Chapter 6 #3
office and the sound of ice cubes swirling around in a glass. The young woman’s concern only stretched so far because she
wasn’t sweating pools on the floor.
“Let’s see, I can get someone out there tomorrow afternoon. Will that work for you?” the woman said.
“Tomorrow? I could sweat to death by then,” Stella said, then apologized. “Yes, of course. Thank you.” They scheduled a time
for tomorrow afternoon when a technician would come by the house and check the system. Stella ended the call and then repeated
her earlier question to herself. “How’s a person supposed to survive?”
She walked through the house and tested opening windows in the living room.
Her optimism for a breeze dissipated within an hour, and her hopes that it would cool down when the sun set were laughable when she realized the interior temperature didn’t drop a single degree as the sun plunged behind the trees.
She walked into her bedroom and opened the closet door to find something cooler to wear—perhaps a swimming suit—and something
snapped beneath her foot. Stella bent over and picked up a purple crayon broken in half. Where had this come from?
Her gaze landed on an unassuming cardboard box sitting on the top shelf. There was only one word on the box, written in purple
crayon years ago by Stella.
The word Why? slanted downward, and the wobbly letters looked like they were written with a trembling hand. Stella remembered writing the
word and then tossing the crayon inside the box. She hadn’t touched that box since she was a kid.
She hesitated before reaching up and pulling it from the shelf. Closed inside were Maria Parker’s most prized possessions—or
what Stella’s dad had decided to keep: a shoebox full of her jewelry, all costume and rhinestones; a few tubes of half-used
lipstick and eyeshadow so retro it was probably back in style; a pair of red heels; and a sweater stitched with a bunny. Stacked
on top of the assortment was a single photo album that still trapped a faint scent of women’s perfume. This was the only album
Stella owned that included the whole family, when they were living as though everything was okay and everyone was still together.
A sense of loss, familiar and profound, crept into her chest, almost as overpowering as the heat.
Stella remembered only scattered, mostly broken memories of her mother, like a video montage that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else watching and barely made sense to her.
She doubted she would recognize Maria’s laugh or even her voice since she hadn’t heard it in more than twenty years.
What she remembered most vividly was how beautiful Maria had been, with curly black hair—like Stella’s now—and her wide, infectious smile that showed all her teeth.
But did Stella remember that because of the photos?
Without these few photographs as proof, Maria might never have existed in their lives at all.
She was more like a footnote in a term paper, one of those throwaway extras that no one reads and is easily overlooked as an unimportant fact.
Maria left when Stella was six years old. It was an ordinary day in the middle of fall, just when the leaves had started to
change and litter the sidewalks. Maria had dropped off Percy and Stella at school with their heavy backpacks and sack lunches.
She’d waved and blown them a kiss, then she’d driven off on a route that should have taken her straight to work. Except Maria
never showed up at work, and she never showed up at the house again either.
Stella thought back to that night when their dad had to tell them the news—that their mother needed a break from her family,
needed to go find herself, as though it was something she had dropped off somewhere but couldn’t remember where. Turned out “finding herself” meant
Maria moved to New York City to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. Stella had never told anyone that strangling truth,
not even Ariel, because it sounded like a tragic plot in a novel that no one would believe. A mother of two leaves her adorable
children to be raised by a single parent so she can have a 0.1 percent chance of making it on Broadway. Not exactly Hallmark
movie material or going to win Maria a Mom of the Year award.
Stella never told anyone not only because it was dreadful but because of the shame and disbelief attached to Maria’s decision.
Had she and Percy not been good enough to stick around for? Had they been so disappointing that Maria hadn’t bothered to send
them birthday cards or holiday greetings? How could she have erased them so completely from her life? What did Maria tell
people if they asked if she had children? Did she say no? Stella’s chest ached just thinking about it.
She couldn’t imagine how horrible that conversation must have been for her dad. How much he must have struggled to help two kids understand such devastating news, the same news he, too, had to try to make sense of.
As far as Stella knew, no one had ever heard from Maria again. She’d disappeared into the world as though she’d never existed.
Some nights when Stella couldn’t sleep, she wondered if she might try to find Maria again, just to ask her why. But Stella was more afraid of finding the woman than hearing the answer. What if the answer was more heartbreaking than
telling herself that Maria was a negligent parent and Stella was better off without her?
The heat in the closet pressed in all around her, and a line of sweat slid down Stella’s back. She blinked away the thoughts
of Maria, and another idea tumbled through her mind.
She grabbed her phone and called Arnie. He didn’t answer, so she left him a message, telling him she was planning to have
a slumber party for one at the library. There was no way she would be able to sleep in her miserable, hotter-than-Hades house.
And at least in the library she wouldn’t be alone—there were half a million books to keep her company.
A scattering of cars still sat in the parking lot when Stella arrived with her slumber party accessories—one small bag of
clothes, toiletries, her copy of Beyond the Southern Horizon, and her journal; a sleeping bag and a pillow; and snacks. Once inside, she dropped her stuff beneath the circulation desk
and searched for Arnie. He leaned over the second-floor railing near the fiction section and called down to her in a stage
whisper.
“What are you doing back here?”
Stella craned her neck back. “I left you a message. My house feels like Arrakis. The AC gave up, and they can’t come to check
it until tomorrow afternoon. Can I sleep here?”
Arnie laughed. “You’re the kind of person who would make up that story just so she could spend the night in a library. Where’s
Ariel?”
Stella shrugged. “I didn’t want to bother her, and she’s housesitting four dogs, which is too full of a house for me.”
“This could be considered special treatment,” Arnie said.
Stella smirked. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
“I would never agree to let Vicki, Dan, or Melanie sleep here overnight.”
