Burning Books

by Sharon Gerlach

  I locked my bedroom door at night, but somehow, each morning, it was open. The front door was always locked when I woke, though, so I supposed I was forgetting to lock the bedroom after using the bathroom in the middle of the night.

  And sometimes things around the house weren’t where I thought I’d left them. When you live alone, you get used to putting items in a certain place and them being there when you need to use them again. After all, there’s no one else in the house to move them.

  But I found my jar of sea glass on the kitchen windowsill by the dining nook. The sun shone through it and turned the rocks to jewels. It seemed like a natural place for it to be—near the garden whose flowers reflect the colors of these gems of the sea. But I didn’t put it there. I know I didn’t put it there.

  My photo albums, too. I always—always—kept them on the lower shelf of the coffee table, standing up between two granite rocks I used as bookends and in chronological order. It’s not that I’m OCD or anything, but it’s just easier to grab the year you’re looking for if they’re arranged in order. I rose this morning to find them lying stacked on top of one another on the shelf, one of them open to a picture of me when I was a young girl, swinging on a plank swing hung by chains from a stout tree limb.

  Sleepwalking. I couldn’t discount that as a possibility. Sometimes I got homesick for that brick mansion, for my too-busy father and my socialite mother. I loved my cottage and I loved living alone, making my own decisions, putting things in the places I deemed they belonged and watching what I wanted on television. Yet sometimes I wondered . . . Often I had the feeling of being watched even when all the drapes were closed, when there was nowhere someone could watch me from the outside.

  Sometimes I wondered if I was truly alone in that house.

  So Idiot Woman’s voyeur had upped the game to breaking and entering—and while she slept, no less. At what point did this harebrained woman think it appropriate to notify the authorities? Molly didn’t think she could have stood living alone while knowing someone came into her house and went through her things while she lay in helpless slumber. So far, Idiot Woman hadn’t even mentioned a security system or cameras to catch her midnight intruder. She turned the page.

  My necklace went missing. I left it hanging on the finial of my bedside lamp as I do every night. Every. Night. There was no way I would have left it anywhere else; it means too much to me. I’d been through the entire cottage twice. There weren’t that many hiding places. I went through my purse and through my closet, thinking maybe it had fallen off and I hadn’t noticed. It was nowhere.

  Every night I choose my clothes for the next day. It saves time in the morning so I’m not late to work. I’ve always been terrible at being on time, so every minute counts. I select my outfit and hook the hanger over the top edge of the Cheval mirror in my bedroom.

  I found my necklace hanging on the clothes hanger a week after it went missing. The front door was locked. The bedroom door was locked.

  I started to believe I was being haunted.

  Hot damn! Molly nearly whooped. She’d never considered that Idiot Woman’s stalker was a ghost. That would make perfect sense and explain why she never seemed to be able to catch her observer.

  She heard Magnus in the entryway just in time. When he walked into the sitting room, he found her wrapping the books in the silk blouse. Joyce would be by to pick them up shortly.

  He stopped short, glaring suspiciously at the silk bundle. “You’re not reading them, are you?”

  “No.” The lie made her squirm inside. “Joyce is coming to pick them up and take them to her friend. I mentioned him at lunch today, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “There’s stew in the Crock-Pot in the kitchen. Have a bowl, and when Joyce has gone, we can watch a movie or play dominoes or something. Lynda might come over if we play a game.”

  “I think I’m just going to have something to eat and go to bed. Cess was kinda whiny today; I’ve got a terrible headache.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Can I get you anything?”

  His look carried a warning. Back off, Molly. No smothering. “No, thank you. I’ll take a cup of coffee up with me. That might help.”

  He wandered away to the kitchen. Joyce arrived shortly afterward to take possession of the books. Molly handed them over with reluctance.

  “That’s my favorite blouse. It was the only silk I could find.” Other than the shirts in her mother’s boxes, that was, but she couldn’t bear opening one of her mother’s crates, let alone allow one of her elegant silk shirts out of the house.

