The Book of Candlelight

by Ellery Adams

  “I thought that too,” said Nora. “She looks smart. And interesting. Like someone you’d want to sit next to at a dinner party.”

  Lou looked up at Nora. “Thank you for bringing this. And I’m glad you found me because I wanted to show you something. I just hope it doesn’t put you off your dinner.”

  “Nothing does that,” Nora joked, and followed Lou into the library.

  The crystal casket holding the diary was sitting in the middle of an empty shelf.

  “Did you finish reading it?” Nora asked, although she already knew the answer. “The diary?”

  “Are you kidding? I couldn’t do anything else. Rose Lattimer was an incredible woman. I’ll tell you more about her at dinner, but I wanted you to see what happened to the end.”

  To the end. Not at the end, Nora thought, feeling uneasy. Had the book been damaged?

  Lou took the diary out of the box and opened to a section marked by a piece of string. Nora couldn’t help herself. She let out an involuntary gasp when she saw that a chunk of pages had been ripped out of the book. The jagged edges of paper protruded from the gutter like spikes on a stegosaurus.

  “What a shame,” Nora said. She quietly stared at the ruined pages and then pointed at a blob of dried candle wax on the inside of the back cover. “Are there candle wax stains on any of the pages?”

  Lou showed Nora a page with several round, oily marks. “Several pages have these.”

  Nora nodded. “Rose must have written her entries at the end of the day. By candlelight. It’s not uncommon to find wax stains on old books. But those torn pages? That’s deliberate. And they were torn with haste, violence, or both. The hinge might have been damaged by the action. Did her entry on the previous page hint at why she destroyed the end of her diary?”

  “I think she was pregnant,” said Lou in a near whisper. “She never says so outright, but she talks about being tired and how her body felt strange. At first, I thought she was worn out from nursing soldiers—this house served as a makeshift hospital during the Civil War—but when she mentioned that certain smells were making her nauseated, I decided that it was more than fatigue.”

  Lou caressed the cover before returning the diary to the box. “I’ll tell you more about Rose while we eat.”

  Though disappointed that she hadn’t been invited to read Rose’s diary firsthand, Nora told Lou that she’d finished evaluating the books in the steamer trunks. Lou wasn’t concerned about the damage done by Rose’s dried flower petals. All she cared about was the small trunk containing what were probably Rose’s personal possessions.

  “You seem really connected to her,” Nora said as they headed back to the dining room. “Is it just because she owned this house or is there another reason?”

  “Rose Lattimer was a remarkable woman. She would have done anything for this house and the people in it. I feel the same way.” A curtain fell over Lou’s features, as if she’d revealed too much. Nora realized that she’d seen the same expression on Lou’s face the night she’d first opened Rose’s diary.

  What does she know about Rose that she wants to keep hidden? Nora silently wondered.

  Lou led her out of the room. “Thanks for going through those trunks,” she said. The brightness in her voice sounded forced. “Let me know what we owe you for your time.”

  Nora wanted to wash her hands before dinner. Since the downstairs bathroom was occupied and Lou was filling a water pitcher in the kitchen, Patty told Nora to use the bathroom in her room.

  “Until Lou and I move into the carriage house, we’re inhabiting guest rooms. Mine is at the top of the stairs, first door on the right.”

  My room. Not ours.

  Were Lou and Patty a couple or not?

  Nora didn’t want to invade Patty’s space more than she had to, so she walked straight into the bathroom and washed her hands. On her way back through the bedroom, she noticed a pottery vase on the nightstand. It had been incised with geometric swirls, much like the ones painted on Cherokee Rock.

  Nora couldn’t stop herself from crossing the room and taking the vase in her hands. She knew, even before she turned it over, that she’d find Danny’s initials and his Red Bird symbol on the bottom. And she was right.

  Unlike the bowl in Nora’s house, however, a number was etched inside the bird’s body.

  “Fifty-four,” Nora mumbled. “What does that mean?”

