Free The Hidden Library by Heather Lyons

better part of the last half hour glancing around the graveyard like they expect ghosts to pop up, too. Hell, I’ve been in some crazy Timelines before, but never actually encountered a ghost before, so this is all pretty damn unnerving and their behavior isn’t helping matters. But after a long, meaningful moment during which nothing is said, they both nod. “Yes,” Nelly Dean says softly. “If it means our . . . Timeline, as it is, will be spared the horrors others have had to face, then yes. Catherine would not wish us all to go to hell.”
    Joseph glances around fervently. “Heathcliff would.”
    Mrs. Dean does not argue with him.
    Alice and I carefully scrape the rest of the dirt off the top of the grave, leaving the side the Librarian referenced untouched and still covered as best as possible. Then I take out a small crowbar I brought along with us to 1847BRO-WH and gently pry up a couple of the planks on the other side. The last thing I want is an unstable coffin to collapse.
    Beneath me lies a dirty skeleton and scraps of a dress. More importantly, a necklace peeps up at us.
    Thank God we got to it before Todd.
    Mrs. Dean gasps as she peers down into the hole Alice and I are wedged into, a trembling hand covering her mouth. Joseph prays louder and harder. Even though I already know the answer, I ask them anyway if they want to be the ones to extract the locket ringing the skeleton’s neck.
    Joseph doesn’t stop praying to answer me. Mrs. Dean chokes out a definitive no. And I’m not going to let Alice do it, even though I have no doubts she would if asked. So I awkwardly squat down and fight to unclasp the fragile necklace and not break out in the shudders threatening to overtake me. The bones that my fingers brush against my skin are cold and now damp, thanks to the mist, and all I can think is: Holy shit, those ghosts better not show up right now or I might actually vomit all over this grave.
    Which would be super manly and all.
    Once the necklace is free, I pass the locket over to Alice. She glances up at the housekeeper. “Would you like to see it one last time, Mrs. Dean?”
    The woman shakes her head. “No, miss.”
    Alice carefully wraps the necklace in a handkerchief and stuffs it into her coat. “I wonder what’s in it.”
    “Hair,” Mrs. Dean says. “Hair from the gentlemen whose graves surround poor Cathy’s. She loved them both, see.”
    I situate the planks to their former positions and ask Joseph to pass down the nails and hammer he’s brought. A few quick pounds and soon, Alice and I are filling the hole back up. As we lay the sod back into place, carefully so that no one will be able to tell we’d been there, I realized I’m exhausted both physically and mentally. So is Alice, but damn, if she isn’t acting like she’s not.
    It makes me want to kiss her, but I’ve just been desecrating somebody’s resting place, so maybe I ought to at least wash my hands first.
    Jesus, my priorities are so screwed up.
    But then I look at the trio of graves before us, and then at all of the others peppering the graveyard, illuminated by the pale candlelight of the lanterns we’ve brought. Thoughts of kissing disappear. Even though I’ve tried so hard to hold it back, to ignore it, to pretend this isn’t a thing, it hits me anyway like a sucker punch.
    I sit down, hard, on the damp grass that I just replaced.
    Without missing a beat, Alice says in that regal voice of hers, “A moment, please? We just want to catch our breaths.” Mrs. Dean and Joseph quickly wander off to the entrance to the graveyard.
    Alice sits down next to me. Her dirty hand reaches and wraps around mine. I can feel fresh blisters on her palm.
    She never complained. Not once.
    I stare at the plot before me, at the name of the woman whose body I just manhandled. I think about graves and of bodies and of death and of how absolutely, brutally unfair life can be. It hurts to think these things. It hurts like hell.
    I think them