  “I don’t think he needs the silk for anything other than to insulate the objects and prevent any magic from leeching out. I’ll see that it’s returned.” Joyce paused at the door, holding the silk-wrapped tomes gingerly. “Molly, just because Magnus may be right about the books, it doesn’t negate his other issues. I think it might be prudent to speak to his psychiatrist about the behavior you’ve observed. Magnus is an imperfect judge about what is relevant and what is not.”

  “I’ll do that.” As she closed the door on her friend’s good night, she felt eyes boring into her. “Magnus, stop sneaking up on me.” She turned from the door to find the entryway empty. Likewise, the sitting room was vacant, as well as the upper level that looked over the sitting room.

  She found him in the kitchen, sliding across the tile floor in his socks while he toasted slices of French bread in the toaster oven. He ducked his chin and checked on his toast to cover his embarrassment.

  “Were you just doing a Risky Business move?”

  “What if I was?” He sent a sly, sidelong look.

  “You’re silly.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “I’ll keep saying that as long as you keep amusing me.” She hooked her hand around his neck and pulled him closer to kiss his cheek. He squirmed away. “I’m going to read in my room, since you’re going up to bed. Good night, dorky brother.”

  “Good night, suffocating sister.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him and left. This time, when she felt eyes on her and turned to look, she found Magnus staring after her. He gave her a mocking two-fingered salute that seemed to say, I knew you couldn’t resist checking on me one more time and went back to his toast.

  The siren song of the books seemed to have waned since Joyce took them from the house. In fact, when she looked up from her novel to check the time, she was startled to find that it was not only just past eleven o’clock, but she also had nothing more than a mild curiosity about the story contained in them. Maybe Magnus was right and the books were magic, designed to enthrall her and trap her in a nightmare story. Speaking of Magnus, she’d been so engrossed in her book that she couldn’t remember if he’d stopped in to say good night or not.

  She set the novel aside, scooted out of the oversize chair, and opened her door, pausing for a moment before stepping out into the hallway. Perhaps he did come in, for she usually left her bedroom door open a crack if she came up to read in the evening. That way she could hear the doorbell if anyone came to call, and she wouldn’t miss hearing her brother. They had only each other in this world, after all, so when she could help it, she didn’t let the sun set without saying good night and telling him she loved him, even if it convinced him that she was smothering him.

  Magnus’s bedroom lay just across and down the hallway from hers. The door was closed. His television babbled at a respectable volume, and light flickered under the door as the images changed on the screen. She knocked, but he didn’t answer. Fallen asleep during his program, most likely. She tried the knob, but it wouldn’t turn. He’d locked her out. Meddling Molly. Mollycoddling Molly. Suffocating sister. Ah, Magnus. Did she hover over him so much that he felt he needed to lock her out to protect his privacy?

  She didn’t press the issue. In the kitchen hung a ring of keys, one of which would open his door, but she didn’t retrieve it as she went through the house and made sure everything was locke
d tight. She wouldn’t care for him invading her room when all she desired was a little privacy, so she wouldn’t do it to him. It rankled, though, that he translated her concern and affection as smothering.

  Her door left open a crack in case he woke and wanted to talk, she went into her private bathroom to brush her teeth, wash her face, and weave her hair into a braid so it wouldn’t tickle her face all night, changing into fleece pajamas behind the closed door. She half expected him to be waiting for her when she emerged, but her room was empty and the hallway outside dark except for the dim night lamp left glowing all night.

  She closed her door, her fingers hesitating on the lock. In the end, she didn’t turn it, for she didn’t think she would be able to stand it if she woke in the morning, like Idiot Woman, to find it unlocked.

