Chapter 3
Blue Sky Valley boasted a history dating back past the American Revolution, and many unusual, historical, and unique items
and books had been tucked into a spacious, separated, and sealed section beneath part of the library. Built into the limestone,
the solid walls had withstood several natural disasters over the years, and the archives remained a fortress of knowledge
and artifacts.
Stella followed the sound of laughter and voices toward the vault door, which was partially open at the top of the stairs,
but it shouldn’t have been unless Arnie was down there. She tugged on the door’s metal handwheel, opening it wider. She stood,
listening, but silence greeted her. Had she imagined the laughter?
“Arnie?” she called in a voice quieted by the unease swelling inside her. Smoky-gray words poofed out of the open space: Apprehension. Fear. Anxiety.
Were the words a warning? Was there a reason to be uneasy about the archives tonight?
Stella tiptoed down the stairs, breathing in the scents of earth, old parchment, and tanned leather.
At the bottom of the staircase, she saw a lamp burning at the far end of the room.
Was Arnie researching? She took two steps into the dimly lit archives and shivered.
Laughter swept down the nearest aisle. But it wasn’t Arnie’s laugh.
It belonged to a female. Had Arnie invited a lady friend into the archives?
She froze, wondering if she should turn around and pretend she never found Arnie in an awkward situation,
but curiosity propelled her forward.
Glowing typewriter-font words slipped out of the shadows and floated across the shelves, then across a World War II uniform
hanging in a display case. Borrowed Time. Temporary. Please stay. The last phrase tightened Stella’s throat. More voices drifted out and quivered around her.
“Arnie?” she whispered.
The pool of lamplight touched the tip of her tennis shoe. She gripped the edge of the nearest bookcase and peered around it.
A young boy wearing an outfit made of brittle autumn leaves grinned and leaped onto a study table. He wiggled his bare toes
and winked at Stella. A woman, sitting with her back to Stella, laughed; her long blond hair gleamed in the soft light. A
dreadfully thin man with a nose like a toucan’s beak walked toward the table as his deep voice resonated against the shelves.
His white shirt ballooned around his narrow frame as he walked, and the bend-snap, bend-snap of his loping gait reminded Stella
of a flamingo. Was he reciting a psalm?
The man’s steady gaze stretched past the table and landed on Stella’s face.
Her back straightened as though she’d been electrocuted.
The man stopped speaking, tucked a worn Bible against his chest, and bowed his head toward Stella, causing the blond woman to turn in her chair.
The impossibly beautiful woman’s skin glowed as though she’d eaten handfuls of stars.
Stella had never seen anyone lovelier, and she had trouble looking directly at the woman’s face.
Her eyes burned the way they did when she stared at the midday sun.
“Ya su. Kalispèra,” the woman said in a voice smoother than poured ink.
Is that . . . Greek? Stella’s brain struggled to translate. She and Arnie hadn’t practiced Greek in months. “Good evening?” she mumbled.
The young boy leaped from the table, leaving a glittering comet trail behind him. Stella jerked backward, tripped over her
own feet, and fell, knocking her head hard on a shelf. Her vision blurred, and she crumpled against the bookcase, sliding
down until she plopped on the floor like a rag doll.
A thin face dominated by an overly large nose leaned into her swirling vision. His green, glassy eyes studied her face. “My
dear lady, are you quite all right?” He turned his beaked nose away from her and called to someone over his shoulder. “Arnie,
I do believe one of your characters has lost her way.”
Arnie? Stella’s vision tunneled, and then everything disappeared.
“Stella?” Arnie said as he lifted her into a sitting position. The faint glow from the lamp highlighted the creases of concern
on his lined face. “Come on, kiddo. Don’t you know better than to scare an old man?”
Stella blinked. He lifted her slowly and propped her upright against a bookshelf. She touched the back of her head and winced.
“Probably gonna have a real goose egg back there. What were you doing down here? You left almost half an hour ago.”
“I forgot my purse. I found it under the front desk, but then I heard voices. Yours, I thought, and I noticed the archives door was open, so I came down here looking for you, but I saw . . .” A cold sensation on her leg distracted her for a moment.
