by Drea Damara
“Ricky. I think you know what book I’m talking about.”
“How the heck would I know? You know how many books you have here?”
“Yes! Yes, I do! I know exactly how many books I have here, which is why I know exactly which one is missing. It’s one of the only five that are kept locked behind bars in a thick glass cabinet. One of the only five I specifically told you never to touch!”
“Well, what the hell makes you think I touched it? Why does it have to automatically be me? ’Cause I’m the bad guy? I’m trouble. Is that why?” He laid the accusation on thick in his panic.
Sarah raised her bracelet-clad wrist and said, “Because you’re the only one who knew where the key was and how to get it.”
“What? Well, maybe you left it lying around somewhere!” He waved his arms, hoping that somehow the motion would distract her rant.
“Ricky, I never take this off.”
“Didn’t you leave it on the counter the other day? Maybe you take it off more than you know.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “How ironic that you remember that with such clarity.” She placed one hand on the counter and the other on the bureau desk, pinning him in behind the counter.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a book. I mean, if someone took it, I’m sure they’ll bring it back. Who’d want to steal an old book anyway?”
Sarah gritted her teeth as she asked, “Ricky, where is it?”
He squirmed in the stool. “This is such bullshit! Just because I got into a little bit of trouble, you assume it’s me. Ah!” He winced and slapped his hand to his back. His skin stung where he’d found the marks that morning.
“What’s wrong with your back?”
“Oh, now you’re worried about me.”
“No. I just want to know if I need to tell the police to take any special care of you when I call them to report your second theft,” she replied with perfect calmness.
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“Ricky, just tell me where it is so I can get it back. Now!”
As he scratched his back, his discomfort turned to worry. Would she really call the police?
“All right! I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d freak out! I didn’t think it was a big deal because—because it’s safe. I loaned it to someone who’d take good care of it. Just to read—to read and bring right back.”
“Who did you give it to?” Her voice was a terrified whisper.
“You have to promise me you won’t yell at her. It was my idea. This was my fault!”
“This is no time to be noble, Ricky! Who?”
He swallowed, which seemed difficult with the way she was looking at him. “Shelby. I gave it to her yesterday.”
Sarah dropped her head and pinched her eyes shut. “Oh, no. Not her.”
“What? Come on! Who takes better care of books besides you and me than she does?” Sarah looked up and glared at him. “Okay—besides you.”
“You need to go over there right now and bring it back here. Immediately.”
He grimaced at the thought of having to admit to Shelby that he’d been caught. “Can’t I just call her or something?”
“Ricky, it’s probably too late for that. Just get your butt moving and get over there. I’ll write the address down for you.” Sarah scribbled on a notepad.
“It’s like three o’clock.” Ricky looked up at the clock in confusion. “I’m sure she’s awake.”
Sarah arched a brow as she looked up at him. “You’d better hope so! You gave this to her yesterday?”
He nodded.
“Just wait a minute.” She handed him the note with the address. “I’m going to call first, but you’re still going over there.”
“Oh, come on,” he objected. Sarah looked at him in question for his change of heart about the phone call. “What are you going to say? You’re not going to embarrass me are you?”
“That’s the least of your worries.” Sarah punched numbers on the phone. “Yes, Mrs. Dannovan? This is Sarah Allister from the bookstore. Is Shelby there?” Ricky watched his aunt as he waited anxiously through the pauses. “Oh. No, she hasn’t been in today. Yes, maybe she is up in her room. Look, I’m sending my nephew over there to get a book from her if that’s all right. He loaned her one of my old books, and I…found a buyer who’s coming in for it later. Ricky will be over to get it. She’ll know the one. Okay, thank you Mrs. Dannovan.” Sarah set the phone down with a shaking hand.
Ricky sighed. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not ratting me out.”
“I didn’t do that for you,” she said icily. “Listen to me very carefully, Ricky.”
He took an awkward step back as she approached him and set both of her hands on his shoulders. She continued, sounding intense.
