The Mortal Heart

He tilted his head, watching her. His eyes were even darker than his hair, but his skin was pale, almost translucent. “If your name is Lila, why does your friend from the library call you Janie?”

The longer Lila Jane stared at him, the more she realized he looked like someone who never left the library. Had she seen him there?

“You mean Marian? She calls me all sorts of things,” she explained as if they were friends. “My middle name is Jane. Lila Jane.”

Why do I feel like I have to explain myself to him? she thought, her cheeks flushing.

“Like Jane Eyre. It suits you.”

For some reason she wanted to tell him that Jane Eyre was her mother’s favorite novel, and Jane her favorite literary heroine. Instead she asked him a question. “And you are?”

His mouth turned up at the corners. “Charmed.”

Lila Jane crossed her arms. “And rude. And you could be a murderer, for all I know.”

“A murderer? Is that what you thought?” The hint of a smile faded, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Actually, I want to help you.” She must have looked as confused as she felt, because he added, “With the Licentia in Lux Lucis.”

Lila Jane froze. He was referring to her parchment—the mystery that had consumed her for the past week. “What about it?”

“It’s not a poem. It’s a—it’s a kind of spell.”

“A spell? You’re serious?” She stared at him. He looked serious, but she couldn’t be sure.

He shrugged. “You took Fliegelman’s Text and Context seminar, didn’t you? I was in it, too. Back row.”

“I never saw you there.” She smiled. “But, you know. Front row.”

He looked at the ground. “I know. And I’m sort of an expert at not being seen, with tonight’s rare exception.”

“Go on.”

“Remember the week Fliegelman lectured on performative language? Incantations, spells, speaking in tongues?”

“Yes. Your basic “Madwomen in the Attic” syllabus week. I remember.”

“That’s when I figured it out. I’m not saying the Lux Lucis works as a magic spell—”

She laughed. “Of course not. That would be ridiculous.”

His eyes stayed locked on hers, steady through the dim light. “Yes. Of course. Ridiculous.” Then he smiled. “What I am saying is that’s the reason it was conceived.”

She frowned. “The Lux? A spell? How do you know that?”

“Because I think I’ve found the rest of the… well, I guess you’d call it a spell book.” He said the words as if they felt as strange to say as they were to hear.

A spell book?

As in magic spells?

Like the Salem witch trials magic? Like hypnosis and psychics and superstition?

It would make sense—and align with the rest of her research on the origin of American belief systems. In fact, it might be the perfect conclusion to her term paper.

Part of her wanted to run to the apartment and forget this entire conversation. But she couldn’t. The thing that burned inside her—the power that had demanded she leave behind the stifling smallness of her life and move to the big city of Durham—the same force that compelled her to return to the rare books library day after day—it had taken hold again.

Lila Jane knew better than anyone that once the questions took root in her mind, there was no power on Earth that could stop her from finding the answers.

She exhaled, a ripple of excitement expanding through her chest. “And this book? You still have it?” She found herself closing the distance between them. It was more than just the pull of a strangely exotic-looking college boy with a slow Southern drawl; she was on the hunt now, and it wasn’t for a date. It was for meaning—and not just the kind that could be found by translating a few Latin words.

Freedom in Light? It’s not just a prayer. It means something bigger than that. It has to—I can feel it.

“You mean the spell book, if that’s what you want to call it? Of course. Right here in my bag.” He nodded—perhaps a bit smugly, she thought.

It felt like a dare, and she took it. Though, deep down, Lila Jane Evers knew she was the one daring herself.

“Well then.” She tossed her head defiantly.

“Well what?” He looked amused.

“Well then, what are you waiting for, Mr. I-Carry-Around-Nineteenth-Century-Texts-in-My-Bag? Let’s go take a look.”

He paused for a long moment, as if he hadn’t been expecting her response. “Are you sure, Jane? I’m sorry… I mean, Lila Jane?”

“You can call me Jane. My grandfather does.” She shrugged. “So does my best friend.” She didn’t feel like Lila Jane; she felt like Jane, the heroine in a story yet to be written. Lila Jane lived in small towns and did small things. Jane went off with strange classmates in the night to study mysterious parchments—even spells, if that was what they were.

“And I’ve never been more sure about anything in my entire life,” she added.

It was the truth.

As sure as Lila Jane had been that someone was following her, now she was equally sure about the rightness of the boy in front of her.

Of him, and what he could show her.