Destiny nodded. “That’s what I was going to suggest.” She looked down the pier toward the empty space in the water where the boat had been. “You can meditate down there, if you want. Near where it all went down. I can do it with you. Like you said, it’s my deal. Maybe I’ll see something you didn’t.”

  That sounded promising. “You won’t get in trouble, will you?” Meditating sort of seemed like taking a nap on the job.

  Destiny rolled her eyes. “Do you see anything going on here? It’ll only take a few minutes. It’ll be fine.” She started down the pier. “Come on. We’ll go ahead and do it now while Dom is busy.”

  “Should we tell him what we’re doing?”

  “He’s a smart boy. He’ll figure it out.”

  Lady followed Destiny down the pier. It was still a hot day and the wood was unpleasantly hot beneath her thighs when she sat down. She remembered what Dom had told her and began breathing deeply and with purpose. She would manage.

  “You know how to meditate right?” Destiny asked, sitting herself down a few feet from Lady.

  “As of yesterday, I’m basically an expert.”

  Destiny laughed. “Good for you.” She went ahead and closed her eyes. “I’ll see you on the other side then.”

  Lady closed her eyes as well. She focused on her breathing again. Once she had that down, she tried to visualize something. She tried the boat first, sitting on the lake. She could remember what it had looked like, and it was relevant to what she was trying to meditate on. It didn’t work, though. Her mind kept wandering. It was too difficult to hold a clear image in her mind.

  Lady went back to the forest. She pictured the trees and the mossy ground and the gentle breeze. It came easier to her. She could feel herself there. If she opened her eyes right now, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be in the forest.

  Time fell away from Lady. She felt distant, apart from herself. She no longer felt the pier beneath her.

  And then movement caught her eye. Lady turned toward where she had seen it. There on the trunk of a tree was a familiar red shape. Lady sprang to her feet. For a moment she was sure she had done it in real life, that she had suddenly jumped up on the pier and would soon be taking a step right into the lake.

  She was still meditating, she realized. This was all in her mind’s eye. She tried not to think too hard about it for fear of bringing herself out of the vision. It was probably a better idea to just roll with it.

  The red shape skittered around to the other side of the tree trunk. Lady took a few steps forward, testing how that felt. It definitely didn’t feel like walking should feel. It felt more like she was floating, moving around without any weight or real momentum. Lady kept moving forward, toward the shape. She moved around the trunk of the tree where she had last seen it, but it wasn’t there.

  Lady took another look around. Her eyes caught movement again. She spotted the red shape a few yards away, on the trunk of a different tree. She moved toward it, trying to keep her eye on the salamander this time. She watched as it skittered off the trunk and along the mossy ground. It moved quickly, but Lady was quick too. She didn’t even feel the impact of her feet hitting the ground. It took no effort on her part, just a thought and need to follow it. It was like she was flying after the thing. It was incredible. Man, why hadn’t she started doing this before now?

  Lady got so caught up in the sensation of the chase that she nearly flew right past the salamander when it finally stopped at a narrow stream. It scurried beneath the water. Lady tried to keep her eye on it but found her attention drawn to something else. There was a little boat in the stream. It was small enough to be a toy. She knelt down and reached for it. The thing was well-made. Lady didn’t know much about toy boats, but this seemed like a nice one. More of a replica than a toy, really. The body was hard and white. The sails were tied down. It looked a lot like a boat she had seen recently. Most boats more or less looked the same to her. She was definitely no expert, but something told her this boat held special significance.

  It hit her all at once. This was Chad’s boat. Or his family’s boat, rather. It was the one he had died on. Lady turned it in her hand, studying it more carefully, like one of the tiny details on it might reveal some sort of clue.

  Something drew Lady’s attention beyond the boat in her hand. She looked across the stream and saw… a car? It was a police cruiser. It was black and white with text on the side that labeled it as belonging to the local Dark Lake police force. Had it been there this whole time? She didn’t think it had. Lady started to wonder at that before reminding herself that she was meditating. This was all taking place in her mind, so anything was possible. It wasn’t strange for things to just appear and vanish.

  As if on cue, Lady looked down to find the little boat gone from her hand. She took that as a sign to investigate the car.

  The stream wasn’t deep and it wasn’t very wide. Lady had no trouble at all hopping over it. She reached the cruiser and peered in through the windows. She thought she saw movement in the back, but there was some sort of tint to the windows themselves that made it difficult to tell. Lady cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her forehead to the window. She saw only empty seats. She tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Lady tried the driver’s side door next. It came open immediately. Lady opened it wide, climbed in, and… found herself in the Dark Lake library.

  Lady spun around just in time for the front door to close behind her. “What the…?” she muttered to herself, turning back around to face forward again. Meditation was weird, she decided. Was it like this for everyone or did she just have an overactive imagination?

  Lady pressed forward, walking down the central aisle. She saw a flash of red skitter around one of the shelves to her right. The salamander. Lady hurried after it, turned the corner into a narrow aisle, and nearly ran right into Agnes.

