The Echo of Old Books
Barbara Davis
Seated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural.
—Alexander Smith
PROLOGUE
July 21, 1954
Marblehead, Massachusetts
It arrives on a bright summer day.
A large manila envelope with the word PRIORITY stamped in two places across the front in red ink. I stare at it, lying atop the scarred leather blotter along with the rest of the day’s mail. The writing on the front is familiar, as is the name of the sender.
I drop into my chair, breathe in, let it out. Even now, with so many years gone, the memories are tricky. Like the ache of a phantom limb, the source of the pain may be gone, but the reminder of what’s been lost, so sudden and so keen, takes me unaware. I sit with that pain a moment, waiting for it to fade.
Afternoon sun spills through the blinds of my study, painting slats of buttery light on the carpet and walls, shelves lined with books and awards, bits of this and that collected over the years. My sanctuary. But today, it seems my past has found me.
I open the envelope and spill the contents onto the desktop. A rectangular parcel in plain brown paper and a small envelope with a note paper-clipped to the outside.
Forwarding to you, per the enclosed letter.
There’s no mistaking Dickey’s careful hand.
My nephew.
We rarely speak these days—the years have made conversation awkward—though we still send cards at the holidays and on birthdays. What would he be sending me?
I tease the single sheet of stationery from its envelope, laying it open on the blotter. Not Dickey’s handwriting here but another’s. Also familiar. Sharp, angular letters, heavily slanted. Letters penned by a ghost.
Dickey,
After all that has passed between myself and your family, you will no doubt think me bold in contacting you. I am keenly aware of the fallout resulting from my connection with your family and am reluctant to put you in the middle once again, only I find there are matters that, after so many years, require clarification. And so I must beg one last favor. I ask that you forward the enclosed package to your aunt, whose whereabouts I have lost track of over the years. I assume the two of you are still in contact, as you were always her favorite, and I recall her entrusting you, on one particular occasion, with a communication of some delicacy. It is this memory that emboldens me to enlist your help now. It is my wish that the package be sent on undisturbed, as the contents are of a private nature, meant for your aunt’s eyes only.
With deepest regards and gratitude,
—H
The room feels small suddenly, airless and close, as I eye the neatly wrapped package. Thirteen years without a word and now, out of nowhere, a clandestine parcel sent via our old go-between. Why now? Why at all?
My hands are clammy as I tear the coarse brown paper. An embossed leather spine appears. A marbled blue cover. A book. The title, lettered in gold, hits me like a fist.
Regretting Belle.
I swallow the ache in my throat, the jagged sensation so fresh it steals my breath. I’ve been numb for so long, so careful not to remember, that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be sliced open, to bleed. I brace myself as I flip back the cover, then press a hand to my mouth, gulping down a sob. Of course there’s an inscription. You never could pass up the chance to have the last word. What I haven’t prepared for is your voice filling my head as I read the words you’ve scribbled on the title page—a dart aimed squarely at my conscience.
How, Belle? After everything . . . how could you do it?
ONE
ASHLYN
There is nothing quite so alive as a book that has been well loved.
—Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books
September 23, 1984
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
As was often the case on Sunday afternoons, Ashlyn Greer was on the hunt. This time in the messy back room of a vintage boutique situated two blocks from An Unlikely Story, the rare bookstore she’d owned and operated for nearly four years.
She’d received a call yesterday from Kevin Petri, the boutique’s owner, alerting her that a guy from Rye had brought in several cartons of books and he didn’t have room to stock them. Did she want to come take a look?
It wasn’t the first time she’d spent her lone day off digging through boxes for lost treasure. More often than not, she came away empty-handed—but not always. Once she’d scored a first printing of All Creatures Great and Small, unread as far as she could tell. Another time she had rescued a first-edition Lost Horizon from a carton of old cookbooks. It had been badly neglected, but after an extensive rehab, she netted a tidy profit. Such finds didn’t happen often—in fact, they almost never did—but on the rare occasions when they did, the thrill made all the digging worth it.
Unfortunately, today’s boxes weren’t looking particularly promising. Most of the books were hardbacks, recent bestsellers by Danielle Steel, Diane Chamberlain, and the much-lauded king of “ugly cry” novels, Hugh Garret. Esteemed authors, to be sure, but hardly rare. The second carton offered a more eclectic mix, including several health and nutrition books, one guaranteeing a flat tummy in thirty days, another touting the benefits of a macrobiotic diet.
She worked quickly, careful not to hold on to any of the books for too long, but it was hard not to pick up subtle vibrations as she returned them to the carton. They had belonged to someone who was sick and afraid, someone worried about running out of time. A woman, she was almost certain.
It was a thing she had, a gift, like perfect pitch or a perfumer’s nose. The ability to read the echoes that attached themselves to certain inanimate objects—books, to be precise. She had no idea how it worked. She only knew it had started when she was twelve.
Her parents had been having one of their knock-down-drag-outs and she’d slipped out the back door and hopped on her bike, pedaling furiously until she reached the cramped little bookshop on Market Street. Her safe place, as she’d come to think of it—and still thought of it.
Frank Atwater, the store’s owner, had greeted her with one of his taciturn nods. He knew what it was like for her at home—everyone in town knew—but he never once broached the subject, opting instead to offer a refuge when things between her parents became unbearable. It was a kindness she’d never forgotten.