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society—and the wood floors were swept clean, but high in the rafters there were still some heavy cobwebs and a stray bird’s nest.
    Quickly blowing out all but one candle, I slipped my arms into Noelle’s white coat to guard against the chill of the basement, grabbed my messenger bag and the last candle, and walked to the office at the back of the building.
    I placed my candle in the holder on the dust-covered desk, then walked to the bookcase on the west wall. Using both hands, I pried the bookcase away from the plaster. It swung open, letting out asilence-splitting creak of protest. Behind it was the smaller, white paneled door with its brass knob and an old-fashioned keyhole. I tugged the key on its purple cord out of the pocket of my jeans. As I slid the key into the hole, I glanced back over my shoulder to make sure none of my friends had returned. Then I turned the key with a click, and the ice-cold doorknob turned easily in my grasp.
    Frigid air rushed up from the basement, along with a musty yet somehow cozy smell that made me think of the basement of the Croton library. The dank room housed all the historical books, and older kids were always getting caught making out down there. I reached back for my candle and held it high in front of me as I descended the stairs, feeling a rush of excitement. I’d been looking forward to this moment all day long.
    When my foot hit the concrete floor, I paused. My throat was dry as I looked around. The basement room was a perfect circle. Eleven chairs were set up to face the center, and at that center was the podium, plain and sturdy and made of wood. I walked around the room until I was positioned against the wall directly behind the rostrum. Then I whipped the skirt of Noelle’s coat into my lap to keep from soiling it, and sat.
    Inhaling a bit of the musty air, I looked slowly around the room and smiled. Elizabeth Williams had hung out here. She’d been in this very room with Theresa Billings and Catherine White and all the other girls mentioned in the BLS book. I wished I knew what they looked like, and wondered why I’d never thought to try to dig up photographs of them before. They’d had cameras in 1915, hadn’t they? TomorrowI would have to check the Easton archives and see if I could find any photographs.
    I tugged out the BLS book first and opened it to the second page, where each of the members of the first Billings Literary Society had signed their names. Then I slowly opened the book of spells. Near the front was a list of basic spells, and next to each was a little tick, as if someone had checked them off after completing them. Next to some items there were notes, written in a few different hands:
    Third attempt successful
, or
Must be done with two sisters, holding hands
.
    Some of these notes were in the same slanting script as the BLS book—there was the curled-down tail on the
y
’s and the flourish on the
s
’s. That small scroll to the
w
’s,
m
’s, and
n
’s. The handwriting belonged to Elizabeth Williams.
    Carefully, I studied some of the other notes, my eyes flicking back and forth from the signature page in the BLS book to the book of spells. Suddenly, my heart caught. Some of the other notes had been written by Catherine White, Elizabeth’s best friend. Her lowercase
a
’s and
o
’s were perfectly rounded, almost like a child’s handwriting.
    A shiver of satisfaction went through me, like when I figured out a calculus problem. I paged through the book of spells, glancing at some of the titles. The Forgetfulness Spell. The Swelling Tongue. Spell to Mend a Broken Heart. Then something caught my eye as I whipped past, and I slowly paged back. Written across the top of the page were the words
The Presence in Mind Spell
.
    That handwriting was not Elizabeth’s, but it looked familiar. I glanced back at the list of signatures and picked it out right away. The strokes were thick and confident, the uppercase letters overly large. The spell had