Firefly Hollow (10 page)

After a miserable night spent tossing and turning, Sarah finally drifted into a restless sleep. She didn’t wake up until her mother came in and shook her.

“Sarah? Sarah, wake up. You’re burning up with fever.”

Opening her swollen eyelids, Sarah peered up into her mother’s concerned face. When she tried to swallow, the pain was intense. “I have to go to work.”

Sarah tried to sit up, but Eliza gently pushed her back. “Oh, no, sweetheart. I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere today except to the doctor. You stay right there, and I’ll get you some water.”

Falling back against the pillows, Sarah asked, “Can you call the library?”

“Of course. And the doctor’s office. I’ll be right back.”

Sarah closed her eyes, too tired to hold them open. She gave a brief thought to the books she’d planned to return that day, but even that didn’t keep her awake. Before her mother was downstairs, she’d fallen back asleep.

To her dismay, Sarah was diagnosed with strep throat and wasn’t able to return to work until the following Tuesday. When she clocked in that morning, she apologized profusely to Shirley and the library director. Both assured her that she wasn’t in trouble, and that they understood.

“I wasn’t kidding when I told you that you’re one of the best assistants we’ve ever had,” Shirley said as she was getting ready to go to lunch later that day. “Are you okay to handle things by yourself down here until I get back?”

“Sure. I’ll be fine.”

Shirley hadn’t been gone five minutes when the door opened, and Owen came in. He stopped short, seeing Sarah by herself, but then continued, placing a stack of books on the counter.

“Hello.”

“Hi.” Sarah’s hands, hidden in her lap behind the tall desk, clenched. She made them relax and forced a polite smile as she stood and went to get his reserved books from the back counter. “I have those books you wanted. I’m sorry I didn’t get them back in here sooner.”

“That’s fine. Shirley mentioned you’ve been ill. I hope it was nothing serious.”

“Just strep throat.” She took his card and checked out the books.

To her surprise, he asked, “So what did you think of the books?”

Sarah shrugged. “They were interesting, especially
Folklore
. It was written more as a non-fiction book than an entertainment piece.”

“How so?”

Seeing nothing but genuine interest in his gaze, Sarah placed the books side by side. “This one is more along the lines of the dime novels that were written about western life several decades ago.” She tapped the cover of
Haints, Hollers, and Howls
. “But
Folklore
takes a more scientific approach, at least in the way it’s presented. The other book is a more fun read, but for information,
Folklore
has it beat.” She stacked the books and slid them across to him, along with his card. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Not right now, thanks. I’m going to look for some more books, though.” He picked up the books and, with a nod, headed back into the stacks.

When Sarah sat back down, her legs were shaky. “Probably from being sick,” she muttered, refusing to acknowledge any other reason for her weakness.

Shirley returned from lunch, and Sarah clocked out. She still didn’t have much appetite, but it was nice to take a few minutes to rest. When she came back to the counter, Shirley handed her a folded piece of paper.

“Owen asked me to give you this. It’s a list of some books he thought you might find informative. I take it the two of you settled your differences?”

Perplexed, Sarah met the older woman’s gaze. “Not in so many words, no. He asked what I thought about the books, and I told him. Did he say anything when he gave you this?”

“No. Just asked me to give it to you.”

“Huh. Okay.” There were three titles on the list. Sarah folded the paper and put it in the pocket of her skirt. “I’ll take a look at them before I leave. Thanks.”

The rest of the day, Sarah found herself fingering the paper at odd moments, her mind going back to Owen’s visit. His behavior utterly confounded her. Tired of worrying, she shrugged his kindness off as an anomaly. Just because he had been civil one day, she wasn’t expecting the same treatment the next time she saw him. She’d always had a strong sense of self-preservation, ever since overhearing Paul Turner laughing with her sister that day in the drama room. If Owen Campbell was trying to get her to drop her guard by being nice to her, he was going to have to do a lot more than recommend some books, no matter how interesting they might be.

Chapter Fifteen

A
FTER OWEN FINISHED SUPPER THAT evening, he settled down at his desk to catch up on the correspondence that had collected while he was away. One of the first letters he wrote was to inform Eli of the day’s events. With the standard greeting out of the way, he went straight to the heart of what was bothering him.

I’m confused, I don’t mind admitting. When I ran into Sarah the other day, a smarmy insurance agent was sniffing at her heels. Then, I found out she was reading the very books I’ve been waiting for; I was startled. I handled that badly, something that I seem constantly to do around her. She got sick right after that, from what Shirley said. Knowing that just made the guilt worse.

I went to pick the books up today, and the gladness that went through me at seeing her… I don’t like it. But then she talked to me about the books. She’s so damned smart, Eli. I wanted to stay there at the counter all day. I don’t know what spurred her interest in the subject of the paranormal and Appalachian folklore. It was all I could do not to ask. She didn’t volunteer anything beyond what I asked her, and I could tell I made her uncomfortable.

I’ve really not handled things well, and I don’t know how to rectify that. I left her the names of some books I thought she might possibly find interesting. I included one of my own in the list. Maybe next time I go into the library, I’ll find the courage to ask her if she’s read them. Given the way I’ve acted around her, she probably threw the list away as soon as Shirley gave it to her.

I will continue to endeavor, as I promised I would, to repair the damage I’ve caused. Much as you feared, I do not think it is a task that will be easily nor quickly accomplished.

