The Book Charmer

by Karen Hawkins

  The kitchen door swung open and Daisy returned, her hands freshly washed. She began making her sandwich while Grace went to escort Mama G in for her second dinner of the night. Before an hour had passed, the book was forgotten.

  CHAPTER 7

  Trav

  The nights were the worst. That’s when his memories, bloodied and furious, howled in the blackness, ripping him away from the peace and rest he desperately needed and hurling him, sweating and frozen with fear, into the lonely, cold awake of night. Since he’d returned from Afghanistan, those dreams now defined his life. They reminded him of what he wanted to forget, forced him to relive the moments he hated over and over until he was held together by nothing more than the simple fact that he was too bloody stubborn to quit.

  He rubbed his face, trying to scrub away the memories. God, how he craved sleep, the dead-to-the-world deep and dreamless sleep that left one feeling refreshed and awake, rather than exhausted and zombified. He craved it the way an addict craved a hit while going through rehab. It whispered to him, beckoning, only to slap him hard when he came close.

  Cursing under his breath, Travis kicked off his sheet, the night air cool against his damp, naked skin. It had been 531 days since his life had changed—531 days since he’d slept more than two, maybe three hours at a time. So many days, and yet so few.

  The clock in the living room chimed four and he sat up, relieved at the sound. He’d been awake well over two hours, staring at the ceiling and counting sheep and, when that didn’t work, planning his day—anything but thinking about his dreams. When he couldn’t sleep, he tried to stay in bed until at least four, as it gave him a sense of having a schedule, even when sleep wasn’t part of it.

  He got up and washed his face in cold water. He found some shorts, stuffed his feet into his Nikes, and went through the kitchen to the garage.

  He flipped on the lights, which hummed loudly as if in surprise at his appearance. He ignored their insistent blinking as he raised the garage door to the dark and chilly air, which mingled with the gasoline-garage smell. The garage had benefited from Mama G and Daisy’s cleaning spree. Inspired by their work, Trav had spent some time organizing the workbenches and going through the random boxes Dad had left stacked along one wall. Oil stains still marred the concrete floor, but the place was a lot neater than it had been.

  Trav pulled a clean hand towel from a stack on the shelf over the washing machine and threw it over the arm of his treadmill.

  “Exercise,” his therapist Don from the VA had said. “It will help you sleep.”

  “How?” he’d asked, disbelieving.

  “If you’re physically tired, you’ll sleep more and deeper. Plus, you’ll produce the proper enzymes to enable your body to—” Don had grimaced. “Hell, don’t ask me. Just try it. What do you have to lose?”

  So he’d tried it. And it had helped, at least a little. He fell asleep better, even though his dreams didn’t let him stay that way for long. The weights had also given him bragging rights when he hung out with his friends. Just last night he’d teased Blake mercilessly about not being able to bench-press his own body weight. There were benefits to not sleeping, a few, anyway, and he might as well use them all.

  He hit the treadmill for a quick two-mile run, his usual warm-up before he lifted.

  Killer came to sit in the kitchen doorway, watching Trav’s run with an expression registering somewhere between overwhelming boredom and flat-out disgust. For some reason, the cat who thought it his God-given right to run around the house every fricking night between two and three in the morning, knocking things off tables and making all kinds of racket, felt 4 a.m. an unacceptable time for a workout.

  The tabby swished his tail with disapproval before strolling to his bed in the corner and settling in, staring at Trav with an expression of total disdain.

  Trav ignored the animal and finished his run. When he was done, he wiped the sweat from his face with the hand towel and crossed to his weight bench. As he went, he told Killer, “Why don’t you do your run-around-the-house-like-a-crazed-hyena-in-the-middle-of-the-night routine while I’m working out instead of saving it for an hour before I get up? Then we’d be on the same schedule.”

  Killer got up, turned around once, and then nestled back into his bed, this time facing the wall, his back to Trav.

  “Thanks. Same to you.” Trav added weights to the bar and started the first set.

