Second Glance: A Novel Read online

  The Comtosook Public Library did not get many visitors, which was a blessing given the size of the building. Tiny rooms were strung together like pearls, far more suited to a small country inn than a repository for literature. The most crowded it got was Thursday mornings, when up to thirty preschoolers would sprawl on their bellies in the two small enclaves that made up the juvenile section, for story time. The children's librarian had to run back and forth between the rooms with an open book, so that all the kids could see.

  There were bookshelves at angles, bookshelves stuck in the middle of the floor, bookshelves turned on their sides if necessary--whatever it took to accommodate a large number of volumes in an inadequate run of space. The reference librarian-- Shelby, on weekday mornings--needed to know the Dewey Decimal system and various computer search engines, as well as how to navigate the library to find the fruits of these labors. But for the most part, Shelby was free to do whatever she liked during her work hours, and what she liked to do was chew words.

  Shelby loved them the way epicureans loved food--each syllable was something to be rolled on the tongue, swallowed, and wholly appreciated. Sometimes she would sit with the dictionary cracked open and read with all the breathless impatience another patron might save for a thriller. Griseous: mottled. Kloof: a ravine. Nidicolous: reared for a time in a nest.

  She imagined receiving a phone call one day--Meredith Vieira, on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, or a radio disc jockey offering a fortune if she only knew the definition of one bizarre word. "Pilose?" she would repeat, and then pretend she did not know it, for the sheer suspense. "Covered with soft hair."

  She was smart enough, after four years of college and another two of graduate school, to know that she used language like shore dwellers used sandbags: to create a buffer zone between herself and the rest of the world. She also knew that she could learn every last word in the dictionary and still not be able to explain why her life had turned out the way it had.

  She was worried about Ethan; she was worried about Ross. She was so busy, in fact, taking care of the immediate world that it kept her from dwelling on the fact that there never seemed to be anyone around who bothered to worry about her.

  The library was empty, a result of regular patrons being too uneasy these days to venture out into a town that changed before their very eyes. To Shelby, the recent eccentricities amounted to sweeping petals off the steps of the library; she wasn't worried about an impending Armageddon or global warming or the coming of phantoms, as conversation at the town diner suggested. To a woman who had built a home on a footing of abnormality, recent events were nothing to get excited about.

  When the door creaked open, Shelby glanced up. A man she had never seen before entered, dressed in a suit too expensive to have come from any store within a fifty-mile radius. However, there was something . . . off. His tie listed to the left and his skin was nearly as white as Ethan's. He glanced from the oddly sloped floor to the jutting angles of the wall to the stacks of encyclopedias kittering up the wall. "This is the library?"

  "Yes. Can I help you?"

  His gaze circled like a bird, finally coming to rest on Shelby. "Can you even find anything in here?"

  Rhabdomancy, Shelby thought. Divination by wands. "That depends. What are you looking for?"

  "Indian burial grounds. What happened to them, in the past, when someone built over them. Legal precedent. That sort of thing."

  "You must be one of the developers," Shelby said. She led him to a spot at the rear of the library, where a microfiche was tucked behind a low shelf of cookbooks. "There was a dispute just a year ago in Swanton. You might want to try there first."

  "You wouldn't happen to remember the outcome, would you?"

  "The state bought the property."

  "Oh, great. Terrific." He exhaled heavily and sprawled backward in the chair. "Was that Swanton land cursed too?"

  "Excuse me?"

  For a moment, he seemed too frustrated to speak. "Those Indians, what do they do . . . conjure up all their dead ancestors whenever they need them? Whatever it takes, right, to get us Massholes out of town?"

  Shelby worried her nail between her teeth.

  "We're just trying to build a strip mall, for God's sake. I've got the owner's signature, all nice and legal on a piece of paper. I've forked over fifty thousand dollars, to start. I do everything by the book, and in return, I've got temperatures dropping below zero for no reason whatsoever; I've got voices screaming in the middle of the night. I've got my labor force quitting. Jesus . . . this morning, I got shoved, and there was no one behind me!" He looked directly at Shelby. "I am not going crazy. I'm not."

  "Of course you aren't," she murmured.

  The man ran a hand down his face. "I don't know why I bothered to come here. You can't help me."

  "No, I can't," Shelby said. "But I think I know someone who can."

  Ross sprawled in Shelby's living room, the volume on the television cranked up as loud as he felt he could make it without waking his nephew. Wires linked his video camera to the screen, as the short tape he'd made at the quarry ran. He paused the image with the remote control, rewound it, and leaned forward to scrutinize it again. But no, the flickering at the corner of the screen was just a reflection--nothing paranormal at all.

  He shut off the television and leaned back, eyes closed. "Waste of time."

  "That bad, huh?" Shelby walked in and slung her pocketbook onto the couch.

  "Ethan was fine."

  "I was talking about your date. Are you going to tell me who she was now, or is that a state secret?"

  "Nobody you know."

  "How can I be sure until you tell me?" Shelby sat down. "What's with the video camera?"

  Ross set out to change the subject as quickly as possible. "How was work?"

  "Actually, I think I got you a job today."

  "Thanks, but I don't think library work is for me. I gave up alphabetizing for Lent."

  "A. It's not Lent, and B. It's not library work--"

  "You're alphabetizing," Ross pointed out, grinning.

  Shelby tucked one foot beneath her. "A man came in today, Rod van Vleet. He's working for the development company that bought a piece of land on Otter Creek Pass--"

  "Where?"

  "Well, it doesn't matter. What's important is that he's all freaked out because he thinks the property is haunted." Shelby smiled, triumphant. "Guess where you come in."

  His jaw tightened. "Is this about money? Because if you want me to pay rent--"

  "Ross, stop. I said something to him because I thought it might get you excited. You've been moping around since you got here. You've barely even left the house in weeks."

  "You hardly ever leave the house."

  "That's different and you know it."

  Ross got out of the chair and yanked the wires out of the TV, packing up his video camera in its padded bag. "I didn't realize you had expectations," he said bitterly. "I didn't know that it wasn't all right to just take a breather."

  "A breather? Are you sure that's why you came here?" By now she was standing toe-to-toe with him. "Or were you looking for someplace to stop breathing?"

  Ross held her gaze for a minute. "Shel. It was only that once, just after she died."

  Shelby's hands came up to Ross's wrists, pulled them down between them. Her thumbs edged up the sleeves of his sweater, traced the history there. "Once. I go to ask you if you want soup for lunch, soup, Ross, and you're bleeding out."

  "You should have let me," Ross said, gently breaking away.

  "Fuck you." Tears glittered in Shelby's eyes. "When you close the bathroom door now, I wonder if you're taking pills. When you go out driving, I wonder if you're wrapped around a tree. Did it ever occur to you that you're not the only person who's ever lost someone? Aimee died. People die. You're alive, and you have to start acting like it."

  His gaze was glacial. "Will you feel that way in a few years, when it's Ethan?"

  A small sound ma