Dyeing Wishes (21 page)

Then I looked at Ardis and saw Geneva’s hollow eyes staring at me from over her right shoulder.

I yipped, which scared the cat. The cat leapt straight up onto the counter, which startled Debbie. Debbie, obviously not as calm as I thought, screamed, which sent Ardis—eyes as wide as Geneva’s—into mother-tiger-to-the-rescue mode.

“Did he scratch you?” Ardis demanded. She turned to the cat, hands on her hips. “Did you scratch her? We will have none of that, buster, because if we do, we will have none of you. Is that clear?”

“Mrrrph?” said the cat.

“No, no, it was my fault,” I said. “I thought I stepped on him.” I leaned down and put my face close to his—a move that would have earned me a stripe across the nose from any of Granny’s cats. “Are you okay, sweetie?” I asked. I hadn’t known I could make such a goo-goo voice.

He butted his forehead against mine, then flopped on his side with a loud purr.

“Well,” Ardis said, “so long as he’s clear on that.”

The cat turned partially onto his back and waved a paw, inviting her to rub his belly, which she was happy to do. Debbie joined in the reconciliation love fest by smoothing the fur between his ears. It was cat bliss.

“I think Buster is pretty clear on how things are around here,” I said.

“Oh my, did I just name him for you?” Ardis asked.

“Ab-so-lute-ly not,” Geneva said, enunciating each syllable with ponderous thunder. “I would rather kill myself than call him Buster.”

That seemed unnecessarily harsh. “Um, no,” I paraphrased, eyeing Geneva uneasily. She still hovered behind Ardis’ shoulder. She didn’t look any less dismal or droopy, but she was slightly denser and more cohesive, if those were the right words. And pretty cranky. “No, he isn’t really a Buster, I don’t think. I’ll keep working on it. But thanks, anyway, Ardis.”

Ardis shivered and pulled her sweater more snuggly around her.

“Can we go now?” Geneva asked. She had all the dampening enthusiasm of a spoiled and bored child.

“I
wasn’t sure you’d come with me,” I said into my cell phone as we crossed the street toward the courthouse. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to talk to me again. Are you going to be okay out here, though? Do you really think it’s a good idea?”

Trying to carry on a conversation along the way probably
wasn’t
a good idea considering I still slipped up occasionally. But she
was
with me, and that was an improvement, even if she did turn her hollow eyes toward me with a look that might as well have said,
Don’t know. Don’t care. Don’t want to live.

“Don’t run into that pole—oh…oh well.” She passed right through a utility pole without a bobble. She certainly didn’t hurt the pole. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you? It might help.”

She raised her shoulders and dropped them with a barely audible sigh. If she’d had pockets, her hands would be buried in them and she’d be kicking along the pavement in a dejected hunch.

“Okay, well, you can tell from the way I blundered into that question with Debbie that I’m not the best at touchy-feely emotional stuff. I try, but…wait a second. Speaking of touchy-feely, do you know anything about other spoo…um, other paranormal stuff?” I was so busy looking at her to see if that sparked any interest
that
I
almost walked into the mailbox outside the bank. What a pair we were. The dangerous duo out for a blunder down the sidewalks of Blue Plum.

Some tourist boys dragging behind their tourist parents snickered and I heard one of them say something about not being able to walk and talk at the same time. Geneva wasn’t talking anyway, so I decided I might as well put the phone away.

“The library’s a few blocks down,” I told her. “I’m going to hang up now, but stay close, okay? I don’t want to lose you out here.” Or anywhere, I realized as I dropped the phone back into my purse.

I was a tad nervous now that we were out in public—open-air public as opposed to the contained public of the Weaver’s Cat. Geneva had traveled with me a few times by car between the cottage where we’d met and the shop. And I knew enough not to worry that a sudden gust of wind would carry her vaporous presence away. But before relocating to the Cat she hadn’t been
anywhere
, hadn’t left that tiny cottage for who knew how long. She certainly didn’t know how long she’d been cooped up there. Being housebound or shop-bound for weeks or months—let alone a dozen or so decades—would bore most people to death. Although, come to think of it, maybe that was why the confines of the cottage hadn’t bothered Geneva.

