McCabe pressed the screwdriver to the concrete and glanced at Nora. “Fingers crossed?”
She showed him her crossed fingers, and he struck the screwdriver’s handle with the hammer. An indentation appeared, along with a smattering of dust. His second strike was more forceful. A zigzag of cracks radiated from the indentation. These caved inward with the third blow.
A chunk of concrete hit the floor. Setting the tools aside, McCabe stuck his fingers into the opening and broke off another piece. Nora joined in, and in a matter of minutes, the hole was big enough to accommodate a person’s hand.
McCabe passed Nora a pair of gloves. After donning his with practiced ease, McCabe held his flashlight up to the hole and bent over to peer inside.
When he sat back on his heels, he was smiling. His eyes sparkled and his face was bright with hope. “I’ll make the hole bigger. You need to keep your gloves clean.”
Nora’s heart thumped so loudly that she was sure McCabe would hear it. But he was tearing at the edges of the hole, widening it with an urgency he hadn’t displayed until now.
Finally, he lowered his hands and said, “Okay.”
Nora reached inside the table base. Her outstretched fingers met with a hard edge covered in plastic. She groped around until she could close her hand around the book. Then she pulled it from its hiding place and into the light.
Because it was zipped inside a dust-coated plastic freezer bag, Nora couldn’t see what the book looked like. But that was all right. For the moment, it was enough to feel its weight in her hands. To know that it was safe.
Nora would keep her promise to Celeste. Juliana’s book would not be stolen or torn apart. Its contents would not be misrepresented. It was not a work of the devil. Nor was it the spell book of a wicked witch. It was a family heirloom—a piece of history cherished by generations of women.
“Where do you want to examine it?” McCabe asked.
Holding the book close, Nora said, “Downstairs. On one of the shop’s glass counters. The lighting is much better there.”
A few minutes later, McCabe unlocked Soothe’s back door and held it open for Nora. “I have to make a quick call. Go in and start without me. I have a feeling you’ll forget about the rest of the world after you unwrap that book, anyway.”
Nora could have thrown her arm around him for being so thoughtful, but she was holding the book, so she settled for a quick smile.
McCabe was right. The moment Nora unzipped that dusty bag, the rest of the world fell away. That bundle of leather, paper, and ink became her entire universe. Breathlessly, she prepared to make first contact.
Chapter 17
A sensitive plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan
Like leaves to the light
And closed them beneath kisses of night.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nora leaned over the book and inhaled the familiar scent of old leather and musty paper. There was a subtle odor of decay too. And a breath of dampness. The smell reminded Nora of fallen trees. Of bark and wood returning to the soil, bit by bit.
Every book was a tree living a second life. And the older the book, the more it smelled of the earth—the more the rustle of its crisp, yellowed pages sounded like the rustle of leaves.
Nora understood the convenience of digital books, but she needed to hold a book in her hand. She needed to study its cover, place her bookmark in its gutter, and inhale its timeless perfume.
Celeste’s book was very old. It had a supple, toffee-colored leather cover and was roughly the size of a single-subject notebook. It was untitled. No letters marched across its cover or huddled together on its spine, but there were plenty of stains. Owing to countless droplets of ink, water, and wine, the leather was as speckled as a bird’s egg.
The cover spotting was nothing compared to the inside. Some kind of liquid had seeped through the first fifty pages, causing the ink to run. By the time it had dried, hundreds of words had either been washed away or rendered illegible. As Nora turned page after ruined page, her heart sank. It hurt to see the evidence of so many lost words.
The title page hadn’t escaped the damage either, but at the bottom edge of a gray puddle of dried ink, she could just make out a name.
Nora knew the proper way to handle an old book. She knew that dirt or oil from a person’s fingers could mar a book like this. Even so, she couldn’t stop herself from lightly tracing the elegant dips and curves of Juliana’s name.
Imagining Celeste’s ancestor dipping her pen in ink and signing her name to this sheet of paper filled Nora with awe. Hundreds of years ago, a woman had sat at a table and, by daylight or firelight, prepared to fill a blank book with her first entry. A book of blank pages was such a precious thing at that time. To own a book was to possess wealth. And this book had belonged to a woman. To Juliana Leopold.