Free Night Music by John Connolly Page B

and he saw that Mr. Gedeon could not stop himself from shedding a tear as he entrusted the library and its characters to its new custodian.
    â€œI shall miss them terribly, you know,” said Mr. Gedeon.
    â€œYou should feel free to visit at any time,” said Mr. Berger.
    â€œPerhaps I will,” said Mr. Gedeon, but he never did.
    They shook hands, and Mr. Gedeon departed, and they did not meet or speak again.
XVII
    The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository is no longer in Glossom. At the beginning of this century the town was discovered by developers, and the land beside the library was earmarked for houses and a modern shopping mall. Questions started to be asked about the peculiar old building at the end of the lane, and so it was that one evening a vast fleet of anonymous trucks arrived driven by anonymous men, and in the space of a single night the entire contents of the Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository—books, characters, and all—were spirited away and resettled in a new home in a little village not far from the sea, but far indeed from cities and, indeed, trains. The librarian, now quite old and not a little stooped, liked to walk on the beach in the evenings, accompanied by a small terrier dog and, if the weather was good, by a beautiful, pale woman with long, dark hair.
    One night, just as summer was fading into autumn, there came a knock on the door of the Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository, and the librarian opened it to find a young woman standing on the doorstep. She had in her hand a copy of Vanity Fair .
    â€œExcuse me,” she said, “I know this may sound a little odd, but I’m absolutely convinced that I just saw a man who looked like Robinson Crusoe collecting seashells on the beach, and I think he returned with them to this”—she looked at the small brass plate to her right—“ library ?”
    Mr. Berger opened the door wide to admit her.
    â€œPlease come in,” he said. “It may sound equally odd, but I think I’ve been expecting you. . . .”

THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB
    S he looked at her husband, who had just placed a mug of tea on the good dining table, the one she’d spent an hour polishing to a high sheen, and him not even bothering to pick up a coaster along the way, and she despaired. Sometimes she wondered if he wasn’t going soft in the head.
    â€œJesus, what are you doing?” she asked.
    â€œWhat? I’m having a mug of tea. Can’t a man have a mug of tea in his own house without asking permission?”
    She scuttled past him, picked up the offending item, and placed it on the mantelpiece instead.
    â€œAren’t I only just after cleaning that table? You’ll leave a mark on it.”
    She squatted before the table, peering along the length of it.
    â€œAh, look,” she said. “I can see it. I can see the mark.”
    She retrieved her cloth from under the kitchen sink and went to work again. Her husband put his hands in his trouser pockets. The ironing board still stood in the center of the room, in front of the television. It reminded him uncomfortably of a funeral bier, the kind that Clancy’s undertakers used for the resting of the coffin at a wake. She’d forced him to buy a new shirt, even though his old shirts were perfectly fine, and then insisted on ironing it to get the creases out, no matter that he promised he’d keep his jacket and cardigan on over it, so that even the Lord Himself wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was creased or not.
    He wasn’t sure that he wanted his tea now. It would taste of polish. The whole house smelled of polish and soap and bleach. It hadn’t been this clean in years—and his wife was a house-proud woman, so it was no small matter. He was nearly afraid to walk on the floor, even though he was only wearing slippers. In fact, he suspected that he was making his own home look