  Killer wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Trav’s exercise schedule. Trav’s dad hadn’t liked it, either. He’d never said a word about it, but Trav had seen the worry in his dad’s eyes. Dad had never hidden his feelings well, which had been both a blessing and a curse as he began the long, slow, terrifying fall into dementia.

  Trav gritted his teeth and added an extra set of reps to the set, pushing himself hard. His body was covered with sweat, his muscles aching in protest, but he pushed on, focusing on the here. The now. This moment. One minute at a time.

  His arms trembled, yet he did one more rep. And then another. Until, exhausted, he could do no more. He lowered the weights to the ground and let his quivering muscles rest.

  It felt good to work out. It cleared his mind and reminded him that there were things he could still do and do well. He wiped his face and neck with the towel, the rough cloth catching on the scarred ridges that lined his neck and the back of his arm and shoulder. The scarred skin was tight, tugging and painful as the nerves fought the thick scars and tried to reconnect. There were days he had to set his teeth against the burn caused by those aggressive nerve endings that flashed and flared like brutal bursts of fire under his skin. But as painful as it was, it was nothing compared to what it had once been. There’d been a time when he’d been in agony as old skin died and peeled or flaked away, leaving a charred morass of raw nerves exposed while new skin slowly crept in. The pain was bearable now, although it never truly left, but Trav had accepted that. Over the past few years, he’d learned to accept a lot of things, especially after Dad’s diagnosis.

  Those first months had been hard. Of course, Sarah had been a big help. The night after he found out what was wrong with Dad, she’d showed up at Trav’s door with hot soup, some tea her sister Ava had made just for Dad, and a book on dementia. A lot of people in Dove Pond believed that Sarah and her sisters had special abilities, but that was just gossip and nonsense. The Dove sisters had hearts bigger than their heads. They cared more, perhaps, than they should, so their intuition was stronger than most. That was all it was.

  Still, no matter how Sarah had known he needed the book, he’d stayed up most of the night reading it, making himself a to-do list as he went. When morning rose, so did Trav. And even though he felt barely healed himself, that very next day, Trav became the parent of his parent. He hired one of the ladies from church, Beverly Turnbull, a cheery, plump lady who’d known Dad for years, to come once a week to clean the house. Since Dad knew her, he didn’t mind her puttering around. Then, claiming boredom, Trav had started taking Dad to work each morning and spending the day at the repair shop. Dad had always wanted Trav to take over the shop, so he’d been happy with the arrangement.

  During that first week, while Dad sat in the office moving paper from one pile to the next, Trav and Arnie had developed a plan to get the garage back on its feet. Until that day, Trav had never thought about running the garage. That had been his father’s job, not his. But things had to be done, and Trav was the only one who could do them. To his surprise, he found the same deep satisfaction fixing cars that he’d felt fixing complex electrical and water issues in Afghanistan, especially as word of the changes at the garage flew around town and their old customers returned.

  As time went on, Dad became less able to function, and Trav quietly stepped up, eventually taking over the business. It was both the easiest and the most difficult thing he’d ever done. Easy because he knew without question that he was needed, and difficult because Dad’s decline made the necessity painful.

  Tra
v carried the heavy bar back to its stand, the faint morning breeze drying the sweat on his neck and shoulders. He still missed his father, although some days it felt as if Trav just had to turn around and he’d see Dad standing there in a flannel shirt, a fishing pole in his hand.

  Trav looked at the fishing poles still leaning in one corner, his gaze moving to the broom that rested beside them. That made him think about the day he’d found Daisy and Mrs. Giano cleaning his garage, and he smiled. He was getting to know Daisy, as she spent a considerable amount of time hanging over the fence between their houses. He wouldn’t say he liked her, because she was a kid, and he had no use for kids in his life, now or ever. But he had to admit she was sharp, and more often than not, he found her bare-bones view of the world refreshing.

  Trav turned back to the weight bench just as Killer meowed loudly and sat up in his bed. The cat stared out the garage window.

