Burning Books

by Sharon Gerlach

  A short while later, the front doors of the building ejected a chattering mass of people. Some wandered off in pairs or groups of three. Others, like Magnus, broke from the group and headed out alone. The orange streetlamp made the raindrops glisten in his dark hair before he tugged his hood up over his head, checked traffic, and dashed across the street to his car.

  The car in front of Molly had left shortly after it began to rain, making it easy for her to pull out behind him. She kept a few car lengths between them as he entered I-5, almost losing him once when a couple of cars forced their way into the space. She found him again when he took the exit for Martin Luther King Jr. Way and cut off into the Bryn Mawr-Skyway neighborhood, eventually pulling into the drive of a small cottage-style house set at the far back of the lot. Molly hung back half a block, just barely able to see part of the exquisitely landscaped yard lit by solar garden lights.

  Now the problem became not how to find Cecily’s house, for she presumed this was it, but how to approach Magnus and convince him to give her back the book. He was likely to go nuclear when he discovered that she’d followed him.

  She was still debating the issue when he came back out of the house, half jogging through the steady rain to his car. He climbed in and headed off in the opposite direction. She waited for ten minutes to be sure he wasn’t coming right back, then got out of her car and trotted up the street to Cecily’s house.

  This gloomy April didn’t do the cottage justice, although the rain seemed to have spurred the garden into overdrive. Rhododendrons bobbed as the rain filled their blooms to the tipping point, daffodils popping their bright heads among their glossy foliage. Glimpses of vibrant tulips, closed for the night, promised daytime splendor.

  Magnus hadn’t turned on the porch light, for which she was grateful. Although the cottage sat well back from the street and laurel hedges lined each side, creating a living fence between Cecily and her neighbors, and only a dim light glowed from the front window, Molly still felt as though a spotlight followed her as she trespassed onto the porch and tried the knob. Locked. Then she gave herself a mental shake. Good Lord, what was she doing? Magnus had left both his group session and Cecily’s house alone. She was probably still inside, now scared out of her wits as Molly jiggled her doorknob.

  So she did the only thing she could do to keep from being mistaken as a robber or worse: she raised her hand and knocked. The sound, though she knocked lightly, sounded like gunfire in the rainy stillness of the evening.

  No one answered. She skipped down the steps and carefully picked her way through the lush peonies, shrubs, and painted daisy fronds below the front-room window, cupping her hands around her eyes to block out glare from her peripheral vision as she peered inside between the panels of a lace-edged curtain. Not the front room, then, but a tiny country kitchen with an equally tiny dining-room table by the window. The dim glow in the room came from the light over the stove and showed her what she needed through the doorway to another room: sliding doors at the back of the house, one of them open a few inches to let in the cool air and scent of the rain.

  She crept around to the back, thinking how she’d be in a fine mess if Magnus came back right now and caught her breaking and entering his friend’s home. But she needed that book. Needed it bad enough that she didn’t think twice about using her keys to slice through the nylon screen fabric by the handle of the sliding door. They hadn’t put a bar in the track to stop the doors from being opened wider, so Molly was able to push it wide enough to let herself in.

  A beautiful iron bed dominated the small room. In keeping with the country feel of the cottage, the bed was topped with an old-fashioned double-wedding-ring quilt. An afghan was draped neatly over the footboard. A small, round skirted table flanked one side of the bed; a leaf-green wingback chair flanked the other. Red silk scarves tied to the iron frame of the bedstead jarred the otherwise serene mood Cecily had created in her room. Blood rushed to Molly’s cheeks in a painful blush at the testimony of those scarves.

  She turned away from the bed. She wouldn’t dwell on it. In fact, she couldn’t abandon fast enough the evidence of Magnus’s somewhat kinky sexual involvement with his friend. And there was no time for speculation, anyway—he could come back any minute, or Cecily could come home.

