Chapter 1, Part ii

*

That same afternoon, a woman entered the library. She wore a thick, gray coat that reached her knees, and a few glittering snowflakes frosted the hood. She was careful not to track snow into the building.

The woman crossed the foyer and moved with purpose into the Reading Room, where Tom saw her. He left his full cart of books in the aisle and waved. “Hi Trisha. Are you looking for Hector?”

Trisha pushed back her hood and pulled her blond braid from the coat. “Is he here?” Her breath fogged up the air.

“He's in the History Section,” Tom sighed, pointing toward the stairwell in the corner. “He's been up there all day, after Professor Trellis's visit traumatized him.”

“Professor Trellis?” Trisha started walking toward the staircase, but she stopped when Tom didn't follow her. “Is he the Head Librarian from New Poliston that all of you've been talking about all month?”

“Yep,” Tom said with another sigh. He absently played with the pencil in his hands, his eyes glazed over as he started at the floor. Trisha pulled her woolen glove off and gently shook him by the shoulder. Their eyes met, and she noticed for the first time just how tired Tom looked.

“Hey, are you all right, Tomas?”

He shrugged. “Well... yeah. I'm just a little shook up after what happened last night, you know, the break-in.”

Trisha gave him an encouraging smile. “They didn't break in, we stopped them in time.”

“But what if they come back?” Tom asked. He looked very worried, or perhaps scared, which was strange for an outgoing ruffian like him. “Trish, I ain't never seen a Tove so... so up close before. All teeth and fur. Did you see how it was about to lunge at me--”

“Yes, I saw, but it's okay, we stopped it before it could do anything!” Trisha grabbed his other shoulder and shook him reassuringly. “I felt panicked and shaky for days after my first encounter with a Tove, too, you know. You'll be fine, don't worry.”

Tom was breathing heavily, but he slowed his breaths and bit his tongue in concentration. Trisha slowly let go of his shoulders. “Thanks, Trish... I just don't know what they were trying to do, breaking into the library--”

“Breaking into the library!” Hector's voice from the stairwell made both Tom and Trisha jump, and Tom turned bright red. Hector raced down the stairs to meet them, wide-eyed with shock. “Toves were trying to break into the library? Last night? Tom, is this what you weren't telling me?”

Tom stammered, unable to speak, so Trisha stepped between them. “It was Tom's first job as a City Watchman, and we wouldn't have brought him along if we hadn't been short-handed at the time, so--”

“Why didn't anyone tell me?” Hector spurted. Coming from anyone else, those would have been angry and offended words, but Trisha knew that Hector was only fascinated. Besides, the huge grin on his face gave away his excitement. “Toves! Breaking into the library!” He rubbed his fingers over his mouth, the cogs already spinning in his head.

“Now stop right there, cousin,” Trisha warned him, speaking quickly so Hector couldn't get a word in. “I know exactly what you're thinking. This is not the beginning of some fantastic adventure. This is.. well... war, to be frank. You know that Tove raids have been pretty common these days. We've just been lucky enough to live in a low-key town like Dunberg, so up until this point we haven't gotten any trouble from them.”

“But Toves!” Hector laughed. His blue eyes glittered with glee. “I've always wanted to see a Tove for myself!”
“No, you haven't,” Tom pointed out from his cart. Trisha shot a silencing look at him, and he quickly absorbed himself in putting books back onto their shelves.

Hector didn't notice. “I've seen them in picture books – not the ones you give to kids, of course, that'll give them nightmares – but in, you know, documentaries and encyclopedias...” He trailed off and his eyebrows knit together in thought. “Encyclopedias... Wait a minute... We have plenty of encyclopedias in the History Section, and a lot of them reference Tovish culture--”

Trisha snapped her fingers to get her cousin's attention. “Hector Blithe. They were savage Toves, trying to break into the library. You seem to forget that you practically sleep at night in the library.” She held up a hand to stall him. “Yes, yes, I know, you've actually done that several times. But if they had gotten in, who knows what they might have done? They might have burned down the building! You could have been hurt!”

“That's a good question,” Hector asked himself, unfazed. “Why would they have tried to break in?”

“Hector! I'm serious!”

Trisha's face flushed with anger and embarrassment: Hector was actually pulling out a pad of paper to take notes. “How many were there? Did you chase them off, or catch them? You didn't kill any, did you? 'Cause that would have been a--”

She slapped him, and his whole body twitched in surprise. “Hector! I'm supposed to be protecting you! Don't you care at all that you could have been killed last night?”

Hector said nothing, just staring blankly in to Trisha's face. Her hand throbbed with the pain and the cold, but she ignored it.

She continued. “Remember how your parents asked me to take care of you? Because you're their only son? Remember how much anguish your carelessness has caused them? Remember how broken up they were when you almost drowned when you dropped a book in the lake on that fishing trip?”

“It was Great Grobbits,one of my favorites,” Hector pleaded.

“You don't know how to swim, Hector. The book was ruined anyway. And besides,” Trisha said, poking him in the chest. “You think your life is a fairy tale, where good guys always win and nobody ever gets hurt, but it's not. Bad things happen, even to good people. Several Watchmen are in the hospital right now because of what happened last night. We were trying to defend the library. We were trying to defend you.”

Hector looked at his feet, but his face was unreadable.

Silence reigned in the Reading Room. Tom had even stopped pushing his squeaky book-cart to listen. After a minute or two, Trisha sighed “Come here,” and wrapped her arms around Hector and patted him on the back.

“You're a good man, Mr. Blithe. I didn't mean to shout at you. I guess I'm just stressed out about last night.”

“We're all stressed out about last night,” Tom was careful to point out from his unseen aisle.

Hector limply returned the hug. “Yeah, I know. Thanks for looking out for me, Trish.”

Trisha pulled away and started pulling on her gloves once more. “I stopped by to tell you that I have to leave for a while. A month, maybe. I'm actually needed in New Poliston, for a political debate. It's--”

“--complicated, and I wouldn't understand,” Hector laughed, finishing the little joke they always shared. 

“All right, then. Thanks for stopping by to tell me. Hey,” he said, cutting himself off. “Can you please take a couple books to the Central Library up there? Just tell them to put them in Special Collections, they'll know what to do with them. Wait here.” He ran upstairs.

While he was gone, Trisha found Tom sliding books into place on their shelves. “Hey, Tom,” she said quietly, “If Hector asks about what happened last night, you can tell him. Just make sure he doesn't go to see the Tove in the city jail, okay? Better not even let him know that it's there.” Tom nodded just as Hector returned with a big squarish bundle wrapped in worn leather.

Trisha took the package and said her final goodbyes, crossing the foyer and entering the quiet, gray-skied afternoon.

Hector stood still for a while with his hands in his pockets, staring after his cousin. Just when Tom had finished with his load of books to reshelve and was about to escape, Hector turned and asked conversationally,

“So, Tom, how many Toves were there?”

*