The Giver of Stars Read online

Alice took a deep breath. “It all started well enough. We’d been waiting so long, what with the journey and everything, and actually it was lovely and then just as things . . . were about to—well . . . Mr. Van Cleve shouted something through the wall—I think he thought he was being encouraging—and we were both a little startled, and then everything stopped and I opened my eyes and Bennett wasn’t even looking at me and he seemed so cross and distant and when I asked him if everything was okay he told me I was . . .” she gulped “. . . unladylike for asking.”

  Margery waited.

  “So I lay back down and waited. And he . . . well, I thought it was going to happen. But then we could hear Mr. Van Cleve clomping around next door and . . . well . . . that was that. And I tried to whisper something but he got cross and acted like it was my fault. But I don’t really know. Because I’ve never . . . so I can’t be sure whether it’s something I’m doing wrong or he’s doing wrong but, either way, his father is always next door and the walls are so thin and, well, Bennett, he just acts like I’m something he doesn’t want to get too close to any more. And it’s not like it’s one of those things you can talk about.” The words tumbled out, unchecked. She felt her face flood with color. “I want to be a good wife. I really do. It just feels . . . impossible.”

  “So . . . let me get this straight. You haven’t . . .”

  “I don’t know! Because I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like!” She shook her head, then covered her face with her hands, as if horrified that she was even saying the words out loud.

  Margery frowned at her boots. “Stay there,” she said.

  She disappeared into the cabin, where the singing had reached a new pitch. Alice listened anxiously, fearing the sudden cessation of voices that would suggest Margery had betrayed her. But instead the song lifted, and a little burst of applause met a musical flourish, and she heard Beth’s muffled whoop! Then the door opened, allowing the voices to swell briefly, and Margery tripped back down the steps holding a small blue book, which she handed to Alice. “Okay, so this doesn’t go in the ledger. This, we pass around to ladies who, perhaps, need a little help in some of the matters you’ve mentioned.”

  Alice stared at the leather-bound book.

  “It’s just facts. I’ve promised it to a woman over at Miller’s Creek on my Monday route, but you can take a look over the weekend and see if there’s anything in there might help.”

  Alice flicked through, startling at the words sex, naked, womb. She blushed. “This goes out with the library books?”

  “Let’s just say it’s an unofficial part of our service, given it has a bit of a checkered history through our courts. It doesn’t exist in the ledger, and it doesn’t sit out on the shelves. We just keep it between ourselves.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Cover to cover and more than once. And I can tell you it has brought me a good deal of joy.” She raised an eyebrow and smiled. “And not just me either.”

  Alice blinked. She couldn’t imagine prizing joy out of her current situation, no matter how hard she tried.

  “Good evening, ladies.”

  The two women turned to see Fred Guisler walking down the path toward them, an oil lamp in his hand. “Sounds like quite a party.”

  Alice hesitated, and thrust the book abruptly back at Margery. “I—I don’t think so.”

  “It’s just facts, Alice. Nothing more than that.”

  Alice walked briskly past her back to the library. “I can manage this by myself. Thank you.” She half ran back up the steps, the door slamming as she entered.

  Fred stopped when he reached Margery. She noted the faint disappointment in his expression. “Something I said?”

  “Not even halfway close, Fred,” she said, and placed a hand on his arm. “But why don’t you come on in and join us? Aside from a few extra bristles on that chin of yours, you’re pretty much an honorary librarian yourself.”

  * * *

  • • •

  She would have laid down money, said Beth afterward, that that was the finest librarians’ meeting that had ever taken place in Lee County. Izzy and Sophia had sung their way through every song they could recall, teaching each other the ones they didn’t know and making up a few on the spot, their voices wild and raucous as they grew in confidence, stamping and hollering, the girls clapping in time. Fred Guisler, who had indeed been happy to fetch his gramophone, had been persuaded to dance with each of them, his tall frame stooped to accommodate Izzy, disguising her limp with some well-timed swings so that she lost her awkwardness and laughed until tears leaked from her eyes. Alice smiled and tapped along but wouldn’t meet Margery’s eye, as if she were already mortified at having revealed so much, and Margery understood that she would simply have to say nothing and wait for the girl’s feelings of exposure and humiliation, however unwarranted, to die down. And amid all this Sophia would sing out and sway her hips, as if even her rigor and reserve could not hold out against the music.

