Free Books of a Feather by Kate Carlisle Page A

maybe a dry sponge. Then I’ll sew the pages back together. I’ve already done some research on the proper thread, the kind they used in the seventeen hundreds. I think it’ll really improve its value.”
    â€œEven filthy dirty with loose pages, it could be worth somewhere between twenty and forty thousand dollars, I found out.”
    I smiled. “It’ll be worth more than that when I’m finished with it.”
    â€œI love you so much.”
    We both laughed and I was glad to hear the natural lightness in her voice returning. We talked more about the work I planned to do on the
Almanack
, including constructing a protective storage box to keep it from deteriorating any further than it already had done.
    â€œThanks, Brooklyn. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
    â€œWell, don’t forget I’ll be back to help you finish up the inventory tomorrow,” I said.
    â€œAre you sure? You’ve done so much already.”
    â€œI’m sure.” Besides, it would give me a chance to corner Billy and get the real scoop on what he was thinking when he’d tried to filch the
Almanack
.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I spent the rest of the day doing preliminary work on both the
Almanack
and two of the books I’d brought home from Gen’s shop earlier that week. This included sweeping each page with my softest long-handled sheep-hair brush to get rid of any minute bits of dirt and dust or carcasses of tiny bugs that might have crawled between the pages.
    If you’d ever had a nice book collection or simply a bookshelf filled with books, you’d undoubtedly found remnants of silverfish or other bugs once in a while. Hopefully, they were dead and dried up on the shelf, not alive and eating their way through the insides of a favorite book.
    In my own experience, silverfish were the worst. They were slimy and slithery and liked to munch along the edges of books untilthe pages more resembled fine lace than a solid book. I would be perfectly happy if I never saw another one of those little buggers again.
    Beetles are disastrous, too, but rather than chewing along the edges, they prefer to bore straight through a book cover and into the pages, devouring everything in their path. One telltale sign that a beetle has been at your favorite book is a tiny pile of fine sandlike particles nearby. This is known as “frass” and it’s the, uh, natural output of an insect’s food intake.
    Some conservationists suggest freezing books to get rid of a bug infestation, but there are too many problems associated with this solution for me to sign off on it.
    One natural remedy I’d found only semiuseful was tea tree oil—rubbed on the wooden shelf itself, not directly onto the book.
    Book preservationists frown on applying insecticides to books, but other options along this line include pheromone lures and sticky traps on nearby shelves. In my opinion, though, the best way to prevent bugs from snacking on your books is to individually wrap each volume in clear archival plastic and keep them in a cool, dry place that’s dusted regularly.
    The front door buzzer sounded and I was startled out of my reverie. Jumping down from my work chair, I grabbed the phone. After hearing Inspector Lee announce herself, I pressed the button to let her in, then waited several minutes while she took the freight elevator up to my floor. I finally took notice of the clock above my desk and realized it was almost time to start cleaning up and getting ready for Derek to come home. I also realized I was starving. I’d been so wrapped up in my work I’d forgotten to fortify myself with chocolate. That just never happened.
    I quickly grabbed a handful of chocolate-covered almonds and munched them as I waited at the door for the inspector.
    â€œHey, Brooklyn,” she said as she walked into my studio. “Thanks for doing this.”
    â€œI’m