Burning Books

by Sharon Gerlach

  “That’s better,” he murmured against her lips. “I missed you.”

  “We were apart for only a few hours.”

  “Too many hours.” He kissed her again, sandwiching her between the plaster wall and his body. “Are you hungry? I brought home Chinese. Too much to eat by myself.”

  “Maybe later.” She raised her chin, forcing his attention back to her lips.

  He moved away, shouldered her overnight bag, and took her hand, leading her upstairs. His bedroom was as tastefully elegant as Cary himself, with dark pine-green walls and a cream ceiling. A huge four-poster bed dominated the room, the dark wood softened by cloud-white bedding, the ottoman at its foot pressed into service as a table. A serving tray made of reclaimed wood and antique drawer handles held two curvy, footed glasses garnished with orange slices and a pitcher of sangria.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk, Cary?”

  He chuckled. “I’m reasonably confident that I don’t need to get you drunk to get you where I want you, Molly.”

  No, he didn’t. All he need do was turn that smile on her, pin her with those patchwork eyes, and any protest or second thought melted away like snow in July. His fingers tightened, and he pulled her closer. Molly turned away from his seeking lips, liberating her bag from his shoulder.

  “That ‘something better’ I promised. Bathroom?” She inclined her head toward three doors on the wall opposite the bed.

  He pointed to each. “Bathroom.” The door on the far right. “Walk-in closet.” The door in the middle. “Dressing room.” The door on the left. She chose it and closed it on his anticipatory smile.

  A square cushioned stool covered in gold velvet squatted in the center of the small room. Three mirrored walls offered an all-angles view. Bronze hooks on which to hang clothing dotted the single block-paneled wall.

  Molly sank down on the stool, pausing as she delved into her bag to pull out the cloud of sheer saffron.

  What the hell was she doing? She had said herself, earlier that very day, that it concerned her how fast they’d become involved, but here she was in his bedroom, ready to pull on a barely-there solely for his benefit. The benefit of a married man. And where was this leading? His wife missing and everyone—including himself—ready to move on didn’t guarantee she was nothing more than a passing fancy. A dalliance. A testing of the waters. Lee could conceivably come back any day, and where would that leave Molly?

  His soft knock on the door startled her out of her reverie. His voice was a purr through the wood separating them, coiling through her, warming her to her core.

  “Molly.” Her name, a verbal caress on his tongue. “Do you need assistance?”

  She smiled. “No. I’m fine.”

  “Are you certain? I’m very handy with things like buttons and zippers.”

  Heat spread from her warmed core, burning through her reservations. “I’m certain.”

  There was no further hesitation as she stripped naked, even when she spied her reflection in the mirrored wall. The soft lighting was kind to her scars, glinting off the gold infinity-knot pendant. She slipped into the sheer saffron gown and fastened the single button between her breasts, turning away from the mirror to open the door.

  He stood by the ottoman, sipping sangria and looking out the window at the rainy night. Or perhaps he looked at his reflection, the dim lamp beside his bed turning the glass into a mirror of sorts. Did he wonder about their hasty relationship like she did? Did he question his motives, the depth of his involvement? His reaction should his wife return?

  His head swiveled toward her. He drew in a sharp breath and set down his glass as she stopped before him.

  “I’d like your opinion on this. I can’t decide whether to return it.” She revolved in a slow circle and struck a pose.

  “Molly,” he breathed. She barely had time to register the predatory glint in his eyes before he pounced, sweeping her around the ottoman to tumble her onto his bed.

  “I take it you like it,” she said breathlessly, and then he was taking it off, and Molly stopped speaking.

  ∞5∞

  They ate takeout from Mayflower China while sitting in bed, he in his red-plaid boxer briefs and Molly draped in his T-shirt. He let her have the last slice of barbeque pork but wrested the last cashew prawn out of her fingers, popping it into his mouth and chewing vigorously before she could fight to reclaim it. He kept stealing bites of meat from her portion of beef chow yuk, so she ate half of his fried rice, vindicated by his doleful expression when she handed over the container and he found a scant four bites left. The rain had evolved to a storm outside, booming thunder shaking the house around them while she told him about the third book, keeping back only the suspected identity of Idiot Woman.

  “So you don’t know what he gave her?”

  “No. When I got your text, I stopped reading, grabbed my things, and dashed out the door.”

  “I’m glad you find me so irresistible.” Lightning flashed outside, making his eyes glint. “When we’re done eating, we should go down to the kitchen. You can finish reading it, and we’ll see if it burns like the other two.” He leaned forward and trailed his tongue up the curve of her neck and whispered in her ear, “You can wear that scrap of nothing you brought with you.”

  Molly shivered. “And what will you wear?”

  “You.”

  It was with great effort that she finished eating. When they were done, he gathered up all the containers and the splintery wooden chopsticks, and she fished the book out of her bag and followed him downstairs. They sat at the table with the stockpot on the floor between them. She hadn’t changed into the barely-there as he had suggested, sitting self-conscious and vulnerable in just his T-shirt. What if he had a housekeeper who showed up unexpectedly? Or what if Harvey and his wife brought the kids home without notice?