“You go over there right now and no matter what happens, no matter what you see, you get that book. Do you understand?”
“Uh, yeah.” Ricky looked from her hands back to her pointed stare.
Sarah gave his shoulders a jolt. “Ricky! I’m serious! Whatever happens! If she’s sleeping, don’t wake her up but still get that book. If her mother says she’s sleeping and to come back later—get that book! Tell me you’ll come back here with the book!”
“Yeah! Yeah! I got it. Geez! You’re acting kind of weird. I’m sorry already.” He brushed her hands away and used the opportunity to escape from behind the counter.
“Ricky. Don’t be sorry, just—”
“Get that book. Yeah, I got it!” Ricky ran out the door before she could scold him any further. Man! She was crazy about her damned books!
Ricky hurried down Blinney Lane and was never happier to be out on the main road. He glanced behind him a few times, paranoid his aunt might come out to check on him. He’d never seen her act like that before. Aunt Sarah was usually chill, and of all the adults in his life, she was least likely to freak out, especially when compared to Dad.
He glanced down at the paper with Shelby’s address. Maybe he could take his time once he got to her house, not that he’d feel like staying if she became upset that they’d been found out.
Shelby’s house was only about five blocks from the bookshop. He knew the street because it crossed the main drag he’d walked down so many times that summer to escape for lunch outside of Blinney Lane. As he turned onto Elm Street, he noticed a reflection of light on the street sign. He reached to his stinging back and scratched as he looked down the lane. There was an ambulance parked a block down with its lights flashing. He started down Elm and glanced back and forth at the house numbers. 101. 102. He needed to get to 203 Elm. As he neared the end of the block, he looked up at where the ambulance sat with its back doors open, no one inside. It looked to be close to where he needed to go. He picked up his pace, pausing only to check for side traffic as he crossed the intersection.
As Ricky walked down the sidewalk toward where the ambulance was parked next to the curb, he looked at the number on the house to his left: 201. Wait. That meant 203 was next.
Ricky stepped slowly between the ambulance and the gate of a white picket fence in front of a large two-story house with a wide porch. Three numbers were affixed to the open gate of the fenced-in yard. 2-0-3. He looked up at the house. The front door was wide open. The lights of the ambulance reflected off the windows.
“This can’t be right,” he said under his breath. He started up the walk with a bit of a jog and stopped at the open door.
Peering inside, he tapped on the open door and called out a “hello.” He looked to the right and saw a dining room, void of occupants. To his left was a living room. It too was empty. He heard voices upstairs and stepped over the threshold to the entryway, which lay before a wide staircase. He gazed up the stairs and saw a man with light brown hair holding on tightly to the shoulders of a well-dressed blonde woman who looked a lot like Shelby. She stood with one arm over her waist, the other propped on it with a hand held up to her mouth. There were tears
in her eyes. They stood in the doorway of a room at the top of the steps and stared in worry. Ricky didn’t like the look of this. His legs willed him boldly but slowly up the stairs toward the two strangers.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dannovan?” he said hesitantly as he ascended the steps.
The man turned his head, but the woman was obviously too distracted to have registered the intrusion. The man’s dazed eyes stared at him in question.
“Mr. Dannovan? I’m Ricky. A friend of Shelby’s.” He stopped on the step below them. “Is everything all right?”
The woman noticed him now, but her reaction was the same as her husband’s—mute, staring with an open mouth. “I’m Shelby’s friend from the bookshop, Ricky. Is—”
“Oh, Ricky,” the woman said soothingly. She leaned down, grabbed his hand, and then guided him to the other side of her husband. Ricky tried to glance into the room, but he couldn’t see with them blocking his view. “You can’t go in there now. They’re—”
“What’s wrong? Is Shelby okay?” Ricky heard the worry in his own voice now. What the hell was going on?
“Son, Shelby’s—she won’t—” Mr. Dannovan grasped Ricky’s shoulder, but he choked up before he could finish the sentence.
