Free The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins Page B

kitchen and felt something stir inside herself. It was compassion, though she did not recognize it as such. It was not something she felt often. “Oh,” she said softly, “I see.”
    “She thinks that if her son were to come home now it would be like waking from a dream. She would feel again. But the boy will not come home, and though she will not allow herself to know this, she knows it anyway. And so she makes brownies for the memory of her baby. She can’t help herself—faint comfort is better than no comfort at all, you see? Her world is very cold, and this is the thing she warms herself over with.”
    Jennifer looked at the old woman cooking eggs in the kitchen and smiled sadly. “It is a heart coal.”
    “We should do something,” Carolyn said. Her right index finger trembled, just the tiniest bit. “Rachel could find her son. Even if he’s dead, you could—”
    Jennifer looked at her, surprised. “That’s kind of you, Carolyn.” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t help, though. It never works out the way you would think. The problem with a heart coal is that the memory
always
diverges from the actual thing. She remembers an idealized version of her son. She’s forgotten that he was selfish, that he enjoyed giving little offenses. It wasn’t really an accident that they saw him and the other man fucking on the couch. If he came back now it wouldn’t help. He would be gone again soon enough, only this time she would no longer have thecomfort of the illusion. Probably that would destroy her. She isn’t very strong.”
    “What then? Is there anything that can be done?”
    Jennifer shook her head. “No. Not for this. She will either find a way to let the boy go, or she will die of the memory.”
    “I see.” After that they sat in silence. Jennifer drank her coffee and asked for seconds. Carolyn sipped her lemon soda.
    The others were waking up, drifting in. Carolyn translated breakfast orders between them and Mrs. McGillicutty, relayed thanks, helped wash things when it seemed appropriate. Then she announced that she was going to go for a walk and slipped into the woods heading west, toward the bull.
    As Carolyn walked, she felt the coal of her own heart acutely. She wondered if she had ever hummed or sung around Jennifer. Certainly she wouldn’t have done so in the last ten years, not since the plan began to come together, but before that she just couldn’t remember.
If Jennifer knew, she gave no sign, but…
She turned it over in her mind for a little while, then put the question aside. Jennifer might know, or she might suspect. Or she might not. It didn’t matter.
    It was far too late to turn back now.
III
    A n hour later she stood on the ridge of the clearing, overlooking Highway 78. On the far side of the road down below, the weathered wooden Garrison Oaks sign creaked in the wind. It was ostentatious, in the way of real-estate signs, but now the raised wooden letters were silvery and cracked with age.
Perfect, really
. Among his other skills, Father was very good at camouflage.
    She was a bit early, so she stopped there to collect her thoughts. The bronze bull loomed behind her, shiny clean and horrible, not quite out of sight behind the trees. That was where they were to meet, but she didn’t want to be near it for any longer than she had to.
    She was thinking about Nobununga. It was crucial that this informalmeeting go well, and she was trying to think of things she might do to ingratiate herself with their noble guest. Ideally, she would have liked to have brought along Steve’s heart—currently marinating in a Ziploc bag in Mrs. McGillicutty’s vegetable crisper—but of course that would tip David off that things were taking place behind his back.
    Beyond that, she couldn’t think of much. She and Nobununga had never met, and she didn’t know much about him other than what she’d heard from Michael. He apparently had an appetite for raw meat, as did many of Father’s ministers.