After another hour or so, Caitlin, her back killing her, on her hands and knees, reached the far wall. At the very bottom of one of the tallest stacks, she yanked out one particularly large and heavy book—and as she did, the entire stack came crashing down around her; she quickly covered her head as the mountain collapsed, and got out of the way just before being completely crushed.
The books finally settled in a huge cloud of dust, and she looked up, dazed and confused. She felt like she wanted to cry.
But as she looked up, through the dust, suddenly, she spotted something that made her heart stop: the crumbled stack revealed another, smaller stack behind it, one she had not seen before. And there, right in the middle, was a book with a rich, red spine. She recognized it immediately. Suddenly, she felt an electric thrill. This was it. The matching volume.
Caitlin nearly lunged across the room, grabbing the book and holding it up to the candlelight with shaking hands.
Please God, let this be it, she thought. She pulled back the cover and nervously flipped to the title page:
De Fascino Libri Tres.
Her heart flooded with relief. She could hardly believe it. She had actually found it.
Caitlin quickly thumbed through the pages, going as fast as she could to the missing page.
Please, please be there. Please be the matching page.
She started to worry about what she would do if the matching page weren’t there. Or if this was all a hoax. She was shaking with anticipation as she got closer. 530, 532….
She turned the page, and her breath stopped. There it was. 537.
And there, before her eyes, was the other half of the page.
She was speechless.
She reached into her bag and extracted the other half. She held them together. The ripped edges fit together exactly. It was a perfect match.
Hand shaking, she read the complete text for the first time. It was all in Latin, and the words lined up perfectly. She read the ritual again and again. As she did, she felt in every pore of her body that this was genuine. For the first time, her heart filled with hope. Here it was, right before her eyes. A way to save her daughter.
With a twinge of guilt, Caitlin delicately tore the half page out of the book, placing it in her folder with the other half of the page. She set the book down, picked up her bag, and hurried across the room to the stone wall, banging on it.
In seconds, it opened.
Caitlin squinted at the bright sunlight that flooded in. It was hard to believe it, but it was daytime. A bright, sunny day. Caitlin wondered how many hours she’d been in there.
The old woman stood there, staring back at her.
“You found it, didn’t you?” she asked.
She stared at Caitlin meaningfully, and Caitlin suddenly realized that the old woman knew what she was after all along. How had she known? Had she been trying to hide it?
“You knew?” Caitlin asked.
The old woman stared back, expressionless.
“Why didn’t you tell me where it was?” Caitlin asked.
“It’s not for me to tell,” the old woman said. “It’s only for the worthy to find it. You, clearly, are worthy.”
Caitlin’s mind spun with all the implications. Had this woman been guarding a secret here? For how long? Her whole life? Who had asked her to guard it? Was she a member of some secret society? What had Caitlin stumbled into?
The old woman reached out and took Caitlin’s hand with both of her small, frail hands.
“I was in your position once,” she said cryptically.
Caitlin stared at her, trying to understand, wanting to know more. She wanted to know everything. But there wasn’t time.
“It’s real, isn’t it?” Caitlin asked, fearfully. “It’s all real?”
The old woman stared back.
“You will come to learn, young lady, just how real it is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Sage stood on the back terrace of the house, watching his final sunset over the Hudson River. His bags were all packed, securely in the trunk of his car, ready to go. No one had seen him pack, except his sister, the rest of his clan out and busy during the day. After their little argument, she had left him alone—going god knows where.
Sage felt bad about it. The two of them had a long and complicated relationship, about as complicated as a two-thousand-year sibling relationship could get. On the one hand, she was always his biggest critic, ready to point out his faults, and always the first one to complain to his parents about anything he did wrong. On the other hand, he always sensed that deep down she was attached to him, and truly loved him. There were, in fact, a handful of instances over the centuries when he could remember her actually standing up for him, completely surprising him. That was her: inscrutable. After two thousand years, he felt as if he still didn’t really understand her.
As he looked out at the last light on the Hudson, at this place he’d called home for centuries, he felt nostalgic. He wasn’t really ready to say goodbye. He wasn’t ready for life to end, period. It was amazing, he realized, but despite having lived thousands of years, he still felt like he didn’t have enough time. He just wanted a bit more. Just time enough to be with Scarlet, and to live out her lifetime with her.
He heard a commotion inside and took a deep breath, bracing himself. The time had come. He’d have to confront his parents. He’d have to tell them he was leaving. That this was his final goodbye.
His relationship with his parents was even more complex than his relationship with his sister. Over some of their centuries together they had felt like his parents, while over others, they had been more like siblings—and over others, they more like his own children. Their relationship seemed to be ever-evolving. Over the last hundred or so years they had fallen squarely back into the parents role, and Sage wasn’t really used to it, or ready to concede to it this time. Now, when they tried to order him around, he didn’t feel obliged to listen. He was through listening to them. They’d had centuries to order him around. Now, it was his time. Now, nobody was the boss of him. And while he knew they would throw a fit when he said his goodbyes, at the end of the day, there was really nothing they could do about it.
Sage turned and marched into the house, prepared to get it over with. He marched across the great living room, across the family room, dining room, and ascended the wide, twisting marble staircase that led to their master room. As he reached the top landing he saw the large double doors were open and walked into their thickly-carpeted room, floor to ceiling windows stretched out in a circle, overlooking the Hudson.