  The bespectacled girl had an armful of books she was trying to shelve. She didn’t seem to notice Lady at all despite their sudden close proximity. A few feet behind her stood Otsuya. She had her arms folded, watching Agnes like some kind of hovering, unhelpful supervisor. At least she was watching Agnes. Her gaze was abruptly drawn in Lady’s direction. Her brows came together, rising into a quizzical expression. She opened her mouth to say something, but Lady never had a chance to figure out what that was.

  Suddenly, Lady was being yanked backward. She was rushing through the library and through the car and across the stream and through the woods. She was flying backward like she was attached to a harness and someone far away and very strong had the rope she was attached to. Everything around her was a blur as she flew back and then, with a start, came to herself.

  Lady’s eyes shot open and she drew in a sharp breath. She had to blink against the harsh sunlight. It was like she had been somewhere else entirely. She wasn’t sure how long her eyes had been closed, but it was taking a moment for them to readjust.

  “Sorry,” said Destiny. “I wasn’t sure if I should disturb you, but you looked like you were getting pretty far away there.” She laid a hand on Lady’s shoulder. “I’m not sure you were meditating anymore.”

  Lady rubbed the heel of her hand across her eyes, trying to clear them and her head at the same time. Her thinking felt distant and foggy. “I wasn’t?” she asked around a yawn. She felt incredibly tired all of a sudden. “What was I doing then?”

  “I think maybe you were astral projecting.”

  “What?” Lady knew vaguely what that was. It sounded impressive at any rate. “Are you serious?”

  Destiny shrugged. “Maybe. That’s what it looked like to me. I’m not an expert or anything.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Lady. “Astral projecting, I mean?”

  Destiny shook her head. “No. Not in and of itself. I don’t think so anyway. Some people say it’s dangerous. Which it can be. That’s why I woke you up. I don’t want Ms. Poole blaming me if something happens to you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Destiny smirked and slapped Lady on the back, knocking the air from her lungs. “I don’t want anything to happen to you either,” she assured her. “You’re kind of growing on me. Anyway, yeah. You should probably have a talk with Ms. Poole before you try that again. Meditating is safe enough, but astral projection is something else.” She paused, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully. “So, what did you see?”

  Lady glanced down the pier, tying to see where Dom was. She could see him further down the lake, still checking his sigils from the look of it. “I don’t know,” said Lady, turning back to Destiny. “I mean, I do but… it was weird.”

  “Astral projection is usually pretty weird,” Destiny said with a nod. “Just tell me what you saw.”

  Lady explained everything to Destiny as best as she could remember. She told her about the salamander and the stream and the boat and the car and the library with Agnes in it. “I think Otsuya saw me. Do you think that really happened?”

  “Otsuya saw you?” Destiny considered that then chuckled. “Yeah, she might have. When you astrally project, you’re traveling in the ethereal plane. That’s where you usually see ghosts and the like. I imagine Otsuya has access to the ethereal plane most of the time. So, yeah, she probably saw you.” She laughed again, louder this time. “Man, I wonder what she thought.”

  Lady was curious as well, but other, more pressing things were also on her mind. “So, what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About what I saw!”

  Destiny rolled her eyes. “Well, first off, you don’t have to raise your voice. I’m right here.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Secondly, I don’t know. I know about as much as you do. Less probably. We’ll have to sit down and think about this for a minute.”

  “Did you see anything?” asked Lady. It occurred to her that she hadn’t asked yet. Destiny had been meditating as well.

  Destiny nodded. “I didn’t have the kind of adventure you did, but I definitely got something.”

  “What did you see?”

  Destiny looked around like she might see the thing from her meditation again, here in the waking world. “I think I saw that salamander of yours.” She pointed down the pier, toward the bank. “I saw it over there.”

  “On land?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Destiny wiggled where she sat, scooting herself around so that she was facing Lady more completely. “So you saw the salamander and then you saw the boat.”

  Lady nodded. “I’m pretty sure it was the boat they found Chad on. Like I said, it was little though. Like, palm of my hand small.”

  “And then you saw a police cruiser.”

  Lady nodded again. “Yeah. It was normal size, though. And I saw someone in the back… or something… maybe. I couldn’t see through the window, and I couldn’t open the door. The front door was unlocked, but it didn’t let me inside the car. It led me into the—”

  “The library,” Destiny interrupted. “Right. You said.” She held up a hand, signaling for Lady not to continue just yet. “Did you see anything about the cop car that would identify it?”

  “It belonged to Dark Lake, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I know, but did you see anything else? Would you be able to point it out to me if you saw it?”

  Lady considered the question, she did her best to think back to the car she had seen at the stream. It stuck out in her memory as being unusual, but that was only because of where she had seen it. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It just looked like a police car to me. They all look more or less the same.”

  Destiny sighed but nodded. “And then the library where you saw Agnes and Otsuya.”

  “And then you woke me up.”

  “Well, you weren’t actually asleep, but yeah. Essentially.”

  “Hmm,” hummed Lady, tapping a finger against her chin thoughtfully. She didn’t have anything specific to wonder about really. She was still overwhelmed by everything she had just seen. She really wanted to run all of this by Ms. Poole, but she didn’t want to head back just yet. It felt like there was still more to accomplish. If she went back now, there was a decent chance that Ms. Poole would just put her to work.

