The Legend of James Grey Read online

  A Novel

  Jennifer Moorman

  Other Novels by Jennifer Moorman

  The Baker’s Man

  Little Blackbird

  Honeysuckle Hollow

  Full Moon June

  Novels by Jennifer Moorman and Julianne St. Clair

  The Wickenstaffs’ Journey

  The Legend of James Grey is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Moorman

  www.jennifermoorman.com

  Cover Design by Julianne St. Clair

  www.juliannestclair.com

  First Edition All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or book reviews—without prior permission in writing from the author.

  To anyone who has ever had your heart so devastated, so completely cracked apart, that you felt as though you couldn’t breathe, that you’d never laugh again. You will breathe again. And you will laugh. And you will heal.

  I promise.

  Psalm 34:18

  1

  Thin wisps of smoke and ash drifted like fog on the blistering summer breeze, rounding corners, climbing up tree trunks, and lingering in pockets of shadow. The townsfolk in Mystic Water stumbled into the ashy air unexpectedly and were overcome with a longing and a sadness so heavy, tears immediately filled their eyes. They felt compelled to hurry home and hug someone, or to buy a journal and write down their thoughts, or to wander out into the pine forest until the ache subsided.

  Down in the basement of Mystic Water’s library, brilliant orange flames separated, the fire burning hot at its core, blackening the edges of the paper, turning the air to poison, consuming everything in the furnace. Twenty-four-year-old Emma Chase wondered if that was what it was like to love her. A writer, a bibliophile, a logophile. Did she devour everything? All the air, the color? Did her passion, her emotions, burn so hot that no man could be near her for long, not without burning his fingers or losing himself? Is that why everyone always left?

  She felt the itch to write, but there would never be enough paper, enough space, to release all the words clawing, springing, secreting their way out of her. There would never be an end to smears of ink staining her fingers or the phrases that trailed up the walls, slunk across the floors, or slipped into her bed at night. She would always see them, hear them, live with them. She had to write. She had to crowd the empty lines with all the words pressing in on her heart. She didn’t have a choice.

  Thomas Harper hadn’t given her a choice either. Instead, he’d walked out of her apartment one night, leaving behind a suffocating feeling of failure and a fast food receipt stained with the greasy fingerprints of his children.

  Emma had filled a journal full of letters she would never send, couldn’t send to him. Now, months later, after two cups of black coffee and an evening of restless thoughts, she knelt in front of the wood-burning furnace in the library’s basement and tested Ray Bradbury’s temperature hypothesis. Did paper burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit?

  She’d thought burning the journal would free her, lift his memory from her heart, turn it all to ashes that she could sweep aside. But instead, her stomach felt as though she’d slammed it in the car door. Books were the only things that understood her. How many times had she wished to disappear into one of them? Now she would be found a murderer in their eyes. Her tears were warm and slow and so heavy that as they splattered on the floor the ground trembled beneath her feet, sending out waves of aching sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as the cardboard cover shriveled in the brilliant flames.

  A sheet of paper, charred and brittle around the edges with burns like bullet holes, lifted on a wave of heat and floated out of the furnace. Emma leaned down and pinched it between two fingers while she squinted at her handwriting.

  The sky was endless,

  the silence deep.

  The sun dropped into the trees

  and I never once tried to stop it,

  only watched and shivered

  in the wind,

  in the absence of you.

  I love you with a love

  that wounds.

  Reckless, stubborn, willful.

  I hug my ribs,

  thank them for caging my heart

  or else I’d never have control of it,

  if I ever do.

  I love you with a love

  that overcomes

  me

  like the tide,

  rushing away,

  stealing everything from my grasp,

  even you.

  Emma sighed deeply, causing blackened paper to softly crumble from the edges and drift through the air like dying butterflies. She kneeled in front of the furnace, sailed the poem back into the flames, and it burned to ash.

  The basement door at the top of the stairs opened, sending golden light down the steps, highlighting the worn treads. “Emma?”

  She jumped to her feet, swiped at her wet cheeks, and slammed the furnace door shut, singeing the skin on her fingertips. The fire hissed and swelled inside its metal cage. She shook out her hand, trying to cool her fingers, and winced. “Be right up,” she called.

  The first few stairs creaked as Mordecai Wallach, the head librarian, descended halfway down the steps. “Should I even ask why you’re using the furnace? Oh, don’t look so shocked. I’ve had the windows open all day, and now it looks like I have a fog machine going upstairs in the historical stacks.”

  Emma glanced over her shoulder at the furnace before meeting Mordecai at the staircase. She cleared her throat. “I was testing a hypothesis.”

  He raised his thick, graying eyebrows. “And?”

  Emma gripped the handrail and tugged herself up the first few stairs. “The results were disappointing.”

  Mordecai’s dark, deep-set eyes watched her, studied her. “You can’t burn away his memory.”

