The Library of Lost and Found

by Phaedra Patrick

  She touched her nana’s cheek and then focused on the image of herself. An impromptu sob rose inside her, brought on by this younger portrait. She’d never thought of herself as being pretty before but, in this image, she most certainly was.

  Her hair frizzed out of its plait. She was smiling and looked carefree.

  Martha reached up and touched her existing dry curls.

  As she closed the image, she wondered how the clipping came to be inserted into the little battered book.

  Rubbing her chin, she was about to close Owen’s email when she spotted an addition to his message.

  PS: I’ve also tracked down another copy of your book! Rita at Monkey Puzzle has a pristine version. I’ll see what she can tell us about it .

  Martha swallowed. She spun to one side and then the other in the swivel chair. Another copy? She was sure there must only be one. This pristine version would have its cover and title page intact. She ran her hand across her neck, feeling an overwhelming urge to see and touch this other copy of the book.

  She wondered how long Owen had gone out for, and when he’d next be in touch. Perhaps he’d contacted Rita already.

  Standing up, Martha paced the library, up and around the few aisles. She pressed book spines back into neat lines and straightened any that had fallen over. She gathered her rating spreadsheets together and stared out of the window at the setting sun. It cast a lemony glow on the rippling waves.

  “It’s my book and my stories,” she whispered to herself, her shoulders wriggling with frustration. She was having to rely on Owen taking things further, to find out more. But if Rita knew anything about Blue Skies and Stormy Seas, Martha wanted to hear it firsthand. She didn’t want to wait.

  She turned and stared back at the computer.

  Although she was grateful for Owen’s help, she wanted more control in this search for the truth. She walked over to the desk and sat down again.

  Her computer session had expired, so she retyped her password and clicked on the internet logo. She typed “Monkey Puzzle Books” into Google and there was only one listing in the UK. She reached up and ran her finger over the digits of the phone number. “Hello, Rita,” she said aloud.

  First, she fired off a quick email to Owen, to thank him for the image and info about the Scandinavian printer, and to pass on her gratitude to the mysterious Dexter.

  Then, in the graying light, she picked up the phone. She had decided to make her own call.

  * * *

  As the dialing tone rang, she neatened up a pile of college class leaflets on the desk. The library doors rattled and Martha froze, almost dropping the receiver.

  “Damn, it’s shut,” she heard a woman say.

  Sliding her eyes, Martha waited for her to leave. There was muttering, another shake of the doors and then footsteps moving away.

  Finally, from the other end of the phone, there was a crackle and a friendly voice. “Hay-lo. Monkey Puzzle Books. Rita speaking.”

  Martha cleared her throat. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

  Deep breaths, she thought to herself. Just say something. Anything.

  Closing her eyes, she pictured the task written in her notepad with a giant green tick next to it. “My name is Martha Storm,” she said. “I’m calling about a book called Blue Skies and Stormy Seas. I believe that you own a copy.”

  “Ah, Owen Chamberlain left me a message about that today. Don’t you just love that enchanting little book? When I think about it, I can almost feel the sea spray on my face and hear birds singing. It’s wonderful.” Rita spoke breathlessly. She sounded like she could find wonder in everything, even men digging a hole in the road or a letter landing on her doormat. Martha imagined her as bespectacled and big-boned. She probably waved her arms around a lot and wore chunky, bright jewelry.

  “My grandmother wrote it, though my copy is falling apart. Owen said that yours is in good condition,” she said.

  “It is, and you must be so proud of your grammy. You must come and see my copy sometime. I’m on the high street in Benton Bay. If you live near Owen, it’s around eighty miles from you. He’s a real sweetheart, isn’t he?” She gave a booming laugh.

  “Um, yes, he is... I wondered where your copy came from?”

  “Ha, it found me in a most unusual way,” Rita said.

  The hairs on her Martha’s arms rose to attention. “It found you?”

  “Ah, yes. Shall I tell you all about it? It’s most wonderful.” Rita didn’t wait for a reply before she shared her recount, telling it like a story.

  “One day, a small crowd gathered in the village square, not far from my bookshop. I was out on my lunch break when I heard a woman’s voice. It was loud and clear above the chattering of the crowd. Wonderful. Street performers in the Bay are always worth a watch, so I squeezed my way to the front and I saw two women. One was in a wheelchair and she read aloud from a book. She had the most expressive voice and everyone around me listened in, captivated. I remember her story was one about a mermaid and a fisherman.”

  Martha shifted in her chair. “Please go on.”

  “Afterwards, the strangest thing happened,” Rita said. “The lady reading the book closed it and placed it on the ground. Everyone clapped and cheered, but the two women didn’t stay and listen to the applause, or to collect any money. They both moved on quickly, away from the crowd.

  “A few people around me stayed and eyed up that little book, lying there on the ground, but they eventually edged away. I’m a real nosey parker, though, and wanted to take a closer peek.

