“She might have, yes. But that won’t really help now,” Lydia told her sadly.
“Daniel found a bunch of papers and old photographs in Bernie’s house. Bernie had hidden them up in the attic. He didn’t want people to find them. Dad said that Bernie had told him that eventually someone would come looking for him, probably sirens. Dad just thought Bernie was being superstitious and paranoid, but he was right.”
“The destruction of a curse isn’t the kind of thing Thalia would’ve written down, and she wouldn’t have had to,” Lydia explained. “A muse’s memory is practically eidetic.”
“But this is it,” Harper insisted, and got up. “This could be our chance. I have to get home to look through Bernie’s stuff.”
“No, you have to go to your study group.” Marcy tried to stand up, but it was more of a struggle since she was wedged into the dragon chair. Harper took her hand and helped pull her to her feet. “I can go to your house, and me, Gemma, and your dad can go through Bernie’s stuff. If it’s in there, we’ll find it.”
“Fine,” Harper agreed grudgingly. “I trust you. But you have to call me the second you find anything.”
“Harper, I wouldn’t get your hopes too high.” Lydia stood up and looked at Harper gravely. “There might be something useful in her papers, but it’s very unlikely that she’ll have the instructions on how to break something that I’m not even sure can be broken.”
“We have to try, though,” Harper said. “Thank you for everything, Lydia.”
She practically ran out of the shop, and Marcy struggled to keep up with her since Marcy was completely opposed to jogging. As they walked down to the car, Harper slowed enough for Marcy to keep up.
“Oh, my god,” Marcy said. “It’s like Christmas morning.”
“It’s better than Christmas!” Harper shouted, unable to stop herself. “We could be free of those psychotic witches once and for all. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
“Yeah, it certainly would,” Marcy agreed.
“This might really be it, Marcy.”
Marcy sighed. “It might be, but it’s probably not that simple.”
EIGHT
Ransack
“Well, this clearly isn’t working,” Marcy said, as Daniel dangled his legs through the hole in his ceiling.
He’d been crawling around in the narrow attic above his house. The only way in or out of the attic was through a square doorway in the ceiling above his closet, and he slid through it before dropping to the ground.
“Sorry, Gemma,” Daniel said as he brushed dust and cobwebs off his clothes. “There’s nothing up there but mouse poop and a skeleton from a bat, which was actually pretty creepy.”
“Nice,” Marcy said, nodding in approval.
Gemma leaned past Daniel and peered up into the darkness, as if she’d be able to spy something that he hadn’t been able to see with a flashlight.
The whole time Daniel had been searching his attic, Marcy had been sitting on his queen-sized bed. While he was out of sight, she’d taken the liberty of going through his nightstand drawers. Now that he was back, she was absently leafing through the worn copy of The Old Man and the Sea he had on his nightstand.
“Have you even read this?” Marcy asked Daniel, and gestured to the book. “I bet you haven’t even read it. I bet you put it on the nightstand so people would think you’re smart. Do you think Hemingway impresses Harper?”
“No, I think that was my grandfather’s book, and I have read it,” Daniel said. “Twice.”
“I have 101 Ways to Live Longer on my nightstand, so if I die in my sleep, when the paramedics or mortician or whoever come in, they’ll see it, and be all, ‘Well, I guess that book didn’t work,’ and they’ll have a good laugh,” Marcy said. “It’s important to laugh in times like that.”
“Are you sure you didn’t miss anything?” Gemma asked. She was standing on her tiptoes and leaning on the T-shirts Daniel had hanging in his closet.
“I looked in every nook and cranny,” Daniel assured her. “There’s nothing up there.”
Gemma sighed. “There has to be something we missed.”
“Why? Why does there have to be something we missed?” Marcy asked.
“Because.” Gemma stepped out of Daniel’s closet and ran a hand through her hair. “If Thalia was a muse, there just has to be something, and I looked through all her papers last night—”
“I know,” Marcy said, without looking up from Daniel’s book. “I was there. I helped, remember?”
After the visit to Cherry Lane Books, Harper had called Gemma and instructed her to immediately start going through the box of Bernie’s stuff she’d left in her bedroom. Gemma did as she was told, and when Marcy returned from Sundham, she joined Gemma.