“Oh, me too, kiddo. But we’re getting closer, and I have to believe
that’s a good thing.”
A shadow, cast from within, stole across his face again.
Not wanting to see him slip back into a darker mood, Holly said, “Come
on.” She picked up the book and took it to the librarian’s desk.
Jim followed her.
The energetic Mrs. Glynn was drawing on posterboard with a rainbow of
colored pencils and magic markers. The colorful images were of
wellrendered boys and girls dressed as spacemen, spelunkers, sailors,
acrobats, and jungle explorers. She had penciled in but not yet colored
the message: THIS IS A LIBRARY. KIDS AND ADVENTURERS WELCOME.
ALL OTHERS STAY OUT!
“Nice,” Holly said sincerely, indicating the poster. “You really put
yourself into this job.”
“Keeps me out of barrooms,” Mrs. Glynn said, with a grin that made it
clear why any kid would like her.
Holly said, “My fiance here has spoken so highly of you. Maybe you don’t
remember him after twenty-five years.”
Mrs. Glynn looked speculatively at Jim.
He said, “I’m Jim Ironheart, Mrs. Glynn.”
“Of course I remember you! You were the most special little boy.”
She got up, leaned across the desk, and insisted on getting a hug from
Jim.
Releasing him, turning to Holly, she said, “So you’re going to be
marrying my Jimmy. That’s wonderful! A lot of kids have passed through
here since I’ve been running the place, even for a town this small, and
I can’t pretend I’d remember all of them. But Jimmy was special. He
was a very special boy.”
Holly heard, again, how Jim had had an insatiable appetite for fantasy
fiction, how he’d been so terribly quiet his first year in town, and how
he’d been totally mute during his second year, after the sudden death of
his grandmother.
Holly seized that opening: “You know, Mrs. Glynn, one of the reasons
Jim brought me back here was to see if we might like to live in the
farmhouse, at least for a while-”
“It’s a nicer town than it looks,” Mrs. Glynn said. “You’d be happy
here, I’ll guarantee it. In fact, let me issue you a couple of library
cards!”
She sat down and pulled open a desk drawer.
As the librarian withdrew two cards from the drawer and picked up a pen,
Holly said, “Well, the thing is. . . there’re as many bad memories for
him as good, and Lena’s death is one of the worst.”
“And the thing is,” Jim picked up, “I was only ten when she died-well
almost eleven-and I guess maybe I made myself forget some of what
happened. I’m not too clear on how she died, the details, and I was
wondering if you remember. . .”
Holly decided that he might make a decent interviewer after all.
Mrs Glynn said, “I can’t say I recall the details of it. And I guess
nobody’ll ever know what on earth she was doing out in that old mill in
the middle of the night. Henry, your grandpa, said she sometimes went
there just to get away from things. It was peaceful and cool, a place
she could do a little knitting and sort of meditate. And, of course, in
those days it wasn’t quite the ruin it’s become. Still.
. . it seemed odd she’d be out there knitting at two o’clock in the
morning.”
As the librarian recounted what she could recall of Lena’s death,
confirming that Holly’s dream had really been Jim’s memory, Holly was
touched by both dread and nausea. What Eloise Glynn did not seem to
know, what perhaps no one knew, was that Lena had not been in that mill
alone.
Jim had been there, too.
And only Jim had come out of it alive.
Holly glanced at him and saw that he had lost all color in his face
again.
He was not merely pale. He was as gray as the sky outside.
Mrs. Glynn asked Holly for her driver’s license, to complete the
library card, and even though Holly didn’t want the card, she produced
the license.
The librarian said, “Jim, I think what got you through all that pain and