  “Find anything?” asked Destiny.

  Lady thought she was talking to her. She looked up but quickly noticed that Destiny was looking past her. She followed her gaze to Dom. He towered over them, his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. I’ll have to try linking with it properly.”

  “Do you want to do that now?”

  Dom shook his head. “We’ll get everyone together and do it later tonight.”

  “You really think it can wait?” asked Destiny.

  “Didn’t realize we were on some kind of timer, but yeah. I think it can wait. It’ll be easier to do tonight with more people, when it’s cooler.”

  “I thought you said the heat didn’t matter,” Lady pointed out. She couldn’t help herself. “You said you could even use it to your advantage.”

  Dom gave Lady a dark look. “It’ll be easier with more people. If there’s anything worth seeing, it’ll be easier to just show you than it will be to do the whole thing myself twice. I’m not even sure the sigil would let me do that twice. It’s old. I should have redrawn it weeks ago.”

  “Well, Lady here saw some stuff,” Destiny said, putting a hand on Lady’s shoulder.

  Dom raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Together, Destiny and Lady went through what she had seen. Dom sat down on the pier halfway through their explanation. His legs dangled off the side. He listened in silence until they were finished. “I was trying to teach you how to meditate, not astrally project.”

  “I’m not mad about it,” said Lady. “The projecting stuff seems pretty cool.”

  “It is, just make sure you tell Ms. Poole it wasn’t what I was trying to teach you. I don’t want her to give me a lecture about putting you in danger later.”

  Lady wasn’t sure Ms. Poole would get mad over something like that, but she sort of liked the idea that she might. Someone being protective of her made for a nice change of pace. “What do you think it means?”

  “It’s hard to say.” Dom’s voice sounded far away, like he was already giving the matter some serious thought. “I think you were right, though. I think there’s definitely more to this than there first appeared to be. We should probably mention what we saw to Conners and we should maybe head back to the library.”

  “What do you think is at the library?” asked Lady.

  “A very confused Otsuya at the very least,” laughed Destiny.

  “An out of body experience took you there,” said Dom, ignoring what Destiny had said completely. “I’d say it’s probably worth following up on.”

  It wasn’t like he didn’t have a point. “What exactly am I following up on, though?”

  “This little journey of yours took you straight to Agnes, didn’t it?” asked Destiny. “Doesn’t exactly sound subtle to me. Maybe you should ask her a few questions. Maybe she knows something.”

  That felt awfully convenient. “What are the odds that she knows something? That would be kind of weird, wouldn’t it?”

  Destiny shrugged. “It’s a small town.”

  “She and Chad were both candidates for the same job,” Dom pointed out. “It’s not like they don’t have a connection.”

  “I sure hope she didn’t murder anyone over a library job,” said Lady, getting to her feet.

  Destiny laughed, not getting up herself. “No one is saying that. But, hey, maybe. Library jobs sound nice.”

  “You coming?” Lady asked Destiny. She liked her company a lot more than Dom’s.

  “Can’t,” said Destiny with a sigh. “I’m kind of on the clock. As happy as I am to slack off with you guys, I’m not sure I can straight up leave the premises. I like my job too, you know?”

  “We’ll be back later tonight,” Dom assured her, standing as well and heading for the car.

  Destiny nodded and gave them both a wave. “I’m counting on it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Otsuya was indeed confused when Lady showed up. She was standing there, Lion in her arms, eyes narrowed as she watched Lady from across the library. She didn’t approach and ask her anything. It was like she needed to keep her distance and observe for a little while, like maybe Lady had been lying to her this entire time and she was actually some sort of mystical being that could travel through the ethereal plane at will.

  Agnes was a little happier to see everyone. She stuck her head out of an aisle wearing a cheerful smile. “Oh! Hi! I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “How’s the new job going?” asked Lady, making a point to smile back at her. She really hoped that Agnes didn’t have a hand in anything that was going on. She seemed like a nice girl.

  “Good!” Agnes was still a little loud for the job of librarian. Not that that mattered when no one was actually there to be disturbed by her other than staff. “Well, I think good. It’s going okay.” Agnes’ smile faltered. “I’m having a little trouble with the shelving system I think.”

  “You’re doing fine,” said Crispin’s voice from further down the aisle. Lady peered down it to find him up a ladder with a stack of books. It looked like he had taken them from her so that he could shelve them himself.

  Dom sighed. He didn’t have to say why. Crispin taking over Agnes’ job from her defeated the purpose of hiring someone at all. “We need to sit down and talk for a minute.”

  Crispin looked down from where he stood on the topmost rung of the ladder. His arms were still full of books. He really was going to break his neck one of these days. “All right,” he said. “Just give me a second.”

  “Not you,” said Dom. He nodded to Agnes. “Can we have a second?”

  Agnes’ eyebrows shot up. They were thick, expressive eyebrows that were as dark as her hair. “Sure. Yeah. Of course.”

  “We’ll give her right back,” said Dom, giving Crispin a pointed look that seemed to point out he wasn’t using her anyway. He led the way toward the back.

 

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