Marnie sighed. “You don’t expect to hear stories like that in a place like this. Small towns are supposed to be safe. Elderly librarians aren’t supposed to be robbed and murdered.”
“There’s darkness everywhere.”
Marnie almost smiled. Almost. Her lips twisted a bit, but her eyes… those great, dark eyes didn’t hold even a hint of a smile. “Spoken like a horror novelist.” She sighed. “I have to get back. It’s been thirty-five minutes and I said I’d be gone half an hour. Not that anyone would notice. No one comes into the library. No one! It’s just not natural.” With that she stood, brushing off her skirt. Damn, she had a great figure. She was a little short, maybe, but then again every woman and the majority of men in town were shorter than he was.
He was supposed to keep an eye on her until it was decided if it was safe to let her stay. As he watched her walk away, Clint decided that the hardcore Springers who were determined to run Marnie out of town would have to come through him if they wanted to hurt her or try to force her to leave.
Was she safe here? Could he keep her safe until he decided whether or not he needed her as much as it felt like he did at this moment?
At least she’d bought the story about Alice’s death. The truth was, they had no idea who’d murdered the old woman. Or why. Now was not the time to tell Marnie that the old witch had been killed in the house she was currently living in.
Chapter 7
Marnie returned to the front desk and took a seat. For once, she was glad of the solitude. Clint was a stud, but he was really not her type. She preferred a gentler sort of man. Clint was smart, he was handsome — in a rough and rugged kind of way — but he wasn’t refined. He was blunt and strong and big. He’d be great in a crisis, she imagined, this tough guy, but big and tough had never been on her list of the attributes she wanted in a man. She’d settled for Jay. Next time around, there would be no settling.
She wanted it all. Refinement, intelligence, looks, a sense of humor, and great sex. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? Both her parents were failures at marriage. Neither of them seemed to be able to choose wisely. Her brother had done okay with his wife of almost ten years. If he could break the mold, so could she.
Needing the distraction after hearing about what had happened to the previous librarian, she returned to her Bigfoot research. She moved on to the newest of the non-fiction books on the subject and flipped to the back cover.
Judging by the photo, which for all she knew might be twenty years old, the author was under forty years old and so handsome he qualified as pretty. His dark hair was too long, and waved as if it had been styled. His eyes were intelligent, his clothing casual but, to her eye, expensive.
Not that any of the authors she’d met actually looked like their publicity photos. Except Clint.
Nelson Lovell traveled the world searching for Bigfoot. He was a renowned cryptozoologist from Oregon, according to his bio, where apparently there had been many Bigfoot sightings. He’d caught a glimpse of one on a camping trip when he’d been twelve years old, and had been searching for proof ever since. She could sympathize with his obsession.
Marnie started reading and decided almost immediately that she enjoyed Lovell’s writing style. It was smooth, easy, captivating, with a hint of humor and a handful of what her dad called two-dollar words. Lovell wouldn’t give her nightmares.
She was at the start of chapter three when the door opened. Accustomed to being alone, she jumped a little at the sound of the chime.
A young woman with a baby on her hip walked into the library. The woman smiled. Smiled! The baby squirmed and squealed, and the smile dimmed a little. “Clint said you might be able to help me. I’m looking for something to help with a baby who refuses to sleep. I tried looking on the internet, but it was maddening. There’s too much information and I don’t know what to believe.”
Marnie set the Lovell book aside and stood, giving the young woman her own smile. “I know exactly what you mean. I have just the book for you.”
She walked confidently toward the non-fiction section. She’d had a couple of days to acquaint herself with the layout, so she didn’t falter. No one trusted a librarian who didn’t know her way around the stacks of books. How lame would that be? Marnie introduced herself as they walked, and the young woman did the same. Her name was Gabi Lawson, and she had a booth at the hair salon down the street. Of course she was a hair stylist! Gabi’s mid-length hair, which was almost as dark as Marnie’s, looked like something out of a shampoo commercial. Thick, wavy, shiny, well-behaved…
No photoshopping required.
Gabi’s beautiful baby was named Mia, an appropriately pretty name for the blue-eyed mostly bald girl.
Marnie easily located the book she had in mind, one that several mothers at the Birmingham library had sworn by, and then she helped Gabi look through a few other books, some old and some new. As she searched, she found her mind wandering. She hated it when that happened.
She’d taken to calling the unwanted thoughts that popped up when she least expected them memory turds. They normally came at night, when she wanted to sleep but could not, but now and then they came during the daytime, when she should be concentrating on whatever she was doing at that moment. Instead of thinking of books for the new mother, she remembered what Clint had said about the old librarian being murdered.
That memory would not go away. It probably never would. Marnie hadn’t given up on her Bigfoot research, but now she had a murder to look into, as well. She’d taken Clint’s word about what had happened, but the more she thought about it the less certain she was that he’d been entirely honest. A drugged-up drifter, here? One did not simply run across Mystic Springs. If a drifter had wandered off the main road — if it could be called “main” in any way — would he have kept going until he made it all the way in? She remembered her trip into town all too well. It seemed unlikely that anyone would stumble across the place, but she supposed it wasn’t impossible.
