The Librarian of Boone's Hollow Page 25

  Nanny Fay closed herself in her room, and Addie retrieved her writing paper and pencil from the little stand in her room. She placed the items on the fresh-scrubbed dining table, took the lamp from Nanny Fay’s reading spot, and set it near her paper. Then she sat and picked up her pencil.

  With Felicity’s letters laid out in front of her, she answered her friend’s many questions, then shared about her new life on Black Mountain. The open windows allowed in the night breeze, and a chorus of crickets accompanied a hoot owl’s call. The sweetly scented air and pleasant melody kept her company. Peace settled gently on her shoulders. Little wonder Nanny Fay stayed here by herself. But Addie couldn’t help smiling while she wrote, imagining Felicity’s shock when she discovered that Addie lived in a cabin with no electricity or indoor plumbing. Felicity probably wouldn’t find these surroundings peaceful, but—

  The owl ceased its whoo-whoo, and the crickets fell silent. The sudden calm startled her as much as if someone had fired a rifle outside the cabin. Addie spun around, heart pounding. She rose and tiptoed toward the window that looked out over the garden, her gaze shifting back and forth from it to the square pane giving a view of the woods behind the house. With the lamp shining so bright inside and heavy shadows outside, she saw little more than a gray patch of nothing, and her heart pounded like the hooves of a galloping horse. She made it to the window, and after sending up a quick prayer for courage, she stuck her head out. She searched left and right, then scanned the tree line as far as she could see.

  “There isn’t anything here.” She spoke aloud to assure herself. But it didn’t work. Despite the hot, muggy air, she shivered. Her peace had shattered. She no longer felt safe sitting at the table in the open room. The security of her bedroom called. But first, she should make sure the cabin was locked tight. She closed the windows and put sturdy sticks in place that prevented anyone from opening the panes from outside. Then she hurried to the door as quickly as her trembling legs allowed. The string meant to lift the heavy crossbar was already in. No one would be able to open the door. Now to extinguish the lamp and lock herself in her room.

  She lifted the globe and bent forward, but she held in her breath. Should she awaken Nanny Fay and tell her she feared someone might have been skulking outside the cabin? As soon as the thought formed, she dismissed it. The old woman was exhausted, and it might have been nothing more than a raccoon or possum scrounging for food. Why interrupt her sleep over a childish whim?

  Addie blew out the lamp. The room plunged into darkness, discombobulating her senses. After a moment or two, her eyes adjusted and she made her way to her bedroom door. As her fingers closed on the little crossbar that held her door closed, the crickets began to sing and the owl added harmony with its whoo-whoo.

  Her breath wheezed out, and she rested her forehead against the door. All was well. She’d gotten herself worked up for nothing. Somehow, though, even when she’d tucked herself under her pretty patchwork quilt and lay nestled in her comfortable feather bed, the earlier peacefulness of the evening refused to return.

  * * *

  BIRDS SANG FROM the bushes outside, waking Addie. She swung out of bed and scurried to the window. Soft morning light touched the heavy mist hanging over the mountain, making the cloud-looking puffs glow like Chinese lanterns. A self-deprecating laugh found its way from her throat. Such a restless night she’d spent after her scare, but look at this glorious morning scene. So serene. So picturesque. How silly she’d been to let fear take hold of her.

  She opened her window as far it would go and smiled at the grayish-pink sky. I’m sorry for being such a ninny, Lord. I forgot what You told the children of Israel—“Fear thou not; for I am with thee.” But I see Your fingerprints everywhere this morning, and I’ll remember to take Your hand the next time I feel afraid.

  She chose a clean dress from a hook, clothed herself all the way down to her feet, then went out the door—the front door, since the cabin had no back door—for the trek to the outhouse. A lengthy walk, which Addie had bemoaned a time or two. But this morning, with the sun still hiding behind the mountain and the scented breeze holding a slight coolness, Addie savored it. Within an hour, the day would be sticky and hot. She took her time returning from the little necessary building, enjoying the moist dew collecting on her shoes, the choir of birdsong, and the fingers of sunlight creating a fan in the cloud-dotted sky.

