Chapter Four
“E verything will look better in the morning,” goes the old saying, and in my case, it was true. The library was due to open in half an hour, and I made my rounds, basking in how lucky I was to work in such a magnificent place.
The library was housed in Thurston Wilfred’s Italian ate Victorian mansion. Thurston—known these days as Old Man Thurston—had left his home to his youngest daughter, Marilyn, who repurposed it into a library and left it to the town when she died almost thirty years ago.
Marilyn had converted the third-floor servants’ quar ters into an apartment, where I now lived.
The rest of the mansion’s rooms, including a conservatory, ranged around a central atrium topped with a stained-glass cupola.
An open-air tower loomed above the mansion’s front porch.
Over the years, the library’s Persian rugs had worn and leaded glass windows become wavy, but for me, it only added to the charm.
Old Man Thurston’s son built Big House across the garden, beyond the caretaker’s cottage.
As the last surviving Wilfred, Sam now lived there.
I started my rounds on the library’s second floor, pulling open the faded brocade curtains in the old mansion’s bedrooms, now full of books.
Low morning sun flooded the rooms, washing the marble fireplaces with light and creating puddles of warmth on armchairs where Rodney had staked out a rotating selection of napping spots.
“Good morning, books,” I said.
The books yawned and serenaded me with greetings.
Birdsong escaped from a shelf in Natural History, and I heard a faraway disco beat and shouts to feel the burn!
from Physical Fitness. My shoulders relaxed.
The books talked to me this morning, and their voices were refreshingly loud and clear.
Maybe the glitches in my magic had passed and were merely due to sunspots or some other energetic firestorm.
The only flaw I foresaw in my day was how I was going to tell Lalena I’d made zero progress finding Ian. That, and missing Sam, of course. Would I ever get used to it?
Downstairs, I started a pot of coffee in the kitchen.
Most library regulars entered through the kitchen door, stopping for a chat and cup of coffee at the long wooden table.
Some patrons never made it past the kitchen.
I opened the casement window in my office off the kitchen—the mansion’s former pantry under the main staircase—and let the breeze off the Kirby River fill the tiny space.
I was happy not to see the crows that had been following me lately.
From there, I moved to the mansion’s former drawing and dining rooms. Sun glinted off their chipped chandeliers. I opened the French doors in Circulation and couldn’t help looking across the lawn. No sign of Sam.
Before opening for business, I stopped by the conservatory to say hello to Roz. Afternoons, she was assistant librarian, but mornings she kept for writing romance novels under her pen name, Eliza Chatterly Windsor. This one featured pirates.
“How’s the new house coming?” I asked her. She and her husband Lyndon Forster, the library’s caretaker, were building a home. Roz was happy to be getting a dedicated writing space, and Lyndon had already mapped out vegetable beds and a plumbed garden shed. I’d miss seeing her on weekday mornings.
“All right,” Roz said, without lifting her fingers from her laptop’s keyboard.
I’d leave her be to her world of buccaneers—the romantic lead would likely be called Captain Forster Lyndon or another variation of her husband’s name—and maidens, or dukes and orphaned spinsters, or whatever it was this time.
I unlocked the front door and settled at Circulation to greet the day’s patrons, from the children’s reading hour in Old Man Thurston’s former office, to Mrs. Garlington’s organ students in the late afternoon, to the knitting club members in the conservatory.
Before I could even start sorting returns, Lalena appeared through the open French doors. She glanced meaningfully toward Sam’s empty driveway, then back to me. I looked away to hide my disappointment.
Her expression softened in sympathy. “No Sam yet?”
I shook my head. I’d have to get used to the idea that we weren’t together anymore. “Any word from Ian?”
“No, but I did another tarot card reading this morning, and….” She untied the ribbon that was Sailor’s leash, and he trotted toward the atrium to search for Rodney. She dropped into a velvet upholstered chair and played with a loose thread on its arm.
“And what?”
“I pulled the Death card.”
Oh, boy. I grabbed a stack of books from the returns cart to process. “I thought you didn’t believe in tarot cards. You told me you use them as a tool for your customers to see whatever their subconscious has been storing up for them but that they don’t want to recognize.”
I didn’t tell her about Buffy and Thor’s search or about what they’d spied in his trailer.
There was no use piling it on. For whatever reason, Ian wasn’t in Wilfred.
As for his van still parked outside his home, he might have called a cab.
I had to hope there was an explanation that didn’t have to do with his relationship with Lalena.
Or, I thought, picturing the tarot card, something worse.