  “It had a burgundy cover. Just wonderful. I couldn’t resist reaching down and picking it up. I was going to hand it back to the ladies but I couldn’t see them anywhere. It started to rain, so I tucked it under my coat. When I got back to the shop and pulled it out, I found a note attached to the back cover.”

  “A note?”

  “Ah, yes. I still have it. Let me find it for you, so I get the words exactly right.”

  Martha waited and listened to shuffling from the other side of the phone. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine.

  “Here it is,” Rita said, when she returned to the call. “The note said, ‘Read me. I’m yours.’”

  Martha frowned, not able to understand why anyone would read and then discard a book in this way. It was most illogical. Books were for keeping and admiring, reading and treasuring. If the two ladies didn’t want their book any longer, why hadn’t they given it to charity, or to a secondhand bookstore? Also, it meant this copy of Blue Skies and Stormy Seas belonged to someone else, before Rita. Another owner in the chain. She fell silent and pressed her fingers lightly against her neck. “That’s most unusual. Is there anything else you can tell me about the two ladies?”

  Rita made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Hmm, let me think,” she said. “The woman in the wheelchair was a funny old thing. She was dressed head-to-toe in turquoise and wore these big old sunglasses. The other woman seemed to be looking after her. I think her name is Gina.”

  Martha felt the back of her neck prickle. She reached behind her and gave it a scratch. Looking up, she noticed that the library was now in complete darkness. All she could make out were silhouettes of the shelves. The backs of her hands glowed silver from the computer screen. “Did you ever see them again?” she asked.

  “Once or twice. They’re from the old vicarage.”

  “In your village?”

  “Ah, yes. In Benton Bay.”

  Martha closed her eyes and saw turquoise. She imagined sunlight bouncing off cat’s-eye sunglasses.

  Could the woman in the wheelchair possibly be my nana?

  Or is that a ridiculous thought?

  Also, how long ago had this happened? The book, with its speckles and yellowing pages, was over thirty years old.

  She gulped and tried keep her vo
ice steady. “You’ve been so helpful, Rita. Thank you for your time. I have one last question.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Do you remember when this happened?”

  “When?” Rita asked with a chortle. “You make it sound like a historical event. The book came to me just before Christmas. Three months ago, if that.”

  11

  Taxi

  Martha looked out of her sitting room window at the wisps of clouds hanging like cobwebs in the powder-blue sky. Pockets of white tulips had sprung around her garden gate and everything looked fresher. She could see streaks of cobalt woven among the grays of the sea, although there were still icy crackles on her metal watering can. As she paced around her dining room, the boxes surrounding her felt like gravestones hemming her in.

  She’d spent the previous night ruminating, telling herself that the woman from the vicarage couldn’t possibly be her nana. Yet she wanted to be sure. At the very least she could find out how the woman who read aloud from the book came to have a copy. And why she wanted to give it away.

  She wiped away a speck of dust from the windowpane as she contemplated, then ruled out, contacting Lilian. She didn’t want to be told by her sister that she was being ridiculous and should leave things alone. Dropping her hand to her side, she gave a sigh.

  Is it so wrong to do my own thing, for once?

  She walked into the kitchen and opened the cutlery drawer to get a spoon for her breakfast cereal. At the front, there was a stack of business cards that her mum used to save. They were fastened together by a green rubber band. Martha noticed that the top one was for a taxi service.

  She pulled it out and stared at it as she munched her muesli.

  She turned it over and mused as she sipped her coffee.

  The thought of knocking on the door of the old vicarage and asking two strangers what they knew about the little battered book made her stomach cramp.

  The final months she’d spent caring for her parents had been a broken record of routine, and acting with immediacy wasn’t her style. However, after her conversation with Rita and the events of the last few days, Martha’s skin tingled as if she was plugged into an electric socket. She knew she was ready to make a move, to take a step out of her comfort zone.

  She had to do something.

  She picked up the card again and, before she could tell herself not to, she phoned for a taxi.

  Her stomach jittered as she waited for it to arrive. She busied herself by washing her breakfast pots and moving things around on the dining table. She tried not to think about the journey she was about to undertake.

  When a car horn beeped outside, she touched her hair slide to check its positioning. She called out, “Just a minute,” even though she knew the driver wouldn’t be able to hear.

  Locking the front door behind her, she then slid into the back seat of the taxi. “Please take me to the old vicarage in Benton Bay,” she said.

  * * *

  An hour and a half later, Martha stood outside a pretty redbrick building. It had a pointed roof, immaculate lawns and a path that wound up to a scarlet-painted front door. It had a brass fox-shaped knocker and an oversized letterbox. Ivy sprang around the frame and a hanging basket was overgrown with pansies and big primroses. The property looked homey, like the owners loved and looked after it.

  She stood with her hands behind her back, staring at the house. Her feet felt glued to the spot and a voice in her head told her to turn around and go home.

  “I can’t do it,” she told it. “I have got to do this.”

  Her pulse raced as the door began to slowly open. As a lady appeared on the doorstep, to put out some empty milk bottles, Martha stepped quickly to the side. Obscuring herself behind a tall privet hedge and peeping through a gap in the leaves, she wasn’t quite ready to make her next move.

