Chapter 3
Hollis
The first thing I noticed on Thursday morning was how the light hit the philosophy section differently.
Softer somehow, like even the sun knew that Thursdays were for deeper conversations than the hurried exchanges of Monday or the weekend browsers looking for beach reads.
I’d been arranging the poetry display when the bell chimed, and without turning around, I knew it was her.
Talia Quinn moved through spaces the way some people read difficult books, carefully, with the kind of attention that came from knowing that missing something important could hurt you. I’d been thinking about that observation for three days now, turning it over in my mind like a stone worn smooth.
What I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about was how she’d looked that first day, standing in my poetry section with an expression of such careful hunger.
Like someone who’d been starving but had learned not to reach for food too quickly.
There was something about her that made me want to understand not just what she needed now, but who she’d been before whatever had taught her to move so cautiously.
It bothered me in a way I couldn’t quite name that we’d both grown up in Hollow Haven and I had no memory of her.
How had I existed in the same small town without noticing someone who clearly possessed this kind of quiet intensity, even as a child?
“Morning,” she said, and there was less hesitation in her voice than last time. Progress, though I wouldn’t call it that out loud. She’d probably bristle at the word, the way most people did when they sensed they were being measured against some invisible standard of healing.
“Good morning, Talia.” I set down the slim volume of Neruda I’d been debating over. Too romantic for where she was now, I thought. Maybe in a few weeks. “How did you find Mary Oliver?”
She held up the book like evidence. “She writes about paying attention like it’s a sacred act.”
That made me smile. “She does, doesn’t she? There’s this line of hers I love, about attention being the beginning of devotion. Always reminded me of why I love this work.”
Talia moved deeper into the store, and I noticed she took the same path as before, staying close to the windows where she could see the street. But she paused longer this time, actually looking at titles instead of just cataloging exits, like an omega on alert.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked, gesturing toward the reading nook I’d set up in the back corner. Two mismatched armchairs I’d rescued from estate sales, a small table that had belonged to my grandmother, and good natural light from the windows that faced the garden behind the store.
She considered this for a moment, weighing something I couldn’t see. Then she nodded. “I’d like that.”
While she settled into the chair by the window, I moved to the small kitchen area behind the counter. This was my favorite part of the morning. Those quiet moments when the day felt new and full of potential.
As I quietly brewed the tea, I found myself thinking about a passage from one of my favorite books about plant medicine.
The author had written about how traditional healers understood that the ritual of preparation was as important as the herbs themselves.
That the act of being cared for began the moment someone started choosing ingredients with your particular needs in mind.
I carried the tea service back to where Talia waited, noting the way she’d arranged herself in the chair. Feet flat on the floor, back straight but not rigid, hands folded in her lap. Ready to move if she needed to, but trying to relax.
“This smells wonderful,” Talia said as I set her cup in front of her. She leaned forward to breathe in the steam, and for a moment her shoulders dropped just slightly.
I settled into the chair across from her with my own cup. “My grandmother used to say that tea was just an excuse to sit still long enough to actually taste something. Everything else we do too fast.”
“She sounds wise.”
“She was a librarian for twenty years before she bought this place. Believed that most of life’s problems could be solved with the right book and enough time to think.
” I took a sip of my tea, smiling at the old memories that always brought me peace.
“She left me this place, actually. Said every town needed somewhere that valued questions more than quick answers.”
“Iris Green,” Talia said softly, and something warm flickered in her eyes. “I remember her. She used to let me sit in the children’s section for hours during summers when I was little.”
A genuine smile spread across my face. “I think I remember her talking about you. She used to tell me about this little girl who would come in asking for cookbooks, of all things. Said you were the only eight-year-old she’d ever met who wanted to know the science behind why bread rises.”
“That was me.” Talia laughed, and the sound was warmer than it had been before. “I drove my mom crazy asking for ingredients so I could try recipes from the children’s cooking books she’d find for me.”
“Gran always said you had an unusual combination of creativity and precision. She predicted you’d do something special with food someday.” I paused, remembering those conversations more clearly now. “She was right, wasn’t she? About you becoming a chef?”
“Among other things.”
I gestured toward the shelves surrounding us, feeling the comfort of this shared connection to my grandmother’s memory.
“Books are good at holding complexity. The kind of stories that don’t have simple endings or easy morals.
Real life is messy, and I’ve always thought our reading should reflect that. Gran taught me that.”
The mention of my grandmother seemed to relax something in Talia’s posture.
“She had such a gift for matching people with exactly the right book at exactly the right time. I remember being twelve and going through a difficult phase with my parents’ divorce, and she handed me this novel about a girl whose family was falling apart.
It was like she could see exactly what I needed to read. ”
“That’s exactly what she did. She always said libraries weren’t just about books, they were about understanding what people needed to heal or grow or just make it through the day.
” I leaned back in my chair, struck by how natural this conversation felt now that we’d found our connection.
“When she left me this place, she said I already had the instinct for it. I just needed to trust myself to see what people really needed.”
She nodded slowly, like someone recognizing a truth she’d been carrying without words. “I used to read constantly when I was younger. Before...”
She trailed off, but I could fill in the silence. Before whatever had taught her to catalog exit routes and hold herself so carefully. Before someone had made her world feel dangerous enough that stories became a luxury she couldn’t afford.
“What kind of books did you love?” I asked, though I suspected I already knew part of the answer.
“Cookbooks, mostly.” A small smile crossed her face, the first genuinely relaxed expression I’d seen from her.
“But not just for the recipes. The good ones told stories about where food came from, why people cooked certain things at certain times of year. There was this one writer, M.F.K. Fisher, who wrote about hunger like it was both a physical need and a metaphor for everything else we crave.”
Now it was my turn to smile. “The Art of Eating. I have a first edition somewhere in the rare books section. Fisher understood that feeding people was about so much more than nutrition.”
“Exactly.” Talia’s voice grew stronger, more animated. “She wrote about how the way someone cooks tells you everything about how they see the world. Whether they believe in abundance or scarcity, whether they think pleasure is something to be earned or just part of being alive.”
I found myself leaning forward, caught by the passion in her voice. This was what she’d been like before, I realized. Before someone had convinced her that taking up space was dangerous, that her expertise was somehow threatening.
“Is that what drew you to cooking professionally?” I asked, then immediately wondered if I was pushing too hard. But she didn’t flinch away from the question.
“Partly.” She wrapped her hands around her teacup, using its warmth like an anchor.
“I loved the precision of it, the way you could transform simple ingredients into something that made people happy. There’s this moment when you taste something you’re working on and realize it’s exactly right, perfectly balanced.
It’s like... like solving a puzzle, but with flavors instead of pieces. ”
She paused, and I could see her deciding whether to continue. The careful weighing of trust against vulnerability that I recognized from every damaged person who’d ever found their way to my door.
“I was good at it,” she said quietly. “Really good. I worked my way up through some of the best kitchens in Chicago, learned from chefs who’d trained in France and Italy and Japan. I thought I was building something that couldn’t be taken away from me.”
The way she said it, past tense and wistful, told me everything about what came next. Someone had taken it away. Someone with enough power to destroy what she’d built.
“What happened?” I asked, then immediately wished I could take it back. Too direct, too much like pushing for information she might not be ready to share.
But she answered anyway, staring into her tea as if the leaves might hold some kind of absolution.
“It’s the same story you always hear. A rich man who didn’t like the sound of the word no.
Vincent Carmichael. He owned restaurants all over the city, had connections everywhere that mattered.
He decided he wanted me, not just as his chef but as his omega. His property.”