Chapter 13
THE ONE THING THAT had changed about And Then There Were Books was where Edith kept the mysteries.
I’d considered getting my mom a classic, but knowing her taste in television, I’d settled on A Secret Unveiled, a novel I’d read a few years back about a young female detective in a small town, with some romance thrown in for good measure.
This wouldn’t be the first book I’d given to her. In times past, she’d smiled, said thank you, and put it on a shelf. But old habits died hard. I wanted to share the things I loved with the people I loved. And besides, I had no idea what else to get her on such short notice.
I strode up to the desk to find Edith shifting envelopes around.
“Hey, Edith, do you have a copy of—”
“Jane. Oh, sweetheart, it’s so good to see you!”
Edith dashed out from behind the desk and hugged me as my mind did somersaults, trying to comprehend what had happened in the ten minutes since I’d last seen her.
“Wait, what?” I chuckled uneasily.
“Have you forgotten me already?” Edith teased, pulling back.
“Forgotten you? What do you mean . . . forgotten you?”
Edith and I stared at each other for a few moments. Her eyes narrowed in confusion. My stomach sank.
“We were just talking. A few minutes ago,” I told her.
“We were?”
“Yeah. You don’t remember?”
Edith looked down, her eyes heavy with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, dear. My memory just isn’t what it used to be. You’ll have to forgive me.”
My heart shattered as I processed her words and what they entailed.
I knew Edith was getting older, but I hadn’t foreseen this.
I hadn’t been prepared for her to ever be anything more than elderly in appearance.
Her mind had always been young, fresh, vibrant.
Of all the things that could’ve changed in Avila Falls . . .
“No, no, that’s okay,” I assured her.
“Did you need something, sweetheart?” Her eyes begged me to say yes, to need her.
“I was just looking for your mystery novels. And I noticed you don’t have them where you used to.”
Edith twisted her mouth in thought. “Oh, no. Things have been going missing around here lately. You just wouldn’t believe it.” Worry distorted her face.
It was time to change course. I couldn’t let Edith feel bad, even if that meant figuring out a gift for my mom out of what I could find. I’d just get something else.
“You know, I probably just missed it. I’ll go take another look.”
I turned to leave when her sweet, small voice got my attention.
“Oh, dear? Did you put your phone in the box yet?”
It took every bit of self-control I had to not audibly release the sigh that washed over my entire body. I wanted nothing more than to keep my phone safe in my possession, but I knew Edith wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Besides, I’d be out of here in the next ten minutes. I could handle being away from my phone for that long.
“Here you go.” I slipped it into the box.
She grinned jubilantly and hid the box behind her desk once again as I slid into a random aisle and returned to my search.
The quest for a copy of A Secret Unveiled was becoming less productive with every passing minute, so much so that I’d started wondering if it was really that indefensible to not give my mother a birthday gift, or to give her yet another classic that she wouldn’t read but that would join the others in gathering dust on the shelf.
Would she even notice if I just got her another copy of Wuthering Heights? My eyes had begun to grow heavy from sweeping across the endless shelves. Maybe it was time to call it a night.
The good news was that I hadn’t spotted Noah once, which indicated to me that he’d most likely slipped out at some point during my quest.
I rounded another corner, and my eyes landed on a familiar spine. Not the one I’d spent the last twenty minutes hunting for, but a book that brought an involuntary smile to my face nonetheless.
I couldn’t believe it was still here.
I bent down and slid it off the shelf, its old royal blue cover somehow still holding up after all these years.
It was the novella I’d written when I was twelve years old about a little girl who discovers her secret identity as a princess. Edith had spotted me working on my “manuscript”—an extra notebook that I carried with me everywhere I went—in the reading chair she’d gotten for me.
With her encouragement and coaxing with peanut butter bars, I’d read it to her, hands shaking and voice faltering. After all, I’d only ever read my writing to my parents. And while their reactions weren’t negative, they weren’t effusive either.
Edith had gushed over it, though. She’d declared that I had a natural talent, a sense for story, a “gift from God.” She had a longtime friend who’d gifted her with a book press, which she kept in the back office, and insisted that I independently “publish” my novella.
For my thirteenth birthday, she presented me with a copy of my book. “The first of many to have your name on it,” she’d said. I asked her to put it on the shelves at the store where it belonged—among all the other books that I loved so dearly. She’d kept it, but no one had ever bought it.
I ran my finger along the spine, lingering on my name printed in gold. To date, it was still the only book with my name on it. When would that change?
Suddenly, the lights went out. The darkness fell on my eyes, so thick and heavy that I could almost feel it on my chest, enveloping me. Before I could even react, I heard the front door slam shut, keys jingling outside.
What had just happened?