Chapter 42 Highlights
Highlights
Lydia Brown
The curator surveys the line of Birdie’s books, the manuscript, the chest, the journal, and the painting. Her hands are behind her back to resist touching them. There’s powdered sugar on her cheek, but she’s calmer after a caffeine and sugar boost.
“I need five months, not five days, but that’s all the time I can spare right now.”
“How would you like to set up shop?” I ask.
“That big closet would do for my workspace, away from natural light. Let’s move the small desk inside.
I’ve brought lights, extension cords, and book stands.
” Fifteen minutes later the workstation is set up to Theresa’s liking, and I put on the kettle for a leisure cup of tea and we settle in three folding chairs facing each other. The rain has passed.
“We are so grateful you’re here to help. Shall we tell you the highlights of what we know so far?”
She counters, “Every delicious morsel,” and calmly sips her tea with milk, all traces of her hyper behavior calmed by a powdered doughnut.
The telling begins with a witch’s legacy housed in a dilapidated trailer and bequeathed to a teacher, then a network of tunnels and chambers that interconnect, to an ancient masterpiece trundled across the ocean centuries ago, holding Gaelic enigmas.
I add, “At Birdie’s burial place, Kate showed me a ceremonial meadow encircled with boulders. The place was choked with weeds, but there were clues of something more. The afternoon light cast a lavender tint to the air, and the smell of something sweet lives there. It isn’t a forgotten place.”
I conclude by saying, “Birdie Rocas lived too intentionally for her books to be a record of scattered thoughts. Too deliberately for the chest and its contents to be accidental. Too purposefully for the tunnel rooms and ceremonial meadow to be minor discoveries. No. All of it goes together in some complex web barely out of sight. Of that I’m certain. ”
Kate looks dubious at my notions while Theresa looks at her, bright-eyed and trusting, and says, “And to think it all started with a scrap of paper with your name on it.”
The sun is shining when we lock our workroom and the front door of Books and Beans and walk out into a world of pick-up-sticks.
Branches and leaves litter the road, and Theresa follows our car around the corner to Little Switzerland Inn, where she will stay the next five nights.
She checks in, then meets Kate and me on the terrace for supper.
We order tonight’s special of pecan-crusted rainbow trout, butter braised leeks, chive and dill cream, and crispy capers.
Wine arrives and I raise my glass: To Birdie and Theresa and conundrums.
“Speaking of mysteries, what led you to study rare books and learn Gaelic? Are your ancestors from Scotland?” I ask.
“Not that I know of. I was born in Charlotte, a few hours from here, and thought I’d become an archaeologist. I could see myself sifting through sand and stone to unearth buried history in the pyramids or riding a camel through the desert to a forgotten cave hiding ancient scrolls. But do you know what changed my mind?”
“Appalachia,” I guess, and she nods.
“Yes. When you live a stone’s throw from the oldest mountains on earth, why look anywhere else?
And now this: a hybrid of epic proportions spanning the Middle Ages to today.
Thank you for letting me be a part of this moment.
It’s a miracle this manuscript survived in good condition in such a primitive place.
In rare books, we take many precautions to preserve treasures.
The light and air humidity are regulated to the nth degree. ”
Kate says, “Yet Birdie threw an old quilt over the chest and called it security. Her trailer would have offered little protection from heat or cold or damp. And yet, at first glance, the manuscript and journal look to be in good condition when they shouldn’t be.”
Theresa is wistful. “How I wish I had met your Birdie Rocas. Very little is known about her at Rare Books.”
“But you’d heard of her?” Kate is surprised.
“Yes, but only in whispers. Some people thought the rumors about the books were fabricated. A little like a snipe hunt for the educated bibliophile,” she says with a grin.
“But this I know from the start: These books are not here by accident. And neither are the three of us. There’s a master plan at work, and Birdie Rocas is in charge. ”