Chapter 11 #2
At the bottom of the stairs, I glanced at the community bulletin board and saw the usual ads for piano lessons, lawn care, and town meetings.
I half-smiled at the familiar business cards for the pizzeria and Shear Magic—the hair salon, naturally—before my eyes snagged on a picture of a pretty brunette real estate agent.
The text said that she was eager to buy acreage on the island.
I almost tore her leaflet down, to keep Leo from trying to sell his parents’ house out from under them.
And it wasn’t just Leonard and Leora I worried about.
I’d hate to see anyone on the island forced to sell because they couldn’t make a living here.
Whether they had gifts or not, they all made Beane Isle a one-of-a-kind community.
The back stairs creaked as I climbed them, but not in an eerie way. In a comforting, familiar way. Light filled the stairwell from a high window, and the air smelled of old books and lemony furniture polish.
When I reached the third floor, I gave the standing globe a spin before stepping into a main room crammed with shelves.
I didn’t see Leo, but after a moment I heard him humming to himself.
I smiled. Sure, Leo was rich and successful and handsome, with a two-million-dollar apartment and a million-dollar business, but he was a pretty terrible singer.
I’d always found music easy, and I couldn’t help loving that he found it so rough.
I started toward the humming, then did a double-take when I caught a glimpse of a plant on a side table. Because the plant was dressed up for an afternoon cocktail party, with sparkly bows around its pot and a tiny martini glass planted in its soil.
There was even a tiny plush olive in the glass.
Then I remembered that Hattie took care of the library plants for Albert, and of course she dressed them in twee little costumes. So I just nodded politely to the plant—shut up Diary, you would’ve done the same—and continued on my way.
Behind the stacks, I found Leo sorting through boxes.
I watched him for a moment and didn’t know what to say.
How do you greet someone after having sexual fantasies about them, while trying to decide if you want to friend-zone them or ignore them altogether?
There is no doubt a right choice of words, but instead this was what came out:
“Why, Mr. Carter,” I said, with a fake-posh accent. “You do sort through books with great aplomb.”
He smiled a greeting. “Albert told you I was up here?”
“Indeed, sir.” I curtsied. “How may I be of assistance?”
“Well, my lady, if you would be so kind as to examine the music materials?”
He gestured toward the far end of the table in what was clearly meant to be a courtly manner.
He looked good, too, in a red T-shirt and black shorts.
I barely even noticed his blond hair and golden legs.
On the bright side, when I reached for the first box, I noticed him scratch the back of his hand, which helped me tamp down my longing.
“No luck finding the book you’re after?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he told me. “And I’m roped into doing this instead. I can feel it nearby, though.”
“Frustrating,” I said.
“Yeah, there’s nothing worse than being painfully close to the object of your desire,” he said, his head bowed above a book box. “And not be able to put your hands on it.”
A silence followed as I definitely didn’t think about being his object of desire and having his hands on me.
Anyway, upon quickly flipping through the boxes, I found mostly piano concertos, a popular family song book from the 1960s, and some trios and duets.
“I doubt any of this is worth money,” I told Leo.
“I’m mostly hoping you’ll find stuff for circulation. Whatever people on the island might find useful.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
After a while, I unearthed a few Bach preludes in good condition.
I also came across an old yearbook of Gabe’s, complete with little handwritten notes.
I almost showed Leo, but didn’t want to bring attention to my relationship with Gabe.
So I just stuck the yearbook in my tote bag along with an old spiral-bound Beane Isle cookbook for Sheila.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Petty theft,” I told him, and showed him the cookbook. “Weird local recipes from the 1950s, I thought Sheila would get a kick out of it. What’s in your ‘keep’ pile?”
“Oh, these?” He put his hand on the books he’d set aside. “Some first editions, though nothing too valuable. Well, I found an Agatha Christie that will get a good price.”
I lifted the flaps of the next box and found a layer of dried ivy leaves like organic packing peanuts. Underneath was a stack of encyclopedia volumes from the 1960s.
“‘Volume B from Beatles to Blimps,’” I read. “I can put these in the recycle pile, right?”
Leo glanced over. “Unless it’s a complete set. Some people still collect them.”
“Which ‘some people’?”
“Wealthy ones with too many built-in bookcases. Uh, but if you grab ’em all, lift with your knees.”
“I know how to pick things up, Leo!”
“Sure, recorders and flutes. You’re not in a macho business like antiquarian bookselling.” He glanced at the door. “Did you hear something?”