  Cary, on the other hand, appeared remarkably confident and self-possessed in just his boxer briefs. He was also very pragmatic, insisting on having a small kitchen fire extinguisher and oven mitts ready just in case this book burned hot. Molly didn’t protest their lack of necessity. Even if the book didn’t produce heat when it burned, she certainly did. In fact, she was a veritable forest fire of blistering heat any time he came near, and he might very well need both items to handle her.

  Seated at last, he gestured to the book in her hands. “Now let me hear your lovely reading voice, Molly.”

  She stared back at him without opening the book. “Magnus is certain that my reading and burning the last book caused his breakdown. What if this time it’s worse?”

  “You said he’s at his friend’s house. Do you fear for her safety?”

  “Yes. What if he does more than break her glassware?”

  “Do you think him capable of hurting her?”

  “Why do you keep answering my questions with questions? It’s almost like you’re psychoanalyzing me.”

  “I’m always psychoanalyzing everyone. I don’t mean to deflect your anxiety; I’m merely trying to pinpoint its source.” He scooted his chair closer to her, resting his hands on her knees. Molly’s brain blissed out for a few precious moments, coming back to reality midway through the remainder of his response.

  “. . . sible for his own reactions. He must learn to control his outbursts. Surely, his friend knows this about him already. If she still chooses to be around what can only be described as a ticking time bomb of temper and emotion, there is nothing you can do to protect her.”

  “Should I at least warn him?”

  “I’ll go up and get your phone if you want. But Molly, warning him brings a whole host of other issues to hand, such as your following him to his friend’s house and breaking in to take back the book.” He pried one of her hands off the book and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles gently before folding his fingers around hers.

  “You worry, I get that. But you worry at his expense . . . and at your own. Your worry smothers your brother and keeps him from feeling independent and
in control.” His eyes flicked to the book and back to hers. “I don’t believe there’s any doubt you are the catalyst of the magic in these books. You are supposed to read them, regardless of the cost to Magnus. Perhaps the magic itself exacts the cost from Magnus.”

  Her brows raised in surprise. If he’d been working out this theory, he’d certainly kept it to himself.

  “What do you mean? That he deserves the results of these books being read? He doesn’t deserve to be tormented just because he has emotional issues.”

  “I meant that while you are the catalyst of the magic, perhaps he is the reason it was invoked in the first place. Perhaps the effects on him are well deserved.”

  “He’s not a bad person, Cary. He’s just troubled. It’s not like he’s . . . he’s a serial killer or anything.”

  “Are you so certain of that, Molly?”

  Sudden, numbing cold shivered over her body, pricking her skin into gooseflesh. She barely felt the book falling into her lap as her nerveless fingers loosened their hold. But she felt Cary’s fingers as he lifted that hand from her lap, engulfing it in his own, because his touch was scorching on her icy flesh. His gaze seared into hers, solemn and troubled.

  Her voice hissed out, barely a whisper. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. And I’m desperately worried for you, because you’re so caught up in easing his pain from his own sharp edges that you don’t see the potential of you yourself being cut. And it will happen, Molly. He’s spinning closer and closer to a complete loss of control, and nothing—not even forsaking these books—will stop it.”

  He plucked the book from her lap and held it between them, breaking visual contact. The warm, cocooning embrace of his eyes released her into cold reality. The leather-bound book hovered between them, a green accusation. She had a responsibility to read it through to burning, a responsibility she shirked not only because she loved her wacky brother, but also because she feared the truth—the truth contained in the six slim volumes, begging to be released from its magical confines.

  “Can you be certain, Molly, that he deserves to be protected? Can you be certain of his activities during the missing year?”

  “No. But neither can you. What about your activities? What about mine? No one knows what happened during those months, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s potentially a killer.”

  “We aren’t talking about everyone. We’re talking about Magnus. These books aren’t about everyone, either. Whoever is the subject of them doesn’t necessarily matter. What matters is you are the catalyst, and he bears the results, and there’s an awful symmetry to it that cannot possibly be accidental.”

  She reached for the book. Cary held on to the other edge, lowering it so they could see each other again.

  “If you don’t want to read any more of the books, I will accept that. I will not say a word about it again. I will even help you find psychiatric help for your brother. These books are your responsibility, but . . .”

  “But?” she echoed numbly.

  “The way they came to you makes me suspect they are also your choice. Every time one of them burns, we discover new things. The last one could very well be the key to unlocking the missing year. But you must freely choose to read them.”

  “And if what happened during the missing year is too dreadful to bear?” Magnus . . . a serial killer? Did he have the capability to hold within his hands a human life, only to snuff it out without second thought or remorse?

  “We’ll deal with it. I won’t leave you to deal with it alone, Molly.”

  He let go of the book. It was her decision now. Reading this volume until it burned could be the first step toward independence from the dark burden that was her twin. The thought loosened the ever-present knot of anxiety in her stomach, and the relief was euphoric.

  She opened the cover and read aloud:

  It glinted gold and menacing on a field of deep-blue velvet. For a moment, I was terrified. He mistook my horror for surprise.