  The glaze on the vase was very dark. Instead of the molasses-brown glaze Danny had used on the utilitarian ware for sale at the flea market, this glaze was black. It was the black of a raven’s wing. Or a shark eye. It had a slight sheen, as if life were stirring deep inside the glaze where it met the clay.

  Nora had never seen a piece like this one at the flea market. The body of the vase was round, like a full belly, and the designs scratched into the clay reminded Nora of water lines on a map.

  Putting the vase exactly where she’d found it, Nora left Patty’s room and went in search of Lou’s. She was being unforgivingly rude. After all, owning a piece of Danny’s pottery was hardly nefarious behavior. Danny’s pottery probably adorned lots of nightstands, tables, kitchen counters, and bookshelves in Miracle Springs. It made sense that two women who clearly appreciated fine craftsmanship would have purchased his work. Still, Nora wanted to know if Lou and Patty had one piece. Or more.

  Nora found more blackware in Lou’s room, which was obviously Lou’s based on the collection of paint chips, books on North Carolina architecture, and a spreadsheet showing the estimated cost of the renovations.

  Moving quickly, Nora walked over to a wide-mouthed vase and turned it over. The number forty-one was etched inside the red bird. The designs on the vase were more elaborate than Patty’s. The glaze was as dark and glossy as onyx.

  Replacing the vase, Nora approached two more pieces sitting on a candlestand in the corner of the room. One was a footed bowl and the other looked like some sort of smoking pot or pipe. The birds were marked with the numbers thirty-seven and twenty-two.

  Four pieces. Lou and Patty are clearly fans of Danny’s work, Nora thought.

  Collecting the work of a local artist wasn’t at all unusual, and Nora decided to ask about the vase in Patty’s room over dinner. She was curious to hear about the interaction between Danny and her hostesses. How long ago had they bought the pieces from him? Had they heard of him before moving to Miracle Springs or met him at the flea market?

  I don’t remember seeing pieces like theirs at the flea market, Nora thought.

  On the stairs, she encountered a young man with walnut-colored skin and shoulder-length dreadlocks. Small shells were tied to some of the locks and they made soft clicking sounds when he moved. He paused on his step and glanced up at her.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m Micah.”

  Nora introduced herself. Micah raised his hand in a wave and Nora noticed a small compass tattoo on his wrist.

  “Does it point to someplace special?” she asked, gesturing at the tattoo.

  He touched it with his fingertip. “Nah. I want to explore in every direction. I don’t care where I go. I just want to keep moving.”

  “I’m guessing that your dream job doesn’t involve a desk or a cubicle.”

  “Does anyone’s?” After flashing her a shy grin, Micah said that he was going to his room to read and resumed his ascent.

  Nora smiled and continued down the stairs.

  In the dining room, several tables had been pushed together to form one long table. A flower arrangement in pastel hues sat on a lacy cloth. The sideboard had been laid with an array of sumptuous-looking dishes.

  “Pile your plates nice and high, folks,” Lou told her guests. “Patty always makes enough to feed an army.”

  Nora deliberately delayed in order to be the last guest in line. She dropped a scoop of potato salad on her plate when Lou got in line behind her.

  Nora passed her the serving spoon. In a low voice, she casually asked, “Have you and Patty met Danny Amo-adawe
hi? The Cherokee potter?”

  Lou scrunched her lips in concentration. “The name isn’t familiar, and that isn’t an easy one to forget. Why do you ask?”

  Nora shot a glance at Lou. Didn’t she read the paper? Hadn’t she heard the townsfolk talking about his death? Could she truly be oblivious that the man who’d died during the rainstorm had made the blackware pieces in her bedroom?

  Lou didn’t wait for Nora to reply. Instead, she made a point of turning away to ask Patty if all their guests had enough to drink.

  She’s lying, Nora thought.

  She couldn’t focus on the food in front of her. She put things on her plate without paying attention to what she was doing.

  Why did Lou lie?

  Suddenly, Nora heard her cell phone ring. Though she’d left her purse in the kitchen, she knew it was hers. Her ringtone was an instrumental song from The Lord of the Rings.