  Fred, who had declined all offers of moonshine, had driven them home in the dark, all crammed into the backseat of his truck, taking Sophia first under cover of the rest, and they had heard her singing still as she tapped her way down the path to the neat little house at Monarch Creek. They had dropped Izzy next, the motor-car’s tires spinning in the huge driveway, and had seen Mrs. Brady’s amazement at her daughter’s sweaty hair and grinning face. “I never had friends like you all before,” Izzy had exclaimed, as they flew along the dark road, and they knew that it was only half moonshine talking. “Honestly, I never even thought I liked other girls till I became a librarian.” She had hugged each of them with a child’s giddy enthusiasm.

  Alice had sobered completely by the time they dropped her off, and said little. The two Van Cleve men were seated on the porch, despite the chill in the air and the late hour, and Margery detected a distinct reluctance in her step as Alice made her way slowly up the path toward them. Neither rose from his seat. Nobody smiled under the flickering porch light, or leaned forward to greet her.

  Margery and Fred drove the rest of the way to her cabin in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

  “Tell Sven I said hey,” he said, as she opened the gate and Bluey came bounding down the slope to meet her.

  “I will.”

  “He’s a good man.”

  “As are you. You need to find yourself someone else, Fred. It’s been long enough.”

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.

  “You have a good rest of your evening,” he said finally, and tipped his forehead, as if he were still wearing a hat, then turned the wheel and drove back down the road.

  SEVEN

  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, agents for land companies had swept through the [Kentucky] mountain region buying up mineral rights from residents, sometimes for as little as 50 cents per acre . . . the broad form deeds often signed over the rights to “dump, store and leave upon said land any and all muck, bone, shale, water or other refuse,” to use and pollute water courses in any manner, and to do anything “necessary and convenient” to extract subsurface minerals.

  • CHAD MONTRIE, The Environment and Environmental Activism in Appalachia

  The prince told her she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and then he asked if she would marry him. And they all lived happily ever after.” Mae Horner brought the two sides of the book briskly together with a satisfying slap.

  “That was really very good, Mae.”

  “I read it through four times yesterday after I collected the wood.”

  “Well, it shows. I do believe your reading is as good as any girl’s in this county.”

  “She’s smart all right.”

  Alice looked up to where Jim Horner stood in the doorway. “Like her mama. Her mama could read since she was three years old. Grew up in a houseful of boo
ks over near Paintsville.”

  “I can read too,” said Millie, who had been sitting by Alice’s feet.

  “I know you can, Millie,” said Alice. “And your reading is very good too. Honestly, Mr. Horner, I don’t think I’ve ever met two children take to it like yours have.”

  He suppressed a smile. “Tell her what you did, Mae,” he said.

  The girl looked at him, just to check for her father’s approval.

  “Go on.”

  “I made a pie.”

  “You made a pie? By yourself?”

  “From a recipe. In that Country Home magazine you left us. A peach pie. I would offer you a slice but we ate it all.”

  Millie giggled. “Daddy ate three pieces.”

  “I was hunting up in North Ridge and she got the old range going and everything. And I walked in the door and there was a smell like . . .” He lifted his nose and closed his eyes, recalling the scent. His face briefly lost its habitual hardness. “I walked in and there she was, with it all laid out on the table. She had followed every one of those instructions to a T.”

  “I did burn the edges a little.”

  “Well, your mama always did the same.”

  The three of them sat in silence for a moment.