Lalena stabbed the air with a finger. “Exactly. Maybe my subconscious has been picking up subtle clues that Ian plans to leave me, and now that I see the Ten of Swords and the Death cards, I know what they mean. It’s over between us.”
“My subconscious has been telling me otherwise, because I’m not convinced,” I said.
“I know.” A long sigh escaped her. “I don’t understand it. This is not like Ian. At all.”
I turned away and busied myself logging book returns. “I’d better order more westerns for Duke. He runs through them like potato chips.”
She sat straighter and squinted at me. “Josie?”
“Yes?”
“Look at me.”
I resolutely kept my head down. “There sure were lots of books in the return bin today.”
“Don’t try to distract me. You know something, don’t you?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? That means you know at least part of something. What aren’t you telling me?” She leaned forward. “Spill it, Josie.”
I gained time by returning to my seat behind the circulation desk. Sooner or later, she’d learn the truth. “I asked Buffy and Thor to track down Ian.”
Lalena nodded. “Great idea. If those two kids can’t find him, no one can. And?”
“They think he’s left town.”
“But his van is in the driveway,” Lalena said quickly.
“Thor says he left a carton of milk on his kitchen counter.”
“Not just a glass? A whole carton?” she asked.
“That’s what he says.”
“That’s serious. Maybe he wants me to think he’s still here,” she said. Her body seemed to collapse into itself. “But he’s gone. He went somewhere. He didn’t want to tell me.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
“The alternative is worse,” she said. “He could be dead. Or in a hospital somewhere.”
“Surely you don’t think that. Have you called the hospitals?”
She stared at the chair’s arm and nodded.
I gentled my voice. “Then you know better. Maybe you should file a missing person’s report with the sheriff’s office.”
“He left me a voicemail message, remember?”
I couldn’t argue with that. I opened my mouth to tell her there might be another reason for his disappearance— even though I had no idea of what it might be—but was interrupted by a voice at the entrance to Circulation.
“What is this?” Wanda, the retreat center’s new custodian, held up a copy of Puss in Boots .
“Children’s reading hour starts soon. That’s this morning’s book,” I said.
Mona, the volunteer who led the reading hour, fostered animals.
Most of the books she chose featured animals, too.
“Did someone leave it on the floor?” The children’s section rapidly became an obstacle course if I didn’t tend to it regularly.
Wanda flipped through its pages and raised an eyebrow. “It’s about cats.”
“Yes. Puss in Boots is a classic. Kids love it.”
She stared at the book’s cover. I remembered her hesitancy with Rodney. Cats must really freak her out.
“Do you know what this story is about?” she asked with a tight smile.
Puss in Boots tried to respond, but its words slowed and garbled, lowering in pitch like a record player running out of power. Alarm quickened my pulse. It was happening again. Something was interfering with my magic.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s about a cat who helps his master win the hand of a princess.”
“Through lying. And murder.”
“An evil ogre is killed, as I remember.”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly. “Yes. I see. It’s a fairy tale.”
“Right.” What was her deal? “Can I help you find something?”
She seemed to snap out a reverie. “I’d like to volunteer here. Work at the retreat center is sporadic, and I want to put my skills to good use.”
This was a surprise, but a welcome one. “Your timing is great. Dylan, our intern, is off to college soon, and we don’t have a replacement. We’d love to have you. Could you come in, let’s see”—I called up the calendar on my computer—“the day after tomorrow?”
She didn’t even pause. “Definitely.”
“Hi, Josie.” Mona had arrived for the reading hour and had a box of crayons and stack of paper under one arm. Before long, the floor in Children’s Literature would be covered with scrawled drawings of cats wearing boots.
“Mona, have you met Wanda? She’s the new custodian at the retreat center. Wanda, Mona volunteers here, too. She runs the children’s reading hour.”
Wanda tapped Puss in Boots ’s cover. “You chose this.”
“Isn’t it sweet?” Mona said.
“Mona loves animals,” I added. “She fosters them.” I’d have to mention Wanda’s phobia about cats to Mona. Maybe Mona would even be able to bring her around. One glance at a baby kitten suckling a bottle would melt anyone’s heart.
Wanda’s response, if she’d intended any, was interrupted by Sailor racing into Circulation with Rodney at his heels. Sailor jumped into Lalena’s lap, and Rodney froze a few feet from Wanda.
Her stiff smile unwavering, Wanda stepped toward Rodney, who lowered to his haunches and backed away. When he hit a chair, he spun and ran for the exit. I heard the cat door flap a second later.
Wanda’s smile momentarily faded, then lit up again, tense and firm. “Good day, Josie. I’ll see you soon.”