  The lady had dove-white long hair, tied into a high bun, and Martha wasn’t sure if her crease-free beige trouser suit looked more like a carer’s outfit or a safari one. She was probably in her early seventies, too young to be Zelda.

  So, could this be Gina?

  The woman went back inside and Martha exhaled. Her heart was thump-thumping too wildly, making her feel faint, so she decided to pace down the country lane for a while, to allow herself time to calm down.

  As she walked, delaying what she’d come here to do allowed her more time to mull things over. Her breath grew shallow as she considered possibilities and argued with them in her own head.

  If my grandmother is here, what shall I say to her?

  But, of course she won’t be here, she’s dead.

  But that’s what your parents told you. The message in the book tells you otherwise...

  You need to find out what happened.

  The wind whistled through her skirt and her neck felt full of knots. Was she just being ridiculous? How could it possibly be true that Zelda was here, after being gone for more than thirty years? Her own gullibility made her want to gag.

  She also pondered if her own father was capable of conjuring up such a lie, about Zelda being dead, and she recalled a happening from her past.

  * * *

  In her first year at secondary school, she had written a story in English class and her teacher, Mr. Brady, insisted she read it aloud.

  Martha had slipped down in her chair with her arms folded tightly, squirming with both embarrassment and pride. She only just managed to squeeze out her words.

  After the lesson, Mr. Brady said he was going to enter her story into an interschool competition. “Each school can make one entry and I’m going to submit yours. There’ll be a ceremony in Maltsborough for the nominees, and I think you have a good chance of winning a prize.”

  Martha skipped home and told her parents. “Please, can we keep that evening free?” she begged.

  Her mum immediately scooped Martha into her arms and congratulated her, but her dad pursed his lips. “How many entries will there be?” he asked.

  Martha felt her excitement sliding. “They’re from schools all around the North of England. But Mr. Brady chose mine to represent our school.”

  “That’s brilliant. Well done,” her mum said.

  Her dad gave a tight smile. “The odds are against her,” he said to Betty. “And, it’s rewarding Martha for making up her stories. She’s stopped reading the encyclopedias.”

  “We’ve had them for ages, Dad. I know everything in them,” Martha chimed in.

  “Oh, really?” Thomas gave a short laugh. “Short stories aren’t very useful when you apply for a job as a secretary, or accountant, are they?”

  “There are other jobs, too,” Betty interjected. “Creative ones...”

  Thomas stared at her. “I’m not sure what you’d know about that.”

  “Now, that’s not fair. I want to find work.”

  “Can I go or not?” Martha pleaded, desperate to win the competition and prove her father wrong.

  “No. We have other plans that evening,” he said.

  Martha never found out what those plans were, if there were ever any at all. The prize ceremony came and went, and the Storm family remained at home. Martha won second prize and received her certificate in a plain brown envelope from Mr. Brady, after class, rather than on stage. When she showed it to her dad and asked again, why she couldn’t have collected it in person, he shook his head.

  “You shouldn’t have questioned me,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t go ahead with my existing plans or take you to the ceremony. You ruined it for yourself. Plus, you didn’t even get first prize.”

  For weeks, Martha cursed herself for not keeping her mouth shut. But as she grew older, she began to suspect there’d never been another event that night, and that her father had lied. And she found that he told more untruths, over the years, big and small.

  So if there was even the remotest
chance that Zelda was still alive, she had to find out.

  * * *

  Eventually, buoyed on by murmuring conversations with herself, Martha walked up to the garden gate. She tightened her fingers around the handle, pressed down and pushed it open.

  Her surroundings seemed to fall eerily quiet, without birdsong or the rustling of wind in the trees. Her footsteps on the paving stones sounded extra loud as she headed towards the front door. Her heartbeat raced in her ears.

  She raised her hand, rapped three times with the fox knocker, then waited. She readied herself with a friendly smile.

  Seconds then minutes passed, and the door remained closed. No one came to answer it.

  Gradually, her jaw ached from smiling.

  She knew there was someone in there.

  Martha tried again but there was no reply, so she did a small sidestep to glance through the front window. It allowed her to see right through to the back of the house, to the kitchen. She saw that the back door was open. A figure moved across it and Martha felt her neck muscles strain.

  Perhaps they can’t hear me.

  Or, perhaps they’re pretending not to hear me.

  She swept her hand around under the ivy surrounding the door, looking for a doorbell, but couldn’t find one.

  A fence ran along each side of the house, tall slats of wood painted pale green, and she pressed an eye against a button of daylight. She watched as a small black Scottie dog scampered across the back lawn. White sheets billowed on a washing line, alongside a turquoise duvet cover and a long skirt the same shade.

  Zelda’s color.

  Martha knocked on the door one last time with three loud raps, using her knuckles this time. When she drew them away, they were red and the skin had broken. She blew on them and waited.

  This time she heard footsteps and a lock rattling.

  Her stomach tightened.

  The door opened and the woman who might be Zelda’s carer stood in front of her.