Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
The only problem was that I still had too many suspects.
I also had a job to take care of. My alarm buzzed, warning me that I had less than ten minutes until I had to be downstairs, ready to supply Willowmere with books that were just right for them.
Maybe I should rename the lending library ‘Goldilocks’ once I finished my training. Which reminded me—I hadn’t practiced a single spell today.
"You weren’t supposed to," Cosmo said, when I mentioned my lapse. "You don’t want to use up all your energy and have nothing left up here." He raised a paw and tapped my forehead.
"Thank you," I said.
"You’re welcome." He zigzagged across the staircase as we headed down.
As soon as I unlocked the door, Sarah and Noah bounced in. "Someone's very bushy-tailed today," I said to the boy.
Noah gave me a shy giggle.
His mother grinned. "He's been counting the hours until we could come today."
"I'm so glad you're here," I said, and I meant it. Apart from the fact that I enjoyed seeing the boy a lot more cheerful than last time, my subconscious needed the distraction.
Once that was done, I needed privacy to work through everything, to process. I didn’t intend to run around pointing fingers at anyone until I’d narrowed it down as much as possible and made sure that Cosmo and I hadn’t screwed up along the way.
Cosmo weaved around Noah’s ankles.
"Don’t make him trip," I warned.
Cosmo shot me a disdainful glare before he trotted off toward the reading nook with the sofa.
Sarah handed me the books they had borrowed last time.
"He’s a fast reader," I said, flipping through the returns.
"He is." She smiled. "I hope you’ve got more for him. And maybe something for me?"
"I’ll have a look."
I checked Sarah’s customer register. .
“Your Aunt Violet was perfect at finding exactly the book you needed—even if you didn’t know it yet.
Before Noah’s dad and I split up, she told me what to read.
They were just novels, but somehow, they prepared me exactly for what was coming.
And with Noah? I swear she knew exactly what would make him happy. Like she was reading his mind.”
I blinked. Reading his mind. Of course.
Finding the next book in the series Noah had started was easy. His mother, on the other hand, was a little trickier.
I should have checked my aunt’s notes upstairs, but I hadn’t thought to do so. Now, I was going to have to wing it.
Maybe I’d inherited some of that magic as well. You never know until you try.
I gave Sarah and her son each a cookie—one with the non-magical ingredients. Noah didn’t appear to be in any pain, and Cosmo had warned me not to overdo it.
Then, I turned my attention to finding Sarah a book.
I closed my eyes, reaching deep inside myself, waiting for something to call out to me. A particular bookcase, maybe? Some invisible pull?
Nothing.
How about the old-fashioned way?
I paced back and forth, the wooden floor creaking softly under my steps. Nearby, Noah was already lost in his book, the sound of rustling pages filling the quiet.
And then I stopped.
Right in front of me stood a bookshelf where Aunt Violet had kept all my personal favorites.
Why not give those a try?
I reached for an old book written by a British schoolteacher—a story about life in a small village, filled with its trials and tribulations. Not much happened, yet everything somehow worked out in the end.
"I have no idea if you’re going to like it," I admitted to Sarah. "But I did. It was… soothing."
"That sounds perfect," she said. "Thanks."
"You’re more than welcome."
I waved them goodbye, locked the door behind them, and turned to Cosmo.
"We only just opened," he pointed out.
"I know," I agreed, scooping him up into a hug. "But you and I have more important things to do."
He squirmed in protest until I finally put him down. "Okay, buddy. Let’s go." I sat at the library computer and pulled up all her customer notes. Once I’d finished that, I cross-referenced them with the books she had listed under each name.
Since I couldn’t be sure which books had been chosen by the readers themselves and which ones she had handpicked for them, I wrote down all of them, for the last two years.
Now came the trickiest part. I had to find the novels and read them or at least skim through them. If my hunch was right, my aunt had identified her killer. Not by naming them, but by pointing at them through the books she’d selected.
Cosmo's eyes grew wider and wider as the stack grew.
"You're not going to read all of them," he said.
"I have to."
"You could get help.”
“And tell them what? That my aunt magically knew people well enough, inside and out, that she could finger a culprit, or at least their motive, by giving them a book?"
"If you put it like that, it sounds a bit strange."
"It does." I relented. "Maybe I can get the Cliff Notes on the books."
I counted them. It wasn't as bad as Cosmo had made it sound, but there were still 23 novels in front of me. I could only count myself lucky that none of our suspects was a voracious reader. Maybe they had simply borrowed a book once in a while to show that they were civic-minded.
I didn’t care. All I knew was, deep down, I had the unshakable conviction that we were close to cracking this case.
I touched a book.
A fiery jolt shot through me.
I fell backward.
"Bex!" Cosmo nudged my cheek. Then he licked it.
"I'm fine," I mumbled. "At least, I think so. That was the worst hot flash I've ever experienced."
"Try the other books," he said.
I touched them gingerly. Nothing.
“Now, the first one again.”
A wave of nausea hit me as I touched it. "Eek," I said. "I can't even open it." I had to close my eyes to stop the sick feeling.
"You have to. Because that's the one."
"Tell me the title," I said.
He did.
I took a deep breath. Once my stomach had settled, I opened my eyes and turned to the internet.
It saved me. It gave me enough information what the book was about, without having to touch the book again.
This has been her way to teach people, to encourage them – or to warn them about things they were contemplating, consciously or not.
To mull it all over, I did what my aunt would have done. I turned to baking.