  “Sorry, I forgot to mute that,” she told the room at large. She left her plate on the sideboard and hurried out of the room.

  “Manners, Galadriel!” Sheldon called after her.

  By the time Nora got to her kitchen, her phone had stopped ringing. Her screen showed a string of texts, all from June. The missed call had been from her too. Without reading the texts, Nora dialed her friend’s number.

  “Nora!” June’s voice was breathy, panicked. “I need help!”

  Nora’s blood froze. She’d never heard June sound so scared. No, not scared. Terrified.

  “Are you at home?”

  “Yes. Hurry.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Nora sprinted down the hall and out the front door. Without bothering to strap on her helmet, she fired up the moped, backed out of her spot, and drove away.

  As she sped off, she saw a woman’s figure darken the inn’s doorway.

  It was Lou.

  Nora could feel the other woman’s eyes on her, but it didn’t matter. Her thoughts were entirely trained on June.

  She willed her moped to go faster, faster.

  Four minutes later, she pulled into June’s driveway and gasped in horror.

  Someone had painted a word across the front of June’s house.

  Someone had committed a hate crime.

  Chapter 10

  Hate is like a swordfish,

  working through the water invisibly

  and then you see it coming

  with blood along its blade.

  —Pablo Neruda

  Tearing her gaze from the painted letters, Nora looked around for June.

  She knocked on her friend’s front door. She waited. Knocked again. No one answered. The house was dark and still.

  Dread crept up Nora’s spine, raising gooseflesh on her arms and the back of her neck.

  “June!” she called, turning this way and that on her friend’s front porch.

  There was no reply.

  Nora walked around the entire house. Her footfalls sounded too loud in the silence. She saw shadows move on the edge of the yard. They were quick and low to the ground.

  Cats, Nora thought, releasing a held breath.

  Cats. But no June.

  Nora returned to the driveway where she finally spotted her friend.

  June was sitting in her car, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Her shoulders shook, and Nora could hear her friend’s powerful sobs before she even opened the passenger door.

  “I’m here,” she said, sliding her arm around June and pulling her close. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  June buried her face in Nora’s shoulder and cried. She didn’t speak. She just poured out her feelings in guttural sobs and hitches of breath.

  Nora made soothing noises while rubbing gentle circles on her friend’s back.

  After a time, June’s body shook less. Her cries weakened and dissolved into sniffles.

  When she sat upright and began to dig around in the door pocket, Nora broke the silence.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” she softly asked.

  June kept rummaging. “I know I have napkins in here. I know I do. I always keep napkins in here.”

  Nora waited while June found what she was looking for. After her friend had wiped her face and blown her nose, Nora repeated her question.

  “Lord, I haven’t cried like that in years,” June said. “But look what I came home to.” She gestured at the house with a limp flick of her wrist. “I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t know why. I don’t know who. I just came home, and there it was.”

  “Okay. Let’s try to figure things out. First of all, when do you think this happened?”

  June’s eyes strayed to her house. “When I was at work, I guess. It wasn’t there this morning, which means somebody did this in broad daylight.”

  The angry red letters glared at them. Each one was painted on a slant, and every brushstroke looked aggressive. Combative. Thin streams of extra paint had dribbled down the siding. The overall effect made Nora think of blood. Of violence.

  “No one’s called me that godforsaken word since I was in elementary school,” June said. “I remember the last time like it was yesterday. It was a boy on my bus. We were both from the same neighborhood. It was a rundown, rough neighborhood. His family was white, but my family owned a car. It was a junker, but it ran. That wore on this kid—that we had wheels and he didn’t. One day, as we were getting off the bus, he pushed me into a seat and whispered, ‘What does a nigger need a car for anyway?’ ”

  Nora heard the pain in June’s voice. The memory might be old, but it had left its mark. The words had scarred. Everyone had old wounds that never stopped hurting. For June, that wound had been ripped open, exposing her to fresh pain.

