Page 35 of Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Book
Not long ago, the head librarian of the Troy Public Library would have dropped everything to greet the mayor’s wife at the door. Now such measures no longer seemed necessary. “Then it’s fine,” Mara assured the assistant librarian. “Given everything that’s going on with the Sykes family, I doubt Melody’s here to hunt for propaganda or pornography.”
Melody Sykes was a founding member of Lula Dean’s book banning posse, but Mara doubted her heart had been in it. She’d stood by Lula at all the rallies and press conferences, staring sweetly into space and batting those big brown eyes in a way that made her appear a bit bovine. But Mara knew for a fact that Melody Sykes was a lot smarter than she chose to look. She just ran in circles that didn’t always see intelligence as a desirable feminine trait.
Before the infamous erotic cake incident, Melody had been one of the library’s very best patrons. She and her youngest son checked out booksevery week. Melody was partial to the works of Tana French, but would read any good true crime or procedural, while Beau preferred Captain Underpants. Mara suspected the mayor’s wife was one of the few members of Lula’s posse who’d actually read any of the titles they pulled off the shelves. During Lula’s first raid, Mara had hoped Melody might step forward to talk some sense into the crowd. When the mayor’s wife remained silent, Mara felt betrayed. Since then, she’d faced so many disappointments that Melody Sykes’s hypocrisy barely registered.
In retrospect, she was sure Mayor Sykes had insisted his wife lend her support to Lula. But now Randy was no longer mayor, and given the circumstances under which he’d resigned, Mara wondered if Melody would be doing her husband many favors for the foreseeable future.
“Mrs. Sykes isn’t here to ban anything,” Natalie said, her face grim. “She’s sitting at the plotter’s desk. She’s got one of your blue moon books.”
In the north corner of the Troy Public Library, hidden from view by three of the least visited shelves, sat a single small wooden table. It was a dreary spot, lit by a flickering fluorescent light that lent it a horror-movie ambience. Most library patrons were likely unaware of the desk’s existence. Those who stumbled across it rarely chose to sit. Over the fifteen years that Mara Ocumma had worked at the library, the sad, lonesome desk had rarely been used. More often than not, the people who chose it were teenagers with racy novels tucked into their textbooks. In those cases, Mara looked the other way. It was the adults who sat at the desk that concerned her. She called them the plotters because all of them had one—and only one—thing in common. They were definitely up to something.
Mara set down her sandwich. “Did you see what Melody is reading?” she asked.
“Looks likeA Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia.”
“Oh shit.” Mara wiped the horseradish off her hands and scooted her chair back. “Thatisserious.”
A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgiawas on Mara’s blue moon list, along with titles likeA is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christieand thePocket Guide to Field Dressing Big Game. Most people who sought out the list’s titles were genuinely interested in mushrooms, murder mysteries, or deer hunting. But once in a blue moon, a person in crisis would arrive at the library, pluck a book off the shelves, and carry it back to the plotter’s desk without checking it out. There was no way of knowing what they planned to do with the information they gathered, but there was also no doubt they were serious. Otherwise they would have stayed at home and gone online. For whatever reason, they were at the library to avoid leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs.
Mara kept a special book in her top desk drawer for such occasions. She’d only had to use it a handful of times, and she never would have predicted she’d one day have to offer it to Melody Sykes. But after fifteen years at the Troy Public Library, and five as the town’s head librarian, it was getting damn near impossible to surprise Mara Ocumma anymore.
She tucked the book under her arm and made her way through the stacks to the plotter’s desk.
“Thinking of doing some mushroom hunting?”
Melody Sykes froze with her index finger on the entry forAmanita phalloides,and her giant brown eyes rolled up to meet the librarian’s. Mara could tell she hadn’t been sleeping, nor had she put on any makeup that morning. Women like Melody wouldn’t leave the house to give birth unless their hair was blown out and their eyeshadow perfect. Her pasty skin and ponytail were a sure sign that she was on the verge of homicide.
“There’s another guide I recommend to people with a newfound interest in fungi. Thought you might want a look at it.” Mara set the book down on the table. The cover was black, with the image of a giant gold fingerprint beneath the title:FBI Handbook of Crime Scene Forensics.
