Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
According to the case notes, a Burner had yanked Elizabeth Bennet out of her book right before her wedding to Mr. Darcy, hoping to thwart one of the happiest endings in all of Romancelandia. Turned out, Elizabeth enjoyed modern life a little too much and had gone on the lam.
And it was my job to put her back where she belonged before every copy of Pride and Prejudice turned into a blank book.
I put my foot on the accelerator. Five minutes later, we were going slightly above the speed limit. “Good thing you’re cute,” I said to my sluggish, elderly car, which was also something I said to Koshka at least once a day.
The sun dropped even lower as I made a right turn off the highway.
This was an unusual street. It appeared to be like any other West Coast country lane.
A few weather-beaten houses. A few small businesses.
A trailer park. Then…sand. A little sand at first and then piles of it appeared on either side of the road.
The farther west I drove, the more sand we saw.
You got the feeling that if you kept going, you’d drive off the edge of the world.
And you would be right about that.
I pulled off the side of the road at the entrance to Sunset Beach. With the little binoculars I kept in the glove box, I scanned for Elizabeth Bennet. No luck. Had she sensed me coming and run for it?
Ah, got her. In the distance I spied a head of dark hair bobbing through the dunes.
I knew at once it was her. She gave off pure main character energy.
I could confront her right now, but I worried she’d run off.
I’d wait for her to reach the edge of the water where she’d have nowhere to run or hide.
Koshka meowed loudly, a distress signal.
“What is it, comrade?” I asked, but then I saw what had upset him.
On the side of the road sat a Little Free Library designed to look like a miniature beach house. The shelves were empty, and the glass in the doors was broken.
Ninety percent of the time when a community library or a free library is empty, it’s because someone took all the books without putting any back. Annoying, but human. But the other ten percent? Sabotage.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” I told Koshka. “I’ve got this.”
The people on this route lived miles away from the nearest bookstore or library. This wasn’t some ritzy beach community. Seasonal workers made their homes in the trailer park we’d passed, eking out a living on tourist tips. Maybe this little broken box was their only easy access to books.
I had about two minutes until Elizabeth Bennet reached the beach. Plenty of time. Inside my trunk I found the box labeled Emergency Use Only.
I grabbed one copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s antiwar novel Slaughterhouse-Five, named for the actual slaughterhouse he’d taken shelter in during the Allied firebombing of Dresden when he’d served in the U.S.
Army in World War II. Then a copy of Maya Angelou’s powerful and poetic memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
In honor of Oregon’s native son, Ken Kesey, I also grabbed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and for Portland’s favorite daughter, Ursula K.
Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, of course, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and also The Invisible Man by H.
G. Wells. For the kids living nearby, I threw in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, because are you ever too young to start fighting the cosmic battle against evil?
Finally, I added a couple classic picture books— Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Nikki Giovanni’s Rosa, and Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax.
An even dozen. Not much, but better than nothing.
After placing the books in the box, I shut the door and latched it, then cast a quick charm that would help protect the books from weather damage until we could replace the broken glass.
Then I reached into my pocket and drew out a small bag of what looked like blue sand but was in fact a bit of magic in pure physicalform.
When sprinkled on a library (or box or bag or anything you like really), it would act to draw in books.
Not just any books. The books people coming to this library needed without even knowing they needed them.
Maybe a romance novel that could make a woman realize she deserved better in life than her current cruel or callous boyfriend.
A bio-thriller with a scientist hero who inspires a college student to go to medical school.
A silly happy funny book about a pigeon or a squid or Bigfoot that helps a child who’s lost her mother laugh out loud for the first time in months.
Whatever book anyone who used this box needed would eventually make its way to these little shelves.
I sprinkled the dust over the box right as a gust of wind blew up from the ocean. Half got onto the box and half landed all over my face.
Well, if you’re going to accidentally cast a spell on yourself, the book-you-really-really-need charm is the one you want.
Now safely enchanted, this little library would never find itself empty of books ever again.
Work completed, I returned to the car and wiped the dust off my face.
“Not sure who busted up that library,” I said to Koshka as I started the car, “but stay on your toes. All eighteen of them. Let’s go.”
Soon the sand completely covered the asphalt.
“Brace yourself,” I warned Koshka. My Sun Buggy was vintage, adorable, in mint condition…
but wasn’t designed for off-roading. A 1974 VW Bug?
Let’s be honest, it was barely designed for on-roading.
But I didn’t want to lose our lady. Just ahead, the road ended.
I drove past the dunes and right onto the beach (which, let the record show, is legal).
As the sun began to fall, I spied a set of petite shoe prints in the wet sand.
Got you, Bennet.
—
Koshka and I followed the footsteps past a few other cars parked on the beach, locals or tourists hoping to catch a rare October sunset unmarred by cloud cover.
A few hundred yards down the wash, I spotted her standing at the edge of the ocean staring at the gray waves, your classic fictional heroine in emotional turmoil.
Elizabeth Bennet had gone Oregon native.
She was wearing gray leggings, a white tank top, and a North Face backpack over a black rain jacket.
Her thick chestnut hair was tied back in a decidedly un-Regency-like messy bun.
Probably the first time in her buttoned-up, straitlaced, prissy, proper, rigidly ordered, ladylike life she’d ever even worn trousers.
Slowly, I approached her, smiling so she would know we meant her no harm. She stiffened slightly as I stopped by her side, but she didn’t make a run for it. I had a feeling she knew why I was there and had, in fact, been expecting me.
“I have that same jacket in red,” I said.
A slight smile crossed her face, but she said nothing.
“This is Koshka, and I’m Rainy March, Book Witch,” I said. “And yes, the name is a pun and a weather forecast. You’re probably wondering why I’m here…or not?”