  “A peach pie,” said Alice. “I’m not sure we can keep up with you, young Mae. What can I leave you girls this week?”

  “Did Black Beauty come in yet?”

  “It did! And I remembered what you said about wanting it so I brought it with me. How about that? Now, the words in this one are a little longer, so you may find it a little harder. And it’s sad in places.”

  Jim Horner’s expression changed.

  “I mean for the horses. There are some sad bits for the horses. The horses talk. It’s not easy to explain.”

  “Maybe I can read to you, Daddy.”

  “My eyes ain’t too good,” he explained. “Can’t seem to aim the way I used to. But we get by.”

  “I can see that.” Alice sat in the center of the little cabin that had once spooked her so much. Mae, although only eleven, appeared to have taken charge of it, sweeping and organizing so that where it had once seemed bleak and dark, there was now a distinct homeliness, with a bowl of apples in the center of the table and a quilt across the chair. She packed up her books and confirmed that everyone was happy with what she had brought. Millie hugged her around her neck and she held her fiercely. It was some time since anybody had pulled her close and it provoked strange, conflicting feelings.

  “It’s a whole seven days till we see you again,” the girl announced solemnly. Her hair smelled of woodsmoke and something sweet that existed only in the forest. Alice breathed it in.

  “It certainly is. And I can’t wait to see how much you’ve read in the meantime.”

  “Millie! This one’s got drawings in it too!” Mae called, from the floor. Millie released Alice and hunkered down by her sister. Alice watched them for a moment, then made her way to the door, shrugging on her coat, a once fashionable tweed blazer that was now scuffed with moss and mud and sprouted messy threads where it had caught on bushes and branches. The mountain had grown distinctly colder these last days, as if winter were settling into its foundations.

  “Miss Alice?”

  “Yes?”

  The girls were bent over Black Beauty, Millie’s finger tracing the words as her sister read aloud.

  Jim looked behind him, as if making sure their focus was elsewhere. “I wanted to apologize.”

  Alice, who had been tying her scarf, stopped.

  “After my wife passed I was not myself for a while. Felt like the sky was falling in, you know? And I was not . . . hospitable when you first came by. But these last couple of months, seeing the girls stop crying for their mama, giving them something to look forward to every week, it’s—it’s . . . Well, I just wanted to say it’s much appreciated.”

  Alice held her hands in front of her. “Mr. Horner, I can honestly tell you that I look forward to seeing your girls just as much as they look forward to my visits.”

  “Well, it’s good for them to see a lady. I didn’t realize till my Betsy was gone how much a child misses the more . . . feminine side of things.” He scratched his head. “They talk about you, you know, how you speak and all. Mae there says she wants to be a librarian.”

  “She does?”

  “Made me realize—I can’t keep them close by me for ever. I want more for them than this, you know. Seeing as how smart they both are.” He stood silent for a moment. Then he said: “Miss Alice, what do you think of that school? The one with the German lady?”

  “Mrs. Beidecker? Mr. Horner, I think your girls would love her.”

  “She . . . doesn’t take a switch to the children? You hear some things . . . Betsy got beat something awful at school so she never wanted the girls to go.”

  “I’d be happy to introduce you to her, Mr. Horner. She is a kind woman, and the students seem to love her. I cannot believe she would ever lay a hand on a child.”

  He considered this. “It’s hard,” he said, looking out at the mountain, “having to work all this stuff out. I thought I’d be just doing a man’s job. My own daddy just brought home the food and put his feet up and let my mama do all the rest. And now I have to be mother as well as father. Make all these decisions.”

  “Look at those girls, Mr. Horner.”

  They glanced to where the girls, now lying on their stomachs, were exclaiming over something they had just read.

  Alice smiled. “I think you’re doing fine.”