  Nanny Fay came out as Addie stepped up on the porch. She smiled, her gaze drifting toward the sky. “Mornin’, Adelaide. Ain’t it a purty start to a new day?”

  Addie laughed. “Exactly my thoughts.” An idea struck. “Since I’m leaving you to take care of the blueberries all by yourself, how about I make breakfast this morning?”

  Nanny Fay cupped Addie’s cheek with her warm, calloused hand. “That’s real kind o’ you, honey, but I already got a pot o’ oatmeal started. Figgered we could toss in some o’ them fresh berries.”

  Addie’s mouth watered. “That sounds good.”

  “But if you wanna set bowls an’ such on the table, that’d be helpful.”

  “That seems fair enough, since I left it kind of a mess last night.” Addie headed inside and across the wide-planked floor. The room was still pretty dark, but by the time they ate, there would be sufficient sunlight coming through the windows. No need for the lamp. She lifted it by its glass base and carried it to the table beside Nanny Fay’s rocker, the woman’s favorite reading spot. She returned to the table and gathered up the letters from Felicity and her pencil and pad of paper. She frowned, scanning the items in her hands. Where was the letter she’d written?

  Addie flipped through the pad, but the pages were all blank. She closed her eyes, trying to recall every detail of the previous evening. She’d been startled by the abrupt silence and had stopped writing, so she hadn’t completed the letter, but she couldn’t remember if she’d written directly on the pad or removed the pages from the pad first. If she’d torn them out, a breeze might have disturbed them.

  She searched the floor under the table and examined every other surface in the dining area. She was on her way to her bedroom in case she’d carried them to her room, when Nanny Fay came in.

  Nanny Fay looked across the room toward the dining area and chuckled. “You forget what you was s’posed to do? I saw you scuttlin’ around like you was tryin’ to find your sense.”

  Addie bit the inside of her lip, gripping Nanny Fay’s hands. “Nanny Fay, before you went to the outhouse, did you pick up any papers from the table?”

  The woman scuffed to the stove, shaking her head. “Nope. Didn’t touch nothin’ on the table.”

  Addie followed her and watched her add cinnamon and ground chicory root, her version of sugar, to the burbling oats. “This is very odd. I wrote a letter to Felicity last night. My paper and pencil are on the table where I left them, but the letter itself is gone.”

  Nanny Fay stirred the oatmeal with a long wooden spoon, the motions slow and deliberate. “Well, honey, if you wrote one, it’s gotta be here somewhere. I betcha if you set your mind to somethin’ else, all o’ sudden it’ll come to you.” She tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot. “This is right at the thickness I like it. Get out them bowls, will you? I’ll help you look for the written pages after we eat.”

  True to her word, she searched with Addie after breakfast, but neither of them found the letter Addie had written. Addie finally sighed and held out her hands in defeat. “Maybe I only wrote it in my head.”

  Nanny Fay laughed. “Many words as you got floatin’ around in your head, that wouldn’t surprise me at all.” She patted Addie’s shoulder. “Tell you what, while I got the stove hot, I’ll put some water to heatin’ for your bath. Meantime, set yourself at the table an’ get it all writ out. You can send it off at the post office before you leave for Lynch. Then you’ll know for sure your friend is gettin’ it.”

  Addie wro
te—or rewrote?—the letter to Felicity. After her bath, while Nanny Fay hummed over a kettle of sweet smelling blueberries, she wrote one to Griselda Ann and Mrs. Hunt. She’d promised to let them know how she was doing, but in her busyness to learn the routes and write her story, she’d neglected it. She chose her words carefully, unwilling to cause her former boss angst. After all, her position as a book deliverer had gone very differently than either of them had envisioned. Mrs. Hunt might feel guilty for sending Addie to a place where the people were so opposed to outsiders. So, as she’d done in her letter to Mother and Daddy, she focused on the positive aspects. And by the time she finished, she’d managed to restore her own attitude.

  “Look for the blessings,” Mother always said. And there were blessings to be found here. Such as the still-warm wild blueberry jam on fresh-baked biscuits she enjoyed with Nanny Fay for lunch.

