“Yeah. Try Harrisburg!” someone in the back said.
I held up my Pikachu key chain. “Oh, I'm not homeless. I just couldn't make it past the front door last night.”
“What front door are you talking about?”
I pointed down the street where my appointment stood. “Books from HeâI mean Books from the Hart.”
A collective silence descended on the crowd. The large woman with the coupons stepped forward. “Wait a minute, I remember you. Are you Gertrude Brown's long-lost great-niece?”
“Long, yes.” I stood tall. “But not lost.” I had known where I was for the past several years. Most of the time, at least. There were a few times in Montana where I had taken a detour into parts unknown and ended up sleeping under the stars. Those had been some of the most beautiful wrong turns I had ever taken.
The busty woman cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered something to George. I heard the words
dim-witted
and
slow.
I should have expected that reaction. But it had been years since I had heard those words. It made the tips of my fingers tingle when people used them in regards to me, or anyone else for that matter. I clutched Pikachu with both hands and told myself not to kick the woman. I grabbed my vintage military rucksack from the backseat. The shaggy collie leaned against my knee and I would have reassured him that he would be okay here, but he wasn't mine so it would be overstepping my role. I patted his back instead. “Come on, dog.”
Together we walked down the street toward Hell.
* * *
Even after all these years, it was amazing how little had changed. Truhart had never been crowded, but I didn't recall it being so vacant. The years since my mother died and my father dumped my brother, Leo, and me on my Aunt Gertrude didn't look like they had been good to the town.
We arrived late last night. Rush-hour traffic on I-75 in Detroit had been a mess, and by the time we got through it, Mickey was pointing both hands to the twelve. Almost exactly midnight. The night shadows had taken over the empty center of town and the streetlights weren't workingâor maybe there were no streetlights. I had stared out Lulu's front windshield with the strange feeling that the dog and I weren't alone. Something unearthly floated in front of the windshield. The hair on my arm shot straight up. Perhaps Aunt Gertrude's ghost was coming to haunt me in new ways she hadn't thought up when she was alive. On closer inspection, I realized it was a torn plastic bag floating across the hood of the car.
It was ridiculous for a woman of my age and experience to sit in a parked car at midnight like a coward. I had climbed Pico de Orizaba, the tallest mountain in Mexico, at twenty-three, bungee-jumped from the bridge to nowhere in southern California at twenty, streaked naked through the streets of San Francisco at nineteen, and run away from my guardian at sixteen. This one little thing, I could do.
At the front door, Pikachu caught the light from the sliver of moon that rose above Main Street and winked back, doing his best to encourage me. I placed the key in the lock, but it wouldn't fit. I felt in my rucksack for my penlight and clicked it on. Rust and years of dust had worn away the hardware around the knob. But the cylinder where the key fit was new. Someone had replaced the lock.
Without warning, a black form jumped out from the top of the awning. A single raspy bark from the old dog was followed by a sharp feline screech. “Piewacket?” It couldn't be. There was no way the cat could still be alive. Unless it hadn't used up all its lives.
It jumped into the shadows and was gone.
A frosty ripple went up my spine, as if someone were trailing a block of ice along my vertebrae. A brisk breeze stirred the brittle leaves on the trees nearby. I refused to be scared of black cats and old curses.
I returned to Lulu and called Reeba Sweeney, the real-estate agent at Respect Realty. Her company had been given the job of maintaining the property by the administrator who handled Aunt Gertrude's estate. It was late, but her letter said to call anytime. So I did. She sounded angry at first. But when I gave her my name she changed her tone and promised to meet me at the store in the morning. I was secretly relieved. Another night of cramped sleep in the front seat was better than a sleepless night in Aunt Gertrude's upstairs apartment.