Mrs. Dannovan now stood behind Ricky with her hands on his shoulders, just as her husband had done to her a moment ago. Ricky felt her clutch onto him tightly with a comfort one wouldn’t normally give to a stranger. Her voice floated over his shoulder. “Ricky, I tried to wake her up, but she just wouldn’t. I didn’t know she was still up in her room until your aunt called, and then I went up to check on her. I thought she was sleeping,” Mrs. Dannovan said in clipped breaths. Ricky tried peering into the room to see what was going on, but all he could see was an empty bed and he heard muffled voices inside the room that had garnered so much attention.
A paramedic came to the door and pulled it open the rest of the way. He gave a brief glance at Ricky and then the Dannovans. “Folks, if you could just back up now. We’re bringing her out.”
Ricky felt Mrs. Dannovan urge him backward. What? What did they mean? Bringing her out dead or alive? He needed to know the answer immediately!
“Is she dead?” Ricky didn’t mean to blurt the words out so forcefully, but he felt like he was going to swallow his own heart. He felt Mrs. Dannovan’s arms come around his shoulders, and she began to weep. Now Mr. Dannovan grasped his shoulder with one hand.
“No. No,” he said softly and broken. “They think she’s in a coma, but we don’t know why.”
Ricky heard a creak and the paramedic at the door turned his back on them and began to step backward toward them slowly. Ricky saw the shiny metal and white sheets of the stretcher. The first paramedic turned on the landing, swinging the stretcher toward the stairs.
“Oh! My baby!” Mrs. Dannovan gasped and went around Ricky to stand as near to the stretcher as she could.
Ricky stared dumbly as he saw Shelby’s pale face, eyes closed, head lain back on the pillow. There was an oxygen mask covering her mouth and ruby lips. She looked lifeless. This girl, who he knew to be incredibly full of life, now looked like a wax figure, peaceful and pale.
The paramedics lowered the stretcher down the staircase as Mrs. Dannovan sidestepped alongside with one hand on top of her daughter’s. Mr. Dannovan waited for the last paramedic to go down a few stairs before he started to follow. He stopped and turned back to Ricky who still stood staring, dumbfounded.
“Uh…” Mr. Dannovan hesitated for words looking at Ricky.
“Ricky,” Ricky said, offering his own name pathetically.
“Ricky. I’m sorry. We have to go to the hospital now. We’ll call you and your aunt when we know something.” His words came out in a hoarse voice.
Ricky nodded. “I’ll lock up for you.”
“Thank you.” Mr. Dannovan managed a pained smiled and then hurried down the steps after the paramedics.
The lights from the ambulance rotated their reflection into the house. Ricky felt like everything was happening in slow motion. He watched from the top of the staircase as they hauled Shelby outside.
He felt nauseated. He’d never seen anyone lifeless before, nor could he imagine anyone so young and vibrant being rendered so helpless. Deep down, he had a guilty feeling that this was somehow his fault. His aunt’s words crept back to him. What had she meant by it being too late? And why had she hoped that Shelby wouldn’t be sleeping? The irony of her peculiar behavior confounded him. He’d been shocked by her behavior, yet it now seemed like she had known something terrible was bound to happen.
Ricky glanced back at Shelby’s room. He walked inside slowly, thinking he might find a clue as to why she had been forced into such a sudden vegetative state. There was no indication that anything violent had happened in the room. Everything had the resemblance of a typical teenage girl’s bedroom.
There was a thick white comforter pulled back on the bed and ruffled throw pillows. A lamp with flowers sat on the nightstand next to the bed, along with some of the beaded necklaces and bracelets Shelby often wore. Ricky walked over to it and saw an open pack of the gum she was always chewing. He wanted to both smile and cry at the sight of it. His foot hit something hard as he stepped closer to the nightstand, and he jumped, feeling eerie that he was the only one left in a house where a tragedy had just struck.
