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Hearing Penny’s voice brought on a wave of homesickness so fierce it made my teeth ache. I gave a brief update of my activities so far and promised I would e-mail a follow-up as soon as I met with Jane Jameson. After swearing that I would call if I needed help, I hung up. I opened my phone to dial Stephen’s number but stopped myself. “Not the right time,” I muttered. “Call when you get enough sleep to stop hallucinating mythical creatures . . . and you stop talking to yourself.”
I rose again, staring out the window. I was awake now, awake enough to stock my kitchen, unpack my clothes, and start my life here. And before the next sunset, I would pay Jane Jameson’s shop a visit.
* * *
In the light of late afternoon, I could see that Specialty Books was indeed located in a run-down neighborhood that seemed to be bouncing back slowly toward respectability. There was a consignment shop next door to the bookstore and a medical clinic down the street. The buildings looked as if they were being gradually rehabbed out of a state of ruin. It was difficult for me to understand—having lived for years in a country where the age of buildings was measured in centuries rather than decades—how Americans let their buildings fall to crap so quickly. Then again, considering Kentucky’s heat and brain-softening humidity in flipping May, maybe the buildings simply melted.
I sat across the street from the shop in my newly acquired heap of a car, purchased with Iris Scanlon’s help at Bardlow’s Used Cars. The twenty-year-old Nissan featured four tires and a motor. There were no other features. It was a hunk of junk, but at seven hundred dollars, I couldn’t afford to pass on the deal. Poor Miranda couldn’t be saddled with driving me every time I needed to go into town.
Beyond purchasing transportation, I had not had a productive day. I woke up late, remembering that I needed to call Stephen, who was not pleased to be an “afterthought” in my travel agenda. But he was back to his same sweet self in a few moments, asking how I was sleeping, if I’d taken my vitamins, if my caseload was rewarding. He was always concerned about me pushing myself too hard, and the way he cared warmed my heart as it always did. Of course, our conversation was riddled with none-too-subtle hints that I should abandon this silly fellowship, come home, and discuss his proposal to move to Dublin. I pretended I was still travel-addled to avoid the topic. He ended the conversation with “Be sure to get enough rest.” Which, in terms of a loved-up phone signoff, was extremely lacking, but still, he worried about me. And that was nice of him.
I wasn’t sure what to do about this ambivalence I’d felt about calling Stephen since arriving in the Hollow. And even more shocking was that I’d barely devoted any time or thought to Stephen in the last few days. There was no bone-deep, visceral ache to keep me from sleeping without him or concentrating on the task at hand. And that was disturbing. I liked that “head over heels” feeling. Losing it felt like going through emotional withdrawal.>“I’m going to reach through the phone and strangle you, Penelope,” I growled.
Penny scoffed at the very idea, and rightly so. She had about thirty pounds and four inches on me.
“Any progress?” Penny asked.
“Well, I have food in the house but no angry marsupials. That’s progress.”
“I’m assuming that you’re just tired and not spouting gibberish to annoy me,” she retorted.
“No, no, it’s going well. I’ve found the shop. I’m going to visit tomorrow. And I’ve shopped for groceries and managed to evict a minor possum infestation from my rental house.”
“Have you called Stephen yet?” she asked.
“Oh, shit!” I gasped. “No. I sent him a text when I landed, but after that . . . everything’s a little hazy.”
“Well, you should call him. He’s been calling here, asking for your contact information at the hospital in Boston. You know I can’t lie for anything, Nola. Why didn’t you just tell him where you were going?”
“Because Stephen would think this is insane,” I grumbled, forcing myself out of bed and untangling myself from the seemingly endless amount of spiral phone cord keeping me tethered to the receiver. I hobbled across my darkened room toward the window, glancing out to the moonlit garden.
“Well, if he’s going to be a part of your life, he’s just going to have to accept that you’re—”
“What the hell is that?” I blurted as my eyes came to focus on a strange hulking figure at the edge of my yard. It had the basic shape of a man, only bent and twisted. The stark light of the full moon showed a broad, dark back. Its movements were halting and irregular, as if its long, rangy limbs weren’t working properly. It looked almost canine, like one of those werewolves from the old Universal Studios monster movies. It lumbered toward the treeline, sniffing and scratching.
“Don’t change the subject,” Penny admonished me.
“There’s something in my back garden.”
“Another marsupial?” Penny chuckled.
“It almost looks like a Yeti.” I stepped toward the cheap little nightstand I’d bought to retrieve my glasses, but the movement dragged the sheet with me and knocked a heavy pile of books and notes to the floor with a loud thunk. The shape shifted, its “face” obscured by angled moonlight.
It stepped toward the house. I scrambled away from the window, pressing against the wall. I could hear Penny’s voice from the receiver, shouting for me to answer her. I tried to remember if the doors downstairs had decent monster-proof locks, but at the moment, all I could see in my head was a series of increasingly grotesque potential Yeti/werewolf bite wounds. Should I try to warn Jed? How would I get to his part of the house without going outside?
I was snapped out of this mental runaway train by Penny calling my name. I pressed the receiver to my ear. “Yes?”
“I thought the Yeti was a Himalayan beastie,” Penny said as I slipped my glasses over my nose.
“Werewolf is another possibility,” I whispered, peeking from the window frame and forcing myself to look into the yard. Nothing. Whatever it was had gone. What the hell? I was sure there was something out there. This wasn’t some flash out of the corner of my eye. But what was it? As far as I knew, there were no wolfmen or Yetis in this part of the world. And what were the chances of one showing up in my back garden?
There was also the small matter of my reflection, frightful rat’s nest of dark hair included, which could very easily be mistaken for a furry beast.
I laughed, wiping at my eyes. “False alarm. No werewolves in sight.”
“If you don’t stop talking nonsense, I’m coming over there,” Penny warned.
I let out a shaky laugh, my shoulders sagging as the tension in my chest eased. “It’s fine, Pen, I swear. I’m just jet-lagged and a little loopy. I didn’t have my glasses on, and the moonlight is playing tricks on me. It was probably a dog or a bear or something. Do they have bears in Kentucky?”
