Our Animal Hearts by Dania Tomlinson

Author:Dania Tomlinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2018-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

14

I walked down the road, past the cannery, and through the forest to Henry’s library. Although I had often briefly spoken with Henry when he visited with Llewelyna, Mary watching us disapprovingly, he rarely came to our house now, and we no longer met like we used to. The business with Taras and Mr. Bell’s gun changed something between us, or perhaps it was simply my guilt that kept me from him. The silver coyote watched me from behind a tree as I entered the library. All the books, neat upon their shelves, calmed me and gave me a sense of order. Some spines glistened with gold or silver and others had thick, dark letters. There was a ladder against one wall and a few footstools and chairs in the corners. The wood floors creaked with each step. I turned the corner to the next room and found Ronald Nickel at one of the shelves, holding a book. We spotted each other at the same moment, and both turned to avoid one another’s glance, like two negatively charged magnets. Then, as if changing his mind, Ronald turned back to me and nodded. His shoulders had grown full and round and his face had thinned out. I hadn’t spoken to him since the summer Jacob was bitten by the lake monster. After a while he had given up on visiting my brother.

I nodded at the book he was holding. “What do you have there?”

“A Study in Scarlet. Have you read it?”

“Llewelyna read it to Jacob and me when we were little.” The mention of Jacob spread a flush up Ronald’s neck. He looked away and fiddled with his earlobe. “It’s good.” I smiled in an attempt to comfort him.

Henry was sitting at his desk at the back of the library and looking over the ledger. I sat down across from him.

“Has she begun reading again?” he asked.

“Nothing but the Mabinogion. I didn’t come for books, though.”

Ronald approached the desk holding Sherlock Holmes. “Some tobacco from the city.” He placed a paper bag on the table.

Henry pinched the orange coils between his fingers and smelled them. “Wonderful,” he said, and wrote something in the ledger.

I looked at the globe on Henry’s desk. As a little girl I would close my eyes and spin the globe. I would hold one finger gently against the surface and wherever my finger pointed when the globe stopped spinning would be where I would one day run away to: Lima, New Caledonia, Bavaria, Saxony, Kirin, Dongola. When I shared these names with Henry he would tell me what he knew of them, if anything, and reminded me the map was old and some of the places no longer existed.

“Hope to see you soon, Iris,” Ronald said as he left the library.

“I think he likes you.” Henry tucked the tobacco away. A book on his table was open to the title page. In the top corner was a familiar name, handwritten.

“Stewart Brewster,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to ask.

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