The Librarian's Spell by Patricia Rice (ebook offline reader TXT) 📗

at the ornaments, looking for the hinge. “I can do this,” she repeated over and over. “I can do this. I can hear you. Speak again, please. I love him. I love him so very much, and I’ve never told him so. If you ever loved anyone, please speak to me.”

As if she’d never grown silent, the voice began again, still in Latin, still clear to Lydia. Twist the second one and push to the left at the same time.

A narrow door slid to one side, leaving a pitch dark opening she had to crouch to look into.

“Max,” she called hesitantly. “Max, can you hear me?”

She couldn’t even hear her own voice in the void. She spoke louder, with more confidence. “Max, I have the book. It told me to open this door. Are you there?”

A shout of fury and a rumble of rock nearly brought her to her knees. “Max!” she screamed.

“Lydia?” His voice was distant but clear. “I’m good. The ground slipped under me. Where are you?”

Relief flooded through her and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m in the library. There’s another concealed door in the back, a very small one.”

The voice in her head grew louder, more urgent. Words rushed through her so quickly, they emerged from her lips without registering in her head. She feared she spoke Latin. Max didn’t know Latin. She struggled to regain control of her vocal chords, but she was shouting now.

Max called to her in bewilderment.

It didn’t matter. She scrambled down the crude iron ladder built into the wall below her, a ladder her head said was there.

A rush and tumble of stone rang loudly from the far side of the cramped passage. Max shouted orders. Men yelled back. Her pulse escalated as she made her way across rocks. She’d brought no lantern. The voice in her head wanted a candle. She didn’t have one of those either.

“Max,” she cried in her own voice.

“Speak English,” he cried desperately. “Or Gaelic or French or anything but Latin!”

An Anglo-Saxon obscenity escaped her lips. She covered her mouth in shock. She thought she heard Max’s wry chuckle.

But the book was in Latin, and it was Latin that continued to emerge, faster than Lydia could translate. She could only duck her head under the low ceiling and follow her feet. Her feet seemed to understand the instructions better than her head.

“She’s saying something about a trap door to a mine shaft,” a weak male voice said from nearby.

“By all the fates, I thought you were dead, George.” Max sounded relieved. “Is she telling us how to break out of this hole?”

“Why won’t she speak English?” the querulous voice asked.

“Because the journal is in Latin,” Max responded sensibly. “If you can translate, we may both escape alive.”

“You’re sitting on my head, just like you used to do,” George complained.

“Only after you kicked me,” Max retorted.

“You were bigger than me. Still are. You’ll break my neck.”

The voice in Lydia’s head shouted with irritation in a language that sounded more Gaelic than Latin. Max retorted in a similar language, which seemed to pacify the lady’s anger.

“She’s insulting the entire male gender,” Max said with a laugh.

How could he laugh? How could he accept that she was speaking in tongues? Because he was a Malcolm. He’d lived with insanity most of his life. Lydia reached the solid barrier of another wall and began feeling the rocks, speaking rapidly in a dead language from her books.

“Your Latin lady says there’s a trap door, that her sons built it. Something about not approving their. . .” The weak voice hesitated over the translation. “I think that meant bastard. They didn’t approve of this hole.”

“By George, he knows Latin.” Max sounded closer. “Lydia, do you have anything to hammer with? Another rock maybe? Let us know where you are. It’s a pretty damned tight fit in here. We’re likely to tumble out as soon as you find the door, so be careful.”

She could hear other men shouting louder now. But the walls were thick and solid. She cried more Latin as her hands pried at the stone. She pounded with her keys so they could hear her.

“I think I’ve got you,” Max called. “You’re near the floor. Stand back and let me kick.”

“She’s saying there’s a latch on the outside,” the feeble male voice complained. “Quit being a bully and listen.”

A latch. What kind of latch would last centuries? Leather, perhaps. Iron. Lydia ran her hands along the walls until the voice in her head sighed in relief and directed her to a niche in the stone. Finding a lever, she cautiously pulled. “I think I have it. It’s pretty rusted. Do I have time to go back and look for oil?”

“She’s speaking English again,” the stranger cried.

And so she was. The medieval lady had departed. She was on her own.

“No time,” Max said tersely. “The rock fill has loosened. If we can’t leave this way, we have to climb out of this hole. That means more people above us in the tunnel with ropes and ladders.”

Risking more lives or crushing Max and his cousin or. . . Lydia twisted and yanked at the decaying lever. She heard Max kicking from his side.

Metal grated. Stone moved. Lydia hastily stepped back, trying to keep her footing, having no idea of the precariousness of the stones she’d crossed on.

Max’s excited shout rang out as his boot pushed free.

“I think the lady said the trap door was mostly for feeding the prisoners,” Lydia said tentatively. “It may not be large enough.”

“I’ll damned well make it large enough. I have a wedding to attend.” Max drew his boot in again and pounded at another stone.

An ominous cracking warned the wall wasn’t happy.

“Run, Lydia. This is likely to all come down. Light a lamp on the other side so we can find you.”

“I can’t leave you, Max. I haven’t even told you I love you,” she cried. “Can I pull the stones from this side?”

“If you love me, then for the