Chapter 15 #2
Stella nodded, even though she had no intention of calling the police. “I’ll get the library put back together, and I’ll find
out who was at tonight’s meeting and reach out to them personally. You go on home.”
Vicki shuffled her blue flats against the tiles. “I’m really sorry about tonight. I don’t agree with you keeping him tied
up in the archives, but I can see why you did. I wish his employer had come sooner. You’d think they would have taken you
seriously and picked him up already.”
“If only,” Stella said.
Vicki patted at her unruly hair. “See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Vicki.”
The rain continued to batter the library as the thunder and lightning storm settled over Blue Sky Valley. Rough winds whipped
around the edges of the building, and the trees bent and groaned. Stella and Ariel worked in silence as they cleaned up the
meeting area. Every few minutes, Stella glanced over her shoulder, expecting Hook to return, but he never did. She tried not
to worry about Jack and where he’d gone.
With the last chair righted, Ariel said, “If I’m understanding all of this, a Captain Hook impersonator with a drinking problem showed up earlier today, you tied him up in the archives until his employer could get him, Vicki found him hours later and untied him, he returned with revenge on his mind and wrecked the book club, and Jack was going to duel him with a knife.
Did I miss anything? Oh, perhaps the real story about Jack, a friend of Arnie’s who has been spending all day with you instead.
Just a good citizen helping out at the library? ”
Stella closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s all complete madness right now.” She opened her eyes and looked at Ariel. “If I tell
you the truth, you’re not going to believe it.”
Ariel fisted her hands on her hips. “I believe in way more outrageous things than you do.”
“You have a point,” Stella said. “And I would have agreed with that until today.”
“So tell me this truth that you don’t think I’ll believe,” Ariel said. “I’m your best friend, and I have a feeling Jack already
knows.”
“Jack is a big part of it,” Stella agreed. “There’s something Arnie hadn’t told me about the library, something big—”
Jack returned and interrupted Stella’s explanation. “No sign of Hook anywhere. Crusoe said that one second he was in the chair,
and the next second, he was gone. But Crusoe admitted that he took a nap. Vicki must have freed Hook during that time. Darcy
hasn’t seen him either.”
Stella squeezed her fingers around the back of a chair. “Arnie is going to lose it when he finds out what I’ve done. This
is a small town. You think they won’t talk about this? They certainly will. Then word will get back to Arnie lickety-split,
and he’ll think I’ve become incompetent. Letting drunkards into the library. Not that I actually let a drunk man in . . .
but it’s also a public place, and if someone intoxicated shows up, I can’t tell people no. Maybe I can spin it that way. I
absolutely don’t want to tell him that I used the ink and brought Hook out of Peter Pan.”
Jack walked over and touched Stella’s arm. “Hey, breathe for a minute, will you? We’re going to figure this out.”
“Will we?” Stella asked. “Because I don’t see how. A supervillain is loose in the library, and we can’t find him.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Ariel interjected. “I’m not following the ink and the bringing him out of Peter Pan thing. Is this about the impersonator?”
Stella sighed. “He’s not really an impersonator.”
Jack leaned his hip against a bookshelf. “And I don’t think he’s quite the supervillain. Now if you’d brought out Voldemort,
maybe.”
Stella’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know about him?”
“You don’t think I like to read too?” Jack asked. “Anyway, Hook’s a rogue pirate, but he’s mostly interested in women and
rum and fighting the Lost Boys, who aren’t here.”
“What about him leaving the library?” Stella asked. “What if he’s already gone? How would we ever find him?”
Jack placed both hands on her arms. “Breathe, Stella. Most of us don’t leave. Even the really nasty ones.”
Stella tried to inhale a slow, deep breath but failed when her lungs constricted. “What about the nobleman and Belle, was
it? I completely forgot about them until now. I haven’t seen them since Arnie’s heart attack.”
Jack nodded. “That was their last evening.”
Anxiety’s vise grip on Stella’s chest lessened. “So everyone is accounted for. Except Hook, and speaking of him, it sounded
like this wasn’t your first encounter.”
“Arnie let him out once before,” Jack said as he counted on his fingers. “Five years ago, I think. He thought a pirate from
a children’s story might be interesting and relatively harmless. But Hook is not how Arnie imagined him.”
“He’s a disturbing mash-up of versions,” Stella said. “How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure how we’re altered when we leave our stories and come here.”
