His gaze darted to the monitor, and he inhaled and exhaled a few times, slowly decreasing the annoying beeps and calming the heart rate line.
When Stella felt it was safe, she said, “Arnie, the magic... It’s real? That ink pad and stamp can bring characters”—she lowered her voice—“to life?”
Arnie nodded and closed his eyes. Stella’s breath caught. Why hadn’t it worked for her?
“You should have told me.”
He inhaled slowly, held his breath for a moment, then exhaled. “I didn’t want to tell you. Not yet.”
A jagged shard of hurt pierced her. “Why not?”
Arnie opened his eyes. “Go get a cup of coffee, Stella, and let’s dig into that bag of goodies you brought. Then we can talk.”
Ten minutes later, Stella rolled the overbed table into place and set her Styrofoam cup of coffee on it, then arranged two plates and set a muffin on each one. She picked at her muffin, causing it to crumble, as she waited for Arnie to talk.
He popped half of his muffin into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I didn’t intend to be the keeper of the magic—”
Stella had taken a sip of coffee and choked slightly. “Seriously? Is that your title? The keeper of the magic?”
“Am I telling this story?” he asked sternly.
She waved a hand at him. “Proceed.”
“This wasn’t something I set out to do, but once I took hold of the magic, there was no turning back for me. No alternate path. It was my duty to keep this knowledge within the library. From one angle, it looks like I didn’t have a choice with my life, but from a different view, I can look at it like a perk, a chance to meet book characters I’ve loved or been curious about.
“When I was a kid, my grandparents were always taking in overnight guests, people passing through town who needed a warm meal and a place to stay. One night a woman came to stay with them, and I was there that day. She was from Ireland, which sounded exoticand worlds away from here. She carried a steamer trunk that looked like a relic from medieval times. That night she found me reading and asked if I wanted to see her antique books. Even as a kid I was fascinated by books, so of course I said yes.
“Her books were remarkable and peculiar. Like nothing I’d ever seen. Her trunk was also full of other oddities. Jars and apothecary bottles, dark blues and greens and clouded glass. One particular bottle caught my eye. The liquid inside was cobalt blue and sparkled and stirred like it was alive. The label readanáil na beatha.”
“Is that Irish Gaelic?” Stella asked. “What does it mean?”
“The breath of life,” Arnie answered. “She saw my interest, and that was where it all began. Because of my grandparents’ kindness offering a place to stay and food to eat, she gave me this special bottle in return. She explained how to use the magic to bring fictional characters to life, to let them walk with me for a short time. Only fictional characters. It doesn’t work for real-life people mentioned in books.”
“So no bringing Cleopatra to Blue Sky Valley?”
Arnie frowned. “Absolutely not. Can you imagine?”
Stella clasped her hands together. “I’m having trouble imagining most of this, but continue.”
“The woman also expressed the seriousness of the responsibility along with dire warnings. I was too scared to use it for years. Not until college when I worked in the university library, and feeling overly bold one afternoon, I tested it.”
Stella had finished her muffin while Arnie talked. His story captivated her in the way fantasy novels enchanted her. When he didn’t elaborate, she asked, “You tested it. What does that mean?”
Arnie reached for a glass of water and sipped slowly. “I poured a little bit of liquid onto a stamp pad and used an ordinary date stamp. The rest of the bottle is stashed away in the archives. A littlebit goes a long way. That afternoon I found a copy ofLittle Womenand stamped the due date, two weeks from that afternoon. Then I held it in a ray of sunshine, and said, ‘Jo March.’ A bit later, she showed up, and my life has never been the same.”
Apprehension gripped Stella. “A bit later? How much later?”
Arnie shrugged. “Five minutes, maybe. But as the keeper of this knowledge, and the protector in a way, I knew being a librarian was to be my calling. It’s not what I first intended for my life. I wanted to be a surgeon, but that all changed the day I met Jo March.”
“You wanted to be a surgeon?” Stella interrupted. “I can’t picture that at all.”
“How could you? You’ve only known me as Arnie, head librarian,” he said with a small smile. “But I lived a lot of life before you came along.”
“Let’s say I believe in this sparkly ‘breath of life’ ink. What’s it like when you bring out characters?”
“After Jo, I wasn’t sure what to expect,” Arnie said. “She was so strong-willed and vocal. Not offensive, but forthright in a way I should have expected from reading the book. Meeting characters in person adds layers of complexity that you don’t expect. After her I was very deliberate about choosing the most interesting characters I could think of. When they show up here, they have knowledge of where they’re from—of their own stories—but they’re also aware that they are with you in a special place, that they areout of their elementtemporarily.”
Stella clasped her hands together, her mind still circling back to Arnie’s earlier comment. “You said Jo appeared five minutes after you stamped the book and put the ink into sunlight, right?” It had taken Stella longer than five minutes to leave the library after stamping the books, and no one had appeared. “If someone doesn’t appear in five minutes, does that mean the magic didn’t work?”
