The Wolf Princess #2
Livy, too, stopped walking, relieved her mother’s attention was taken so that she could watch the boy.
The man bent over the table, moved some books to find what he was looking for, and handed a paperback over.
The man must have said something that the boy found funny because Livy saw him throw his head back and laugh. She smiled, too, couldn’t help herself.
Oh! He was going. She saw the boy wave farewell and jog-trot across the grass toward the grand terrace of Georgian houses beyond.
Her mother and her fast-speaking friend were slowly walking now.
Livy hung back so that she could see the boy bound up the broad stone steps of a house with a gray front door, put a key in the lock, kick open the door, and slam it shut behind him.
Livy felt herself drawn to the rickety table.
She smiled shyly at the man, who smiled back, his twinkling eyes magnified by a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.
He was humming a little tune to himself and started to rearrange his piles of books.
Livy wondered what book the boy had been given; the ones she could see were quite a mixture and not very interesting.
There was a battered history of the Battle of Waterloo and a dog-eared French dictionary alongside a well-used thesaurus. They all looked grubby.
“Can’t find what you’re looking for, young lady?” The man’s eyes were friendly behind the spectacles. His voice was quiet, the accent correct and precise.
Livy stepped back from the table and smiled apologetically.
“Would you like me to suggest something? I’m selling them for a good cause.” The man’s thin hand hovered over a large book. “What about this?” He pointed at the grinning faces of last summer’s boy band.
Livy shook her head, embarrassed.
“Not your thing?” The man nodded as if he agreed with her.
“What about maps? A clever girl like you should know how to read maps; it’s such a bore getting lost …
Or … wait a minute … I’ve got the one … if I can only find it …
abracadabra!” He pulled out a black book with the shape of a white seagull on the cover.
“This is more your thing,” he said. “I can see by your face that this book will get right under your skin. He’s very clever, this seagull.
” He tapped the book. “He learns all sorts of things as he flies through the sky.”
“Oh, but—”
“Consider it a gift,” the man said, smiling. “This is the book for you, I just know it. And I’ll throw in this Book of English Garden Birds.”
“Can I at least give you something?” Livy held out the coins.
The man waved them away. “Payment enough that I have found you the right book,” he said. “The right book at the right moment is medicine for the soul,” he added with a look of concern.
Oh. Livy could feel her eyes prick, as if someone had blown smoke in her face.
Did he know? But how could he know? She had told no one about those strange, unsettling experiences she had endured since Mahalia had gone, not even her therapist, who had asked too many questions about how Livy had felt in the weeks after it happened.
Her mother—face turned away—was still talking to her friend. Even though she was only standing a few feet away and Livy could have easily called out to her, Livy felt this was impossible. It seemed as if she was in a large glass bubble with this strange man and his books.
She stepped away from the table, clumsily stuffing the books into her backpack. She wanted to go.
“See you!” She heard her mother’s voice as she said good-bye to her friend. She saw her mother turn, looking faintly startled as she saw her daughter, and start to push her bike forward.
“Well, that was all very interesting,” her mother said, then twittered on about somebody’s husband.
Livy tried very hard to listen, but she couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder, as if her head were attached to a very fine thread and it was being pulled around. The man raised his hat in an old-fashioned gesture of courtesy.
“Did you find anything interesting?” Livy’s mother asked.
Livy shook her head. “It’s mostly just old stuff,” she muttered.
“When I walked past earlier, he tried to give me a book about an old seagull! Said he would give it to me for the price of a smile. Are you all right, Livy? You look awfully pale suddenly.”
“Fine!” Livy smiled and took a deep breath.
The air was dull and heavy. That was good.
Anything that made her feel more earthbound was good.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to be as dull and heavy as the air rather than give in to the increasingly familiar feeling that her body was weightless and could spiral up into the sky like smoke.
When your best friend dies, she thought, everyone expects you to feel sad … and you do … but no one tells you that you might have other, more unsettling feelings that you can’t talk to anyone about.
“You’re probably just tired after your first day back.”
Her mother was trying not to look concerned, but Livy could see that she was biting the inside of her lip, a sign that she was worried.
“Just tired.” Livy nodded.
They walked past the church, watched fraught and anxious mothers taking children into singing groups and art clubs. Twin boys in karate robes threw their squat little bodies into jumps and chops.
“Remind me to pick up Tom, will you?” Livy’s mother said, more to herself than Livy. “I arranged for him to go and play at Molly’s.”
“So you could do your shopping?” Livy asked.
Her mother laughed, dropping all pretense. “So I could do my shopping.”
She leaned her bike against the railings of their small, narrow house with the lipstick-pink front door and navy blue window frames, and got the key out of her bag.
“Mahalia’s crush was on the bus,” Livy said.
Her mother turned to look at her. “The one with the dreadful hair?”
Livy nodded, not trusting her voice.
Her mother shook her head. “What did she see in him?” She smiled sadly. “Mahalia was a funny, sweet girl. I know you miss her.”
Rather than get into that conversation, Livy said, “Can I make the cake?”
Her mother looked a little surprised. “It’s been a while since you made a cake,” she said. “Not since before Mahalia got ill. And Dad would love it.”
The door was open. Livy could see her little brother Tom’s scooter, her old roller blades, and a heap of coats on the newel post. It was just like her therapist said—another normal day.
Livy’s mother pushed the bike up the two shallow steps, but instead of wheeling it straight into the house, she suddenly stopped on the doorstep and, speaking lightly—really, there was no emotion in her voice—said, “Dad and I wanted to talk to you about something.” She pushed the bike into the hall and Livy stepped in behind her.
“What about?” Livy kept her voice neutral as she dropped her backpack on the floor and kicked it under the hall table. But the skin on the back of her neck began to prickle.
Her mother didn’t say anything while she leaned the bike up against the hall radiator. She took out the bags of sugar and flour from the basket and handed them to Livy.
“You get on with the cake and I’ll go and get Tom,” she said, smiling. “Dad will tell you when he gets home.” She flashed a smile. “Really, it’ll all be fine! Nothing to worry about.”
But Livy knew that whenever adults said there was nothing to worry about, there usually was.