Sylvie Nettlewick's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The librarian pointed at the bag. "Out," she said. "Both of you. We open again when we open." Sylvie asked when that would be. The woman only shook her head and held the door. Sylvie stepped back onto the path. The goose had finished its apple and settled on the nest again. The shelves she had walked two towns to see stood behind a locked door. She did not know if they would open tomorrow, or next week, or ever. She stood by the crooked fence. The sun dropped low. The cat poked its nose out, blinked, and tucked back down to sleep. Sylvie had no plan for the dark. She had a packed bag, a tired cat, and a long road behind her. She could not walk two towns home in the night. She turned down the road to find shelter before the light failed. She walked until she smelled bread. An inn stood off the road, lamps lit along its porch, windows glowing orange. She climbed the steps and pushed the door. Warmth and the smell of stew rolled over her. A broad man stood behind the counter in a flour-dusted apron. His white beard split with a grin when he saw her. "Sylvie Nettlewick," he said. "Come in before you freeze." She stopped on the mat. She had never met this man. "How do you know my name?" "Folks talk. A librarian from Pinehollow, walking north with a cat in her bag." He laughed, warm and loud. "Not many like you pass through. I'm Silas Oakhurn. You'll want a bed and a bowl." Sylvie's shoulders dropped. She had braced for a cold field and got a fire instead. "The reading house is closed," she said. "They put me out. I don't know when it opens." Silas ladled stew into a bowl and set it on the counter. "The Willow Room shuts for a count," he said. "Every spring. They tally the books one by one before the summer readers come." He slid the bowl toward her. "Takes near a week, some years." A week. Sylvie sat down hard on the stool. She had money for a night, maybe two. Not a week. The bag shifted as the cat stirred. "That one can't go inside," Silas said, nodding at the bag. "You know that already." "I do." She looked at the stew. "I came so far for one room of books. Now I wait, and I can't even bring the cat in when I get there." Silas leaned on the counter. "Then you've got a week to solve it," he said. "Eat first. Problems keep better on a full stomach." Sylvie ate. The stew was hot and good. She had a roof for the night and a name for the man who gave it. But the door she wanted stayed shut for a week, and the cat still could not pass through it.