  After she ate and cleaned up all her writing items, she braided her hair, tied the end with a bit of green ribbon, and headed to the post office. Mr. Landrum pasted on the stamps for her without speaking a word, but she chose not to let his taciturn behavior spoil her day. In another few hours, she’d enjoy her first soda since leaving Lexington, and then she’d have the joy of discovering what Mother and her church friends had sent for the library.

  She exited the post office. Sunlight smacked her eyes, and she winced. Most of the time, Boone’s Hollow lay under a cloak of shadows from the mountains rising around it and all the trees surrounding it, but when the sun was high, the wide main street received unfettered sunshine. She cupped her hand above her eyes. A wagon with the same speckled horse that had brought her to Boone’s Hollow three weeks ago waited outside the library. And someone was already on the driver’s seat. Apparently Emmett was ready to go.

  Squinting, she jogged straight for the wagon. Halfway across the street, though, she stopped. That wasn’t Emmett sitting up high on the seat. Was Bettina Webber going, too? If she was, maybe it would give them a chance to talk, to find a way around the boulder of resentment seeming to always loom between them. It would be so much nicer at work if she and the other girls were friends.

  Hope fluttering in her chest, she hurried across the street.

  Bettina

  THE BRAKE WAS SET, SO there wasn’t no need to hold on to the reins, but Bettina held ’em anyway and watched Addie out of the corner of her eye. She hid a smirk. Yessir, Addie was for sure and certain jealous to see Bettina ready to go, too.

  Addie bustled right up next to the wagon and looked at her all squinty eyed, the way Glory did when Bettina said something that set her teeth on edge. “Hello, Bettina. Are you going with us to Lynch to get the new library books?”

  The word us sure rankled. There wasn’t no us except Emmett and Bettina. Why, even their names fit together good. “I can’t. Got chores to tend to.” Pap’d be madder’n hops if he came home from work and didn’t find a hot supper on the table. “But Emmett an’ me bein’ so close an’ all, I couldn’t let the Saturday go by without spendin’ a little time with him for, you know”—she raised her shoulder and giggled all embarrassed-like, the way movie starlets did when they was talking of their fellers—“spoonin’. He’s just so hard to resist first thing in the mornin’, with his shirt undone an’ his cheeks all red from shavin’.”

  Pink stained Addie’s cheeks. My, but that flush said a lot. Addie leaned a little sideways and looked toward the library building. “Where is Emmett?”

  “Oh, he ran on to his folks’ house. He’s fetchin’ Dusty. Guess his pap stayed home from the mine today—ailin’ in his belly, Emmett said—an’ his maw don’t want Dusty to catch whatever it is, so she asked if Dusty could go along to Lynch.”

  Bettina wanted to shout a cheer. But if she did, she’d scare the horse, so she didn’t. Things couldn’t have turned out better. She’d snuck into Nanny Fay’s house through the cellar door and took the story Addie’d started writing last night, thinking maybe that’d keep her home writing it again. ’Course, her standing next to the wagon let Bettina know it hadn’t worked. But it didn’t matter none ’cause Emmett had told her he’d be toting Dusty along to Lynch. There wouldn’t be no us, not with Dusty sitting between ’em and jabbering like a magpie the whole time. He was a cute little feller, but he didn’t never stop talking.

  If she had her druthers, though, she’d go along. She wanted to get a soda with Emmett. She wanted to sit next to him on the seat all the way to Lynch and back again. She wanted Addie left behind instead of her. But if she couldn’t have all that, then she’d be happy about Dusty going.

  She fluffed her hair with her hand and grinned at Addie. “You don’t mind havin’ Dusty along, do you?”

  “Of course not. I like Dusty.”

  And Dusty liked Addie. Leastwise, he’d sure seemed to take a shine to her. Why, he’d run right up to her at church last Sunday. Church, yet! Couldn’t Addie stay away from anyplace Bettina went? Yep, Dusty’d pranced right over to her, giggling like he’d swallowed bubbly spring water, and showed off the boots he found in Belcher’s the day Addie bought her overalls. Bettina ground her teeth. She didn’t much care about Dusty liking Addie. But Emmett liking her? That was a different story.

  Addie moved closer to the wagon and touched Bettina on the elbow. “I’m sorry you can’t go.”

