Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

“Ma’am.” Lyndon Forster, the caretaker and last night’s chauffeur, nodded. I knew better than to expect a long-winded greeting. He looked less ominous in the morning light, just craggy and sun-darkened. “Sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Not that it will matter much longer,” a graying brunette said from across the table. She must have been in her early fifties, and she seemed to be made entirely of curves. Jeans and a blue plaid shirt barely held in a plush body, and the theme continued in cheeks rounded like apricots, blue eyes, and even a ball at the tip of her nose.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. They couldn’t have found out about me already, could they?

  “Hush, Roz,” said the third person, a comfortably built woman with pink frosted lipstick, big hair, and a leopard blazer over a T-shirt and jeans. “Don’t you listen to her. She’s never been a glass-half-full gal. I’m Darla, the trustee in charge of the hiring committee. You interviewed with me.” Darla rose and stuck out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. Bet you’d like a cup of coffee about now. You had a late night.”

  “Roslyn Grover,” the brunette said, offering a hand. “Everyone calls me Roz. I’m assistant librarian.”

  Darla poured a mug of coffee with the flourish of a longtime waitress and pushed a jug of cream across the table. “The library will be closed today while you settle in. Before we get down to your responsibilities, I wanted to meet with you first thing. We have something”—she stole a glance at Roz—“sensitive to talk about.”

  Lyndon sucked the rest of his coffee from his mug. “Got to rake the side yard. Best be moving on.”

  “Sure. What is it?” I asked hesitantly as the kitchen door shut behind him. I had to wonder if I’d be bundled into his truck in a few hours and sent back to the airport.

  “Now, I don’t want you to get alarmed.”

  “Okay,” I said, my apprehension deepening.

  “It has to do with the Wilfred mansion. And the library.” Darla took her seat again at the table.

  “It’s getting ugly,” Roz said. “The whole town’s divided.” Her skin reddened, and she flipped open the fan on the table beside her. “Hot flash. Caffeine brings them on.” The fan moved double-time. “That, and stress.”

  “Roz, you stay out of it.”

  Wide-eyed, I looked from one woman to the other. It didn’t sound like the issue had to do with me, but I wasn’t ready to breathe a sigh of relief just yet. On the other hand, whatever the situation was, as long as it didn’t involve hit men, I’d deal with it.

  Darla set down her mug. “I’m sorry to spring it on you like this, but you see—” “Georgia on My Mind” erupted from her purse. “Excuse me.” She pulled out her phone, then wrinkled her nose and dropped her phone back into her bag. “We have a situation, and I’ve got to run.” She turned to Roz. “Why don’t you bring Josie to the diner? I’ll explain it all then.”

  A moment later, the door shut, and only Roz and I were left in the kitchen.

  Worry—a feeling I’d been all too familiar with lately—sparked in my chest. “What’s happening with the library?”

  “Come on,” Roz said. “I’ll tell you about it on the way to breakfast.”

  * * *

  “Darla never hinted at any kind of trouble in the job interview,” I told Roz as we left through the kitchen door. I noticed a cat door and was about to ask about the black cat I’d seen last night, when Roz spoke.

  “I told her she shouldn’t hire you on false pretenses. But does she ever listen to me? Does anyone?”

  “What false pretenses? What should she have told me?”

  “Darla’s a library trustee.”

  I nodded. “Got that.”

  “She also owns Darla’s Tavern and Diner and the Magnolia Rolling Estates trailer park. Basically, she’s Wilfred’s de facto mayor.”

  “I didn’t know you had magnolias in the Pacific Northwest.” A sudden memory came to me of fat, creamy petals falling in my grandmother’s garden.

  “We don’t. Not native ones, anyway, but Darla loves the South. Always has grits on her menu. The library subscribes to Southern Dame because of her.” Roz stopped just on the other side of the library and turned toward the river below. “Isn’t that a view? I never get over it.”

  The sky was bluer than I’d ever known a sky to be. Every throatful of air was fresher than spring water after a run. My senses were working on all pistons. I felt like life had exploded into Technicolor, as if I’d boarded my flight as one person and left as another.

