“MOLLY, WAKE UP…”
She woke in morning brightness to find Lowry shaking her. Or was it another infernal fiend impersonating Lowry? Instinctively Molly cried out and thrashed upon her bed and made the sign of the cross with her index fingers.
“Begone, ghoul!”
“Very funny,” said Lowry. “Here, I brought you a piece of French toast with icing sugar, but it got a bit squished in my bag. Your mum let me in. I couldn’t wait any longer to hear what you think of my research.”
Molly took the toast. A ghoul, she reasoned, wouldn’t give her breakfast. “Sorry, I’ve been on edge lately.”
“No problemo. So – what’s the verdict? On my research?”
Molly thought guiltily about how little time she’d spent studying Lowry’s scrapbook. “Um… Well, I thought it was actually really interesting, and I think we should definitely find a way to make sure that you don’t turn into a werewolf. So I’ve decided that today we’ll go to the library and get a copy of Follington’s Botanicals – the 1612 edition – and we’re going to make you a cure.”
Lowry looked as though she might faint with joy. “So you believe me at last! Oh, I’m so relieved I could swoon! Look, I’m swooning!”
She swooned.
“Get off my floor, Lowry.”
“This is the traditional behaviour of werewolves when someone agrees to cure them,” explained Lowry, sprawling dramatically. But then Gabriel walked over her face and she squirmed away, spitting fur.
Molly rolled her eyes. “Listen, I figured something else out last night. The mark on Carl’s arm is a demon sigil. And you’ll never guess what – it’s right there on the Howlfair flag! I know exactly what book to look in to find out about it. It’s a book I read a thousand times when I was deciphering the Howlfair motto: Demonology and Heraldry in 17th-Century England, by Hayden Drake. It probably won’t tell us much – it’s more about flags than demons – but I should be able to find out at least the name of the demon whose mark is on Carl’s arm, and when we explore the crypts underneath Loonchance Manor, we… Lowry, are you listening?”
“Sorry, I’m still busy being excited about my cure. Are you sure that it’ll work on my kind of werewolf? I don’t want to end up poisoned.”
“All of the recipes in Follington’s Botanicals are perfectly safe herbal remedies. No poisons involved.”
“Hooray!” Lowry spat out some more cat fur. “Yuck. If this is what being a werewolf feels like, I’m glad I’m getting cured. Come on – get dressed and I’ll meet you in the lobby. You can tell me about your boyfriend’s demon on the way to the library.”
But Molly had been barred from Howlfair Library!
Barred, that is, from everywhere but the children’s section. Her mother, it turned out, had been to see the librarian, Mrs Brank, and had advised her that Molly was not to use the library for anything resembling investigative research.
It was a great blow for Molly, and not just because she was on the verge of discovering the identity of a demon linking Carl Grobman and Benton Furlock. The ancient library was her favourite place on earth.
Some people thought that Howlfair Library, built in 1537, resembled a sort of castle, or church; Molly thought it looked rather like an odd magical bird. Its plump body, made from huge stones, was solid and low with irregularly spaced feather-shaped windows that glowed orange with silence-thickened light. From one side of the body a long slender tower (or neck, if you will), added around 1710, rose way too high and terminated in an oval observatory (the bird’s head). There were flags that looked like plumage. It’s true that unlike most real birds, the library never flew away. But it could transport you anywhere you wanted to go if you stepped inside.
And, oh, the innards! Winding guts of corridors; arterial passageways connecting snug reading chambers, firelit, which bulged with portraits and lamps and legends and, of course, books – the lifeblood of the beast. Books bound in hide and double bound with dust. Books piled high, sent speeding down corridors on trolleys steered by silent staff. Many rooms contained private collections and were locked. As for the library tower – well, not many people in town were allowed in there. Some rooms in the tower, according to legend, could not even be found unless you had special maps.
Of course the place was lavishly haunted, if the old stories were to be believed.
Anyway, Molly didn’t think it fair that she was not allowed to consult a couple of harmless books about heraldry and herbs. So she did what any sensible investigator would do in her shoes: she asked Lowry to sneak into the grown-up part of the library in her place (Lowry was a gifted sneaker).
Timing her entry to coincide with the arrival of a local reading group assembling to pay homage to the works of Hectoria Fullsway, Lowry Evans slipped past the librarian with ease.
Molly waited in an armchair by a cavernous, gusty fireplace, scanning a book of ghastly rhymes, creepy old dolls watching her from the shelves.
Outside, the day grew windy and the window frames rattled and thumped, and the fireplace breathed unholy groans.
“What took you so long?” Molly asked when Lowry finally reappeared.
“I found loads of books on werewolves and I wanted to bring them back with me, but Mrs Brank caught me and made me put them back because she thought I was getting them for you.”
“Don’t worry, Lowry, I’ve read them all anyway. So, what did you manage to get?”
Lowry sat down in the armchair opposite. “Mrs Brank let me keep Follington’s Botanicals – the 1612 edition – because I said I needed it to look up herbal remedies for my sister’s toe infection.”
“Superb work, Agent Evans. Mrs Brank’s so squeamish that she probably let you have the book just to shut you up.”
“My description of Frances’s toe was so vivid I almost made myself sick. But Mrs Brank took the book on demonology off me, I’m afraid. She only let me keep this.” Lowry showed Molly a book about knitting cardigans for one’s dog.
“Flipping Nora!” tutted Molly. “I really needed that other book. Most books on demonology in Howlfair were burnt in 1800 by the vicar of St Fell’s, and the only books that he spared were really dry academic ones. Demonology and Heraldry in 17th-Century England is the one book I know of that has any information about demon sigils.”
“I bet he didn’t burn all of the demon books,” said Lowry. “I bet there are some locked in the library tower.”
“Yeah – where only the mayor and a few other people are allowed to go.” She frowned. “Hey, maybe that’s why Benton Furlock wants to be mayor! To get hold of forbidden black-magic books!”
“Maybe you should run for mayor.”
“I should. Meanwhile, I’m stuck with Knitting for Pooches.”
“It’s so cute, though!” Lowry sighed, opening the hardback. She gasped loudly. “Oh, wait – what’s happened here? Someone’s swapped the cover! Oh, what a catastrophe! So now poor Mrs Brank is returning Knitting for Pooches to the History section, and here we are with a copy of Demonology and Heraldry in 17th-Century England by Hayden Drake.”
“Lowry! You are a genius!” Molly cried, taking the book eagerly.
“A genius, and possibly a werewolf.”
“Right – I’ll look for that mark on Carl’s arm, and you find me the chapter on lycanthropy in Follington’s Botanicals. Then we’ll compare notes.”