  Thick carpet masked her footfalls as she crept into the hallway. Straight ahead was the tiny kitchen with its cozy table. To her right was a miniscule bathroom, door open and dark but for a glint of light from the kitchen. To her left, comprising half of the house, was a living area that Cecily had cleverly used furniture to divide into two entirely separate areas. The back half held the television and a cushy sofa, an ottoman serving dual duty as a footrest and a coffee table. The front half, a cozy seating arrangement with two love seats facing each other over a whitewashed shabby-chic coffee table. The table’s lower shelf held a stack of what looked like scrapbooks or photo albums. She didn’t see anything small enough to be her burning book.

  The front-room drapes were closed against the night, so Molly risked using her cell phone as a flashlight to scan a tall, whitewashed bookcase that helped divide the room. Seconds flew past at alarming speed, each one ramping her heart rate into the panic zone. Any second he’d be back, and she’d only scanned one shelf. Wait . . . had she looked at it thoroughly? Panic made her hasty, made her careless.

  What would Cary advise? Take several deep breaths. She did. Her heart slowed pace. Easy now. Quick but thorough. Use a finger to scan the spines, and watch just where your finger is to keep your focus. Her finger whizzed over the spines of the top shelf. No book. She moved on.

  There, on the bottom shelf, at the end closest to the wall, she found her book jammed cheek by jowl with a number of old poetry volumes, blending in and mostly unnoticeable.

  “Magnus, you liar,” she muttered. She tucked the book into the waistband of her pants and zipped her jacket over it so it wouldn’t get wet on her journey back to her car.

  The sound of a car door outside made her freeze in place in the doorway of the bedroom. Heart thudding in her chest, she tiptoed slowly to the kitchen window to peer out and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Just the neighbors across the street, getting into their vehicle to leave. She backed away from the window to be less visible, her elbow catching and knocking over a cardboard cup. Starbucks, of course. What else would it be in Seattle? On reflex, her eyes sought out the machine-printed order label some franchises stuck to the side of the cup. Tl Skn Cdl Lat.

  Tall Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.

  She froze. Ice filled her heart, seeping through her veins to all parts of her body. Her hand shook as she picked up the cup, closed her eyes and counted to three, and opened them again. It was still a Tall Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.

  It didn’t mean anything. Lots of people liked Starbucks’ Cinnamon Dolce Lattes. She willed her heart to a slower beat and set down the cup, her fingers fumbling to let go. It fell over, bouncing on the plastic lid and rolling back and forth. Her eyes moved to the window.

  Scattered across the deep windowsill were fictional relics come to life: whole sand dollars, five eelgrass limpet shells, a turtle made of big clear marbles, all around a centerpiece that stole Molly’s breath and left her mind in clawing panic. A large glass jar, filled with bits of pastel sea glass.

  Pretty rocks from the sea, polished like glass—did he somehow know I had a huge glass jar filled with sea glass?

  And on the heels of that, she remembered Idiot Woman’s distress when she found her jar of sea glass moved to the kitchen window. I didn’t put it there. I know I didn’t put it there.

  The books weren’t a story—they were diaries. Cecily’s diaries.

  ∞4∞

  As fast as her mind flashed to the photo albums in the living room, she heard a car pull into the drive, close to the house. Magnus. She backed out of the kitchen, one wary, careful step at a time, then spun and skirted the bed in three strides, silently letting herself out through the sliding doo
r she’d left open as Magnus came in the front. He carried two large paper bags of groceries, which he dumped unceremoniously on the table, sending the cup spinning off the edge. Under the cover of the rustle of paper bags, she eased the sliding screen closed, tiptoed to the back of the property, and let herself into the back alley through a white-picket gate.

  She ran to the end of the block, circled back onto the street, and sprinted for her car. Executing a panicked U-turn as though hell itself chased her, she sped away from Cecily’s house. Her heart thudded, making her breath come short. Her hands went numb. She pulled to the shoulder of the road and held them in front of the heat vents until she could feel them again.

