The librarian had to work until six. Blue stayed, reluctant to leave either her stuff or the library. First, what if she left her bag behind the desk and the woman stole from it? Hard to imagine, but anything was possible. And second, what if she took her stuff with her and the librarian closed up the library and left? Mama had left. Cass had left. Even Tish had gone. Blue'd come to assume that within her dwelt something unlovable and easy to leave behind. She had no reason to believe this stranger wouldn't choose to leave her, too.
Instead, Blue worked. When she was little, she'd imagined that the air in libraries was filled with whispers, with books telling their stories to one another. The air here held nothing more than the creak and snap of the baseboard heating and the growls of traffic outside, but there was magic in the order and peace, nonetheless. Shelving books made her a part of it.
A few kids her age came in after school let out. She wondered how she looked to them. Like any other new girl, chipped green polish on bitten nails, curly frizz escaping from the tight elastic holding back her brown hair. Her jeans had dirt on the knees, and she kept pulling leaves out of her barn coat's pockets as well as her hair.
Okay, maybe she wasn't like any other new girl. Maybe just like a new girl who had arrived straight from the woods.
Cass had cared so much about how she looked. Every morning she'd blow-dry her hair into perfect straightness, the edges in a silky taper around her face. She kept her nails perfect, too. Not gaudy—just single smooth colors, multiple coats brushed on until they shone, slick and even and wet-looking. She ordered expensive makeup online, using Lynne's credit card, then paid her back with waitressing tips. You'd never know that underneath it she was as blotchy as any other girl.
At least that was how she had been. Was she still the same? Two years ago, Blue had still had braces and had liked to wear snug pink sweatshirts with hoods and zippers. What would Cass look like at nineteen, and would she recognize who Blue had become? Would she look at the faded streaks in Blue's hair where she'd dyed it with red Kool-Aid, alone on a Saturday night, looking for anything to distract her from the quiet? Would she run her fingers through the tangles and say, "I have a better idea"?
"All set?" The librarian had put on a long black coat and a watercolor-print scarf, winding it twice around her neck. Something about the action made Blue shiver. Maybe it was the slenderness of her neck and the casual way the girl in the basement had studied the sparks dropping onto the rags as the others slept above them. But Blue wasn't staying long. She hadn't even given away her real name, so she should have three weeks, not three days. The librarian was safe from her. As long as she didn't stay.
The librarian lived in a little brick house. They entered it through a side door that led into the kitchen. Books lined the inside, on shelves, on counters, in piles on the floor. The woman didn't apologize for the clutter. She just took off her scarf and coat, slinging them over the back of a scarred wooden chair at the table, and stooped to pick up a bowl from the floor.
"I'm still used to feeding two cats," she said as she took a can of cat food from the cupboard. A moment later a black-and-white cat trotted around the corner.
"This is Esmeralda. The other was Chanticleer. There's a picture of him on the mantel in the other room." There was the snap of a can being opened, and the cat at her feet began to purr.
The woman showed Blue a place to leave her boots, by the door. The relief came almost as soon as they were off. She needed another pair of shoes for when she wasn't moving. The whole boot thing wasn't really working quite the way she'd imagined.
The librarian led her back through the sitting room, all the way through to a staircase just past it. Upstairs were two rooms: one clearly a bedroom, while the other was packed full of more books, with a little daybed stuck in the corner by the window.
"You can leave your things here. Go ahead and slide the books around if you need space. I'd pull the shade if I were you. I leave it open during the day, so Esme can lie in the sun, but the people across the way can see right in. I have towels downstairs, if you'd like to use the shower?"
Blue left her guitar on the bed and carried her pack back down the stairs with her. The bathroom was tiny—just room for a toilet, sink, and shower—and the tile was cold under her feet. The water was perfect, though, hot almost to the point of pain; and she stayed in it a long time.
They had a quiet dinner. The librarian had changed into sweatpants and a ragged-hemmed sweater, and she served them soup in mismatched bowls. Blue didn't care. The food was hot and filling, some kind of soup with beans and corn, and corn bread alongside. She ate until her stomach hurt.
"I'll send some bread with you when you go," the librarian said as she cleared the table.
Blue had assumed that the woman had wanted company. After all—cat, house full of books … She had to want people around. By the end of dinner, she wasn't so sure. The woman seemed happy with silence, and her eyes kept straying to a book that lay open on the corner of the table. She hadn't even asked Blue's name, nor offered her own. It was Sharon—Blue had heard her say it on the phone—but she thought of the woman only as the librarian.
Blue'd been so busy wondering if she would be safe that it hadn't occurred to her what the librarian had risked in bringing her home. She knew who she was: just Blue, seventeen, not spectacular at grades or causing trouble, good at swimming and playing guitar. But this woman had only the outside to go on.
Now, standing by her in the kitchen, Blue knew a secret about the librarian. Music came from within the woman, a soft, sleepy fiddle tune designed to be danced to in a dimly lit room.
Another thing she couldn't tell anyone. She went upstairs to her room and lay on the bed thinking about how music played from souls like wind chimes on a breezy day. She wondered what her own might sound like. That was what the woman in the red dress had given her—the ability to hear. She fell into dreams of music rolling in great sweeping waves across the land, along the highways, flooding the cities and washing all unhappiness away.
