Key Of Knowledge (5 page)

T
HE
odds of finding a magic key tucked in one of the thousands of books at the Pleasant Valley Library were long and daunting. But that didn't mean she couldn't look.

In any case, she liked being in the stacks, surrounded by books. She could, if she let her mind open to it, hear the words murmuring from them. All those voices from people who lived in worlds both fantastic and ordinary. She could, simply by slipping a book off the shelf, slide right into one of those worlds and become anyone who lived inside it.

Magic keys and soul-sucking sorcerers, Dana thought. Incredible as they might be, they paled for her against the power of words on a page.

But she wasn't here to play, she reminded herself as she began dutifully tidying the stacks while keeping an eye on the resource desk a few feet away. This was an experiment. Maybe she would put her fingers on a book and
feel
something—a tingle, a hint of heat.

Who knew?

But she worked her way through the mythology stacks without experiencing any tingles.

Undaunted, she wandered to the section of books on ancient civilizations. The past, she told herself. The Daughters of Glass had sprung from the ancients. Well, who hadn't?

She worked diligently for a time, reordering books that had been misplaced. She knew better, really she did, than to actually open the volume on ancient Britain, but it was suddenly in her hand, and there was this section on stone circles that swept her onto windy moors at moonrise.

Druids and chanting, balefires and the hum that was the breath of gods.

“Oh, gee, Dana. I didn't know you were off today.”

With her teeth going to auto-grind, Dana shifted her gaze from the book in her hand to Sandi's overly cheerful face. “I'm not off. I'm working the stacks.”

“Really?” The big blue eyes widened. Long golden lashes fluttered. “It looked like you were reading. I thought maybe you were on your own time, doing more research. You've been doing a lot of research lately, haven't you? Finally starting on your doctorate?”

With a bad-tempered little shove, Dana put the book back in place. Wouldn't it be fun? she thought, to get the big silver scissors out of the drawer in her desk and whack off that detestable bouncing ponytail?

She'd just bet that would wipe that bright, toothy grin off Sandi's face.

“You got the promotion, the pay raise, so what's your problem, Sandi?”

“Problem? I don't have a problem. We all know the policy about reading on the clock. So I'm sure it just
looked
like you were reading instead of manning the desk.”

“The desk is covered.” And when enough was enough, Dana thought, you finished it. “You spend a lot of your
time worrying about what I'm doing, slinking around in the stacks behind me, eavesdropping when I'm speaking with a patron.”

Sandi's perky smile turned into a perky sneer. “I certainly do not eavesdrop.”

“Bullshit,” Dana said in a quiet, pleasant tone that had Sandi's dollbaby eyes going bright with shock. “You've been stepping on my heels for weeks. You got the promotion, I got the cut. But you're not my supervisor, you're not my boss. So you can kiss my ass.”

Though it wasn't quite as rewarding as hacking off the ponytail might have been, it felt fabulous to just walk away, leaving Sandi sputtering.

She settled back at the desk and assisted two patrons with such good cheer and good fellowship that both left beaming. When she answered the phone, she all but sang out, “Pleasant Valley Library. Reference Desk. May I help you? Hey, Mr. Foy. You're up, huh. Ah, uh-huh. Good one.” She chuckled as she scribbled down today's trivia question. “It'll take me a minute. I'll call you back.”

She danced off to find the right book, flipped through it briefly in the stacks, then carried it back to the desk to make the return call.

“Got it.” She trailed down the page with her finger. “The Arctic tern migrates the farthest annually. Up to twenty thousand miles—wow—between the Arctic and Antarctic. Makes you wonder what's in its birdy brain, doesn't it?”

She shifted the phone as she caught sight of Sandi marching, like a damn drum majorette, toward the desk. “Nope, sorry, Mr. Foy, no complete set of American Tourister luggage for you today. The Arctic tern nips out the long-tailed jaeger by a couple thousand miles annually. Better luck next time. Talk to you tomorrow.”

She hung up, folded her hands, then lifted her eyebrows at Sandi. “Something I can do for you?”

“Joan wants to see you upstairs.” Thrusting her chin
in the air, Sandi looked down her tiny, perfect nose. “Immediately.”

“Sure.” Dana tucked her hair behind her ear as she studied Sandi. “I bet you only had one friend in elementary school, and she was just as obnoxious as you are.” She slid off the stool.

Speaking of elementary school, Dana thought as she crossed the main floor, started up the stairs to administration, she herself felt as if she'd just gotten hauled into the principal's office. A lowering sensation for a grown woman. And one, she decided, she was sick of experiencing.

Outside Joan's door, Dana took a deep breath, squared her shoulders. She might feel like a guilty six-year-old, but she wasn't going to look like one.

She knocked, briskly, then opened the door without waiting for a response. “You wanted to see me?”

At her desk, Joan leaned back. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled into in a no-nonsense bun that, oddly enough, flattered her.

She wore a dark vest over a white blouse that was primly buttoned to her throat. The material hung flat, with barely a ripple to indicate there were breasts beneath it.

Rimless half-glasses dangled from a gold chain around her neck. Dana knew her shoes would be low-heeled and sturdy and as no-nonsense as the hairstyle.

She looked, Dana decided, scrawny and dull—and the very image of the cliché that kept children out of libraries in droves.

Since Joan's mouth was already set in disapproval, Dana didn't expect the meeting to be a cheerful one.

“Shut the door, please. It appears, Dana, that you continue to have difficulty adjusting to the new policies and protocol I've implemented here.”