“No.” I looked at the door, then back to him with dawning suspicion. “Are you still imagining people creeping up on you?”
“I never imagined it was people, Pan. Just faerie-kin performing random magic, making things harder for my mother.”
I must’ve been too young to realize that at the time, so I just said, “Oh.”
Being careful to lift with my knees, I set the encyclopedias aside and found another big book beneath them—one bound in caramel brown leather which felt warm in my hands.
I liked the heft of the book, though I couldn’t read the title embossed on the cover with ornate calligraphy—I didn’t even recognize the language.
The text looked more like art than alphabet, actually, with curves and crescents, circles and teardrops.
As my gaze skimmed across the cover, the letters and designs combined into coherent objects for the blink of an eye before fraying apart into a leaping animal, a watching face, and a blossoming flower.
“Leo,” I murmured.
He crouched beside me. “Whoa. What is that?”
“The book you’re looking for.”
“Yeah, except it’s not.”
“Are you sure? It’s definitely faerie-kin, right? That cover is pure magic.”
“It’s exceptional,” he said, his voice soft with awe. “But it’s not the book my gift wants.”
When I opened to a random page, the text looked hand-painted; not quite calligraphic, but close. “Do you recognize the language?”
Leo shook his head. “No, it’s more ancient than I’m used to.”
The illustrations were in vibrant color, with gold flourishes—butterflies with ornate wings flitted around strands of ivy draped between the paragraphs, cheerful furry-faced guys with hand-tools marched along the margin to fix painted “rips” in the paper, and laughing monsters peeked through the illustrated tears.
“Look at those colors,” I said, whispering as if we were in church.
“I’ve never felt anything like it,” he whispered back.
“What does it feel like?” I asked.
“Powerful and bright, like a wildfire or… I don’t know. Something beautiful and terrible, like standing at a precipice.” Leo shook his head slightly. “Like falling in love.”
“Then I don’t want it!” I blurted. I was doing everything I could not to fall in love with Leo.
“No?” he asked.
I offered him the book. He touched the cover, his fingers brushing the embossed leather as he leaned toward me. His eyes grew intense and sort of inward-looking. I didn’t recognize his expression, but I knew when a man was coming in for a kiss.
And yeah, I still resented Leo. He’d treated me like shit, and I suspected he’d do the same thing all over again.
He cared less about who I was than if I was gifted.
But I still wanted him to kiss me. Our hands touched across the illuminated manuscript.
I tilted my head upward and he leaned closer and our lips met.
Diary, it felt like magic filled the room as we kissed, as if rays of vivid sunshine passed between our lips. It wasn’t the hot wanting of the night in the boathouse. It was soft and dreamy, and promising. I never wanted to stop kissing him.
And maybe I wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t toppled into me.
Leo just fainted.
I yelped as he collapsed to the floor. His face was pale. Bloodless. His eyes fluttered and his mouth moved but he couldn’t quite speak. He looked like he’d overdosed on something, so white and weak.
“Leo!” I yelled. “Leo!”
When he didn’t respond, I slapped him and he whispered, “Pills.”
Then his gaze unfocused and I was about to shout for Albert to call 911, but first I patted him down for the pill bottle from Deja’s shop.
I found it in his shorts pocket and with trembling hands shook a pill onto my palm.
I parted his lips, wriggled the pill into his mouth and rubbed his throat like he was a cat I was forcing to swallow medicine.
Apparently it worked, because his eyes opened, though he still looked lost.
“Leo!” I said, holding his face. “Look at me. Look at me!”
His gaze sharpened. “Hi.”
“No! Not ‘Hi’! What happened? Are you—”
“I’m okay,” he whispered. “I’m fine.”
My heart beat so hard in my chest that I thought I might pass out. “You’re not okay!”
“Just an overreaction.” He took my hand like he needed the support. “My gift blew a fuse. I—I’m not sure what—”
“We’ve got to get you home,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, and closed his eyes.
“Keep your eyes open! No going to sleep!”
His eyes opened a crack. “Hi, again.”
“Shit, I don’t have a cart. I’ll borrow Albert’s.”
“I drove,” he told me. “My cart’s in the lot.”
His color already looked better, and his eyes focused on my face. He told me to take his keys, but he didn’t release my hand. I fished his keys one-handed from his pocket, then helped him stand. I held him steady another moment, to ensure his fainting fit, or whatever, had passed.
“You can let go now,” I told him.
“Nope,” he said, as I led him away.