  Cess said that you might have found some magic books. She said that your name printed in them might be glyphs. The magic is in the glyph, and it’s triggered when you read it.

  And Cecily would know, because this was Cecily’s story, printed and bound into gorgeous leather volumes and infused with magic. Why had she done it—and why had she involved Molly? How had she done it?

  The Augury Group. Researchers of magic and the paranormal—or purveyors of such?

  She checked traffic and pulled the car back onto the road when it was clear. There was no telling how long it would take for Magnus to realize she’d broken in and stolen back her book. Her tasks for the evening were clear: try to find an address for the Augury Group, and read this book before Magnus could thieve it again.

  Molly locked herself in her bedroom with a cup of Bailey’s-laced coffee and the third burning book. Even should Magnus immediately discover its theft, he wouldn’t be able to get to her in time to stop her from reading.

  But oh God . . . she was scared now that Idiot Woman had a name, now that Molly knew the story was real. Scared to read because what if Cecily were . . . and what if Magnus had . . .

  Stop it. Just stop it and read!

  A deep breath steadied her. Another one calmed her. The whiskey-laced coffee gave her courage. Molly opened the book to the middle, flexed it back until the spine crackled, then turned to the first page.

  I met my stalker today. Or I should say, I met one of my stalkers today. How do I know there’s more than one? Because this one is sweet and gentle and kind and brings gifts like Starbucks’ Skinny Cinnamon Dolce lattes and sea glass. The other breaks into my house and moves things around, looks through my photo albums, ties me to the bed with red silk while I sleep.

  When he let himself in the gate, I mistook him for a passerby seeking directions. I’m sorry to bother you, he said. I replied, Take two rights from the corner of this street, go four blocks, and you’re back to MLK Way. For a moment, his mouth worked to form words, and finally those words broke free. I’m not lost. And his hand, held behind his back, suddenly thrust a daisy toward me. My daisy, picked from my yard, unless by coincidence he’d come upon someone else in the neighborhood with daisies of the same vibrant hue. I’d not seen any myself. Which meant he’d been here before I came out to tend the garden.

  We had coffee in the kitchen table by the windows, where we could look out at the garden when words failed us. He’d tried to refuse to come inside, saying we should stay outside where we were visible to the neighbors, who were all working in their yards. We don’t know each other¸ he said. But we do. He’s kind and sweet and thoughtful. He pays attention. No one else I know is aware of my cinnamon latte addiction.

  Molly marveled at the woman’s stupidity. Of course, he knew the things she liked—he’d no doubt been through her garbage. And most likely, he was the one who’d been through her house, too, moving her jar of sea glass, leaving open her photo albums, tying her to the bed . . .

  Conversation should be easy between two people who know so much about each other. But it wasn’t. Words came with difficulty. He finally stammered something about how beautiful the day was and then fell completely silent. His body tensed as though he’d been frozen, his eyes full of mute horror at how badly this was going. I knew he was going to bolt for the door. My hand twitched toward him. He seized it like a lifeline, knocking against his coffee cup as he reached. Coffee spilled over the rim, soaking the tablecloth. Neither of us made any move to mop it up. He raised my hand, his lips just barely grazing my knuckles.

  I’ve been watching you for a while, trying to get the courage to speak to you.

  A shiver of recognition made Molly shudder. Had she read this before? But no—it didn’t fit with the narrative she remembered from the previous two books. She sipped her coffee, for some reason remembering the morning Magnus had made waffles and she’d forgotten to make coffee. He’d dripped egg and syrup on the table, and for some reason she’d thought he’d spilled coffee . . .

  It came to her then, the odd daydream she’d roused herself from to find her hands clawed around the cover of the book. Now Cecily’s companion would turn dark and menacing, grinding together the bones of her hands in his powerful grip. Her eyes found her place in the narrative, her mind struggling to comprehend it because it didn’t match her daydream.