  Down the bluff, beyond the river, the tiny town we’d driven through last night hugged the road. Imagine a cross, with the road as the north-south axis and the river running east-west. The library, including its grounds, the caretaker’s cottage, and the other large house, filled the southwest quadrant. Wilfred proper straddled the road on the northern squares of the cross.

  “That must be Darla’s restaurant.” I pointed to the low-slung tavern I’d seen last night. This morning, dirty pickup trucks and SUVs filled the front lot.

  “Yep, that’s it. Closer, here by the Kirby—that’s the river’s name—is the trailer park where I live.”

  “What’s that building, the one with the bay windows?”

  “The old commercial block. Built in the twenties. Next door is the post office. It’s a grocery store now. Across the highway”—she pointed to the woods on our side of the river—“is the old mill site. The mill is long gone, but the mill pond is still there.”

  We stood a moment, each thinking our own thoughts, mine having to do with the “crisis” I’d heard about. Birds cooed. The proud old library sat up like a spinster aunt at church, tidy and straight.

  “It’s crazy that the house’s best view is over the river toward town, but the front—the big driveway and porch—faces the other direction,” Roz said.

  “Hmm. Maybe they liked seeing the woods.”

  “More likely they didn’t like seeing everyone else. That would be just like the Wilfreds.”

  Town history was interesting, but my immediate future grabbed me more. Time to get to the point. “So, Darla owns land in town. What does that have to do with the library?”

  Roz led me to a wooded trail along the bluff. “We’ll take this to the bridge. It’s shorter than going by the driveway and road. See that house?” She seemed almost deliberate in her attempt to keep me from asking questions.

  “Yes.” It was the house I’d glimpsed last night through the trees.

  “We call it Big House. Even though, technically, the library is bigger.”

  “Who lives there?”

  “Right now? No one. It used to belong to the Wilfreds. Marilyn Wilfred—old man Thurston Wilfred’s daughter—stayed in the original Wilfred mansion and turned the bottom two floors into a library. The next generation had to build a place next door.”

  We were past Big House now. “I saw a light there last night.”

  “Couldn’t have,” Roz said decisively.

  “Okay.” No use arguing. “Let’s get back to Darla. What does owning a tavern and trailer park have to do with the library and this ‘sensitive situation’?” I asked, feigning patience.

  Roz didn’t respond.

  She started across the bridge, but I stayed put. “You have to tell me what’s going on here. I haven’t even been on the job an hour and I’ve been warned about something dire that has to do with the library. Plus, this place seems to be a revolving door for librarians. What’s the story?”

  Roz looked at the river, then at the tavern just down the road. Finally, she met my gaze. “Okay. Darla said to wait, but I guess . . . Sit down.” She pointed to the bridge’s wide railing.

  The cement was cold under my skirt. “I’m listening.”

  “Tourism has been picking up lately. Campers, bicyclists, people touring wine country.”

  “That’s good, right? More tourism, more business.”

  Roz stood. “It’s shaking things up, that’s al
l. Let’s go have breakfast. You’ve got to try the shrimp grits.”

  That was it? That was the “sensitive” issue? “You’re not telling me everything. Be straight with me. What does tourism have to do with the library?” Roz marched straight ahead. I suppressed the urge to yank her back by the waistband of her jeans. “Stop it! You’re avoiding my question. Please, Roz. Answer me.”

  She felt around in her pocket, probably for her fan. Yes, there it was. Despite the fall breeze, she flipped it open.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “They want the library.” The words came out in a rush.

  “What?”

  “Some people want to buy the Wilfred mansion and bulldoze it and put up a retreat center.”

  “When?” The word came out as pure breath.

  Pricks of moisture gathered on her forehead. “If the sale goes through, it could be as early as next month.”

  “Oh no. No wonder—”

  “Don’t panic. We’re doing everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen. Even if the Wilfred mansion goes away, the county says they’ll build a new library.”

  Which I knew would take years, if it was built at all. “I can’t believe it. You guys flew me all the way across the country for this?”

