“Why is that?”
“Because the numbers just keep going on and on.”
If anything, the fire in that dark gaze grew fiercer still. “Give me just the first five numbers.”
“Two point six four five seven.” His heart raced with the thrill of learning something new.Square. Square root.He was going to have fun with those.
She rose to her feet. “You just wait right there. I won’t be a moment.”
Celeste Talbot moved fast for a woman her size. Colin heard voices in the outer office, then Celeste returned holding a newspaper and a book. “Okay, now. Have you seen today’s paper?”
“No. I only read it after school.”
She handed him the front page. “So tell me what it says here … let’s see, this article looks safe enough. What does this headline say?”
“‘Deal with Iran’s regime back on the table.’”
“Do you know what that means?”
“Not exactly.” Colin saw her register a genuine disappointment. He suddenly found himself wanting her to be pleased. So he rushed, “I mean, I know they’re negotiating”—another tough word—“and Iran is saying America has to lift sanctions. But I don’t know what’s happened since yesterday because I didn’t read the paper yet.”
“Iran has dropped their demands for us to take the first step, is what I think they’re saying.” She was flipping through pages of the book she held as she spoke. Then she handed it to him. “Can you read this?” She saw he was looking at the three people now crowded into the doorway. “Don’t pay them any mind, Colin. Just read this text, please.”
He leaned over the page and read where her finger pointed. “‘All too often in childhood the fires of genius falter. There is a very great risk that unless proper care is given, the fire may become snuffed out.’”
“All right, that’s enough.” She took the book from him. “Do you understand that term, snuffed out?”
“Like when a candle stops burning.”
“Exactly. And that’s what I want to speak with your father about. Keeping your candle lit.” She was intent upon him, laser focused. Which meant she saw his sudden flash of fear. She glanced at the trio in the doorway, then looked down at the file in her lap. She turned a page. Another. “Your father is the sheriff.”
She had not asked a question, and Colin saw no need to respond.
“Your mother passed away when you were very young. I’m so sorry. You must miss her very much.” She closed the file. “I think maybe you and I should have a talk with your father.”
CHAPTER2
The day took on a pristine quality, as if sunlight itself was transformed into a gift. On the one hand, everything remained the same. Colin returned to his boring classes. During recess and mealtime, he stayed on the periphery as usual, observing the other children, staying safe. Just the same, the hours passed in a steady flow of mystery and change. Colin could not identify precisely why he felt that way, except for how eyes followed him everywhere.
When school ended that afternoon, Adsila stood on the sidewalk beyond the playground. Another first. She took him to the neighborhood diner. They had been there once before, on his sixth birthday, when his father had spent the afternoon at what Adsila called the cop bar. Colin ordered the same meal, cheeseburger and fries and root beer. Once he finished, she walked him down to the library, pointed at the adult section, and told him, “You don’t need to sneak around anymore. Just go read what you want.”
If he had needed any indication that the day continued along an amazing course, it was here and now.
Colin spent a few minutes walking along several of the aisles. He had heard the librarians refer to them as the stacks, a name that he liked very much. All the rows of books rising up higher than he could reach, even if he stood on one of the little ladders on rollers. Now and then he touched a title imprinted on a book’s spine. Gently saying hello to friends he had not met.
He selected a book he had browsed through briefly at the end of his last visit. He took it to an empty table and sat staring at the cover, relishing in the freedom this hour represented. Colin found himself thinking back over how this remarkable day had started, the way Adsila had stood up for him. He had no idea what that exchange had meant. Nor, just then, did it matter.
The book’s cover might as well have been a mirror into the past, the way it drew him from the library and sent him back to his favorite memory of his mother. Seated in the sand, listening to the waves, feeling the soft crystalline mush drip through his fingers and form a castle where they might someday live.
His recollection shifted then, taking him to a place and time he rarely allowed himself to revisit. Nights after their visits to the Crystal Coast, Colin’s mother always told him the same bedtime story. About a place called the Sapphire Sea, where everybody loves everyone, and happiness is a way of life. Mistakes are forgotten and forgiven. Songs are sung for a lifetime. And dreams are meant to be shared. It always made Colin’s mother sad, talking about this place only she could see. Yet somehow it drew them closer together. As if she revealed to him her secret place, the one nestled deep in her heart.
Two and a half hours later, he looked up to find Adsila and Celeste standing over him. “What’s that you have there?”
He closed the book and turned it around so they could see the cover:The Art of Thinking.
“Told you,” Adsila said.
Celeste drove a nearly new Buick SUV. It was the nicest car Colin had ever been in. She watched him rub his hand along the seat. “Do you like cars, Colin?”