Why hadn’t Susan shared the all-important tidbit that the previous librarian had been murdered? She hadn’t lied, exactly. Alice Daniels hadn’t been a young woman, and she had passed away at home. All true. Susan just hadn’t shared the news that the old woman had been helped along in her exit from this world.
Bigfoot. Murder. The best food she’d ever tasted, a fantastic library… and some of the oddest people she’d ever met.
And Clint. She hadn’t decided yet which category to put him in. Was he an asset or a distraction? A reason to stay or a reason to go? It didn’t really matter. She had no intention of getting involved with anyone at the moment, much less a man who ate like a horse and wrote about monsters, about blood and guts. She’d tried to use logic to convince herself that Clint was not for her, but sometimes logic didn’t work as it should. There was something about him…
She made her decision as she walked Gabi to the front desk, trying once more to call on cold reason. Blue eyes and great body aside, Clint Maxwell was a distraction she did not need or want.
I’ve seen Bigfoot. What do I do?
Have you seen or heard of Bigfoot in Alabama? Let me tell you…
Help!
Sitting at one of the computers in the back of the library, Marnie pondered what she might say in her email to Nelson Lovell. She started a message to him four times, each time backspacing in frustration to delete every word she’d written. Eventually she cancelled the message entirely. What she needed was proof. A picture, maybe. Definitely a picture. She’d seen the creature twice. Surely she would see him again. This time she’d be ready, phone in hand.
Librarian discovers proof of mythical monster. She’d be famous.
She didn’t really want to be famous. Rich? Yes. Famous seemed to be more hassle than it was worth.
Marnie cleared the history on the public computer — given how infrequently it was used she didn’t know why she bothered, but it was the thing to do — and returned to the front desk. She put away the Lovell b
ook, half finished, and picked up Clint’s novel. She knew him, so she really should actually read at least one of his books all the way through. A slick yellow bookmark advertising the Mystic Springs Public Library marked the last page she’d read.
He’d sent her a real live person looking for assistance, so she’d repay the favor by reading his book. She steeled her spine for more bloodcurdling violence, and she got it.
For a chapter or two. After a couple of truly savage scenes, she reached a chapter that had been written from the monster’s point of view. There was heartbreaking sadness in this beast’s heart. He didn’t want to kill, didn’t want to be feared and loathed. It reminded her a little of the old movies where the monsters, most of them anyway, didn’t want to be monsters. They didn’t want to kill, they were driven by something deeper and darker than they could understand.
She began to feel sympathy for the possessor of the claws. Her heart broke for him.
Damn. Clint could write!
She set the book aside and wiped away an unexpected tear. It was a surprise to see how much time had passed since she’d gotten back to it. The afternoon had flown by, and she hadn’t done a bit of research on the death of the previous librarian. Maybe it was too late to start.
The man who had murdered the old woman was a real monster, one she could never feel sympathy for. The details of that death would give her horrendous nightmares. She supposed she could look into the death on her own computer, at home, but then again, she much preferred fiction to reality, and researching murder close to bedtime was probably not a good idea. Tomorrow would be soon enough to investigate that crime.
It was almost time to lock up and head home when she went back to the computer and composed an email.
Dear Mr. Lovell,
I’ve found Bigfoot.
“What was I supposed to do, not tell her?” Clint shouted.
Someone had overheard his conversation with Marnie over lunch, and that someone had gone directly to Susan.
“That’s exactly what you should have done. If she gets curious…”
“She won’t.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“If she finds even a hint of the truth, she won’t believe it.”
Sitting in the cushy chair by the window, Susan squirmed a little and gave a long-suffering sigh, as she settled in. She glanced out the window, onto a wooded view she might’ve normally found soothing. Nothing could truly soothe him, or Susan, at the moment.
“If she asks the wrong person the wrong questions we’ll have no choice but to get her out of town,” Susan said. “One way or another. If that happens, I won’t be able to bring in an outsider again. We need new blood, Clint. There are a handful of Non-Springers in town, but not nearly enough.”
“Maybe we should take it slow,” he suggested.
She looked at him then. “We can’t take it slow.” Some might call Susan a witch — goodness knows Mystic Springs had more than its share — though she was not nearly as powerful as Alice had been. Like Luke, she sometimes just knew things. Susan was easy-going, and people liked her. Maybe that was part of her gift; he didn’t know for sure, but she was — and had always been — a steadying influence on the town.
Something was eating at Susan. She wasn’t her normal, easygoing self. “The town doesn’t have much time,” she said. “If it isn’t revitalized, it’s going to die. Not slowly, not in a matter of years, but with a bang. What will happen to us then? You know what it’s like away from town, away from the springs. The magic dies. Who we are fades, until there’s nothing left. There might be times when we wish to be ordinary, but we aren’t, and we will never be.”
He didn’t wish to be ordinary, and neither did Susan. Any Springer who did had only to walk away, and soon enough their wish would come true.
