Page 2 of Grey
And especially the last few years, when she’d been in a controlling relationship with a man who belittled her at every turn.
She’d finally found the courage to walk away.
From her father, from her ex, from Pennsylvania.
Starting over had been scary and liberating.
She was finally starting to feel more liberated than scared, now that she was settling into the library. The cabin didn’t feel like home yet, but it would in time, she was sure.
Tatum got out of her car and grabbed her tote and purse from the seat, then closed the door with her hip. As she walked into her little house, she set her things down on the kitchen counter and removed the books from the tote.
Not only did she have the books about the state’s legends from Mrs. Fielder, but she’d poked around the shelves during her lunch break and found a few more that looked interesting, including one about the local legends of Little River.
She put a frozen dinner in the microwave and opened the book about local legends while she sipped on a can of lemon-lime soda.
She perused the table of contents while her meal turned in the microwave, and when it was finished, she carried it to the counter and sat on one of the rickety stools. She’d been so happy to find a furnished house to rent in town because she’d walked away from her old life with only her clothes and toiletries, and her box of family mementos.
As she flipped through the local legends book, she stopped on a story about the Ghost of Little River.
The story was about a young woman named Eleanor who lived in Little River a hundred years ago. A man asked her to marry him and she refused, and in his embarrassment, he accused her of being a witch and the townspeople chased her into the woods. She disappeared, with some saying she’d slipped beneath the waters of the river and others saying she turned into a crow. Over the years, people have claimed to have seen and heard a mysterious figure in the woods at night, who helped lost hikers and sang the whispered sad song of a woman who just wanted to live her life.
Curious, she asked Mrs. Fielder about it the next morning at the library.
“Oh yes, I’ve heard about her,” she said, patting at a strand of graying hair. “They say that if you hear someone talking to you at night in the woods of Little River that it’s her and she’s trying to help, but if you ignore the voice, you’ll be doomed to wander, lost forever.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Tatum said with a chuckle.
“What’s a legend without a creepy element?”
“Not a particularly good one, I suppose. Have you ever seen or heard her?”
“Honey, I’m too old to go wandering around at night in the woods or anywhere else. I’ll take my mysteries on the television.”
Tatum smiled. “I like the legends, they’re neat. It’s kind of how people explained things they didn’t understand. If there really was an Eleanor and she was chased into the woods by the townspeople and disappeared, it would be easier for them to think she actually was a witch and turned into a crow than to admit they chased an innocent woman to her death.”
“True,” she said. “People sure were terrible to those who were different back then, and I’m not so sure they’re all that kind to them now.”
Tatum agreed. Being considered an oddball herself for her love of all things supernatural and mysterious, she knew first-hand how people could think nothing of saying someone was a freak or an idiot for enjoying something out of the mainstream.
That’s why Tatum loved the library.
There was no judgment in the library, just access to books and information.
“Can you help me find a book?” a woman asked as she approached the front desk. “My daughter is in middle school and is taking on a challenge to read twenty-five books that have won medals, and she asked me to find her a few to get started while she’s at gymnastics practice. Here’s the list.”
Tatum took the list and said, “Oh, how exciting! What an interesting way to find new books to read. Let’s see what we can find. I can always order them for you through our system too.”
She took the list and began marking them with the information on the computer, and then took her to the shelves to locate the ones they had on hand. When the woman had checked out with an armful of books and several more on order, she said, “Thank you for your help, I’ll be sure to bring my daughter with me next time.”
“Anytime, that’s what we’re here for,” Tatum said.
Tatum finished up the half day the library was open on Saturdays, her mind on the Ghost of Little River. On her short break, she’d read more about the woman and even looked at a map of the town.
After wishing Mrs. Fielder a pleasant rest of the weekend, she drove to her cabin and decided that it was the perfect time to go on a hike through the woods. She just needed to pack a bag withsome supplies and make sure her phone was charged, and then she’d see where the day took her.
She might even find the place where Eleanor had lived near the river.
She packed a few things in a backpack, and then as she changed into tennis shoes—because she didn’t have hiking boots yet—she looked out the window of her bedroom and smiled. She’d see for herself what secrets lay hidden in the woods of Little River.
