbed his cane. “I will find this creature. When you are ready to make a move, I will have his location for you.”
After Elliot left, Gram laced her fingers on the table and looked at Roni. For her part, though she felt bad for how things went down, she pulled her shoulders back and met Gram’s eyes straight on. For three solid minutes, no words passed between them.
At length, Gram got to her feet and stepped toward the elevators. “Come with me.”
Roni obeyed. They climbed into the elevator and Gram pressed the wall beneath the floor selector buttons. A hidden panel slid open with several more buttons on it. She pressed one button and the elevator descended. They came to the basement level but kept going until the digital display above the door read B2.
“A second basement?” Roni said.
Flashing a mischievous smile, Gram gestured to the opening elevator doors. Roni stepped into a cinderblock hallway with lamps hung periodically from the ceiling. The air reminded her of the caverns — uniformly cool with a taste both fresh and old.
Gram led the way down the hall until they reached a metal door. “This is the last time I’m going to show you any of what we have and do. You understand? There won’t be another chance after this.” Before Roni could protest or explain, Gram stopped her with that powerful hand in the air. “I know. You keep forgetting that I raised you. This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve made a decision without getting all the information.”
“You didn’t really offer much.”
She rested her hand on the door handle. “That was an unfortunate decision on my part. I know you’ve only seen the three of us — we are all there is now, but not all that ever was. Others came before us, and others before them. No organized group lasts as long as this one has without some bit of ceremony or tradition growing up along the way. When it came to initiating you into our fold, I had a choice to make. I could go with tradition or go with my gut. Now, my gut told me that you are impulsive and would have to make a choice and live with it for a little before you would know whether or not it was the right choice. That’s how you’ve always been. But the tradition was to withhold most of the information and make you choose based on whatever you had experienced. I ignored my gut feeling because my brain hoped you would be different.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I don’t mean it like that and you know it. I only mean that I hoped there was some magic, I guess, magic in the tradition. Somehow, talking with Elliot in the morning and facing the decision to stay with us or forever give up all of this, I thought maybe it would light a fire within you that had been dormant. Like it was for me.”
Roni’s stomach knotted. “And I messed up for you.”
“I miscalculated a little, that’s all. I should have listened to my gut and known that you are who you are. I could have made this easier. But better late than never, right? You made your decision to leave us after this Darin business is over, and you’ve had to live with that decision for a bit of time. You may even think you know what your final decision will be.”
“Gram, I’m sorry, but after all that happened, what makes you think I’ll change my mind?”
“I want you to see one more of our secrets.” Pushing the handle, Gram opened the door. “If you’re going to turn your back on your legacy, you should know exactly what you are turning away.”
They stepped into a beautiful library room decorated as if it belonged to an aristocrat in the nineteenth century. High-ceiling, Turkish rugs, handcrafted tables and chairs, wood walls with original oil paintings hanging in gold frames — each one a portrait, Gram explained, of former members in the Parallel Society.
“That’s our official name,” she said.
Off to the left, Roni saw a wine rack filled with dusty bottles. Though there were two computers humming away on the tables, an old card catalog had been placed off to the right. And, of course, there were books. Hundreds of them. They overflowed the shelves, stacked up on the floor, lined the tops of every surface. Some were leatherbound, some with metal covers, and a few had no cover at all but were scrolls tied with strips of cloth.
Gram eased into one of the chairs. “Everything that’s vital to us is in here. Books on every subject we’ve ever found important. Many of the books are the only copies in existence. But more importantly, we have all the diaries and journals of our former members. That’s a key part of our job. We document everything. Hundreds of years of information can be found in this library.”
Roni found herself both amazed and appalled. “How do you find anything in here?”
“It was better organized long ago. We haven’t had a good librarian for ages.”
“I see. You thought I would do this work.”
“I remember how you were with your school books. You’d have them lined on your shelf, sometimes based on size, sometimes alphabetically, sometimes I don’t know what. But you were always keeping good order to things.”
Roni shook her head and laughed. “Have you seen my apartment? It’s a sty.” Except for her bookshelf, but Roni didn’t want to give Gram any extra ammunition.
“There’s often a difference between the way one lives and the way one works. I’ve seen you work in the bookstore. I know that you would love taking care of this place.”
She had to admit Gram’s words held some truth. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t decide yet. We’re doing things for you the right way this time. Experience it. Let it sit. Give it time. Besides, I didn’t bring you down here just to show off the library. We’ve still got the Darin business to deal with. This library is chock full of information. If there’s anything that can help us handle Darin, we’ll find it in here.”
Leaning forward, Gram cleared some yellowed papers off of another chair. Part of Roni resisted the idea of taking that seat. She had a sudden fear that if she sat down, she might never leave this room again. She might look up and discover she had aged forty years, her life had become nothing but dealing with these books and papers, that all the excitement of the last few days would be nothing but a memory.
But Gram had one thing right — Roni made better decisions when she dove in and experienced a thing. She sat, clapped her hands against her knees, and grinned. “Let’s get to work.”