Stella walked toward the circulation desk, and Jack followed. “What happened between you two? If Crusoe hadn’t taken his sword,
I think he would have fought you.”
Jack didn’t respond right away. The windows illuminated with another lightning strike before going dark again. Words slithered
across the tiles. Ending. Gasp. Wail. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
“What happened?” she asked again.
Jack glanced down at his hands. “Hook had been moderately tame for the first week, but then he lost his patience with this
place. An annoying kid kept pestering his sister, and Hook appeared and decided to shut the kid up by choking the life out
of him. Arnie yelled for me, so I snuck up behind Hook. I only meant to coerce him into letting the kid go. So I flashed my
knife, but Hook lunged toward me, and I stabbed him in the gut. It killed him— Well, it sent him back early. He’s obviously
not dead.”
Stella gasped. “You can do that? I thought if characters die in this world, they disappear everywhere.”
Jack exhaled. “Not exactly. If they die near the source of the magic, they just go back into their books. Since the magic
is stored in the library, the characters are, in a way, bound to the library because it’s where they’re brought to life. But
if characters get too far away from the source and die, then—”
“Then we lose them forever,” Stella finished.
Jack nodded. “But having to send someone back early is the last choice because you have to ‘kill’ them, and that’s not something
Arnie or I are keen on.”
Stella grimaced. “Does it hurt them?”
“I don’t know,” Jack admitted, “but Hook made a big show of ‘dying’ before he disappeared. Then he turned to ashes, and Arnie swept him into a dustpan, and we dumped him in the garbage. We had to convince the kid it was all part of an elaborate magic show. I doubt he ever annoyed his sister again. Afterward, Arnie and I never talked about what had happened. We didn’t have to.
We both understood it was unintentional but also a welcome reprieve. ”
Stella rubbed her fists against her eyes. The idea that the characters brought out of the books could turn to ashes if they
were killed in the library disturbed her. “Of all the characters I could choose.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You didn’t really believe me.”
She rolled her eyes. “No excuse. I could have chosen Anne Shirley or a Care Bear. I’m sorry, Jack. For all of this.” Thunder
boomed loudly, and Stella flinched. She glanced around the library. “Should we keep looking for Hook?”
Ariel cleared her throat and startled both Stella and Jack. Stella had forgotten Ariel was still there.
“Hi, yeah, still here. So I’m following along as best as I can, which, believe me, feels like I’ve been thrown into a movie halfway through and expected to catch up without asking questions. Jack, am I clear
on the fact that you killed a man but he didn’t die and instead turned to ashes?”
“Oh, well, he didn’t actually kill anyone,” Stella responded. “Because that man isn’t . . . or wasn’t . . .”
“Uh-huh,” Ariel said. “Clear as mud. Because that man is from a book? Are you trying to explain to me, albeit terribly, that you can bring characters out of books to roam around the library?
And that roguish pirate is actually Captain Hook from Peter Pan? You’re right, Stella, this sounds outrageous. But . . .”
“But what?” Stella asked.
“Fascinating!” Ariel said, an enormous smile breaking across her face. “How is this possible? Can I bring someone out?”
“No!” Stella and Jack said together.
Ariel held up her hands. “Okay, okay. No reason to freak out. Just so you know, I’d choose better than Captain Hook. How was
he not going to be awful? He’s a pirate who tries to kill children.”
“He doesn’t actually kill children. He swordfights them mostly,” Stella argued.
Ariel smirked. “Well, that makes him a much safer option.”
Stella’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t think it would work.”
Ariel looked at Jack. “And how do you fit into all of this, Jack?”
He made eye contact with Stella, and she shrugged, telling him to go ahead and share the truth. “I’m from one of Stella’s
favorite novels.”
Ariel inhaled a sharp breath. “You’re Jack from Beyond the Southern Horizon?” She pointed at Stella. “You brought out a love interest and you won’t let me choose a character? Aren’t there rules about
personal gain and magic?”
Stella’s mouth fell open, and Jack laughed before saying, “Actually Arnie brought me out before his heart attack.”
“Wow,” Ariel said. “This is a lot, Stella. No wonder you’ve been avoiding talking to me. I want to learn more about all of
this, but a more pressing question is, what are y’all going to do about Hook?”
Stella glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine o’clock and time to lock up the library for the night. “I can
close up, and then we can make a final sweep. Ariel, why don’t you go on home? It’s late, and it’s been a long day. We can
catch up tomorrow.”
“And you’ll tell me everything about this library magic?”