The Silence Of The Library

Over the next several years I worked my way through hundreds of those books before moving on to more adult fare, such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Henry Gamadge. Aunt Dottie sparked my love of mysteries and fed it with her huge collection. I still had every one of her books, each too precious ever to let go.

A large, furry creature leapt onto the bed near my feet and interrupted my reverie. My Maine Coon cat, Diesel, chirped at me, determined to capture my focus.

“Sorry to neglect you, boy, but I was reliving my youth for a few minutes there.” I grinned as Diesel butted my head, still chirping. He loved attention, and he returned it with often energetic affection. He climbed onto my legs, all thirty-six pounds of him.

“Hang on a moment, boy, you’re a bit heavy.” Diesel muttered as I spread my legs. He slid between them and resettled himself, his head in my lap with his body stretched out. He purred loudly with a sound reminiscent of his namesake engine.

With the cat comfortably in place and myself reasonably so, I picked up my book, found my place, and delved into the story again.

Lightning rent the sky once more, and the bedraggled girl huddled in the meager shelter of the portico. She grasped the knocker, ready to knock a second time, when the door swung inward, quickly and silently. She stumbled forward into the dimly lit foyer, righted herself, and turned to greet the person who admitted her. The door creaked shut.

Veronica Thane stifled a gasp as her eyes beheld the cadaverous, elongated figure of the ancient man who stood before her. “He must be eighty years old,” she thought. “And well over six feet tall.”

“Good afternoon, miss.” The butler—for so he must be, as he wore the usual garb of such a servant—spoke in a high, thin voice. “The mistress will be pleased that you managed to arrive early, despite the storm.”

Veronica gasped. What could he mean?

A voice called my name, and I put the book aside with some reluctance. “Yes, Azalea, I’m in here.” I sat up and tried to disentangle Diesel from my legs, but he wasn’t interested in moving. I had to scoot myself backward a few inches before I was clear enough to swing one leg over him. Then I twisted until I sat on the side of the bed.

“What you doing all the way up here, Mr. Charlie?” Azalea Berry, my housekeeper, frowned at me from the doorway. “And what you doing messing up that bed after I cleaned in here this morning?”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb things.” I retrieved the book and tucked it under my arm before I stood. “Diesel and I were just reading. I came up here to look for something, and I got sidetracked by the books. I just had to lie down and read for a few minutes.”

Azalea nodded as the ghost of a smile flitted by. “Miss Dottie used to do that, too. Sometimes I couldn’t find her nowhere, and up here she’d be, stretched out on that bed, reading one of them books of hers.”

I glanced at the four-poster, almost as if I expected to see my late aunt lying there. For a moment I could have sworn I saw the dim outline of a person, but when I blinked, the image faded. Diesel warbled and rubbed against my leg. I wondered whether he sensed another presence in the room as I had.

“Yes, she loved her books.” I showed The Mystery at Spellwood Mansion to Azalea, and she glanced at the cover. “This series was one of her favorites. What I came looking for, actually. The public library is doing a special exhibit for National Library Week next month, and it’s going to feature the author. She would have been a hundred years old this year.”

Azalea peered at the book again. “Miz Dottie loved those from when she was a little bitty thing. I reckon she told me about that Veronica girl a hundred times, how much she admired her when she was growing up.”

I felt a sudden lump in my throat as another memory surfaced from a conversation with my aunt when I was about twelve. I asked her why she didn’t have any children of her own, and she told me she once had a little girl, but the angels came for her when she was only six months old and took her back to Heaven with them. She had named her daughter Veronica.