* * *
Now, squinting at the bright September sunshine, the morning didn't improve my spirits. I shook off my craving for a cup of coffee and walked past the vacant grocery store that abutted Aunt Gertrude's building. The bookstore was the last commercial structure in Truhart's business district. Echo Lake's public beach and dock rose up at the end of the street. Several acres of vacant land lay behind the store. I used to hide in those woods and smoke cigarettes when Aunt Gertrude went on what I called a “reading rampage.”
A small figure stood on the curb, a smile plastered to her face.
The dog paused, as if he thought the black cat might jump out again. If I didn't have a small crowd of people following me, I would have told him to buck up and take it like a man. I kept my mouth shut. No need to embarrass him in front of his new admirers.
I hopped up the crumbling curb and marched toward the front door. When I was younger, two windows on the top floor and the larger storefront window on the first floor made me think the store was alive. The notion was stronger now. The paper on the large front window was ripped in a U, giving it a grotesque smile.
I looked up, expecting to see the blood-red shroud of the awning. Instead, I saw the sky through jagged holes. Years of rain and snow had taken their toll. I leaned to the side, wondering if I could still see the words scrawled across the front window of the two-story building. The ones that were supposed to make me proud because they were my own name. But all I could make out were
Books from
. . .
H
. . .
owner Gertrude
. . .
She had called this place Books from the Hart in a contrived reference to the town she had lived in her whole life.
I always called it Books from Hell.
The odd little dark-haired woman, wearing a coat that looked like a honeycomb, stepped forward and offered her hand. “You must be Gertrude Brown. I'm Reeba Sweeney.”
I had to bend low to reach her and wondered if this was what it felt like to meet a hobbit. “Sorry I woke you up last night. And please, call me Trudy.” Never, ever Gertrude.
She wrinkled her short nose with a loud laugh. “No problem. Sorry I couldn't get away to open up for you.”
“I was surprised the lock had been changed.”
“Uh . . . yes. Just recently. Someone broke in and got a little rowdy.”
“Really? Was anything missing?” If I was lucky, everything would be missing.
“No, butâwell, you'll see.”
She handed me the key and it took several attempts to turn the knob. A few people behind me snickered.
“Maybe someone should help her,” the larger woman whispered.
“Sshh!”
With a hearty jiggle of the wrist and a little muscle, I made the deadbolt give up its resistance. I turned the handle and pushed the door open. Stale air rushed out the building as if a tomb had been unsealed. A bell, strangely off tune, tinkled weakly on the door. Laughing at me . . . like always.
The dog stuck his nose in the air, alert to a scent that was new and foul. I took an uneven breath. The things here couldn't touch me anymore. I reached out to the wall beside me and flipped the light on. And just like that, the room came to life.
Books. From ceiling to floor. From the doorway to the back hall and beyond. Piles of books. Mountains of them. No room to walk. No room to breathe. Everything that had haunted my childhood stared straight back at me.
“Whoa . . .” someone said, breaking the silence.
A man bumped into me from behind. The earlier assemblage had followed me. I wasn't sorry they did. It helped to have company.
“Marva, stop pushing!” said navy-blue Joe to pink-glasses big lady.
I plastered myself against the wall, delaying my entrance into the store, as Marva shoved her large bulk to the forefront and halted on the threshold. “Lord almighty!”
“What is it?” someone said.
Marva turned around and faced the group on the sidewalk, stretching her hands across the doorway. “Don't anyone step past me. You're liable to get hurt.”
“I don't know if it's that badâ” I started.
“Yes it is. Joe, you remember those books Gertrude stacked straight up to the ceiling?”
“You could barely squeeze from the As to the Ps.” He stretched his neck, trying to see over her shoulder.
“I was fine with the Ps; it was you who had trouble, Joe,” she said.
“For God's sake, would you stop talking about my prostate in front of the whole town,” said Joe.
“Get on with what you were saying, Marva,” said the mayor.
“Now George, I wasn't talking about Joe. I was talking about the Ps. Like James Patterson or Susan Elizabeth Phillips.”
“Or Mario Puzo,” someone added.
