Long Lost, стр. 42
“No you don’t, Charlie,” said Ms. Miranda, with a dry smile. “You don’t get to blame a book for this.” Her eyes moved past Charlie, up the stairs, along the walkway.
Fiona huddled lower.
“Oh, I’m not blaming the book,” said Charlie. “I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like a book is speaking right to you. Remember what you said during the summer reading program last year? That there’s a right book for every reader, and a right reader for every book?”
Ms. Miranda looked at Charlie, her eyes sharp and bright as a spotlight. “I remember,” she said slowly.
“How did you know where I was, Grandma?” Charlie asked, turning back toward Judy.
“Oh, you’re not hard to find. When school’s out, if you’re not at home or at the diner, you’re here.” His grandma wrapped a forceful arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “Now apologize to Ms. Miranda, or you’ll be spending all of your time helping out at the Perch.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Miranda,” said Charlie. “I’d understand why you might have to ban me from the library. Although I hope you won’t.”
“Well,” said Ms. Miranda, with a very small smile. “Since it was a one-time thing, and since you did it on your own . . . I think we can move on. Just this once.”
“Lucky for you.” Judy steered Charlie toward the doors. “Home. Now.”
From behind them, Ms. Miranda aimed one more look at the second-floor walkway.
Fiona froze against the banister, not breathing, not even blinking. For a sliver of a second, she could have sworn that Ms. Miranda’s eyes landed on her.
But the librarian turned away. There was the click of a switch as the lights went out, plunging the library back into darkness. The double doors thumped shut.
Fiona was alone.
She leaned hard against the banister, her panting breaths filling the dark. It was all right, she told herself. Darkness couldn’t hurt you. Being alone couldn’t hurt you either.
She forced herself to count to twenty. When she was sure it was safe, she switched Charlie’s night-light back on.
The octopus glowed cheerily.
Inside its cloud of light, Fiona wobbled to her feet. Charlie was right. She shouldn’t waste this chance. After tonight, she might be grounded forever and never get another one. Besides, archeologists didn’t let darkness and strange sounds scare them away. They climbed into tombs, through underground tunnels, down ancient stone stairways.
She could do this. She had to do it. Charlie was relying on her. Maybe Margaret was too.
She could do it by herself.
Clutching the glowing octopus, Fiona rushed up the stairs and down the hall to Evelyn’s bedroom. One glance through the door told her two things.
Both The Lost One and the pocketknife were gone.
And she definitely wasn’t alone in this house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Fiona wavered on the threshold, gripping the glowing octopus with both hands.
She scanned the floor, just in case the missing things had simultaneously fallen from their places.
They hadn’t.
Someone had taken them.
She and Charlie had left this room just minutes ago. No one had passed them on the third-floor staircase. Which meant whoever it was had to be nearby.
And now whoever it was had a knife.
All rational thoughts flew out of Fiona’s brain like a flock of birds in front of an incoming airplane.
She barreled back down the hallway, half expecting something—a ghost, a knife-wielding stranger, a hunched black-cloaked terror—to lunge at her through the surrounding doors.
She thundered down the creaky stairs. It didn’t matter if she kept quiet anymore. Whoever was here already knew about her too.
She skidded onto the second-floor walkway. Moonlight through the tall, narrow windows brightened the air, glazing the central room with foggy gray. She was almost to the main staircase. She was almost on her way out.
Fiona wheeled onto the staircase landing.
But someone was already there.
A girl.
A girl with long brown hair, a pleated ivory dress, and a green leather-bound book in her hands. A girl who was staring at the portrait of Margaret Chisholm. Next to her, its body quivering with excitement, sat a curly brown dog.
Fiona stopped so abruptly that she almost fell on her face. She threw out a hand, catching herself on the banister and dropping the octopus night-light. There was a thunking crack as its light winked out.
The girl turned.
Fiona stared.
Long brown hair. Old-fashioned dress. A face as pale and misty as ice. Pixie sitting beside her.
It would have been easier if both sisters had been there, so she could compare them: taller, shorter, older, younger, the way people did with her and Arden. But the soft face and dreamy eyes made her sure—as sure as she could be about something so impossible—that she was looking at Margaret Chisholm.
“Hello,” Fiona breathed.
The girl stared back at her with eyes that were gray and steady. “Hello.” Her voice was like the creaks of the floor, or the soft rush of night wind against the walls.
Pixie glanced back and forth between the two of them, bristly nose twitching.
The girl turned back to the portrait. “This doesn’t belong here. Who is this?”
“Th-that?” Fiona’s voice stuck on the word. “That’s Margaret Chisholm.”
A strange expression crossed the girl’s face. She stared at the portrait again, eyes wide, eyebrows drawn together.
“You’re Margaret Chisholm too,” Fiona whispered. “Aren’t you?”
The girl’s eyes flicked from the portrait back to Fiona. And Fiona saw something else in them now. Something anxious and hopeful and lonely. Something that was waiting to be recognized.
“My name is Fiona Crane.” Fiona pushed on, as steadily as she could. “I—I’ve read that book. I know what happened.”
The girl’s face seemed to tighten. “You do?”
“Well . . . I don’t know everything.” Fiona inched forward, fighting the wobble in her knees. “I haven’t read the ending yet. But I know you couldn’t really have hurt your sister.”
A new expression flickered over the girl’s face. Wariness. Maybe even fear. She gripped the book, pulling back.
“You