  She looked away from his gaze and squeezed the railing harder. The nape of her neck tingled as though embers clung to her skin. Her exhalation shuddered in the space between them, rippling through the air. “I wish I had a shovel to dig it out then.”

  “If you could take the easy way out, what would you have learned? Nothing.”

  Emma frowned. “And what have I learned, Morty?”

  “How to handle your heart differently next time.” Morty turned and ascended the stairs. “I assume you want me to keep it a secret from the books upstairs that you’ve tossed one of their brethren to the flames.”

  Emma heard the teasing tone in Morty’s voice. She followed him up the staircase and switched off the basement light. Her gaze trailed down the stairs to the flickering glow quivering across the darkened concrete floor. Words formed in the cavorting shadows. Good-bye. Forget. Next time. There would be no next time for how to handle her heart; as far as she was concerned, her heart was a dead, useless thing taking up space in her chest. She sighed, then closed and locked the basement door.

  At nine p.m. Emma grabbed an armful of books and carried them to the back parking lot where she always parked her car. First row, fourth space, to the right of the library’s exit. This spot was covered in afternoon shade thanks to a hundred-year-old oak tree that the city demanded not be harmed in the paving of a parking lot. In multiple places, the enormous roots of the oak tree buckled and cracked the asphalt like an overcooked hotdog, creating
natural speeds bumps throughout the lot. As she walked to her car, Emma hopped over the cracks and counted steps—in Italian. Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque…

  She placed the books in the passenger seat and drove in silence to her apartment across town. Mystic Water’s lights winked out one by one as she drove. Shop owners put their businesses to bed for the night, flipping around Closed signs and switching off interior lamps. Those who were avoiding sleep ventured out like moths drawn toward the lingering lights, where they found temporary homes in the corner pub, the café, the theater that had room enough to show two movies only.

  In the shadowed parking area adjacent to her apartment, Emma juggled the books in her arms while she leaned back into the car to grab her purse, but it wasn’t there. She stared in confusion for a moment and dropped the books onto the seat. She checked the floorboard and then the narrow area between the passenger seat and the car door—as if it would even fit there. Her searching fingers found a pen, a rubber band, and a lonely, fragile cheese puff. She leaned out of the car and fisted her hands on her hips. Nothing but cracking leather stared back at her. She retraced her steps in her mind and saw her purse sitting beneath the circulation desk. It would take her less than fifteen minutes to drive back across town and grab it.

  She shoved the books into the passenger seat and called Morty as she drove. When he didn’t answer, she left him a message. Even though the library’s rear parking lot was empty, Emma parked in her usual spot. First row, four from the right. On the extra lot beside the library, Morty’s most extravagant possession, in an otherwise humble life, was still sitting in front of his cottage—the 1955 silver BMW 503 convertible he’d inherited from his father (a gazillionaire businessman). All the lights were off inside his home. Morty always saw the early side of midnight, if not at least a few of the wee hours too; there was no way he was sleeping already. He must still be inside the library. Emma jingled the keys on her key ring until she found the fat-headed gold key that unlocked the back door.

  The only light still illuminating the library dangled high above the circulation desk, spotlighting the circular desk like an actor in a play, leaving the rest of the stage in darkness.

  “Morty?” His name echoed through the empty library, returned to her, circled around her shoulders.

  She squatted behind the desk and reached for her purse. It seemed to jump into her hands, saying, I thought you’d left me here! She shouldered the bag just as laughter drifted up the staircase that led down to the antiquities archives.

  Mystic Water boasted a history dating further back than the Civil War, and many unusual, historical, and unique items and books had been tucked away into a spacious, separated, and sealed section beneath the library. Not even the floods in Mystic Water had been able to reach the archives.

  Emma followed the sound toward the antiquities door at the top of the stairs, which was partially open, and tugged on the vault door’s handwheel. She stood in the doorway, listening, but silence greeted her. Had she imagined laughter?

  “Morty?” she called in a voice quieted by a feeling swelling in her stomach. Apprehension, fear, unease.

  Emma tiptoed down the stairs, breathing in the scents of earth, old parchment, and tanned leather. When she stood at the bottom, she saw there was a lamp burning at the far end of the room. Was Morty researching? She took two steps into the dimly lit archives and shivered. Laughter rolled down the nearest aisle and grabbed her. But it wasn’t Morty’s laugh. It belonged to a female. Emma’s eyebrows rose on her forehead. Had Morty invited a lady friend into the archives? Emma froze, wondering if she should turn around and pretend she’d never found Morty in an awkward situation. But she couldn’t stop her feet from moving forward.

  Words slipped out of the shadows and shimmered across the shelves, across a World War II uniform hanging in a display case. Borrowed Time. Temporary. Please stay. The last phrase caused Emma’s throat to tighten. More voices drifted out and shivered around Emma’s feet. “Morty?” she whispered.