“They’re all part-timers,” Stella said. “Plus, they wouldn’t want to spend the night in a big, dark library alone. And none of them bring your favorite cookies.” Stella pointed toward the circulation desk. A local bakery box waited for him.
Arnie’s gaze followed her finger. “Bribery? Is there no end to your corruption?”
Stella held open her hands, palms facing up. “I do what needs to be done. Half a dozen white chocolate macadamia nut should
do the trick.”
“Sure, kiddo,” he said. “Stay as long as you like. I would suggest sleeping in the fairy-tale section. There’s a better view
of the stars coming through the windows. I’m going to be doing late-night research in the archives tonight, but I’ll keep
it down.”
Stella’s interest roused. They still hadn’t discussed the night she hit her head. “Doing research . . . alone?”
Arnie’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. Nothing that would interest you . . . yet.”
“Yet?” she asked.
Arnie straightened the spectacles on his nose. “I’ll let you know when things get good.”
His words sent a zing of electricity up her spine. He moved away from the balcony, but glistening words the color of ripe
grapes slipped out from beneath his shoes and tumbled from the second-floor ledge toward Stella. Mystery. Concealed. Encounter. They landed at her feet, circled her three times, and then faded into the tiles. What was Arnie researching in the archives?
Why was he being so secretive? Stella still wasn’t convinced she’d dreamed the vision of the people the other night, but without
proof, there was nothing to reveal otherwise. If he said he was alone, then she had to believe him, but something felt off.
Although she was off the clock, she helped Arnie go through the closing routines, and once everyone was gone for the evening,
Arnie wished her good night and headed into the archives, saying he’d set the alarm once he was finished but wouldn’t bother
her again in case she was already sleeping. She didn’t press him for more details, but perhaps she’d sneak down to the archives
in a bit, just to check up on him. Until then, Stella grabbed a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and her stuff from home and found a spot in the fairy-tale section near the windows.
She stretched out on her sleeping bag to read and assumed she’d be awake for a while, giving Arnie enough time to settle in
before she dropped in on him. She nestled into her sleeping bag and opened the book to her favorite chapter.
Stella’s eyes popped open, and her heart jumped like someone had shocked her with a defibrillator.
Moonlight streamed through the glass and cast silver stripes across her chest and legs.
Something—a noise, a nearby movement—had woken her.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, reached for her cell phone, and checked the time: 1:15 a.m. The sound of stifled laughter caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand.
She stayed perfectly still until she heard
the shuffling of multiple sets of feet down an aisle near her.
She scrambled out of the sleeping bag as though she’d discovered snakes at the bottom of it. Then she crouched and tried to
scan through openings on the shelves while her heart thundered. Stella crept barefoot down the aisle, but the intruders’ movements
stopped. Her pulse throbbed hard against her temples, and she held her breath. At the end of the aisle, two shadows stepped
into the moonlight. Their silhouettes shimmered, and their white teeth were visible against their darkened faces. One appeared
to be wearing clothes a few sizes too big for him. Two teenage boys.
Stella inhaled a deep breath so she could either release a scream or demand that they get out immediately, but one of the
boys burst out laughing. Then he shoved the boy beside him, and they both ran off down the adjacent aisle.
She wasn’t thinking properly when she snatched a book—a spontaneous weapon—from the closest shelf and chased after them. A
door slammed somewhere, echoing through the cavernous foyer, but by the time she entered the main foyer, the library was silent
except for her own labored breathing. Her body stayed rigid for another minute, her senses heightened and searching. But no
one was moving anywhere near her.
Stella stood in the middle of the empty foyer for a few more minutes, listening, waiting, training her ears for anything.
Soon her heartbeat slowed, and she wondered if she’d imagined the boys.
Had she been dreaming? Still she walked through the library checking all the doors and windows.
On her last pass through the foyer, she tugged on the vault door leading to the archives.
It was closed and secure. Arnie had obviously finished his research and gone home.
She shuffled back to her sleeping bag, taking the aisle where the boys had been hiding when she’d first heard them. She was
looking for out-of-place books or vandalism. Then she noticed something in front of her that shimmered in the moonlight. Her
eyes couldn’t focus on what it was, but it reminded her of peering through a waterfall. She hurried straight ahead and slammed
into something.
Her brain immediately computed the something as a giant spiderweb. Stella’s scream was muffled by plastic sticking to her face. The book she’d planned to use as a makeshift
weapon bounced out of her hand and slid across the floor behind her. She lurched backward and ran her hands over her face
as if to check for damage or spiders.
Then she stepped forward with caution and reached out both hands. Her fingertips grazed bands of plastic that had been stretched
horizontally from one bookshelf to the other. Plastic wrap. Stella snatched the plastic from the shelves and crushed it together
until she had a hard, plastic ball in her palm.
She stomped around the library again calling out, “I know you’re in here!” “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” “Show your
faces,” and “Real funny trick,” but she saw no one, and no one came out of hiding to admit to the prank. Where were they hiding?
How had they gotten into a locked library? Should she call Arnie or the police? Getting kids into serious trouble didn’t seem
like a fair punishment for pulling a prank in the library. But knowing all the windows and doors were locked also made the
likelihood of kids being able to break in extremely slim. Would the police assume she was making up a wild story?
But was she? She’d seen something, and she’d definitely run into the plastic-wrap wall.
Stella performed another search of the library, but after half an hour, she gave up and returned to her sleeping bag.
She called Arnie, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
Nothing could be done until tomorrow anyway.
“Here’s to hoping they don’t burn the place down.”
She dropped the plastic-wrap ball beside her and grabbed The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She thought it would take a while before she could fall back asleep, but when she laid her head on her pillow and closed
her eyes for a moment, exhaustion crept in. The book slipped from her relaxed fingers. As she dozed off, she thought she heard
voices and someone whispering the name Huck.