  Trav came to see what had caught Killer’s attention. The house next door loomed in the darkness, the only light shining from an upper window over the porch. He wondered if that was where the Dragon Lady slept. That was his name for Grace, who was a brunette ball of tightly controlled ferocity. Trav had been a platoon leader, and he knew from experience that a person’s walk told everything about them that you could want to know. And he knew from the way Miss Grace Wheeler strode to her car every morning, chin up and shoulders back, snapping the ground with her ridiculously high heels, that she didn’t walk through life. She stormed.

  She was the exact type of woman a man who wanted peace and quiet would do well to avoid.

  Killer meowed louder yet, still staring at the lit window.

  “You’re bonkers,” Trav told the cat. “There’s nothing there.”

  Killer hopped out of his bed and hurried out of the open garage door.

  In all the time Trav had known Killer, he’d never seen the fat, lazy animal hurry. Not once.

  Curious, Trav followed the cat.

  Killer crossed the driveway, ducked under the fence, and then disappeared into the yard next door.

  “What the hell?” Trav muttered. He was just about to call for the cat when the upstairs window opened.

  Mrs. Giano appeared. As he watched, she placed a small bowl on the windowsill and looked out expectantly. She wore a pale blue nightgown that caught the moon and made her glow, the light in her room making a nimbus of her thin, white hair. She looked like a feeble but glowing angel.

  Killer meowed and then, with a graceful leap that belied his weight, leapt onto a low bush, and from there to a branch in a tree, and then to the porch roof. He then casually strolled to the open window and made himself at home on the ledge, lapping the milk as if he’d done it a thousand times before.

  The old woman patted him as he drank, murmuring in a low voice.

  Trav moved closer.

  “You were hungry, weren’t you, Theo?” the woman said.

  Theo?

  “I warmed it for you, because I know you don’t like your milk cold.”

  Killer drank as if he hadn’t just ignored the food Trav had left him in the kitchen. When the cat finished, he licked his paws and then cleaned his face.

  Traitor.

  “Are you ready for bed?” the woman asked. Before Trav’s bemused gaze, she lifted the fat cat off the windowsill and carried him inside, leaving the window open behind her.

  Trav started forward to warn her, because he knew better than anyone how much his dad’s cat hated being carried, but no screeching sound came from the house. Instead, after a long moment, the light clicked off and Trav was left in the dark, staring up at the window.

  I’ll be damned.

  So Killer had a new home with an old woman who didn’t know the cat’s proper name, a Dragon Lady who could cut with a glance, and a busy little girl who seemed to think Trav was the cast of his own reality TV show. Fine. You all can have him. I hope you know he’s grumpy, ill-mannered, and fickle.

  Well, the window had been left partially open, so Killer could escape if he wanted. I guess he’s okay.

  Silence came from the dark room, and Trav suspected that Killer, now pretending to be “Theo,” had curled up at the foot of the old woman’s bed and gone to sleep, just the way he used to sleep at the foot of Dad’s bed.

  Trav rubbed his face with both hands to wash away the memories. Suddenly aware of the coolness of the night breeze on his bare shoulders, he went back into the garage. So long as Killer was safe, what was the problem? The cat wasn’t even Trav’s to begin with. Not really.

  Still, as he stepped into his garage, he was aware that the house seemed even emptier than usual, as if he’d somehow lost something.

  Scowling at his own maudlin thoughts, he picked up his weights and did two more agonizing sets.

  CHAPTER 8

  Sarah

  “Stop staring,” Trav said.

  Sarah straightened from where she’d been leaning against the fence that separated her house from Travis’s. “I wasn’t staring. I was looking.”

  “Baloney. You’ve been staring at Mrs. Phelps’s old house for an hour now.”