Hundreds of years ago — no one knew exactly how many hundreds — a powerful witch had cast a spell over Mystic Springs. As far as they could tell, the result was almost like a bubble or a dome. Within the bubble, their abilities flourished. Outside of it for any length of time weakened them, and eventually completely muted their powers. Everyone was different, in how they handled being away from Mystic Springs for more than a few days.
He didn’t dare stay away for more than a couple of weeks at a time.
“Didn’t you spend a couple of years in Atlanta?” he asked.
“I did,” Susan looked at him. Her usual air of tranquility was fractured, disturbed. “It was horrible. I felt incomplete, as surely as if I’d lost an arm or a leg, my sight or my hearing. I wasn’t… me.”
Springers had tried for years to address the problem of population decline. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find more than half a dozen people who agreed on the solution. Some wanted to remove the shield entirely, which would allow them to go out into the world with their magical abilities intact. It would also allow the powers of those who’d left Mystic Springs, even those who might unknowingly have Springer blood, to awaken.
The opposite plan would be even more drastic. Brigadoon. If the shield was strengthened the town would disappear, be erased from the outside world. No one would come in; no one would be able to leave.
So far no one had figured out how to do either, though for years many had tried. Alice among them.
Clint was among those who preferred the status quo, imperfect as it was.
“I don’t have any answers, but I agree, we can’t continue to be isolated from the outside world.” Too many Springers had left. Maybe they’d been glad to become normal, after a while. Given the way their population had dwindled, a lot of Springers had been happy to embrace whatever change being out of the bubble brought them.
“You like her, don’t you?” Susan asked with a gentle smile.
He didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. “I don’t like anyone,” he said, perhaps a bit too defensively.
Susan’s smile didn’t last. “She will need you to protect her, if she’s going to stay.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Clint stared at the councilwoman, his friend, a distant cousin — as so many of the Springers were. “It’s bad enough that you’ve got her living right next door to…”
“She loves the house, and I don’t think she’s met any of her neighbors. She’s not likely to, not anytime soon. You know how they are. It’ll be fine.”
Fine. Nothing was fine, but he didn’t bother to argue the point.
“And couldn’t you have put her in another house? If she finds out…”
“If she finds out and is displeased, we’ll find her another place to live. Alice’s place was move-in ready. Most of the others need some work.”
As houses did, when they were neglected.
“I don’t think she’ll be displeased. I think she’ll freak out.”
“Well then, I guess we’d better make sure she doesn’t find out.”
There was no immediate response from Nelson Lovell, but then Marnie hadn’t really expected one. He might not check his email every day, or he might be in the middle of the woods, anywhere in the world, setting up cameras and hoping, as she had, for a photograph to prove what he believed – what he knew – to be true. According to his book he traveled a lot, exploring this country and others in search of Bigfoot.
Then again, he might have an assistant who deleted all the crazy messages that came in. Her message might’ve been deleted after a glance.
She needed a picture.
Her navy skirt had a pocket, so she chose it for the day, along with a white blouse and her red shoes. She loved red shoes, and these heels were her favorites. Her cell phone went into the pocket. It would be close at all times, even though she didn’t expect to see Bigfoot in the library.
As had become her habit, she walked to work. This morning, her neighbor to the east was sitting on his front porch. Marnie waved as she walked down her own porch steps. The old man rocked once, then turned his head and looked at her, but did not return her greeting. She was hor
rified to realize that her neighbor was the one who’d glared at her so hatefully just yesterday, in Eve’s place. She would not be borrowing a cup of sugar — or whatever else neighbors borrowed from one another — from him, she imagined.
She had other things on her mind this morning, and quickly put the surly neighbor from her mind. The library closed at noon on Thursday and Saturday. Sunday was her only full day off, but the two half days made up for that. After lunch she’d put on her running shoes and explore the land between the rear of the library and the river. Maybe she’d work her way over to the woods behind her house. There were plenty of places for creatures to hide there.
Not after dark, though. She wouldn’t be able to get a good picture after dark. Yeah, that was the reason she intended to be inside with the doors locked behind her when darkness fell.
Instead of her usual oatmeal, muffins from Ivy’s, along with a big cup of coffee, had served as breakfast. Ivy, while not so pleasant, was as talented as her sister in the kitchen. They must’ve grown up in a household where they learned how to cook, and to do it well. Marnie’s own mother, bless her heart, was great with take-out and could put together a fantastic lasagna, but beyond that she wasn’t much of a cook. One of the stepmothers who’d been around during Marnie’s teenage years had been a great cook, but she hadn’t lasted long enough to teach her unhappy stepdaughter anything. Marnie wondered if Eve and Ivy gave lessons. Would they share their culinary secrets? A cooking school! That would be perfect. She’d attend the Mystic Springs Culinary Academy in a heartbeat.
If she got the chance. She’d only been in town a few days, but it was looking less and less like she’d stay for any length of time. The library was fantastic, except for the lack of users. The town was charming, if you discounted the “don’t go out after dark” warning, the murder of the last librarian, and the glares she got from far too many of the locals. “Charming” would only balance out so much.
Bigfoot and the Librarian Page 7