“Thanks.I’m glad to be back,” I said and meant it.
“And I was sure sorry to hear about Alice.What a dear of a lady.”
I nodded agreement and clamped down on words that wanted to burst forth.Like she was my mother and I never knew it.“She was.”
She looked at Owen then.“You said you had a book you wanted me to look at?”
“Yes and thanks for seeing us on a Saturday afternoon,” he said.
I handed the book over as he spoke.She took it, held it in her hands for a long minute as she looked down at the cover.She ran her hand over it with a swish.
“Where did you find this?”
I glanced at Owen.We hadn’t talked about that beforehand and I didn’t know what our story was.But he was unflappable.
“In the town archives,” he said simply.“It’s on loan.”
Slowly, she opened the cover.It cracked with its age.“It’s old.”
We both nodded.And my heart climbed to my throat in the hopes that I was going to finally—finally—get some real answers.
Her black-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose as she turned the pages with gentle care.Her gaze went over the strange words on the pages.The weird drawings.I watched intently as she turned the pages.
Owen sat stiff next to me.
Finally, Mrs.Rollins shook her head.“I’m sorry, dear,” she said.“This isn’t any language I recognize.”
“It’s not?”My voice was weak.
“No.Not Old English.Not Latin.Not even Gaelic,” she said.“I can read a fair amount of Old English and Latin and I know Gaelic when I see it, but this…” She shook her head again.“This I don’t know.It’s something older.Something… specific.Whoever wrote it used an archaic language I’ve never seen.It reminds me of a mixture of cuneiform and ogham.”
“Ogham?”
“You know.What the old Celts used.The Druids.”
We both stared at her in silence.My heart climbed it’s way back to my throat.Owen’s whole body went still beside me—like she’d called him out.He coughed into his hand like he had a sudden allergy attack.
I finally got my brain back on track and asked, “So, you can’t read it?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
All the air went out of my lungs along with the hope I’d been hanging onto like a lifeline.Next to me, Owen’s hand brushed the back of mine.Like he was silently telling me everything was going to be okay.
She handed the book back to me.I laid it in my lap and glared down at it like it was nothing but a foreign object I’d never seen.
“Well, thanks for giving it a try,” Owen said.“We appreciate it.”
“I wish I could help,” she said, then tilted her head with a soft smile.“You know, I used to watch you two compete in my class.All that energy between you—I knew it would turn into something eventually.”
It seemed everyone in town had decided Owen and I should be a couple.
Heat crawled up my throat and settled in my cheeks.
But Owen took it all in stride as he got to his feet.“We appreciate the vote of confidence, Mrs.Rollins,” he said with his easy charm and a flirty smile.
God, why was he so charming?
She walked us to the door.“If you do find someone who can read it, let me know.Scholarly curiosity, you know.”