  In her dreams, she moved across a stage—a stage decorated like her house—for an audience of one. Lamps spilled a warm glow across her domain, reaching no farther than the edge of her area. Her observer sat in the darkness beyond, invisible to her eyes. His gaze pressed upon her as inexorably as the pressure of the deep ocean as she moved from scene to scene. Every room was a voyeur’s delight: all angles visible to his eyes, no hidden corners, no secret alcoves, no private recesses, an open prison with pale-blue walls and no refuge. No escape from the oppressive caress of his regard. It restricted, dominated, possessed, persecuted her every step. Even as she lay in repose, his gaze lay upon her, plaguing her subconscious, until even in her slumber, her flesh prickled into goose bumps.

  Then he stood beside her bed, a hulking shadow contemplating her as she slept. Through her eyelids, she watched him watching her. At length, he leaned over her, plucking the pendant from where it lay in the valley between her breasts, just above the lacy edge of her red camisole. He balanced it on his fingertips for a brief moment, then curled it into his hand and gave a sharp yank, breaking the fine chain. His hand dove into his pocket, depositing his treasure, and came out empty. After another moment of silent scrutiny, he moved away from the bed to the door, easing it open, closing it creakily behind him. Locking it from the outside.

  The scrape of the lock snapped Molly out of her slumber. She bolted upright in bed as her bedroom door swung open, admitting Magnus, who carried a mug of hot coffee in one hand and the ring of keys from the kitchen in the other.

  “Ah, you’re awake.” He smiled. Molly blinked in confusion. Sunlight flooded her bedroom, dispelling the gloom that lingered from her dream. She’d fallen asleep on top of her covers, the bedside lamp still burning, the curtains open wide to the contemplation of the night and now, the sweet kiss of the sun.

  “What are you doing with the keys?” Her voice came out as a froggy croak, and she cleared her throat, sitting up. Her T-shirt was rumpled, and her jeans cut painfully into her midriff. She couldn’t recall the last time she had fallen asleep in her street clothes, on top of her bedding.

  “Your door was locked. I’m sorry to wake you up, but Joyce is here.”

  “This early?”

  He laughed. “Early? It’s nearly eleven.” He set the coffee on her bedside table and retreated to the door. “Please hurry. You know how much I hate small talk.”

  Molly made a face as the door closed behind him. It was strange how the waking world often inserted itself into a dream. The snap of the mechanism as Magnus unlocked her door had translated in her dream to the mysterious intruder latching the door behind him. She didn’t think it had been the same door—she’d had a sense of rough-hewn lumber, although she hadn’t been able to move in her dream to actually take in her surroundings.

  She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and ran a comb through her hair as her only concession to a presentable appearance, then swapped out yesterday’s clothes for fresh ones, frowning slightly as she dropped them in the hamper. She thought she might own a red camisole like the one she’d been wearing in her dream, tucked away at the far back of a drawer in her walk-in closet because she never wore it. Strange that she’d dreamed of fine lace yet had given her bedroom such an oddly primitive decor.

  Then she kicked herself. It hadn’t been her bedroom she’d dreamed of. It hadn’t even been herself she’d dreamed of. She really needed to stop taking Idiot Woman’s story so personally.

  Joyce sat stiffly at one end of the sofa, holding a cup of hot coffee near her mouth like a shield. Magnus sat on the love seat across the coffee table from her, engaging in his version of small talk, which inevitably fell back upon the latest movies he’d watched. From the look on Joyce’s face, she’d never seen the Hostel franchise and was unlikely to in the future.

  “Molly. Good morning,” she greeted with relief. Magnus looked equally grateful.

  “I’m so sorry, Joyce. Ordinarily I’m up before eight.”

  “No need to apologize. I dropped by uninvited. I did try phoning, but you didn’t pick up.”

  Molly glanced at the side table, where her phone lay beside the lamp, its message indicator blinking. “I guess I left my phone down here. You didn’t tell me it rang, Magnus.”

  Her brother shrugged. “I didn’t hear it. I was in the kitchen. Besides, I don’t answer your phone.”

  He didn’t answer his own, either, which drove her crazy.

  “Well, it’s good to see you regardless, Joyce. What brings you by?”

