The rain continued to batter the library as the thunder and lightning storm settled over Blue Sky Valley. Rough winds whipped around the edges of the building, and the trees bent and groaned. Stella and Ariel worked in silence as they cleaned up the meeting area. Every few minutes, Stella glanced over her shoulder, expecting Hook to return, but he never did. She tried not to worry about Jack and where he’d gone.
With the last chair righted, Ariel said, “If I’m understanding all of this, a Captain Hook impersonator with a drinking problem showed up earlier today, you tied him up in the archives until his employer could get him, Vicki found him hours later and untied him, he returned with revenge on his mind and wrecked the bookclub, and Jack was going to duel him with a knife. Did I miss anything? Oh, perhaps the real story about Jack, afriendof Arnie’s who has been spending all day withyouinstead. Just a good citizen helping out at the library?”
Stella closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s all complete madness right now.” She opened her eyes and looked at Ariel. “If I tell you the truth, you’re not going to believe it.”
Ariel fisted her hands on her hips. “I believe inwaymore outrageous things than you do.”
“You have a point,” Stella said. “And I would have agreed with that until today.”
“So tell me this truth that you don’t think I’ll believe,” Ariel said. “I’m your best friend, and I have a feeling Jack already knows.”
“Jack is a big part of it,” Stella agreed. “There’s something Arnie hadn’t told me about the library, somethingbig—”
Jack returned and interrupted Stella’s explanation. “No sign of Hook anywhere. Crusoe said that one second he was in the chair, and the next second, he was gone. But Crusoe admitted that he took a nap. Vicki must have freed Hook during that time. Darcy hasn’t seen him either.”
Stella squeezed her fingers around the back of a chair. “Arnie is going to lose it when he finds out what I’ve done. This is a small town. You think they won’t talk about this? They certainly will. Then word will get back to Arnie lickety-split, and he’ll think I’ve become incompetent. Letting drunkards into the library. Not that I actually let a drunk man in... but it’s also a public place, and if someone intoxicated shows up, I can’t tell people no. Maybe I can spin it that way. I absolutely don’t want to tell him that I used the ink and brought Hook out ofPeter Pan.”
Jack walked over and touched Stella’s arm. “Hey, breathe for a minute, will you? We’re going to figure this out.”
“Will we?” Stella asked. “Because I don’t see how. A supervillain is loose in the library, and we can’t find him.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Ariel interjected. “I’m not following the ink and the bringing him out ofPeter Panthing. Is this about the impersonator?”
Stella sighed. “He’s not really an impersonator.”
Jack leaned his hip against a bookshelf. “And I don’t think he’s quite the supervillain. Now if you’d brought out Voldemort, maybe.”
Stella’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know about him?”
“You don’t think I like to read too?” Jack asked. “Anyway, Hook’s a rogue pirate, but he’s mostly interested in women and rum and fighting the Lost Boys, who aren’t here.”
“What about him leaving the library?” Stella asked. “What if he’s already gone? How would we ever find him?”
Jack placed both hands on her arms. “Breathe, Stella. Most of usdon’tleave. Even the really nasty ones.”
Stella tried to inhale a slow, deep breath but failed when her lungs constricted. “What about the nobleman and Belle, was it? I completely forgot about them until now. I haven’t seen them since Arnie’s heart attack.”
Jack nodded. “That was their last evening.”
Anxiety’s vise grip on Stella’s chest lessened. “So everyone is accounted for. Except Hook, and speaking of him, it sounded like this wasn’t your first encounter.”
“Arnie let him out once before,” Jack said as he counted on his fingers. “Five years ago, I think. He thought a pirate from a children’s story might be interesting and relatively harmless. But Hook is not how Arnie imagined him.”
“He’s a disturbing mash-up of versions,” Stella said. “How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure how we’re altered when we leave our stories and come here.”
Stella walked toward the circulation desk, and Jack followed. “What happened between you two? If Crusoe hadn’t taken his sword, I think he would have fought you.”
Jack didn’t respond right away. The windows illuminated with another lightning strike before going dark again. Words slithered across the tiles.Ending. Gasp. Wail.She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
“What happened?” she asked again.
Jack glanced down at his hands. “Hook had been moderately tame for the first week, but then he lost his patience with this place. An annoying kid kept pestering his sister, and Hook appeared and decided to shut the kid up by choking the life out of him. Arnie yelled for me, so I snuck up behind Hook. I only meant to coerce him into letting the kid go. So I flashed my knife, but Hook lunged toward me, and I stabbed him in the gut. It killed him— Well, it sent him back early. He’s obviously not dead.”
Stella gasped. “You can do that? I thought if characters die in this world, they disappear everywhere.”
Jack exhaled. “Not exactly. If they die near the source of the magic, they just go back into their books. Since the magic is stored in the library, the characters are, in a way, bound to the library because it’s where they’re brought to life. But if characters get too far away from the source and die, then—”