  “We don’t know for sure what will happen, and in the meantime we really need a librarian.”

  “How can you need a librarian when you might not even have a library?”

  Roz pursed her lips. “Nope. I told you all I’m going to for now.”

  * * *

  Darla took one look and pushed us into a booth. “She told you, didn’t she?”

  “She wouldn’t wait,” Roz said. “I tried.”

  I was still shocked—and angry, even though I hadn’t been planning to stay, anyway. How dare they hire me to run a library slated for the chopping block?

  Darla pressed menus into our hands. “Knowing Roz, you didn’t hear the whole story. Before you do anything rash, hear me out. I need to wait on a table first. I had the day off, but people heard you were in town, and, well—”

  The tavern was split into two. On the left was the tavern proper. Roz and I were seated in the building’s right half, a comfortable diner with gingham curtains, linoleum-topped tables, and country-western music on the radio. A counter ran along the back of the diner, with the kitchen behind it and a cash register at one end. Above the cash register big letters read SAVE THE LIBRARY. The room was packed. Diners had put down their forks, and besides Dolly Parton’s imploring of Jolene to leave her man alone, the room was silent.

  “People, mind your own business,” Darla shouted from the counter.

  She was used to being obeyed, and it showed. Slowly, forks clinked on plates and conversation picked up.

  A moment later, glasses of water appeared on our table, leaving rings of condensation on their paper coasters. I turned over my coffee cup, and Darla filled it.

  Roz didn’t even look at her menu. “Shrimp and grits.”

  That sounded good to me. I pushed the menu with its SAVE THE LIBRARY sticker to the side.

  Darla slid into the bench next to Roz. “What did Roz tell you?”

  I was preparing to respond when a pimply boy in a Portland Blazers T-shirt delivered two bowls of shrimp and grits. He stared at me, and I smoothed my hair. Sometimes a curl decided to make off on its own, but I didn’t feel any wayward corkscrews. He’d just wanted to check out the new person in town.

  “We haven’t even ordered yet,” I said.

  “I took the liberty of ordering for you. On the house,” Darla said. “Okay, so what do you know?”

  Roz swallowed a generous mouthful of grits. “I told her a couple wants to knock down the library and put up a retreat center; library might be demolished next month; folks are split.” She dug her spoon into her bowl again.

  Darla looked at me for confirmation. Roz’s summary really drove it home.

  “That’s about it,” I said, still shocked.

  “Those are the facts,” Darla said. “Some of them. The sale isn’t a done deal.”

  “You mean the buyers might not want the library?”

  “Oh, they want it alright,” Roz said. Her bowl’s contents were diminishing rapidly.

  “Then what?” I tentatively poked at my breakfast and raised a forkful to my mouth. Savory with thyme, the scent of the ocean, lots of good butter. Even food tasted better here. “Then why did you hire me, knowing the library might not be around?”

  “We don’t know it for sure, plus the trustees put aside a month’s salary as severance,” Roz said.

  “Let me back up a bit,” Darla said. “Marilyn Wilfred founded the library.”

  “Old man Thurston’s daughter,” Roz added.

  It seemed I was doomed to a history lesson whenever someone spoke of the library. “I’ve heard about him.”

  “All the firstborn Wilfred men are named Thurston, so we use ‘old man’ for the town’s founder,” Darla said. “Anyway, when Marilyn died, she left the library and a trust to Wilfred with certain conditions.”

  “Sounds normal,” I said. The pimply boy stopped by to refill my coffee.

  “One condition was that nothing in the library change, unless it was for the ‘betterment of Wilfredians.’ ” Darla had clearly quoted the last part.

  “Surely, demolishing the library can’t be the best for the town?”

  “Remember how I told you about the mill shutting down?” Roz said. She’d pushed her empty bowl out of the way and leaned back into the booth with her coffee. “People here are struggling.”

  “When did it close?”

  “Almost twenty-five years ago, it—”

  “Twenty-five years,” I said. “People haven’t moved on?”