The bright morning had turned into an afternoon of gray clouds with only fleeting patches of sunshine, dreary one minute and dazzling the next. Much like Geneva on a more typical day. I wasn’t used to seeing her in direct sunlight and the effect was interesting. In the sun she faded to the point where she wasn’t much more than a collection of dust motes. But not the sparkling kind of motes that make one think of tiny tinkling fairy bells. Hers were just dust—dull, dusty dust motes. I didn’t
share that observation with her, though. That would have been about as sensitive as telling Mercy Spivey her roots were showing.

The first time Geneva came into Blue Plum with me, she said she vaguely recognized it. But after wafting into the Cat she hadn’t expressed interest in looking any further around town. Walking to the library I thought she might see something familiar, something that would catch her eye or jog a memory. Something that would cheer her up. The exteriors and roof lines of many of the buildings hadn’t changed for a hundred or more years, so there was a chance. But she paid no attention to anything we passed. She didn’t seem to notice the warm patches of sun. And she didn’t seem to care that I’d stopped talking to her. Yet she stayed beside me.

The name of the J.F. Culp Memorial Public Library was almost bigger than the impressive block of limestone J.F.’s family donated for the sign—in the shape of an open book—out front. There were some who thought the sign looked more like a distorted gravestone than a book, but as Granny said, there were also some who wouldn’t recognize a book if you hit them upside the head with it.

The library’s redbrick exterior was designed to fit into the town’s historical streetscape without jarring the eye. It gave the general feeling of bygone architecture without mimicking any particular style or period. The interior was supposed to be cutting-edge, or at least up-to-date. To hear Thea tell it, though, the reality of the functionality fell short.
We’ve got all the inconveniences of late-twentieth-century shoddy workmanship,
I’d heard her say,
and none of the actual charms of the eighteenth or nineteenth century.

I held the heavy glass door for Geneva. Needlessly. She drifted through one of the sidelights, stopped in the
lobby to stare at the drinking fountain, then drifted through the security gate. In the open area in front of the circulation desk she stopped again and drew in a breath. Or not exactly a breath, but she made a sound of sharp inhalation. The weirdness of a ghost emitting sounds of respiration hardly fazed me anymore.

“How many books are there in this library?” she asked in awe. That something finally shook her out of her doldrums and made her utter anything other than a complaint did faze me—so much so that I answered.

“I don’t know. Let’s ask Thea.”

“Ask me what?” Thea looked up from her computer behind the circulation desk, reading glasses pulled down her nose.

Geneva threw her hands in the air. “Now you’ve done it. Now the loud one will think you’re crazy. Pretend you didn’t say anything. I’ve seen that movie with Marian the Librarian, and these women are territorial around their books. Please don’t do anything else to get us kicked out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many books in one place and I want to look around.”

“Ask me what?” Thea repeated less patiently.

“Answer her. Answer her.” Geneva shooed me toward Thea, but I turned and watched as she sailed into the stacks looking as full of herself as the figurehead on a ship. On a ghost ship. Grumbling, bossy thing.

“Kath?”

“Answer her!” came a shriek from somewhere in the biography section.

“Have you got a minute?” I asked, turning back to Thea. “Can I ask you to do some research for me?”

“Where does the minute come into it—in the asking part or in the research?”

“The asking. I don’t know how easy the research will be.”

“Leave that to the expert. What do you need?”

I looked around to make no sure no one else would hear. I heard Geneva humming her favorite dirge-like tune as she navigated the shelves but otherwise didn’t see or hear anyone. I lowered my voice anyway. “Information on a few people?”

“What kind of information?”

“Anything you can find.”

She nodded. “It’s a slow Saturday afternoon. I’ll see what I can do. And let me assure you that my professional scruples and my allegiance to the American Library Association prevent me from asking why you want this information, what you intend to do with it, and from alerting others to your interest without your consent. They also keep me from putting any label other than ‘people’ on the subjects constituting the focus of your request. In the interest of full disclosure, however, I should tell you that if I have the opportunity to take a short personal break this afternoon, it’s possible my mind will wander in the general direction of the word ‘suspects.’”

“Which might be a leap, but pinning the words ‘of interest’ onto the back end of the word ‘people’ is fair enough.”