Ugh, people who read! I was surrounded by them wherever I went.
“And what, Marva? Come on. I got a breakfast I need to be at in ten minutes,” said the mayor from the back of the mob. My stomach growled at the mere mention of breakfast.
This was ridiculous. I was boxed in between Marva and the doorway, and was feeling claustrophobic. Time to get over my fears. I ducked under her arm and took my chances on the mountain of books near the window. I sat on top and studied the room while the curiosity seekers kept talking in the doorway.
Marva waved her hand. “Do you all remember what this place used to be like? You remember, Regina? Little tiny aisles and towers of books that were several rows deep?”
“Yeah. Gertrude wouldn't let us pull anything ourselves. We had to call her if we needed help,” Joe said behind her.
“That's right. If you needed a book, you had to tell her first. And then she'd give you all the reasons why you shouldn't read that book. She was always pushing the highbrow stuff on me. Said I read too much trash.” I let my gaze pause on Marva and wondered where she bought her pants. They were cotton-candy pink and matched her glasses. I kind of liked them.
“Gertrude told me I was going to get nightmares from all the horror stories I read,” Joe said.
My stomach growled. I remembered that I had a half-eaten piece of fruit leather in an inside pocket. I pulled it out, peeled back the wrapper, and gnawed on it. My collie friend pushed through the crowd when he heard the wrapper open. I held it away from him. “You ate already.”
Someone in the back explained, “I started to go to the library. I mean, I hated to go to Harrisburg and all. And that one librarian was even meaner to me sometimes than Gertrude. The others are nice, mind you. But I couldn't handle her lectures.”
“The librarian in Harrisburg?”
“No. Gertrude's.”
“I can't say I blame you, June.” Marva still held her hands across the doorjamb. “But now you have no choice. You will have to keep going to Harrisburg until this place gets cleaned up.” She lowered her arms and stepped aside. I had taken a large bite of the fruit leather and my mouth was full. Everyone had a clear view of me sitting with my skirt spread out before me on a mound of mass-market paperbacks. I felt like Little Miss Muffet.
“This is worse than I could have ever imagined. It looks like she was a . . . a . . .”
“Hoarder,” someone finished.
I could have told them that years ago. My aunt loved her books as if they were her children. She adopted each one of them out to only worthy readers, and refused to let people take their chances on anything unless they had a serious interest in reading the books they bought. This meant that she scared most customers away.
She scared me too. But for different reasons.
“What are you going to do with all of this?” asked Marva.
I finished chewing, swallowed, and said, “I plan on selling it. You wouldn't happen to know any interested buyers, would you?”
“Yes. I can help you with that!” The real-estate lady worked her way toward the front of the crowd. She was almost as wide as she was tall, so several people had to plaster themselves against the doorway to make room.
I thought I heard someone mumble “sell-out Sweeney” as she passed.
Marva squinted at me over the top of Reeba Sweeney's head. “Don't be in too much of a rush, now. You never know what you might decide to do once you spend a little time here.” She looked down her nose at Reeba Sweeney and then down at her watch. “Whoops, time for work. Well . . . Good luck.”
“I've got to get to a meeting with the city council,” said the mayor.
Reeba Sweeney grabbed his elbow. “I haven't received your donation to the Harrisburg Festival of the Arts, George.”
He looked from her to me and then at the ground. “In the mail.”
The crowd was gone so quickly, I wondered if it was something I said. But one look at the room around me made me understand why. Who wanted to suffer from accidental mummification under thousands of dusty books?
I was left sitting on my tuffet, curious to hear what Reeba Sweeney thought about selling the place. I pulled the wrapper over the remaining portion of my fruit leather and tucked it back in my pocket. My four-legged friend found the only bare spot on the floor and lay down with an
ooomph
.
Reeba Sweeney cleared her throat and stepped around me, careful not to trip on the magazines at her feet. “I hope you understand. Clients won't want to pay top dollar for this store. This place needs a lot of work.”