  Finn Mayburg, Upper Pinch Me—one copy The Furrow, dated May 1937

  Two copies Weird Tales magazine, dated December 1936 and February 1937

  Ellen Prince—Eagles Top (end cabin)—Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

  From Farm to Table by Edna Roden

  Nancy and Phyllis Stone, Arnott’s Ridge—Mack Maguire and the Indian Girl by Amherst Archer

  Mack Maguire Takes a Fall by Amherst Archer (note: they have read all current editions, ask if we can find out if there are any more)

  Margery flicked through the ledger, Sophia’s elegant handwriting neatly transcribing date and routes at the top of each page. Beside it sat a pile of newly repaired books, their bindings stitched and the torn covers patched with pages from books that couldn’t be salvaged. Beside that lay a new scrapbook—The Baileyville Bonus—this edition comprising four pages of recipes from spoiled copies of the Woman’s Home Companion, a short story titled “What She Wouldn’t Say,” and a long feature about collecting ferns. The library was now immaculate, a system of labels marking the back of every shelved book so that it was easy for them to find their place, the books precisely ordered and categorized.

  Sophia would come by at around 5 p.m. and would usually have done a couple of hours by the time the girls returned from their routes. The days were growing shorter now so they were having to return earlier because of the falling light. Sometimes they would all just sit and chat among themselves while unloading their bags and comparing their days before they headed off to their homes. Fred had been installing a woodburner in the corner in his free time, though it wasn’t finished yet: the gap around the flue pipe was still stuffed with rags to stop the rain coming in. Despite this, all the women seemed to find reasons to hang around a little later each day and Margery suspected that once the stove started up she would have trouble persuading them to go home.

  Mrs. Brady looked a little startled when Margery explained the identity of the newest member of their team but, having seen the altered state of the little building, to her credit she simply compressed her lips and raised her fingers to her temples. “Has anybody complained?”

  “Nobody’s seen her to complain. She comes in the back, by Mr. Guisler’s house, and goes home the same way.”

  Mrs. Brady mulled this for
a moment. “Are you familiar with what Mrs. Nofcier says? You know of Mrs. Nofcier, of course.”

  Margery smiled. They all knew of Mrs. Nofcier. Mrs. Brady would shoehorn her name into a conversation about horse liniment if she could.

  “Well, I was recently lucky enough to attend an address for teachers and parents that the good lady gave where she said—hold on, I wrote this bit down.” She riffled through her pocketbook: “‘A library service should be provided for all people, rural as well as urban, colored as well as white.’ There. ‘Colored as well as white.’ That was how she put it. I believe we have to be mindful of the importance of progress and equality just as Mrs. Nofcier is. So you’ll have no objection from me about employing a colored woman here.” She rubbed at a mark on the desk, then examined her finger. “Maybe . . . we won’t actually advertise it just yet, though. There’s no need to invite controversy, given we’re such a fledgling venture. I’m sure you catch my drift.”

  “My feelings exactly, Mrs. Brady,” Margery said. “I wouldn’t want to bring trouble to Sophia’s door.”

  “She does a beautiful job. I’ll give her that.” Mrs. Brady gazed around her. Sophia had stitched a sampler, which hung on the wall beside the door—To Seek Knowledge Is To Expand Your Own Universe—and Mrs. Brady patted it with some satisfaction. “I have to say, Miss O’Hare, I am immensely proud of what you have achieved in just a few short months. It has exceeded all our expectations. I have written to Mrs. Nofcier to tell her as much several times and I am sure that at some point she will be passing on those sentiments to Mrs. Roosevelt herself . . . It is a profound shame not everyone in our town feels the same way.”

  She glanced away, as if deciding not to say more. “But, as I said, I do believe this is a true model of a packhorse library. And you girls should be proud of yourselves.”

  Margery nodded. It was probably best not to tell Mrs. Brady about the library’s unofficial initiative: each day she sat down at the desk, in the dark hours between her arrival and dawn, and she wrote out, according to her template, a half-dozen more of the letters that she had been distributing to the inhabitants of North Ridge.