  He looked apologetic for both his secret watching and spilling his coffee. He reached for a kitchen towel to clean it up. Have you seen anyone else watching me? I wondered if he’d seen my other stalker. I knew who the other one was, but I’d be unable to prove it unless I had a witness. Even my own father flat-out refused to believe me.

  No. But sometimes, I’ve felt like I was being watched myself. I thought it was you, but often you weren’t home.

  Idiot woman! There he was, admitting he skulked about her property when she wasn’t home—and he’d watched enough to know she wasn’t home—and still the alarm bells hadn’t started ringing in her head. How marvelously foolish and old-fashioned to trust your safety to a stranger you’d invited into your home, especially after he admitted to stalking you.

  Will you meet me at a coffee shop? I’d feel more comfortable—it’d be more appropriate.

  And I did, because I didn’t want our time together to end so soon, not after all these weeks of waiting to meet him. We went to a nearby coffeehouse, where we talked for hours. Even after he paid our bill, we lingered for a while longer. And just as I was about to say we should go, not because I wanted to but because there were people in the lobby waiting for a table, he pulled a small present from his jacket pocket. The wrapping paper had butterflies flitting among garden blooms.

  It reminded me of your garden. The wrapping paper, I mean. He pushed the gift across the table to me. I wanted to give this in person, so I finally just came through the gate while you were outside rather than walk past like I usually do.

  You didn’t have to get me anything. But I picked up the box before he could take it back.

  I wanted to. Open it while we’re together. Please.

  I unwrapped it carefully, setting aside the wrapping paper in one piece because ripping it seemed sacrilege when he’d chosen it with such thoughtfulness. A dark-blue velvet jewelry box promised treasure. It also looked expensive. I wanted to protest again at such a gift, but I couldn’t bear to squash his excitement. I opened the box.

  Her phone chimed the special tone she’d chosen for Cary. She marked her place with a bookmark she kept on her bedside table and set the book aside, grabbing up her phone.

  Did you follow him?

  She tapped out Yes. Her fingers paused, hovering over the keypad, debating on whether she should tell him she suspected Idiot Woman was Magnus’s friend. She would then have to admit to the strong possibility that Magnus had been one of Cecily’s stalkers. Besides, she wasn’t even sure that Cecily was the narrator, that these were her diaries. A jar of sea glass and some other odds and ends in common didn’t make an ironclad case.

  A tap sent the single-word message. A chime brought one in return: And?

  I found the book. He almost caught me there, too. The lying, squirrely bastard.

  And just what would Magnus have done if he’d caught her in Cecily’s house, stealing back what he’d stolen from her? Would he have wrestled h
er for the book, or would he have just let her go? Or maybe he’d have kept her there until Cecily returned home and asked if she wanted to call the police and press charges for trespassing.

  Still on for tomorrow night?

  Of course. But what if Magnus realizes the book is missing and comes home to steal it again before I have a chance to read it?

  “Go ahead and read it” was the response she expected. After all, there were two more books he could watch burn, neither of them in danger of theft.

  Then come over tonight. My children are gone. I’ve been doing nothing but poking through boxes in storage, looking for some odds and ends I haven’t seen since Lee vanished.

  Molly smiled, imagining him in dusty jeans and a smudged T-shirt, cobwebs in his hair. Important things?

  No, just trinkets. It’s possible she got rid of them during the missing year, and I just don’t remember it. Coming over?

  On my way.

  She only took the time to throw together the necessities—and the promised “something better”—and dashed out to her car. A car crept up the street toward the house as she pulled out of the driveway. Molly hardly dared to breathe as she passed it, then sagged in relief when she saw her elderly neighbor in the driver’s seat. Not Magnus.

  Cary waited on his porch with an umbrella, just like last time, unfurling it as she climbed out of the car. This time, however, he stole a kiss before ushering her inside out of the chill. Molly’s blood heated, a flare of desire that cooled as they handled the mundane—hanging her coat, kicking off their wet shoes—and then flared again when he tossed the umbrella into a corner to dry and took her in his arms, kissing her thoroughly.