  “The day on the bus, I didn’t say a thing to that boy,” June went on. “I wish I’d given him what for. I wasn’t scared. I was just too shocked to move. He cut me into a million pieces in a few seconds.” She gestured at the red letters again. “When I drove into my driveway and saw this on my house, I was that girl again. I was on that bus, shocked into helplessness.”

  Nora was furious on June’s behalf, but June didn’t need her anger. She needed a friend.

  “What can I do to help?” Nora asked. “Have you called 911? Do you want me to?”

  June shook her head. “What’s the point? What can they do? Take pictures of my house? Ask the neighbors if they saw anything?”

  “They can find out who did this. You know the sheriff. He’ll take this seriously. This is a hate crime.”

  “You know the sheriff,” June snapped. “He’s your friend. I don’t have lunch with him. I’ve never even been to that soul food place you two are so crazy about. I’m just another citizen with a problem he needs to fix.”

  Nora didn’t shrink away from June’s anger. She’d rather see June irate than defeated. Anger meant that she’d be willing to fight for justice. However, it wasn’t up to Nora to make decisions for her friend. Not in this case. She couldn’t begin to understand how the racial slur made her friend feel. She couldn’t know the lacerating shock of seeing it painted across the front of her house in bold letters. And because she couldn’t know, she sat in silence and waited for June to decide what to do.

  “I keep wondering who I pissed off,” June said after a few minutes. “Someone from work? A guest I interacted with at the pools? A salesperson at a store? A teller at the bank? I can’t come up with anything. If I did something to offend someone this much, I didn’t realize it.”

  Nora said, “No one did this because of an unintentional slight. This is . . . rage.”

  An image of a man pressing down so hard on the button of the spray paint can that it left a round indentation on his index finger appeared in Nora’s mind. Before she could think about why she’d automatically pictured a male, June let out a heavy sigh.

  “Make the call,” she said. After a heartbeat, she added, “Please.”

  Nora called Sheriff McCabe’s cell phone.

  After listening to her s
ummarize what had happened, he told both women to stay put.

  “I’m getting in the car now. Be there in ten minutes.”

  He got there in eight, and he wasn’t alone. A second car, driven by Deputy Fuentes, pulled in behind the car carrying Sheriff McCabe and Deputy Andrews.

  The three men directed flashlight beams around the yard before regrouping on June’s front path. They stood, hands on hips, and stared at the word painted on her home.

  “Be right back,” Nora told June, and got out of the car.

  Andrews swiveled toward the sound of the car door closing and marched across the lawn to meet Nora. “Where’s Ms. Dixon? Is she okay?”

  Nora saw the genuine concern on his face and wished June could see it too. “She’s in the car. And no, she’s not okay.”

  “Physically, I mean. Is she hurt?”

  “No. She’s rattled. Who wouldn’t be?” Nora fought to keep the anger out of her voice as McCabe and Fuentes joined them. “She has no idea who did this. She hasn’t had any altercations—not so much as a harsh word with a coworker, a neighbor, or a stranger. She just came home to that.”

  They all glanced at the word.

  “I saw this kind of shit on a daily basis where I used to live, but this is the first time I’ve seen it here,” Fuentes said. His brown eyes were dark with anger.

  McCabe put a hand on his deputy’s shoulder. “We need to make sure this is the first and last case.”

  While the sheriff and Andrews spoke to June, who refused to leave her car, Fuentes took photos of her house.

  The camera flash illuminated the bushes lining June’s front porch and startled a handful of cats from their hiding places. They dashed across the yard, heading for the area of clumped bushes and trees separating June’s property from her neighbor’s.

  From somewhere behind the house, a cat started meowing. The sound was shrill and plaintive, like the cry of a hungry baby. Nora wished it would stop, but the cat’s wail quickly infected the other cats, and before long, a chorus of dissonant yowls filled the night.

  “This is some spooky shit,” Fuentes muttered. His camera flash increased in intensity, as if he wanted to finish his task in a hurry.