  “Families have been here for generations,” Roz said. “And have worked in the mill since it opened over a hundred years ago. They planned their futures based on the mill. Then, when it closed so suddenly—”

  “Middle of the night. The mill caught fire and burned to the ground. When the firemen came around, the Wilfreds were gone. Big House was empty. Nearly a hundred jobs lost. A hundred families without support,” Darla said.

  “Nothing. No final paycheck, no explanation,” Roz added.

  “Still,” I said. “Twenty-five years.”

  An older woman with a sun-roughened face illuminated by bright pink lipstick approached the table and stuck out a hand. “You must be the new librarian. Helen Garlington.”

  I stood to shake her hand, and she gave me a complete head-to-toe assessment.

  “Bookish but approachable. Marilyn would have approved,” she said.

  “I’m glad I pass muster,” I said, with a glance at Roz, who propped her chin in a palm and watched with a barely noticeable smile.

  “The library has meant so much to all of us.” Helen Garlington’s voice rose a wavery notch, as if she were lecturing a crowd. “It has been a place of gathering, respite, and strength, the ship that carries us as the world buffets around us, tossing waves of pain and confusion.”

  “Mrs. Garlington’s a poet,” Roz said.

  “I hope the library will continue to be important to Wilfred,” I said.

  “When the mill closed,” Darla continued as the older woman found a booth, “Marilyn—Marilyn Wilfred—welcomed everyone to the library.”

  “I thought you said the mill owner’s family had left town.”

  I shrugged off my jacket and noticed something in a pocket. The copy of Folk Witch. But I’d left it back at the library. I set it on the table and stared at the cover’s landscape of heather and moonlight.

  “Reading about witches?” Roz asked.

  “No. I’m more of a vintage mystery fan.”

  Roz picked up the book and examined the back cover. “Looks like nonfiction. A history of witchcraft in Scotland, in fact. I didn’t even know we had it in the collection.” She set the book on the table. “I’ll reshelve it for you.”

  “Please. I’m no
t sure how it ended up in my coat.” Where the heck had the book come from? It almost seemed to sigh as Roz slipped it into her tote.

  Diners through the room watched us, lifting heads every once in a while to check me out and monitor Darla’s reactions. Their chatter blended with the clinks of plates and the ring of the cash register. The crowd wasn’t overly prosperous. No surgeon-inflated lips or Dior handbags or key fobs for German luxury cars.

  “As I told you, when Marilyn Wilfred died, she left the library to the town with the stipulation that nothing change unless it was for the betterment of Wilfred as a whole,” Darla said.

  “So, you’re making the case that the library means more to Wilfred than the retreat center would,” I said.

  “Exactly. We’re suing the library’s trustees for voting to sell the library.”

  “But you’re a trustee.”

  Darla nodded. “It’s awkward.”

  Roz snorted.

  “The other trustees have filed a motion asking the judge the drop the suit. They have some complicated study showing the long-term economic benefits of the retreat center. Plus, they say the library grounds are a nuisance and attract troublemakers after hours.”

  “All backed by Ilona.” Roz gave both of us a knowing glance.

  “Ilona?” I said.

  “Ilona Buckwalter, the real estate agent handling the sale. It means big money to her. Plus, she’s a trustee.”

  “How did she do that? Seems like a conflict of interest for her to benefit financially and have a vote in taking down the library,” I said.

  “So we’ve told the judge,” Darla said.

  In coming to Wilfred, I’d thought I was landing somewhere I’d be safe for a while. What a mistake. I didn’t have the money to stay on the run indefinitely, and I had no backup plan. It had all happened too quickly.

  “When will you know whether your suit is thrown out or not?” I asked.

  “Anytime now,” Darla said. She leaned forward, her reading glasses dangling from a beaded cord around her neck. “Will you stay? At least until then? Please. Just give it some thought. Just for a few days. The judge might side with us.”

  “You didn’t tell me any of this when I applied for the job.”

  The ad, the phone interview, the charming photos of the Oregon countryside—everything had looked so simple and honest. If only I’d known. But I couldn’t return home. Not yet.