The pity on Madeline’s face suggested that she was not convinced. How could she be? Love was her gravitational pull. Her life revolved around Gregory. He fueled each of her stories. Perhaps Alice’s and Madeline’s gifts were not so similar after all.
“Oh, child,” Madeline said.
Alice did not want to be pitied, especially not by a woman who was lying to her.
When Alice helped Madeline to bed that night, she did not plan to return to the secret library. What would she gain? She had already discovered the book that linked Madeline to Gregory. She already knew that, like Alice Meadows, Madeline Alger was a love scribe.
Alice pulled the comforter around Madeline’s shoulders, watching her disappear beneath its pillowy white. The old woman’s hair was thinner than it looked. Alice let her fingers lace Madeline’s corkscrew curls before traveling down to her cheek, the deep impression of her scar. Madeline murmured at the touch but did not stir.
Alice shifted her gaze toward the poppy wallpaper which looked different than she remembered, the orange petals falling from the stems and collecting by the baseboards. There was no denying that Alice cared for this woman, that despite her secrets, her perplexing house, Alice wanted to help her.
Just then, a bright light struck Alice’s eye, refracted by the brass key in the bowl on Madeline’s bedside. It seemed to be coming from the window even though it was dark outside. Alice shifted the bowl to angle the reflection away from her face. Before she could question whether it was the right thing to do, trespassing not just into Madeline’s private space but her private thoughts, she clasped the key and made her way down the hall. The library, Madeline’s stories, was the only way she could get to know the woman better.
Alice tugged at the candelabrum, dislodging the hidden door, and slipped inside. She spun on her feet deciding where to begin. As she twirled faster, the colors began to blur into an exotic landscape. Purple valleys. Green skies. Blue deserts. Red lakes Alice wanted to dive into. When she was sufficiently dizzy, she stopped spinning. She was facing the thin strip of empty space where the door remained open. She decided to start reading there, on the set of shelves beside the door. Tall as Alice was, the top two shelves were out of reach even when she rose to the tips of her toes. The swelling of the door prevented her from opening it enough to bring in a chair, so she let those books be. There were plenty of other stories to occupy her time.
On the third shelf from the top, Alice pulled down a blue book about a man who grew blueberries that brought people love. As word got out, his crop could not keep up with the demand, and the poor man found himself surrounded by people who resented him for the berries he had not produced. The tale was stylistically and narratively simpler than the red book about the pile of bones that turned into a horse or one across the room about a child whose soulful voice made everyone fall madly, destructively in love with her. It terrified her, so she never sang, not until she met a woman she wanted to love in return, and at that point her voice was so rusty it cracked on the first note, making the woman recoil in disgust. The books in this library, Alice realized, were organized similarly to those in the larger library, by when they were written.
The evolution of the stories from one bookshelf to the next confirmed her hypothesis that they were in chronological order. As she made her way through the library, there was a notable transition in the writing from novice to proficient to expert.
One story in particular, about a woman and a gold-braided necklace, was so heart thumping Alice could not put it down. The necklace was a birthday present from the boy who grew up next door to her, the boy she had always loved. While they were too young to call it love, that didn’t stop it from being limitless. Then his family left abruptly one day. She never discovered what had happened to him, and she felt his loss acutely. She cared for others, but not as purely as she had for that boy from childhood. The necklace remained clasped around her neck, a noose of hope that one day she would see him again. When one lover removed it, her head fell off. He quickly hooked the necklace back on again, and her head reconnected. She searched for the boy, now a man, to release her. She needed to be able to remove the necklace without falling apart. So she returned to the beginning, to the day he left, searched her memory for clues until she located something he’d said that morning, how if anything happened to him she should—
A chill like a feather tickled the back of Alice’s neck. The words before her bled together. She remained focused on the page, hoping her body was playing tricks on her. When the feeling didn’t go away, she slowly spun around to find Madeline standing at the threshold of the secret library, watching her with a twisted smile.
“Alice, Alice, Alice. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
15
A Million Dollars
“Ican explain,” Alice said. She was still holding the green book about the woman cursed by her childhood love. She desperately wanted to know what happened to her, if she ever found the boy, if this was a tale of love restored or heartbreak.
The old woman crossed her arms, leaning back against a wall of books. “By all means.”
Alice clutched the book to her chest. “I didn’t... I wasn’t trying to... I never thought when I started looking through your library that I would discover... I only wanted to discover the title of the book you found in the park that...” Sentences began and ended, blending into each other until Alice landed on the truth. “I just wanted to understand you.”
“So it’s my fault that you decided to sneak into my private space without permission? That you stole my key to do so?”
Holding the book against her body gave Alice strength, Madeline’s strength. “I wouldn’t have needed to take the key if you’d just been honest with me.”
Madeline nodded, seemingly pleased that Alice had not backed down. She began to walk around the room, stopping occasionally to survey the shelves.
“I haven’t seen these in a decade.” She pulled a book down, pet the smooth blue cover. “They’ve changed since I last saw them.”
“What do you mean, changed?” Alice asked.
“Most of them were red, for one thing.” Madeline returned the book to the shelf, walked over to a thin purple book, went to pull it down, then hesitated before touching its spine. “None of the books were purple.” The word sounded as bruising as its color.
“Books don’t change color,” Alice said.
“Just like they don’t make people fall in love?” Madeline walked toward the break in the wall. “Come. I can’t stand to be in here.” She shuddered and retreated to the main library, expecting Alice to follow.
Alice put back the book she was holding and scanned the shelves wistfully, fearing this might be the last time she would be in this space, this house, these woods. There were so many more books for her to read, so many more ways for her to learn from Madeline.
In the main library, Madeline was already sitting in her chair before the fire. She motioned to the secret door. As Alice pushed the bookshelf shut, she felt the finality of the act. She leaned against the wall, bracing herself for the old woman’s wrath.
Madeline studied Alice with an indecipherable expression on her face.
“I’m sorry,” Alice said when the silence became too much.
