Secrets of the Catalogue (The Librarians Book 1) by Amelia Spencer

Author:Amelia Spencer [Spencer, Amelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Emerson was waiting with her bags packed the next morning when Silas knocked on the door. Even though she was still angry with him, she couldn’t stomach the thought of facing Miles Blackwell alone for Christmas. When she opened the door, Emerson was surprised to see no hint of the pain she had glimpsed in his eyes the night before.

“Bags all packed?” Silas asked lightly.

Emerson couldn’t help but smile hesitantly back at him. He was clearly taking the path of ignoring what had happened between them yesterday. If that’s how he wanted to play it, then Emerson refused to be the one to bring it up. She couldn’t afford to waste time worrying about Silas Rathbone when the familiar anxiety about her yearly visit home was creeping in.

“Allow me.”

Silas strode past Emerson and scooped up her bags gallantly with a wink.

He bowed sarcastically. “After you, love.”

“None of that.” She waved him off but he just grinned back at her.

The train ride from New York City to Portland was eight hours, but it seemed like it lasted an eternity. Silas dozed across from her and Emerson studied his face while he slept. She considered trying to get a better look at the tattoos peeking out from underneath his sleeves but didn’t want to risk waking him. Instead, she turned her attention to the novel she brought to pass the time. Emerson had carefully inspected the book she pulled from her mother’s shelves to make sure she didn’t accidentally select a book intended for light reading and end up lost in another world. The sun dipped behind the trees that flashed by and she wondered whether this particular book was tragically dull or whether she had lost interest in everyday literature after getting a taste of the books from the Catalogue. Either way, her eyelids began to droop.

“Wake up, Emmie.”

Someone was shaking her gently and brushing her hair out of her face. Silas crouched beside her seat staring at her intently. He squeezed her thigh when she opened her eyes.

“We’re home,” he whispered.

Emerson expected to feel some sense of nostalgia stepping off the train but she only felt dread while they trudged down the cobblestone street leading to her father’s apartment. She returned home once a year to see her father and usually left feeling guilty for abandoning him. To his credit, Silas never failed to accompany her. Emerson’s mother and father had become surrogate parental figures for Silas and she suspected he felt the same pang of familial obligation to visit at least once a year. This year would be different. Now that Emerson knew her mother was alive, she wasn’t sure whether she could placate her father’s fantasies that Iris might show up for Christmas dinner. She also wasn’t even completely certain that he was insane anymore. Maybe her mother had been visiting Miles for the better part of eight years and was allowing everyone to assume he was off his meds whenever he spoke about her as though she were still alive.

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