Potions and Panic by Astoria Wright

Author:Astoria Wright [Wright, Astoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949453119
Publisher: Novelwright Press, LLC
Published: 2019-05-10T22:00:00+00:00

CARISSA AND MAREN met Reg at the information counter. The attendant took them to the reference section where they found Tilly at the back of the stacks. She had her mauve trench coat draped over a chair and a pile of books and notes testing the weight of the table.

“What’s all this?” Carissa asked.

Greer’s voice called from the other side of the shelf.

“That’s all there is. I’ve told you the book isn’t here.”

He appeared around the corner with an empty crate.

“Oh, you’ve called on others to help you. Take as long as you’d like.”

“Thanks. We’ll put these back as soon as we’re done.”

Greer held up a hand. “Leave them. I’ve been meaning to clean out that section since the mayor requested it be updated.”

“Cameron made that request?” Carissa asked.

“No, I meant Belkin, sorry,” Greer said.

With that, he disappeared around a shelf.

Maren sat down. “Relics of the Lost Arts,” she read the book in front of her aloud.

“That’s the spine, but it’s not the book,” Tilly explained.

“What do you mean?”

She handed Carissa one of the texts. Sitting beside the reporter, Carissa read the title page.

“Spells and Incantations of the Druid Order of…” Carissa shook her head. “I can’t make out the last word.”

“These books look like they’re a hundred years old,” Maren said.

“Look inside,” Tilly encouraged.

“Zen meditation?”

“It’s a different book,” Maren said. She grabbed another. “They all are.”

“No, not all,” Carissa said.

The next book she picked up was, in fact, a book on magic and medicinal herbs, but it was old and pages were stuck inside as if they’d fallen out. She flipped through it gingerly. Halfway through, she realized not all the pages were from the same text.

“The ones with dust jackets have a whole new book inside them, and the ones without a jacket have pages that are either missing or have been replaced.”

“But why?” Maren asked.

“The question is why these books?” Tilly said.

Carissa could see the pattern right away. “They’re all either books on Moss Hill’s history or on magic.”

“They’re the ones I was using in my research. But they weren’t like this when I was using them. Someone must have switched them out,” Reg said, sitting beside Maren.

“And,” Tilly added, “the books that replaced them came from the reference section.”

To prove her point, Tilly stood up and took out an identical copy of one of the books stuck inside a dust jacket. She started placing the books back in the crate as she explained.

“Yesterday after the fair, I heard Parker talking with the Belkin about a book and some notes he wanted to get back. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the mayor took some items from the library and confiscated them. He thought Belkin may have used his official capacity as mayor to keep the items that Parker had donated.”

“A book Parker donated?”

“Fae Secret something…”

“Secrets of the Fae People?” Maren ventured.

Tilly’s eyes lit up. “Yes! You know it?”

Reg pushed his glasses back from the rim. “Parker didn’t donate it. It’s mine. I—”

“Gave it to Greer for safekeeping,” Maren finished his sentence and stood up.

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