Chapter Forty-Eight: Grandmother Ivy

The library fell silent.

No one moved.

Ronan continued staring at the elderly woman behind the desk.

"I know you."

His voice sounded distant.

As though he had spoken to someone standing years away instead of only a few feet.

The woman's smile carried no surprise.

"Yes."

She gently placed a leather bookmark inside her novel before closing it.

"You remember."

"I..."

Ronan frowned.

"No."

"I remember the feeling."

He pressed one hand against his temple.

"Someone reading to us."

The woman's eyes softened.

"Every afternoon."

She looked at me.

"You never sat still."

Marcus blinked.

"Adrian?"

I frowned.

"I don't remember."

"You preferred climbing the shelves."

She pointed toward the second floor.

"Twice you tried to convince Ronan that books hidden on the highest shelves contained secret treasure maps."

Ronan let out the smallest laugh.

A reflex.

Before he could stop himself.

He immediately looked confused.

"I..."

He rubbed his forehead.

"I can almost see it."

The woman stepped out from behind the desk.

She moved slowly, using a polished walnut cane.

Not because she appeared weak.

Because age had earned her patience.

"My name is Ivy Ashcombe."

Inspector Mara Voss watched her carefully.

"You own this library?"

"I've merely looked after it."

"For whom?"

Ivy's gaze found mine again.

"For every child who needed somewhere safe."

Mr. Rowan quietly lowered his head.

"So Sebastian found you."

She nodded.

"Many years ago."

"And Victor Ashcroft?"

"He came later."

She smiled faintly.

"Usually after Sebastian."

A familiar rivalry.

Even then.

Ronan looked around the library.

"It's exactly the same."

"You remember that?"

"No."

He shook his head.

"It just feels..."

His eyes drifted toward the staircase.

"...unchanged."

"It should."

Ivy looked almost proud.

"I promised two little boys that nothing in this library would change until they came back."

Silence settled over the room.

Twenty-four years.

She had kept that promise.

My chest tightened.

"You waited?"

"Every Tuesday."

She smiled.

"Children make promises they rarely keep."

Her voice softened.

"I decided to keep yours instead."

I couldn't answer.

Because somewhere deep inside...

I wanted to remember.

I wanted those Tuesdays back.

I wanted to know the boy I'd once been.

Ivy reached beneath the reception desk and removed an old wooden box.

Unlike my father's legacy box, this one was plain.

Worn by decades of use.

She carried it toward us.

"You left these with me."

She placed it gently on a nearby reading table.

I frowned.

"I've never been here."

"No."

She corrected me gently.

"You've forgotten you've been here."

She lifted the lid.

Inside lay dozens of childish treasures.

A carved wooden wolf.

A faded blue marble.

A tiny compass that no longer pointed north.

Several crayon drawings folded neatly together.

And...

Two library cards.

One read:

Adrian Vale

The other:

Ronan Ashcroft

Issue Date:

Twenty Years Ago.

Marcus slowly sat down.

"This is impossible."

"No."

Ivy smiled sadly.

"It's simply older than your memory."

Ronan picked up the wooden wolf.

His fingers traced grooves worn smooth by years of handling.

The instant he touched it—

He froze.

His breathing caught.

The library disappeared from his eyes.

He wasn't seeing shelves anymore.

He was seeing something else.

Rain.

Children running between trees.

A stone fountain.

Someone shouting,

"Last one to Grandmother Ivy loses!"

His knees weakened.

I caught his arm before he fell.

"Ronan."

He looked at me.

Tears stood in his eyes.

"I remember your laugh."

The words struck harder than I expected.

Not because of what they meant.

Because of how much they hurt.

Twenty years.

Stolen.

Erased.

A friendship neither of us had been allowed to keep.

Ivy quietly watched us.

"They couldn't erase everything."

"Who?" I asked.

She looked toward the tall stained-glass windows.

"The people who believed memory could be rewritten."

She returned her gaze to us.

"They misunderstood something."

"What?"

"The mind forgets."

She gently tapped the center of her chest.

"The heart doesn't."

A heavy silence settled over the reading room.

Inspector Voss finally spoke.

"You said you were waiting."

"I was."

"For what?"

Ivy reached into her apron pocket.

She withdrew an old brass key.

Not like the one my father had left.

Smaller.

Older.

Its head was shaped like an open book.

"I was waiting until both of you returned together."

She placed the key on the table between Ronan and me.

"Because neither of you could unlock the next door alone."

My pulse quickened.

"What door?"

She turned slowly toward the grand staircase leading to the library's second floor.

At the very end of the upper gallery stood an enormous bookcase stretching from floor to ceiling.

Every shelf was filled.

Except one.

An empty space exactly the size of the legacy box rested at its center.

I looked down at the box in my hands.

Then back at the empty shelf.

Ivy smiled.

"Sebastian was always dramatic."

Ronan actually smiled this time.

"So was my father."

"Yes."

Her eyes twinkled.

"That's why they remained friends."

The smile faded from her face.

"But what waits behind that shelf..."

She looked directly at both of us.

"...is the last place they ever entered together."

The library's grandfather clock struck nine.

Its deep chimes echoed through every floor.

At the exact same moment—

Someone knocked on the front door.

Three slow knocks.

Then three more.

Not impatient.

Not uncertain.

Deliberate.

Ivy's warm expression disappeared.

For the first time since we'd met her...

She looked afraid.

"They found us."