He looked down and saw The Lands of Farwin Wood lying on the floor underneath the bed. That stupid book, he thought, and reached down to pick it up. Had she even had a chance to read it? Holding it in his hands, he felt like he was stealing from a dead person. God, don’t say that, he told himself. Suddenly, he wanted to be as far away from Shelby’s room as possible.
He bolted down the stairs and stopped by the door. He looked around unsure of what to do. He went into the living room, turned the television off, and then came back into the foyer. He found the light switch and turned it off as well, then locked the front door. As he grabbed the knob to pull it shut on his way out, he glanced back up the stairs and shuddered. “You’d better be all right,” he whispered and shut the door.
With the thick book under his arm, Ricky hurried back toward Blinney Lane. Shelby was the only friend he had made that summer. Why was life so cruel? Why had he been forced to come here? Why was the only thing good that had happened since his arrival being ripped away? It wasn’t fair. Maybe someone like him deserved to end up in a coma but not someone like Shelby. What had she done to deserve that? The poor girl barely had a life! All she did was read all day or try to help his aunt. He was sick to his stomach, and his eyes were burning. Damn it, he wasn’t going to cry!
LOST IN his thoughts, Ricky didn’t even realize he was back on Blinney Lane. He sighed at the ivy-covered archway and started down the cobblestone street. Aunt Sarah better not give me any more grief about this stupid book after this, he thought. He wasn’t in the mood to hear it right now, no matter what he’d done wrong.
As Ricky walked up the steps to Allister’s, he saw his aunt sitting at the counter, staring out the window like a hawk. She jumped out of her seat as he opened the door. The sight of her eagerness angered him. All she cared about were her stupid books.
“Thank goodness.” She sighed and took the book from him. She turned it over for inspection, turned her back on him, and started walking toward the stairs.
“Aunt Sarah!” he called, upset she hadn’t asked about Shelby, even though he knew deep down she couldn’t have known anything was wrong.
“What?” She stopped and turned back to look at him.
He tried to speak, but a lump in his throat prevented him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away, blinking to ease the burning in his eyes.
Sarah gave him a grave look. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
Ricky looked back at her with his mouth agape. “Yeah.”
“It’s Shelby. What’s happened?”
“She—” He didn’t understand how she seemed to know something was wrong with Sh
elby. “She’s in a coma. I got there, and an ambulance was out front. They took her out of her room and wheeled her out.” He paused to swallow. Sarah watched him, every muscle in her face alert. “Her parents thought she was sleeping. I mean, who knows how long she lay there like that!”
Sarah sighed and put her free hand to her stomach. Her eyes dropped to the floor, affixed on nothing in particular. “I was worried this would happen.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you keep saying stuff like that?”
“Ricky, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
Sarah moved around him and locked the door. She pulled the window blinds down.
“You know why this happened to her, don’t you?” Ricky got a chill, like he was about to discover something devious. His aunt was acting bizarre. It was like he was watching a murderer covering her tracks. Sarah said nothing and just glanced at him; she walked over to the other window and pulled its blind down. “What the hell’s going on? What did you do?”
Once Sarah had locked up the shop, she walked over to the couch with the book still in her hands and sat down. She motioned for him to join her. He approached, watching her like prey watches a predator. “Would you please say something?” he demanded once he was near enough to Shelby’s chair that it gave him goosebumps.
“It’s the book, Ricky.” Sarah held it in both hands and stared up at him.
“What about the book?”
“The book. This book is the reason why Shelby appears to be in a coma.”
“What?” He could feel his face contort in confusion as he flopped down in Shelby’s chair, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about? What—like because I did something bad, something bad happened?”
“Sort of, but it’s more complicated than that.”
Ricky shook his head and held his hands up. “Look, Aunt Sarah, if you have weird superstitions about karma or whatever, I’m not going to argue with you, but it’s not going to make me feel any better, and it’s certainly not going to help Shelby. And if you’re trying to make me feel bad about what I did, congratulations! I already do, so I don’t need another guilt trip. But I absolutely don’t think that me loaning her a book put her in a coma. For crying out loud.”