  Bettina snorted. Sure she was. She pulled her elbow out of Addie’s reach and frowned fierce. “Well, lemme tell you somethin’, an’ you best hear me good.”

  Addie’s eyes got big, and she backed up a few feet.

  Bettina gave a satisfied nod. “The next time it’ll be me an’ Emmett goin’, an’ we won’t take nobody else with us. You best remember—”

  “Howdy, Addie!” Dusty galloped up and threw his arms around Addie’s middle, a big toothless grin on his face. “Maw gimme two nickels. One to buy Paw some seltzer tablets an’ one for licorice whips! I ain’t had licorice whips since last Christmas. Mr. Belcher don’t carry licorice in his store ’cause he says it stinks. But I don’t think it stinks. It’s the most best candy. So Maw says since I’m pickin’ up Paw’s medicine, I can get me some licorice at the drugstore in Lynch. I wish Paw got sick every Saturday.”

  Addie laughed.

  Bettina did, too, but underneath she seethed. Dusty’d kept her from warning Addie off. But maybe she didn’t need to say all the words. Addie was smart enough to figure things out. Especially if she got an eyeful of how much Bettina meant to Emmett. Emmett was coming now, so she wrapped the reins around the brake handle and stood. “Help me down, Emmett, wouldja?”

  Emmett’s forehead puckered, like he wondered how come she needed help, but he reached for her hands. Quick as a cat could pounce, she put her hands on his shoulders and hopped, near colliding chest to chest. His hands clamped on her waist. Her feet hit the ground, but she didn’t let go of his shoulders. She smiled up into his face and batted her eyelashes. “You all have a good drive to Lynch now, you hear?”

  Emmett

  EMMETT LET GO of Bettina’s waist and took a step backward. What was she doing leaping into his arms that way? Hadn’t it been bad enough to have her burst into the library that morning before he’d finished shaving? She hadn’t even seemed embarrassed to catch him with his shirt unbuttoned and his suspenders hanging by his knees. He’d been embarrassed, though—embarrassed enough to ask her to leave. And she had. But only long enough for him to button up and clean his razor.

  Then she was in the library again, telling him how long it’d been since she’d taken a drive to Lynch, how her favorite soda was strawberry, how she was real good at cleaning and such…He’d pretended not to understand her hints, and finally she’d come right out and said, “Why don’tcha take me along with you? You an’ me, we can do whatever needs doin’.” In desperation, he’d flat out told her Addie had to go to sign for the boxes. Plus, he was taking Dusty because Paw was sick. To his relief, she’d flounced to t
he door and declared she’d go home then. So why hadn’t she?

  One way or another, he had to find a way to work with her without always worrying about what she’d do next. Or one of them would have to leave the packhorse librarian program.

  “Bettina, I—”

  “Bye, now.” She waved and darted up the road, flinging grins over her shoulder as she went.

  Dusty tugged Emmett’s sleeve. “Can we go? Huh?”

  Emmett gave himself a mental shake. He’d worry about Bettina later. “Yeah, let’s go, buddy.” He lifted Dusty onto the seat, then turned to Addie. She stood several feet away, hands linked behind her back. Her brown eyes held a great deal of apprehension. Who could blame her? Bettina put everyone on edge. He gave what he hoped was a natural smile and bobbed his head toward the seat. “You coming?”

  She glanced up the road to where Bettina had disappeared. “Um…”

  Emmett sighed. “Look, Addie, I’m sorry Bettina does…well, what she does. She’s always been a little unpredictable, but since I got home, she…” How could he explain something he didn’t fully understand himself?

  Dusty swung his legs, bumping the footboard with the balls of his bare feet on every forward swing. “She’s loony as a rabid coon.”

  Addie gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth.

  Emmett aimed a scowl at his brother. “What did you say?”

  “What Paw said. She’s loony as a—”

  Addie scurried to the edge of the wagon. “Don’t say that.”

  Dusty kept swinging his feet. “How come?”

  “Because it isn’t kind.”

  Dusty shrugged.

  Addie took hold of Dusty’s hand and held it between hers. “Dusty, do you believe in God?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Well, the Bible, which is God’s holy Word, tells us, ‘Be ye kind one to another.’ ”