  The pool of lamplight touched the dirty tips of her blue Converse. She gripped the edge of the nearest bookcase and peered around it. A young boy wearing an outfit made of brittle autumn leaves grinned and leaped onto a study table. He wiggled his bare toes and winked. A woman, sitting with her back to Emma, laughed; her long blonde hair gleamed in the soft light. A dreadfully thin man with a nose like a toucan walked toward the table as his deep voice resonated against the shelves. His white shirt ballooned around his narrow frame as he moved, and the bend-snap, bend-snap of his loping gait reminded Emma of a flamingo. Is he singing a psalm?

  The man’s steady gaze stretched past the table and landed on Emma’s face. She inhaled and straightened her back as though electrocuted. The man stopped singing, tucked a worn Bible against his chest, and bowed his head toward Emma, causing the blonde woman to turn in her chair.

  “Ya su. Kalispèra,” she said in a voice smoother than poured ink.

  Is that…Greek? Emma’s brain struggled to translate. She and Morty hadn’t practiced Greek in months. “Good evening?” she mumbled the question.

  The woman’s impossible beauty caused her to glow as though she’d eaten handfuls of stars. Emma had never seen anyone lovelier, and she had trouble looking directly at the woman’s face, feeling as though her eyes would burn the way they did when staring at the midday sun.

  The young boy leaped from the table, leaving a glittering trail behind him as though he were followed by a comet, and Emma jerked backward, knocking her head into a shelf. Her vision blurred, and she crumpled against the bookcase, tripped over her own feet, and fell. Unable to catch herself with her hands, her head bounced against the floor like a dropped bowling ball.

  A thin face dominated by a nose too large for anyone leaned into her swirling vision. His green, glassy eyes studied her face. “My dear lady, are you quite all right?” He turned his beaked nose from her and called to someone over his shoulder. “Morty, I do believe one of your characters has lost her way.”

  Morty? Emma’s vision tunneled, and the psalm singer disappeared from her sight.

  2

  “Emma,” Morty said as he lifted her into a sitting position. The faint glow from the lamp highlighted the creases of concern on his lined face. “Come on, kiddo. Don’t you know better than to scare an old man?”

  Emma blinked in the lamplight, feeling the rough, unyielding bookshelf at her back. She reached up to touch the back of her head and winced at the contact.

  “You knocked yourself good. Going to have a real goose egg back there. What were you doing down here? Looking for something?”

  “My purse. No, you. I was looking for you, but I saw…” She noticed the right leg of her jeans was soaked from ankle to calf. “Why are my pants wet?”

  “My chamomile tea,” Morty said, slipping his hands beneath her armpits. “Let’s try and stand. Slowly, now. Slowly.”

  Emma pushed herself up onto her feet with Morty’s help. She swayed for a few seconds before her equilibrium righted itself. The book spines in her line of vision undulated like kelp until she blinked a few times and refocused. Her head pounded like a bass line against the walls of a nightclub. She jiggled her right leg. “Why is your tea on my jeans?”

  Morty tugged on his earlobe, looking apologetic. “I spilled it when I tried to pull a book from the shelf, and when I returned to clean it up, you were sprawled on the floor. I’m assuming you slipped on it and fell.”

  Emma noticed a mop propped against the study table. “Really?” She hadn’t remembered slipping on the wet floor. She remembered three strange people near the study table. She peered around Morty’s shoulder, looking to see if they were alone.

  He glanced over his shoulder before turning back to her. “You feeling okay?”

  “I feel like Wile. E. Coyote after an anvil has fallen on his head.”

  “I should drive you home,” Morty said as he hooked his hand around her elbow and led her up the aisle and away from the lampli
ght.

  “I’m fine, Morty. I have a splitting headache, but I can drive.”

  “Maybe I should take you to the ER to see if you have a concussion. Or keep you awake all night with coffee and lousy jokes.”

  Emma stopped walking, forcing Morty to stop. “A few Aspirin will help, but I thought I saw—there were people down here.”

  Morty frowned, causing his thick eyebrows to form an unruly bridge over his nose. “This afternoon? Do you mean the Wallaces? Weren’t they researching Libby’s genealogy?”

  Emma shook her head, which caused her to feel as though she’d been twirling round and round. She closed her eyes and swallowed down the surge of nausea. When she felt it was safe to open her mouth, she said, “No. Tonight. When I came looking for you, I saw—a boy, dressed like Peter Pan. He was on the table, and then he jumped at me.”

  Morty’s laugh startled her. It burst out down the aisle, and the books shivered on the shelves. An antique bell in a display case vibrated, sending out a low hum into the room. “You knocked yourself silly.”

  Emma exhaled and let Morty lead her out of the antiquities section. They passed through the unlit library, and then Morty stood with her on the back stoop and locked the doors.

  “I’d feel better if you’d let me drive you home,” he said.

  The humid night air scented of blooming magnolias and cut grass. Emma shook her head and then groaned. “I need to stop doing that. And I’m not gonna risk barfing in your car, but thanks.” She dug her keys out of her pocket and adjusted her purse on her shoulder.