  “Half an hour,” she corrected, watching him dry his motorcycle with an old beach towel. Although he was a few months older, over the years, she’d come to think of Trav as her little brother. Some of her friends, in particular the single ones, thought this a waste, because as far as they were concerned, despite his rugged appearance (and because of it for a few of them), he was an A+ catch. He had his own business and house; he was intriguingly quiet, which had created an air of mystery; and he was “damned easy on the eyes,” as Zoe put it. But for Sarah, Trav was her best friend and that was enough. “It’s been almost a month since the Wheeler family moved into Mrs. Phelps’s old house. I believe we can now officially refer to it as ‘the Wheeler house,’ don’t you?”

  “Sure. Whatever. But if they see you staring, they’ll think you’re weird. Hell, I think you’re weird and I’ve known you forever.”

  “Humph.” Which was what Sarah always said when she knew she couldn’t win an argument but didn’t want to admit it. She took a deep breath of the lavender Ava kept planted along the fence, the scent soothing. It was too bad it didn’t have the same effect on Trav, who’d always been the overthinking, too-serious type.

  Trav’s family had lived beside Sarah’s for more than 170 years. She knew him so well that she couldn’t remember the first time they’d met, and he was as much a part of her life as any of her sisters. She and Trav had been best friends from preschool all the way through high school, even after he’d been embraced by the popular kids while she’d been summarily ostracized.

  She’d resented it at the time, although she should have expected it. In high school, Trav had been the trifecta of perfection—the star quarterback, homecoming king, and valedictorian. Sarah, meanwhile, had been the bold leader of a restless group of social pariahs who wore too much eyeliner and listened to angry bands while eschewing school, family, church, and pretty much everything else. Trav and his friends were called “promising” and “bright,” while Sarah and her friends were called “trouble.”

  She didn’t mind being an outcast, as she’d had more fun. No one expected much of her, and any sign of “good” (a passing grade or not getting sent to detention for an entire month) was greeted with enthusiastic acclaim, while kids like Trav were expected to do those things on a daily basis but without notice.

  Sarah smiled. Who’d have thought the rebel princess would grow up to become the town’s upstanding, not-so-staid librarian? She was rather proud of that jump in fortune. Of course, Trav would say he’d seen it coming, because even when she’d been a social outcast, he’d never stopped being her friend. They’d made an odd pair, the two of them and their weird friendship, but it had lasted over the years, during the death of her parents and his, until they were closer than ever.

  She leaned against the fence once again, her gaze returning to Grace’s house. Nothing moved, the lace curtains draw
n against the fading sun. She sighed. “Grace is so frustrating.”

  “Why? Because she doesn’t want to be your friend?” Trav went back into his garage and grabbed a bucket filled with rags and a can of wax. He returned and set the bucket beside his bike. “Not everyone wants to be friends. I don’t.”

  “You’re friends with me.”

  He shot her a hard look. “We grew up together. Neither of us had a choice.”

  Sarah could tell he was feeling especially surly this afternoon and wanted to be left alone, which she was determined not to do. He was alone far too often as it was. “At least admit you’re glad Mrs. Phelps’s old house wasn’t left empty while she traipsed off to Florida.”

  “I’m glad they’re quiet, but that’s about it. I was worried Mrs. Phelps would rent her house to heavy metal types just to irk me.”

  “I wouldn’t have been surprised. She is the meanest woman I know.”

  “Tell me about it,” Trav said. “I went to pay my business tax last month and got there one minute after four. Seriously, it was one minute, and she still charged me the late fee.”

  “I’m sure she did it with a smile. One like this.” Sarah wrinkled her nose and showed her teeth, trying to look like a rabid Chihuahua.

  Trav grinned, picked up his bucket, and moved to the other side of his bike. “I wish I didn’t have any neighbors.”

  “Even me?”

  He pretended to consider this. After a moment, he shrugged. “You bring me dinner once a week, so you’re okay.”

  “You’re too kind. Come on, Trav. Neighbors are a good thing. And the Wheelers are already better neighbors than Mrs. Phelps ever was.”

  He set an empty can of wax to one side, fished a screwdriver out of the bucket, and used it to pry open a new can. “We don’t know what kind of neighbors they are yet.”