Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 Read Online Free PDF Page A

motes, only sweet. They spin the sugar granules until they drift upwards in the air. My son looks as though he does not believe me, but wants to.
    The library used to not be mine. It belonged to someone in the pictures, long gone, whose name my husband wouldn't tell me, the smell of pipe smoke and rich leather and still air mingling. My son taught me to slide the knife between the latch and the door frame, he opened up my first book and cut the pages. From his almost-man hand, I read, “We lived in a house. It was in a house in a land of robbers.” And I put the book away, high high up on the topmost shelf, next to the dusty sea tortoise. I had to climb the shelves like a tree, like the trees I had climbed before meeting my husband. The trees here all stretch to the sky and the branches are impossibly high. Even squirrels cannot reach them, only birds. The birds do not touch the ground, the bread I throw out my window lies untouched, until the leaves fall and covers it.
    On the tortoise's shell I wrote, “I was here.” I flipped the shell over and wrote in on the concave inside, where the animal's spine was. My finger letters dark and glossy. I had no days, no date to put there. But I could climb up there again, if I had to. Take the shell away from the wall, its display, and the message is always there. Waiting.
    This is my favorite room, my favorite place. There is a fireplace, and it is almost like a breeze. There are books, mostly dusty. My husband laughs at my reading. All of the books are tales and stories with people I've never heard of. “How about this one?” I ask my husband, it is dinner, the table gleams, food is brought on pewter platters. Maybe lead, maybe like the Romans we will go.
    There was a man who went to the market. There, he saw Death, staring right at him. So he ran to his mother and asked, “Mother, may I have a horse? For I have seen Death, and I must be away.” And because his mother loved him, she said yes, and gave him a horse. That night, there was a knock at her door. It was Death. He said, “Where is your son?” and she said: “You will not find him.” And Death never did.
    This is one of the stories that I know is not right. Death finds the son, he always does. The son has run away to another city, where he was supposed to die. His mother needed to help him get there first.
    I used to think that the library had answers. None of the books have any answers, though. They just have more stories and riddles. I found books that I have seen before: paper covers, yellow pages, the edges worn soft and smooth like cloth. Their covers are garish and unbelievable: hot pink, orange, heavy lines. The scenery of a carnival, the girl in a black slip perched in the corner, dragging at the reader with her eyes.
    They watch each other here without using their eyes. They measure heartbeats and listen for signs of agitation, know if someone is looking up or down, in a dark room, by the sound of breathing. They read me but I cannot read them. I am transparent, like a new bug.
    There is another story in the library that is not right. Once upon a time , the story went in my land, there was a man named Bluebeard. He had a beautiful wife, and told her that all his riches and castle were hers, with the exception of one room. And everything was going fine, except for he went away, even though she begged him not to. There was some excuse, war or business, but she knew it was a test. And she couldn't help herself, and opened the door. The dead wives, hanging and bloody, and the blood that she couldn't wash off the golden key, even though she tried, and how he returned and killed her.
    There are never any bodies here. “What happens when I die?” I ask my husband. “Where do you put dead people?” “Die?” he had responded. “But you'll never die.” And then twirled me around and around the library, laughing. Like the red-headed girl , I almost say, but don't.
    There is a room in our house that no one