Free The Vanishing by Wendy Webb Page B

section.”
    “Do you need a hand?” I asked, eyeing the circular staircase.
    “Elevator’s in the back.” She smiled. “I don’t climb those infernal things anymore.”
    After she had disappeared toward the back of the room, I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the priceless treasures on the shelf in front of me, afraid to touch any of them. I couldn’t remember even seeing one first edition classic, let alone an entire shelf of them.
    I ran my finger along their spines, one by one.
The Great Gatsby
.
The Sun Also Rises
.
Gone with the Wind
.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
. On and on. It was a collection of the greatest works of literature in the past two centuries. I was wary to pull any of them out of their places, not wanting to disturb their slumber.
    But then a slim volume caught my eye and I could not resist
. A Christmas Carol
, one of my favorite stories of all time. I read it every year in December and watched countless movie versions of the tale, and even went to see the annual stage play version at Minneapolis’s famed Guthrie Theater more times than I could count. I pulled the leather-bound book from the shelf with shaking hands, as though I had come upon the Holy Grail itself.
    I held my breath as I carefully opened the cover to the first page.
With awe and delight during this spirit-filled season,
Charles Dickens
December 1867, Havenwood
    I blinked several times and squinted at the page, not quite sure what I was seeing. I seemed to recall that Dickens had visited the United States twice during his lifetime, but how could he possibly have come all the way to the wilds of Havenwood? And more important, why?
    And then the name on the inscription called out to me, as clearly as if someone had uttered it.
Seraphina.

NINE
    Mrs. Sinclair!” I called out, shattering the quiet that had settled in around me. “Mrs. Sinclair!”
    “What is it, dear?” she sang back to me, leaning slightly over the third-level balcony, bifocals dangling on a chain around her neck.
    “Wait until you see what I’ve found!” I called up to her, slipping the volume into my pocket and hurrying up the spiral stairs.
    “What sort of treasure have you unearthed, Julia?” She was clearly amused at my enthusiasm.
    I held the book out to her as I tried to catch my breath. “Charles Dickens,” I huffed, bending low at the waist and taking a deep breath in and letting it out again. “Dickens! He was here at Havenwood!”
    She took the copy of
A Christmas Carol
and turned it over and over in her hands. “Ah, yes,” she said, nodding her head. “I shouldn’t be surprised that the first book you were drawn to, of the thousands upon thousands here, was this one.”
    She smiled at me, rather sadly I thought.
    “It’s inscribed to somebody named Seraphina. It was—” I intended to tell her it was signed by Dickens himself during Christmastime in 1867, but the look in her eyes told me she already knew what I was going to say. Of course she did. This was her library, after all, and had been for decades. Of course she had already seen this treasure.
    “Mrs. Sinclair?” I began slowly. “Was the Seraphina you wrote about in your novel a real person who was here at Havenwood?”
    Amaris Sinclair exhaled and held my gaze. “Well,” she said finally. “This has certainly happened quite a bit more rapidly than I thought it would. It’s only your second day here.”
    My stomach tightened. Was she about to ask me to leave? “Have I done something wrong?”
    “Oh, my goodness, no.” She slipped the book into the pocket of her jogging suit and took my hands in hers. “On the contrary. This is why I’ve asked you here, my dear.”
    She looked deeply into my eyes—almost in a trance, as she had been the day before at lunch.
    “I don’t understand, Mrs. Sinclair.”
    She opened her mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it. She shook her head and turned toward the elevator. “Come. Let us put Mr.