She bent her right leg toward her and patted the back of her capris.
The fabric was wet from knee to cuff. “Why are my pants wet?”
“My chamomile tea,” Arnie said. “Let’s try to stand. Slowly, now. Slowly.”
Stella grabbed Arnie’s outstretched hand, and with his help, she eased to her feet, swaying for a few seconds before her equilibrium
righted itself. The book spines in her line of vision undulated like underwater kelp until she blinked a few times and refocused.
A throbbing ache pounded inside her skull. “Why is your tea on my pants?”
Arnie tugged on his earlobe, looking apologetic. “I spilled it when I tried to pull a book from the shelf, and when I returned
to clean it up, you were sprawled on the floor. I’m assuming you slipped on it and fell.”
Stella noticed a mop propped against the study table. She didn’t remember slipping on the wet floor. What she remembered was
seeing three strangers in the archives. She peered around Arnie’s shoulder.
He glanced behind him before turning back to her. “How’re you feeling?”
“I feel like Wile E. Coyote after an anvil has fallen on his head.”
“Let me drive you home,” Arnie said as he hooked his hand around her elbow. He slid her purse over her shoulder and led her
up the aisle away from the study table.
Stella sighed but leaned into him. “I’m fine, Arnie. I have a headache, but I can drive.” In truth, her head throbbed so intensely
that nausea surged. First the purple words and now this.
“Maybe I should take you to the ER to see if you have a concussion. Or keep you awake all night with coffee and lousy jokes.”
Stella stopped walking, forcing Arnie to stop. She inhaled a few slow breaths and peered behind them. “A few aspirin will
help, but I thought I saw— There were people down here.”
Arnie frowned, causing his thick eyebrows to form an unruly bridge over his nose. “This morning? Do you mean the Wallaces?
Weren’t they researching Libby’s genealogy?”
Stella shook her head, which caused her to feel like she’d been twirling round and round. She closed her eyes and swallowed
another swell of nausea. When it was safe to open her mouth, she said, “No. Tonight. When I came looking for you, I saw—a
boy dressed like Peter Pan. He was standing on the table, and then he jumped at me.”
Arnie’s laugh startled her. It burst out down the aisle, and the books shivered on their shelves. An antique bell in a display
case vibrated, sending a low hum into the room. “You knocked yourself silly.”
She started to argue with him, but what if she’d actually fallen, knocked herself out, and created the entire scenario in
her dreaming mind? Still, the brief interaction had seemed real. And what about the words she’d seen when she entered the
archives? Apprehension. Fear. Anxiety. Were they meant to caution her regarding the people? But she and Arnie were very much alone in the archives now. If she pushed
the issue about the people, she’d have to admit the words she’d seen, and that wasn’t a secret she wanted to share with Arnie.
He urged her forward out of the antiquities section and led her up the staircase to the main floor. They passed through the
unlit spaces until Arnie stood at the back door and set the alarm.
He stepped onto the back stoop with her, pulled out his keys, and locked the door. “I’d feel better if you’d let me drive
you home.”
The humid night air smelled of blooming magnolias and cut grass. “I’m not gonna risk barfing in your car, but thanks.” She
dug her car keys out of her pocket and adjusted her purse on her shoulder.
“You call me if you need anything, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.” She waved over her shoulder as she shuffled to her car. Arnie stood and watched her reverse out of the parking
space and drive away. As she turned onto the main street and glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw him descend the stairs
and cross the grassy lot toward his cottage.
Stella gripped the steering wheel with both hands and cranked the air-conditioning to help ease the queasiness from the pounding
in her skull. Don’t barf. Don’t barf. Don’t barf, she repeated as a mantra in her mind.
A half hour later when she crawled into her bed in the quiet house, she closed her heavy eyelids. Crickets chirped outside
her bedroom window. Her mind created an image of a man’s bulbous green eyes staring at her, calling her one of Arnie’s characters.
That image was followed by a young boy leaping off a table, leaving a sparkling golden trail behind him. A woman whispered
words in Greek, and Stella marveled at her own imagination before she drifted off to sleep.