  Joyce shifted uncomfortably and darted a look at Magnus. “My . . . friend phoned this morning.”

  “It’s okay. I told Magnus about your friend wanting to see the books. Does he have news for me?”

  “He would like to meet with you, actually. He was hoping you could make lunch at one. Anthony’s HomePort in Des Moines. I think the Oyster Bar and Grill is all that’s open there this time of day.”

  “That would be lovely.”

  Magnus cleared his throat. “You’re not going alone to go meet some stranger at a restaurant, Molly.”

  “Oh, she won’t be alone,” Joyce assured him quickly. “I’ll be going as well.”

  “Two women alone with a strange man.”

  “He’s not a stranger to me, Magnus,” Joyce reminded him. “Molly will be perfectly safe.”

  “I’d feel better about Molly’s safety if I were there.”

  “Really, Magnus, what could possibly happen at a restaurant?” Molly laughed. “But if you want to come along, fine. After all, you’re the reason he’s examining the books to begin with.”

  And so it was that all three of them were shown to a corner table overlooking Puget Sound and the city marina, where a solitary man waited, silhouetted against the window so his features were indistinguishable. He stared out the window across the water, but he wasn’t so captivated by the view that he didn’t notice their approach. He stood politely as they neared his table, and at last, his face came into view.

  His features were pleasant if not precisely handsome, topped with an unruly shock of wavy, nearly black hair; his build, tall and solid, indicating a past history as an athlete. As Magnus would word it later, in disparaging tones that annoyed Molly for reasons she couldn’t articulate, he was built like a football player who’d been good enough to make the college team but not good enough to make the pros. The rest of him was every inch the scholar: black slacks and button-up shirt, pullover sweater, a bookish face, and the quiet demeanor of an introverted academic. His saving grace from the professor cookie-cutter mold was the pullover sweater. Not cashmere, as the stereotype might dictate, but a bulky fisherman’s knit in pine green and textured with cables, hinting at a bit of nonconformity.

  They shook hands all around as Joyce made the introductions. As they claimed their seats—the men trying to out-polite each other as they waited for the women to sit first—Dr. Cary Welch, a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, clasped his hands on the table in front of him. He said in an engaging baritone, “I took the liberty of ordering coffee all around, but please feel free to order what you prefer to drink. Miss McKinley, I thought we might get lunch out of the way before we
discuss the books.” A leather satchel, that ever-faithful companion of the professional scholar, hung on the back of his chair, presumably containing the books in question.

  Magnus opened his mouth. Molly spoke before he could. “That sounds wonderful, thank you. I haven’t eaten yet today. And please, call me Molly.”

  Cary Welch smiled at her. The smile transformed his unexceptional face into a thing of beauty. Now she noticed his eyes, not the kindness in them or the worry behind that kindness, but the kaleidoscope of colors. Three-quarters of the pupils were surrounded by reddish brown, the remaining quarter by a vivid green edged with gold. Around this, aquamarine circled the lower two-thirds, with a sea green and gold mixture making up the top third. And around this, a thin circle of the same sea green stitched its way around, slowly giving way to a vivid sky blue on the inner side. Striations of darkest blue, like an artist’s sketch marks, lent depth and even greater interest.

  Molly stared. She couldn’t help it. And she wondered what color he listed on his driver’s license.

  “Multiple,” Cary Welch said randomly, still holding her with those fantastic eyes.

  “Excuse me?” Magnus said, a bit huffily.

  With seeming effort, Welch dragged his gaze from Molly’s to look at her brother. “She was wondering what color eyes my driver’s license lists.”

  “How did you know that?” Molly blushed. Was she so transparent?

  “Everyone always wonders,” he replied, a bit sardonically. “Multiple is what it says, since there are four predominant colors.”

  “Central heterochromia,” Magnus said, surprising everyone.

  “Exactly. Ah, I see our server heading this way. If you’ve never been here before, the Shrimp BLT and Chowder is fantastic, as is the Blackened Rockfish.”