She sighed the gentlest of sighs as she gazed out on waters she’d never seen before and would certainly never see again.
“Look, if it’s cold feet,” I said, “I get it. Marriage is a big commitment. But you need to get back into your book, all right? Books without heroes wither and die, and you probably noticed while you were at Powell’s, your book is pretty popular.”
“Me? A hero?”
“You don’t know you’re a hero? When Mr. Darcy proposed to you the first time, what was he offering you?”
“Marriage,” she said in her elegant English accent.
“More than that. Marriage to Darcy meant money and power and status. And what does everyone in the world want? Money. Power. Status. But Mr. Darcy was incredibly rude to you, rude to your entire family, and even broke up Jane and Mr. Bingley. You picked loyalty to your sister over money, power, and status. That was an act of true heroism and decency. And the world needs books about heroism and decency right now.”
Waves rolled in, waves rolled out. She watched the ocean as if it had the answers she sought, and if she kept her vigil long enough, it would whisper them to her through the music of the wind and the water.
“Your book helps people,” I said. “Your book helped me.”
She glanced my way a moment, surprise in her fine, dark eyes, before turning back to the water.
I continued, “For a few months…I dated a duke.”
She looked at me again, her lips parted in shock.
“Yeah, I knew that would get a reaction,” I said.
“But Duke—that’s what I call him—he’s not a real duke.
Wait, no, he is a real duke. He’s not a real person.
He’s fictional, like you. And fictional characters and real people can’t be together, no matter how badly we want to be.
If he left his book series, his books would die.
If I moved into his books…Well, I can’t.
It’s against the rules. If we were in a romance novel, our trope would be forbidden love.
We tried to make it work, of course. I’d sneak him out of his books for a few stolen hours.
Then several days later, I’d hop into his books for a few more stolen hours.
This went on for a year. A perfect, painful, beautiful, agonizing year. ”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I stayed a little too long in one of his books,” I said, “and the story started to change. Suddenly I showed up in a sentence. One sentence but it was a real doozy of a sentence.”
And that doozy of a sentence?
Rainy March had the sort of face that made a man square his shoulders, straighten his tie, and see that his affairs were in order, because he’d either marry her or die trying.
“When I came back to the real world,” I told Elizabeth Bennet, “my boss was waiting for me. I was caught. She reminded me, in no uncertain terms, that if I didn’t end things with Duke, I was risking permanent damage to his book series.
I had to choose between him and his stories.
As much as I wanted to be with him, I knew I had to do the right thing and end it.
And there are a lot of perks to being married to a duke. ”
“I should think so,” Elizabeth said.
“When I broke up with Duke, I thought about you turning down Darcy’s first proposal. I thought if you could do it, I could do it.”
“I said yes the second time,” she reminded me.
“True, but by then Darcy had learned his lesson, cleaned up his act, and proven himself worthy of you.”
“He had, yes,” she said with a little grin. “But you see…yesterday I met a young woman with violet hair. And tattoos like a sailor.”
“That’s Portland for you,” I said.
“She took me for Thai food.”
“Incredible, right? But I’m sure English food is…Never mind. But there are so many reasons to go back to your home. Your father. Jane. You do want to see Jane again, don’t you? If I had a sister like Jane, I’d want to see her—”
“The woman was a university student,” Elizabeth said in wonder. “Can you imagine? And she thought nothing of it.”
“You want to go to college?” I asked her.
“I…would’ve liked…I would have liked the chance.” She straightened her shoulders. “But I suppose that’s not my story.”
“If it helps, your book is taught in colleges. In that way, you’re in college, if you think about it.”
She glanced up at the sky, at the sun beginning its slow long drop behind the horizon.
“I always planned to return home,” she said.
“Did you? Good, that was easy enough. Thank you. I need a win here.”
“It’s only…Oh, isn’t it beautiful?” She waved her hand to the Pacific Ocean.
Unshed tears gleamed in her eyes, hovering but not falling.
From now until the end of time, it would be nothing but dinner parties and luncheons and card parties and neighborhood balls.
She’d get to London once a year perhaps, but otherwise, she’d probably never travel farther than fifty miles from her home.
And even if she and Darcy took a grand tour of Europe, she would never again lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean or the rocky, windy, wild Oregon Coast.
“What are men to rocks, mountains, and oceans?” she said. She gave me a little conspiratorial smile. “Don’t tell Mr. Darcy, but this is even prettier than Pemberley.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Is there time to watch the sun set?” she asked. “I’ve come so far.”
“I’m supposed to put you back before sunset but…how can I say no to the legendary Elizabeth Bennet?”
“Lizzy, please,” she said.
“Lizzy,” I repeated, flattered to be on a first-name basis already. “Call me Rainy.”
Together we watched the sun turn crimson red as it seemingly fell toward the earth.
While she watched it fall, I took the book from the canvas bag and opened it to the scene that came right before the blank pages.
When the last of the red faded over the horizon, Lizzy turned to me and said, “If you must.”
“I must,” I said, then looked her up and down.
“Oh, yes, of course.” She shrugged out of her jacket and pulled a gown from her backpack, putting it back on over her tank top and leggings.
As she dressed in her real clothes, I read softly from the book, working the necessary storycraft to return her to the safety of her own world, where she and Mr. Darcy would live happily ever after for all eternity.
Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.
The sun gone, Lizzy turned to me.
“Thank you,” she said with a most ladylike curtsy. “But please, Rainy, the next time a duke offers marriage…say yes.”
“Promise,” I said, and though it broke my heart to take this all away from her, I whispered the charm that would make her forget her little Oregon adventure.
When I closed the book, the sun was down, and I was alone except for a cat using the beach as a litter box and one set of petite women’s footprints in the sand, which the very next wave washed away.