  I hope you like it. I didn’t know if you wore much jewelry, though I’ve noticed you always seem to be wearing a certain necklace. If you don’t like it, I can always have it made into a bracelet. Or get you something else altogether. I didn’t even think that maybe your necklace has sentimental value. I’d never want to—

  My moment of horror faded while he stammered his apology. Oh, how awkward he was. How awkward we both were. I smiled at him, and his flow of words stopped. Perhaps it was time for a change. I’d been wearing the heart-shaped keepsake locket, a gift from my father, since my sixteenth birthday. I took it off and laid it beside the box, then lifted the necklace by the pendant, loosened the chain from the slots in the velveteen display card inside, and held it up between us.

  Will you?

  He took it from me as I leaned closer, and despite his nervous fumbling managed to get it clasped around my neck. As he drew away, he looked not at the necklace he’d given me, but into my eyes.

  You wear contacts. He seemed a bit disconcerted.

  I like brown eyes better than blue.

  He smiled, perhaps thinking I meant his own brown eyes. His eyes are beautiful; a warm, earthy brown, rich, speckled with green flecks. But I meant my own eyes, my tinted polymer eyes that hid my true blue. Staring into the mirror seems so much easier when I’m not looking into the eyes of the most blindly foolish woman on the face of the earth.

  “Wow,” Cary broke in. “That’s the first time she’s really addressed her own foolhardiness.”

  “I don’t think she means how careless she’s been with her gentle stalker. I think she means foolishness in her life elsewhere. Remember how she once said she didn’t want to talk about the boy, not to make her talk about the man? And later, she said something about how she’d changed her hair color and wore colored lenses, even changed her name. She was running from someone.”

  “Domestic abuse, maybe?”

  “He sure did something that scared her into hiding,” she agreed. “Maybe she’ll tell us in this book.”

  He waved a silent apology for his interruption, and she went back to Cecily’s narrative.

  It looks lovely on you, he said, but he still wasn’t looking at the necklace. He was looking at my eyes. But after that moment in the coffee shop, his tension seemed to ease, although it was two weeks of meeting elsewhere before he would consent to coming inside my house again. Two weeks of coffeehouses and dinners and once even a day at the Woodland Park Zoo. He was attentive and charming and much more intelligent than his stammering self-consciousness had first led me to believe. And sexy . . . oh, he oozed sex appeal. Women stared at him everywhere we went.

  We went to the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island today, and he kissed me in the Bird Marsh. It seemed like the most natural thing to do, surrounded by nature, birdcalls like background music, mated dragonflies cruising among the spearlike iris leaves at the edge of the water. And later, when he took me home, he accepted my invitation to come inside.

  I went to my bedroom to change into more comfortable clothes and came out to lean against the doorframe, wearing nothing but the necklace. He was in the kitchen across the hall, mixing us both a drink. When he glanced up and caught sight of me, he started in surprise and dropped the spoon into the glass. He came toward me silently, slowly, breathlessly, edged past me into the bedroom, and pulled me in behind him.

  “That escalated quickly,” Cary remarked.

  “We’re hardly in any position to judge,” Molly replied dryly. He smiled his slow-burning smile, bringing a blush to Molly’s face. She ducked back into the book.

  Later, lying on my bed as the light outside faded to the blue of twilight, he lifted the pendant from my bare chest.

  You were scared of it at first, he said. I’d thought he hadn’t noticed. Why?

  It just reminded me of something.

  Something he did? He lifted my left hand, kissed the ring finger where a faint pale indentation attested to my broken marriage.

  Ye
s. But I don’t want to talk about it. I’d rather do that thing again.

  Which thing?

  That last thing we did.

  His smile was wicked as he pulled me onto him. And I tried not to think of the box I’d found in the secret cubby in the den. It could have belonged to the previous owners of the house—we’d only lived there for three years. That scenario was no less horrifying but at least of lesser impact on my life.

  But I didn’t think so. When you’ve known someone since you were eight years old, you become familiar with the feel of things that belong to him. The box felt like his. The trinkets inside felt like his. The implication of such trinkets secreted away in a box in the wall were what had sent me into hiding the very day I found them, for how could I sit across the dinner table from my childhood love and not spill my heart’s most feared questions: Why do you have those necklaces? Why are they hidden? Where are the women to whom they belong? I fear the answer isn’t that they’re remembrances from illicit affairs, but souvenirs from much darker events.

  A long while later, I lay beside my sleeping lover in the dark, vainly hoping to dispel any reminders of those trophies by my sightless exploration of the shiny gold infinity knot upon my chest. And still, I could not separate it from the necklaces I found in the trophy box.

  Molly’s hand flew up to her own neck, fingering the gold infinity knot that rested against her skin under Cary’s T-shirt. The blood drained from her face, drop by blessed drop, until she swayed dizzily upon her chair.

  “Molly, it’s just a coincidence.” Cary shoved the stockpot out of the way and knelt before her, framing her face with his hands to warm her cold skin. “Breathe, Molly!”

  No gentle reminder, this, but an urgent request. Suddenly aware of the darkness creeping in at the edge of her vision, Molly sucked air into her starving lungs.

  “I’ve seen many women wearing necklaces like yours. The infinity knot is very popular.”