Owen sat back. Upholstered leather with wheels on the base, his chair was a luxury, a reward he’d purchased after he sold his first three books. It also made the countless hours he spent hunched over a tablet or the drawing board pass that much faster.

He’d started writing when he was eighteen, and through a lucky set of breaks, his books had taken off like wildfire. The boon allowed Owen to live very comfortably.

Picking up his favorite drawing nib, in lieu of a signature, he sketched out a quick scene of a deer looking up, surprise reflected in its gaze. For whimsy, he added a half-eaten bunch of daisies hanging out of the deer’s mouth. He always added a sketch to his private letters, something to make Eli and Amy smile.

Setting the unfolded letter aside so the ink could dry, he stretched and stood. He looked around the open, airy space that comprised his studio and sleeping quarters. After royalty checks had started to come in with regularity, Owen had decided he no longer enjoyed sleeping in a drafty barn. Even though his father had made the barn as comfortable as possible, nicer than many people’s houses, it was still a barn. He could have lived in the farmhouse, but he wasn’t comfortable there anymore. The memories were too strong and too negative.

When he’d mentioned to his uncle what he wanted to do a couple of years earlier, Eli and two of his sons had come up from Laurel County to help Owen build the new house. They and their families were the only ones who had ever seen the inside of it.

From the outside, the house looked very unassuming. The structure was small, but had two stories, along with a porch hidden in the middle of the roof. The downstairs contained his library, where he devoured book after book, his thirst for knowledge never quenched. Attached to the back was a small kitchen and laundry room, with a half-bath hidden under the stairs.

The upstairs was one large room, the only wall being the divider between the open space and the full bath. At one end, Owen’s desk and drawing board sat in front of a large bank of windows. His bed, large to fit his frame, was in the middle of the room, against the wall between the bedroom door and the windows. The foot of the bed faced another window, which was set into the wall beside a wide glass door that opened onto a small deck. The deck had stairs that led up onto the roof, where Owen had designed a space to sky watch.

The house was heated by a fireplace on each floor and met Owen’s needs nicely. From the outside, it looked like a slightly modified barn. Most people weren’t even aware of his home’s existence, thinking Owen still lived in his parents’ old house.

Looking out the windows across from his bed, Owen watched storm clouds gathering off in the distance. Frequent bolts of lightning shot down from the sky, illuminating the purple violence of the roiling clouds. He opened the door, letting the spring air flood into the room. Lifting his head, he sniffed the wind, his eyes half-closing with pleasure. A chill shook him, and he let the wolf emerge enough to enhance the experience of the wind rolling over him. The myriad of scents it carried tickled his lupine senses in a way his human side couldn’t experience.

He considered going outside for a run. He was wired from his encounter with Sarah earlier in the day. Glancing longingly at the mountain that rolled away from the house, he sighed.

“Too much paperwork, old man. There’ll be other runs.”

Tamping down his frustration, he closed the door and went back to the desk. As he addressed the envelope and folded the letter to Eli inside it, he wondered again what Sarah had done with the list of books.

“I’ll simply have to ask,” he finally decided. “There’s no way around it.”

Sarah was curled up on the window seat in her bedroom, the window cracked enough to let in fresh air. She heard thunder in the distance and shivered with anticipation. Nothing was as cleansing as a good storm, she thought, her attention momentarily diverted from the book she was reading.

One of the books Owen had recommended,
Tobias Hedge Versus the Opossum,
was a children’s storybook. Given the genre, she’d been surprised to find it on the list, and if he hadn’t included two other fairly studious volumes, she would have thought he was sending her a message that he saw her as a child. However, once she picked up the book and glanced through it, the recommendation made sense. Inside, she found much more than the typical children’s novel. Instead, it was closer to the original
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
, complete with stunning watercolor illustrations. Unlike Grimm’s books, which were set in Europe,
Tobias Hedge
took place in Appalachia.

As she perused the book, she recalled what she knew about the series. The author was one she’d heard of at Berea, even though she hadn’t gotten a chance to read his works before tonight. The
series was written for older children, and from what Sarah remembered, was all the latest rage. A native of eastern Kentucky, H. O. McLemore was reputed to be a brilliant recluse.

One of the girls in Sarah’s class, Gracie, had a theory. “I think he’s horribly disfigured from fighting in the war, and when he came home, wounded, the girl he was promised to ran away in horror. So he took to his cabin and writes to drown his sorrows.”

“Children’s stories?” Sarah questioned. “I don’t know. I think he’d be more apt to write along the lines of Steinbeck or Hemingway if that were the case.”

“No, Sarah,” another female student had protested. “It’s for all the children he’ll never have. You have to read these books.”

Sarah had laughed, brushing off their devotion to McLemore as a passing fad. But once she began reading the book Owen had recommended, she couldn’t put it down. The way the words flowed on the page, they seemed to wrap around her. The stories were deftly woven, a blend of the folklore that permeated mountain culture with new twists on the tales. Though the writing was original, there were enough glimmers of the traditional present to make it feel familiar.

After pausing only long enough to lay the book down and visit the bathroom, Sarah rushed back in and continued from the spot she’d marked. She might not understand Owen’s behavior, but the man knew what he was about in recommending books. As soon as she got to work tomorrow, she was going to check out every book they had by H. O. McLemore and devour them all.