“So, Sandi raced right up to tattle that I was actually reading a book. Of all the horrors to commit in a public library.”

“Your combative attitude is only one of the problems we have to deal with.”

“I'm not going to stand here and defend myself for skimming a couple pages of a book while I was working in the stacks. Part of my function is to be informed about books, not just to point the patrons toward an area and wish them Godspeed. I do my job, Joan, and my evaluations from the previous director were never less than exemplary.”

“I'm not the previous director.”

“Damn straight. Less than six weeks after you took over, you cut my, and two other long-term employees', hours and paychecks nearly in half. And your niece gets a promotion and a raise.”

“I was hired to pull this institution out of financial decline, and that's what I'm doing. I'm not required to explain my administrative decisions to you.”

“No, you don't have to. I get it. You don't like me, I don't like you. But I don't have to like everyone I work with or for. I can still do my job.”

“It's your job to follow the rules.” Joan flipped open a file. “Not to make and receive personal phone calls. Not to use library equipment for personal business. Not to spend twenty minutes gossiping with a patron while your duties are neglected.”

“Hold it.” Baffled rage spewed into her throat like a geyser. “Just hold it one minute. What's she doing, making daily reports on me?”

Joan flipped the file shut. “You think too much of yourself.”

“Oh, I see. Not just on me. She's your personal mole, burrowing around the place digging up infractions.”

Oh, yes, Dana thought, when enough was enough you definitely finished it. “Maybe the budget here has had its ups and downs, but this was always a friendly place, familial. Now it's just a drag run by the gestapo commandant and her personal weasel. So I'll do us both a favor. I quit.
I've got a week's sick leave and a week's vacation coming. We'll just consider that my two weeks' notice.”

“Very well. You can have your resignation on my desk by the end of your shift.”

“Screw that. This is my resignation.” She took a deep breath. “I'm smarter than you are, and I'm younger, stronger, and better-looking. The regular patrons know and like me—most of them don't know you, and the ones who've gotten to know you don't like you. Those are some of the reasons you've been on my ass since you took over. I'm out of here, Joan, but I'm walking out of my own accord. I lay odds that you'll be on your way out before much longer, too—only you'll be booted out by the board.”

“If you expect any sort of reference or referral—”

Dana stopped at the door. “Joan, Joan, do you want to end our relationship with me telling you what you can do with your reference?”

Her anger carried her straight down to the employee lounge, where she gathered her jacket and a handful of personal belongings. She didn't stop to speak to any of her coworkers. If she didn't get out, and get out fast, she feared she would either burst into hysterical sobs or punch her fist through the wall.

Either option would give Joan too much power.

So she walked out without a backward glance. And kept walking. She refused to let herself think that this was the last time she would make this trip from work to home. It wasn't the end of her life; it was just a corner turned.

When she felt the angry tears stinging her eyes, she dug out her sunglasses. She wasn't about to humiliate herself by crying on the damn sidewalk.

But her breath was hitching by the time she reached her apartment door. She fumbled out her keys, stumbled inside, then simply sank down on the floor.

“Oh, God, oh, God, what have I done?”

She'd cut her ties. She had no job. And it would be
weeks before she could reasonably open the bookstore. And why did she think she could run a bookstore? Knowing and loving books didn't make her a merchant. She'd never worked in retail in her life, and suddenly she was going to run a retail business?

She'd thought she was prepared for the step. Now, faced with stark reality, Dana realized she wasn't even close to prepared.

Panicked, she leaped up, all but fell onto the phone. “Zoe? Zoe . . . I just—I've got to . . . Christ. Can you meet me at the place, the house?”

“Okay. Dana, what's wrong? What's the matter?”

“I just—I quit my job. I think I'm having an anxiety attack. I need . . . Can you get the keys? Can you get Malory and meet me there?”

“All right, honey. Take a deep breath. Come on, suck one in. Breathe easy. That's it. Twenty minutes. We'll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks. Okay, thanks. Zoe—”

“You just keep breathing. Want me to swing by and get you?”

“No.” She rubbed the temper tears away. “No, I'll meet you.”

“Twenty minutes,” Zoe repeated and rang off.

SHE was calmer, at least on the surface, when she pulled into the double drive in front of the pretty frame house she'd bought with her friends. In a matter of weeks, they'd be signing papers at settlement. Then they would begin, well, whatever it was that they were going to begin.

It was Zoe and Malory who had the big ideas as far as ambience, color schemes, paints, and posies. They'd already had their heads together over paint chips for the color of the porch, the entrance hall. And she knew Zoe
had been scouring flea markets and yard sales for the trash that she miraculously turned into treasure.

It wasn't that she didn't have ideas herself. She did.

She could envision in general how her section of the main floor would look when it had been transformed into a little bookstore/café. Comfortable and cozy. Maybe some good sink-into-me chairs, a few tables.

But she couldn't see the details. What should the chairs look like? What kind of tables should she use?

And there were dozens of other things she hadn't considered when she'd jumped into that dream of having her own bookstore. Just as, she was forced to admit, there were things she hadn't considered when she'd, basically, told Joan to stuff it.

Impulse, pride, and temper, she thought with a sigh. A dangerous combination. Now she was going to have to live with the results of surrendering to it.

She stepped out of the car. Her stomach was still jumpy, so she rubbed a hand over it as she studied the house.

It was a good place. It was important to remember that. She'd liked it the minute she'd stepped inside the door with Zoe. Even the downright terrifying experience they'd had inside it—courtesy of their nemesis, Kane—barely a week before, when Malory had found her key, didn't spoil the
feel
of the place.