Page 76 of In This Moment

The silence was both cumbersome and welcome. So sudden, it seemed like someone had flipped a switch. Yet, the sanctuary of the library wrapped her in its arms. No matter how long she’d been away, it understood. It would heal her hurts and mend her heart, and it would stand like it had for centuries long after she was gone.

Melancholy, she glanced at the blanket, noting the besties had left the thermos with their Georgia Sunset mix on the floor beside the lantern. She grabbed her wet clothes and shoved them in the bag, then threw away the cups. Switching off the lantern, she set it by her purse on the counter and decided to fold the blanket in a moment.

She wasn’t ready to go yet, and she’d done her best thinking here as a girl. Ideas and whimsy. Perhaps she could stand for more of that in her life again. Reality hadn’t been nice.

Walking back to the window, she gazed at the town center. Dusk would descend soon, and the lampposts would cast a romantic yellow glow on the wet cobblestone street. For now, the cobalt sky shone its last legs of late day, fluffy clouds drifting as remnants of the storm moved on. Flowers in the curbside boxes and leaves on the cherry blossom trees reflected sunlight off the rain droplets. People milled about again, in and out of shops, stopping to chat.

She wondered how many times Katherine Vallantine had stood here in the library her husband had built for her, staring at townsfolk and the bustle. There were sketches of the town the way it had looked back then, but Rebecca hadn’t seen them in years. The Historical Society had possession of them at the mayor’s office if memory served. There certainly hadn’t been as many shops, colorful awnings, or decorative additions, for sure. Time marched on.

Which was what Rebecca needed to do. Let go of past aspirations and carve new ones. Remain true to herself, yet grow. Expand. The perimeters of Vallantine weren’t as small as she’d recalled when she’d left. Her besties had been right. She should give herself more credit. She had achieved most of what she’d desired, but she’d done it within the confines of home instead of elsewhere, and through the eyes of an adult more versed in the world than with the ones of an altruistic child.

How would she do that, though? How could she shuck whatever doubts or regrets lingered to blend old dreams with new ones?

A noise came from behind her. Delicate. A rustling, noticeable only because the library was vastly somber. A sound that she’d recognize if deaf, dumb, or blind.

Pages flipping.

The fine hairs on her arms rose, and she slowly turned around.

Notebook pages, at least twenty of them, littered the blanket.

And they’d appeared from nowhere.

Expelling a shaky breath, she walked closer and glanced around. No white mist, shadows shifting, or spooky vibe. She was alone, just as she’d been before, and she didn’t sense any sort of malice. In fact, traces of a lingering scent of roses wafted over that of dust and mildew.

“Katherine?” She swallowed, her pulse thumping. “Katherine Vallantine?”

Had to be. Rosemary and Sheldon Brown had experienced something similar. Many generations of Vallantine descendants, actually. A book or something would appear just when they’d needed it most. An answer to what they’d been searching for. Rebecca always waffled on whether she believed the legend or not, yet it was hard to dispute this. She’d been alone, and standing by the window, next to the only entrance or exit. These papers certainly hadn’t been there before.

Utterly surreal.

“She assists all who enter seeking knowledge,” she whispered to herself. What did Katherine want Rebecca to know?

Kneeling, she grabbed one of the pages.

Why Kittens Are Better Pets Than Dogs by Rebecca Moore

Nuh uh. She’d written these in one of her blogging phases. Gammy hadn’t had the money to buy a computer back then, so Rebecca had written “articles” on notebook pages and had hidden them in books throughout the library. Old school media via a kid. There were still creases from where she’d folded them in half. The paper was slightly yellow-tinged, the ink faded. Gosh, she had to have been twelve, maybe thirteen. She’d completely forgotten.

Laughing, she gathered the rest, reading the titles and shaking her head at her penmanship. Little hearts to dot every other lower case “i” and underlining certain words for emphasis. She cringed at the amateurish musings. My, how far she’d grown in ability. Her stories were obviously more targeted for blogs, not journalism, as they were personal jots of random opinions with some information thrown in.

Sitting on her haunches, she stared off into space, the papers in hand. Even when she’d gone away to college, her goal had been to make it big. Win awards, gain recognition. Breaking news stories that would stand the test of time. Many of her professors had tried to steer her towards creative writing, but she didn’t have the skill or interest. Yet, the articles she’d turned in had been much like these. Come to think of it, so had a lot of the pieces she’d tried sending to editors in Boston. They had edge, distinction, but too much…heart.

Had she been heading in the wrong direction from the start? Admittedly, she’d hated the competitiveness of reporting. Climbing over colleagues to get to the top. The back-stabbing. She’d never had it in her to betray someone. It might’ve been one of the reasons she’d never earned her way out of the Obituaries section. She wanted to inform, educate, but not at the expense of others, and not while losing herself in the process. There was an abundance of depersonalization in journalism, and being from a small southern town, she hadn’t adapted to taking character out of the story.

Perhaps she hadn’t failed, after all. Maybe she’d merely succeeded in staying true to herself, her nature, and listening to her instincts.

When she and her besties had first learned the library had been turned over to them, while still in Boston, Rebecca had reached out to an acquaintance about the myth. A bigwig blogger with thousands of followers. She’d told her how, during their courting period, William and Katherine Vallantine had played the Truth/Lie game. The objective was to get to know a person on a deeper level. Tell one truth, one lie, and something they wished was truth or lie. The other person had to guess which was which. Her acquaintance had made the game go viral, starting with Instagram, and branching out from there.

At the time, Rebecca had been pretty peeved the game had been the blog’s focus, and not the history behind it. William and Katherine’s love story, how the library came to be, her spirit who haunts it, and the Miss Katie wishing tree in the center of town were all absent. They’d all been left out. Her besties had told her to write it, tell the tale, but she’d dismissed them. She hadn’t been in a good headspace to do anything except exist.

She could now, though.

Chewing her lower lip, she pieced together the ideas into creation for proper execution. Start a blog, ride the game hype by tying it in to the real origins, gain followers from that, and when she wasn’t at The Gazette, write about whatever she wanted. Books, the town, her medical condition. Anything. She’d need a name that would encompass her vast topics. Or something vaguely catchy where it didn’t matter.

Sighing, she glanced at the pages in her hands. Katherine hadn’t been wrong yet. Clues had been leading Rebecca here. It was about time she listened.

Rising, she went to the center station and grabbed her laptop bag, then reseated herself on the blanket. While it booted, she rolled around the pros and cons of an actual site or a free blog, deciding on the former.

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