Jill nodded.
“So do I.”
Jill leaned against Una, her body heavy with gratitude, as Justin returned the model car box to the shelf.
Ambling over, he tugged Una’s hand and said, “Can we go now?”
“Yes, darling.”
At the library, Jill disappeared into the stacks and Justin got comfy in a chair in the children’s area. Una waited until he was absorbed by a Busytown book and then hurried over to the checkout desk. She asked Mrs. Stapleton if they could speak in private.
The librarian gave her a quizzical look and finished stamping a card. Then she gestured for Una to follow her to her office.
“Have you heard about the missing boys?” Una asked with uncharacteristic bluntness.
Wavelets traversed Mrs. Stapleton’s brow. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? Their families must be worried sick.”
“Has this happened before? Children going missing from boats? From the water?” Something flickered in Mrs. Stapleton’s eyes. A quicksilver minnow of fear. Una saw it and pressed harder. “Did your father mention something similar in his research?”
The librarian stiffened. “Hardly. He mostly wrote about landmarks.”
“Please. I’m worried about the children I take care of. I want to keep them safe. If your father wrote about strange things—things that couldn’t be explained—I need to know.”
The librarian shook her head. “He didn’t—”
Una cut her off. “My grandmother used to tell me stories about things that seemed impossible. When I got older, my friends said that none of the stories were true. But I knew things my friends didn’t know. Maybe your father did, too.”
Mrs. Stapleton darted a glance at Justin, who was moving his finger over the book page. Una knew he was searching for Busytown’s little mouse.
The phone at the circulation desk rang.
“I need to get that.” The librarian moved toward the door. “Come back Saturday. I’ll have something for you then.”
Una returned to Justin and his Richard Scarry book. Busytown was a world of smiles and friendly waves. It was filled with citizens who loved their jobs and lived in homes with glowing windows and families seated around dinner tables.
It was not a world of missing boys or floating fingers.
There were no eels in Busytown.
There were no monsters.
16
Jill
The yacht club was still closed on Tuesday.
Sailing classes had been canceled for the week, and swim practice wouldn’t resume until Wednesday at the earliest.
The missing boys had not been found, and with every passing hour, the chances of their recovery shrank.
“It’s horrible,” Jill’s mom whispered into the phone on her nightstand. She’d left her bedroom door cracked, and Jill tiptoed close enough to overhear the one-sided conversation. “They found pieces of orange fabric on the beach this morning. From a life jacket. No, there was nothing else. I don’t understand it, either.”
Jill pressed her cheek against the wall and remembered how Charles’s boat had been so close to the one that had capsized with no warning.
“Tony Pulcino was Charles’s skipper, and he didn’t see anything strange,” her mom went on. “He said as soon as the other boat separated from theirs, it fell behind and got pushed into the fog. I guess they caught the wind and got turned around.” A pause. “Well, if what Charles said is true, they must’ve got hit by a propeller. Iknow. It’s awful.”
Charles told his mom about the finger, thought Jill.
