might start burrowing toward them.
Better not, she thought, or you’ll have two bleeding shins.
But as she went through the front door, she wondered if a jolt of pain
would work a second time.
In the paneled foyer, a sign announced NONFICTION SECOND FLOOR. An
arrow pointed to a staircase on her right.
The foyer funneled into a first-floor hallway off which lay two large
rooms. Both were filled with bookshelves. The chamber on the left also
contained reading tables with chairs and a large oak desk.
The woman at the desk was a good advertisement for country living
flawless complexion, lustrous chestnut hair, clear hazel eyes. She
looked thirty-five but was probably twelve years older.
The nameplate in front Of her said ELOISE GLYNN.
Yesterday, when Holly had wanted to come into the library to see if the
much-admired Mrs. Glynn was there, Jim had insisted that she would be
retired, that she had been “quite old” twenty-five years ago, when in
fact she obviously had been fresh out of college and starting her first
job.
By comparison with previous discoveries, this was only a minor surprise.
Jim hadn’t wanted Holly to come into the library yesterday, so he’d
simply lied. And from the look on his face now, it was clear that Elois
Glynn’s youth was no surprise to him either; he had known, yesterday,
that he was not telling the truth, though perhaps he had not understood
why he was lying.
The librarian did not recognize Jim. Either he had been one of those
kids who left little impression or, more likely, he had been telling the
truth when he’d said he had not been to the library since he’d left for
college eighteen years ago.
Eloise Glynn had the bouncy manner and attitude of a girls’ sports coach
that Holly remembered from high school. “Willott?” she said in answer
to Holly’s question. “Oh, yes, we’ve got a truckload of Willott” She
bounced up from her chair. “I can show you right where he’s at.”
She came around her desk, stepping briskly, and led Holly and Jim across
the hall to the other large room. “He was local, as I’m sure you know.
Died a decade ago, but two-thirds of his books are still in print.” She
stopped in front of the young-adult section and made a sweeping gesture
with one hand to indicate two three-foot shelves of Willott titles. “He
was a productive man, Artie Willott, so busy that beavers hung their
heads in shame when he walked by.”
She grinned at Holly, and it was infectious. Holly grinned back at him
“We’re looking for The Black Windmill.”
“That’s one of his most popular titles, never met a kid didn’t love it,
Mrs. Glynn plucked the book off the shelf almost without looking to
where it was, handed it to Holly. “This for your kid?”
“Actually for me. I read about it on the plaque over in Tivoli Gardens.
“I’ve read the book,” Jim said. “But she’s curious.”
With Jim, Holly returned to the main room and sat at the table f
from the desk. With the book between them, they read the first two
chapters.
She kept touching him-his hand, shoulder, knee-gentling him.
Somehow she had to hold him together long enough for him to learn the
truth and be healed by it, and the only glue she could think of was
love. She had convinced herself that each small expression of love-each
touch, smile, affectionate look or word-was a bonding agent that
prevented him from shattering completely.
The novel was well and engagingly written. But what it revealed about
Jim Ironheart’s life was so astonishing that Holly began to skim and
spot read, whispering passages to him, urgently seeking the next
startling revelation.
The lead character was named Jim, not Ironheart but Jamison. Jim
Jamison lived on a farm that had a pond and an old windmill. The mill
was supposedly haunted, but after witnessing a number of spooky
incidents, Jim discovered that an alien presence, not a spirit, was
quartered in a spacecraft under the pond and was manifesting itself in
the mill. It revealed itself to Jim as a soft light that glowed within