Page 22

My mother calls from Arizona that night. She usually calls on Sundays, so somebody must have told her about the town meeting. Birdie, probably, by way of Doris. My father is on the line too. He never says anything. She says he says hi.

She asks about the library. I tell her. She asks about the orc because somebody told her about that too, and I tell her less. Then she says what she thinks is the kind thing to say.

“Honey. A bigger place would suit you. Portland, somewhere with a system. You were always a lot for that town.”

She means it as love. She framed the report card as love too. She was a lot for this town herself. My parents retired to Arizona the year before I came back and left me the house, and she’s been telling me to follow them ever since. That’s what makes it the worst thing anybody has said to me since fourth grade.

“I’ll think about it.” That’s what my mother always gets from me, and we both know it means no.

This time, it’s an easy no. Portland is three hours from Yorrel, and he’s only allowed to live in this town. I’m not going anywhere he can’t.

I hang up and pick up the letter from the county. It was in my mailbox when I got home, and I open it. They’re offering me a transfer to the main branch at the county seat. It comes with the same salary, a pension, and a real budget. All I have to do is come in and sign by the sixteenth.

I should hate the idea of this job on principle, but I don’t. I’d be home every night, and I’d still have Yorrel. What I wouldn’t have is Thursday story time. This town would be left with Birdie’s volunteers two mornings a week. That’s what Millbrook got, and the kids stopped going.

The one person I want to tell is at Elsie’s, and it’s ten at night. I put my coat on anyway and get in the car.

My hands take me to the library instead. I don’t notice until I’m pulling up in front of it, and it’s closed and dark.

He’s there anyway, sitting on the top step, and his breath shows in the cold. I didn’t know he would be. My hands did, apparently. He stands up when my car pulls in, and his ears come forward when he sees it’s me.

“You should be at Elsie’s,” I say.

“You should be at home.”

“My mother thinks I should move to Portland,” I tell him when I’m close enough. “I’m not going to. You’re here. But the county offered me a job at the main branch. It’s a forty-minute commute, and I’m thinking about signing. It’s a library with a real budget. My mother’s right about one thing. I’m a lot for this town.”

He comes down two steps.

“And that’s not the worst part.” I’m talking fast now. “The worst part is that I fought for that library as hard as I know how, and I lost anyway. The county sent me a letter that said obsolete, so I went to their board and talked for eleven minutes. Birdie got a hundred and forty-one people to sign a petition. What we got for it is a room with books in it that Birdie opens two mornings a week. That’s all. That’s what fighting got me.”

He doesn’t tell me I’m wrong, and he doesn’t try to cheer me up. People have tried that on me before, and it has never worked.

“I’m glad you’re not moving to Portland,” he says.

He comes down the rest of the steps and puts his arms around me. I hug him and rest my face against his jacket and stay there.

On Monday, I’m standing on the library steps at seven in the morning jiggling my car keys. Today is the last day to sign the transfer, and the county office opens at eight. I should be getting in the car, and I haven’t moved.

Yorrel is here with his back against the front door. It’s cold, and there’s frost on the steps and on the words FREE TO ALL. There’s a new stone under the words. It’s pale gray and about as long as my arm. It has a line of runes cut into it, and the mortar around it is still dark.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I made it for you. Korrag lent me his chisel, and Brannok set it in the wall.”

“What does it say?”

He reads it to me. “‘In the year the county called her library obsolete, they gave the keeper three minutes, and she took eleven.’”

“You left out the part where I lost.”

“It only matters how it will be told.”

“It’s over the door.”

“It is, and nobody can take it down. A stone over a door is a permanent ward. Stone keeps what is cut into it. Nobody can say it didn’t happen.”

This is the second gift. The pamphlet says the second gift is something an orc makes to keep his mate safe. I don’t see how a stone keeps me safe, but he does. I like the idea of having something permanent on it that is about me.