“Cool. Give me everything you already know, no matter how inconsequential you think it is. You never know what tidbit will provide the point of access to research gold. You’ll be at the potluck tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll see you there and bring what I’ve found. What are you bringing?”

I must have looked blank.

“Sorry, my mind flipped to the Food Channel. What
food
are you bringing?”

“Er…” I really was blank on that. I’d put off making
a decision, wondering what one should take to one’s first Historical Trust Annual Meeting and Potluck, not wanting to overthink it, hoping for inspiration…which finally struck. “I know. I’ll swing by Mel’s and pick up one of her coconut cream pies.” Mmm, Mel’s pie. It was a beautiful solution in every sense.

“No, that’s no good,” Thea said. “That’ll be cheating and everyone will know it. Come on, you’re Ivy’s granddaughter. There are potlucks and there are potlucks, but this is The Potluck. Capital
T
, capital
P
. The least you can do is throw together a green salad. With a honey-mustard dressing or something. And put on a skirt.”

“Really?” I should have realized there was such a thing as potluck etiquette. But there should be time after work to make a run to the grocery store out on the highway for fresh spinach. And tomatoes if they looked any good. Maybe an avocado. “I wonder why Ardis didn’t clue me in.”

“She probably thought you knew or she didn’t want to embarrass you. But sure. Green salad will be great. People loved Ivy’s salads.”

“Huh, okay. I guess I’ll do that, then.”

“Everyone will be glad to see it. Oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you. Some of the TGIFs donated money to the library in Ivy’s memory.”

“Aww.”

“Yeah.” Thea was actually quiet for ten or twenty seconds. “There’s a box of Kleenex to your right. Yeah, Ivy was something special. She lived her life her own way and she touched a lot of lives. I’ll send you a letter with the details so you know what books I bought and you can thank anyone who doesn’t want to remain anonymous.”

“Thanks.”

“One book already came in, though, and I especially
want you to see it. It’s brand-new, covers all aspects of natural dyeing. Ivy would’ve loved it. It’s full of color pictures, planting guides for gardens, recipes for dyes—the whole shebang—and it’s beautifully presented. Like one of those coffee table cookbooks that’s part travelogue, part drool inducer, except with fiber and color. It’s a real knockout. Not a book you want to drop on your foot.”

“I’d love to see it.” I looked toward the shelves of new arrivals.

“That’s the problem, though. It’s so gorgeous it checked out immediately. I should have put a hold on it for you as soon as I ordered it. You want me to do that now?”

“Oh, absolutely. Who checked it out?”

“Librarians never tell. I’m sorry I didn’t put it on hold for you to begin with, though. I’ll do it with the rest of the books and…” She stopped, listened, looked left and right, as I’d done earlier, then lowered her voice even though there still didn’t seem to be anyone else in the library. “And I’ll bring the dossiers with me tonight.”

“Can you say ‘dossiers’ without compromising your scruples? It sounds spyish and associated with ‘suspects.’”

“It’s a harmless word meaning file, folder, record, and report in addition to meaning profile. If it had room for any more meanings it would be a portmanteau. I like it. I think I’ll start using it more often.”

“You can e-mail the information to me if it’s easier.”

“Better I bring it tonight. Believe it or not, I don’t have a computer at home. I spend enough time staring at one while I’m here—and I’m here most of the time, anyway. And my phone isn’t smart enough, either.”

“But…” I pointed at the computer in front of her. I
wasn’t following her logic. “From here? You don’t ever e-mail from here?”

“Of course I do. And I could. But.”

“But what?”

“Why take chances?”

“Are you serious?” Making sure no one overheard my snoopy request for other people’s personal information was one thing, but what was Thea worried about? Someone sinister sneaking through the stacks? Danger in the Dewey decimals? Venal volunteers or archfiendish assistants? But she wasn’t smiling, so I kept a straight face. “Won’t you be using this computer for your research and creating a file and saving information to it? You aren’t worried about that?”

“Don’t you read the tabloids while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store?” she asked. Now she did smile, but she didn’t back down. “I can control my end. I’ll clear my search history and I won’t keep a file. Humor me on this, though. Maybe I’m odd, but sending sensitive e-mails out there into the big bad airwaves or wires or ether or whatever, all on their own…Well, things really do go astray and things get leaked and, like I said, why take chances?”