Melody’s eyes shot down to the cover then rolled back up to Mara. “Just say what you want to say, Mara. I’m done playing games.”
Mara didn’t blame her. “Fine. You feed Randy death caps and he’ll be dead in three days. As soon as your husband dies, they will perform an autopsy. There’s a good chance they will determine that he died of amatoxin poisoning, and the first thing they’ll do is come here. They’ll check that field guidefor fingerprints and interview all the librarians. I’d say your secret is safe with me, but I’m afraid I’m not the only person who’s seen you reading it.”
Melody shut the book and sat back with her arms crossed. “Are you going to turn me in?”
“For what?” Mara asked. “Nobody’s dead yet, and last I checked, it wasn’t illegal to read. Besides, you think you’re the only woman who’s had a good look at that book? Come with me to my office, and let’s find what you really need.”
It was almost funny, Mara thought. Every woman with a hankering to kill someone went straight for the mushroom book, when there was more than enough poison in the flower beds outside the library to dispose of every enemy they’d made since third grade. But they assumed the flowers were harmless because they were out in the open. White people were convinced that real dangers, like death caps, dirty books, witches, and Satanists, needed to be hunted down and rooted out. Which is exactly what their forefathers had done to Mara’s people.
For thousands of years, the Cherokee were among the tribes that lived in what was now called Georgia. In the early nineteenth century, US troops rounded them up and forced them all to march on foot to Oklahoma. Countless men, women, and children perished along the way. Fewer than a thousand Cherokee managed to stay behind in their homeland. Mara’s ancestors had been among them. Most twenty-first-century citizens assumed Jackson Square, in the center of Troy, had been named for General Stonewall Jackson. But the park was older than the Confederacy, and the man it honored was Andrew Jackson, the president of the United States who’d ordered the removal of all Native Americans east of the Mississippi—without a doubt one of the greatest crimes in American history.
As a child, Mara had spent summers with her grandmother in a ramshackle house set deep in an Appalachian hollow. There, she heard stories about how their people had hidden in the forest when the government camefor them. Their understanding of the land was key to their survival, and that knowledge was something her grandmother was determined to pass down.
The old woman knew everything that lived or grew on the Cherokee reservation. It was not unusual for people to show up at her door with a basket of wild mushrooms, asking for help sorting out the deadly ones. Others would arrive hoping for help with an ailment. Mara’s grandmother didn’t take patients, but if she liked you, she might make you something that would lower your blood pressure or soothe your sore throat. Mara was far more interested in trawling the creeks for crawdads and hellbenders than in studying toadstools or foul-smelling herbs, but her grandmother insisted she learn.
“This wisdom is who we are. For hundreds of years, they tried to steal it or outlaw it. But we never let it go. It has fed us and healed us. We are the only ones who possess the knowledge, and we must pass it down. If we lose it for good, a part of ourselves will disappear, too.”
And so Mara studied what her grandmother wanted to teach her. The first thing she learned was that few things in this world are wicked. The very same herbs that might poison one person could save another. The trick was knowing what was right for each individual. When Mara was twelve, her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and Mara saw that wisdom put into practice. Some folks were surprised when the old woman turned to Western medicine to treat her tumor.
“The medication I’m getting originally came from a yew tree,” Mara’s grandmother told her as they sat together in the chemotherapy center. “But that’s not what’s important. What matters is never letting people tell you what to think. Don’t let them convince you that one way is right and another way wrong. Gather as much knowledge as you can, because information is power. And choosing how to use it is freedom. The more you know, the freer you will be.”
On the morning Mara’s father told her that her grandmother had died, Mara found a mushroom growing in her yard. It wasn’t one she recognized. This specimen was native to her hot, humid home in south Georgia, not thecool, misty Smoky Mountains. She hopped on her bike and rode across town to the local library to look up a field guide to mushrooms. She’d been there a million times before and thought nothing of it. But this time, when she stepped through the doors, Mara knew her grandmother had sent her. She didn’t see books and magazines and newspapers. She saw the answers to every question that had ever been asked—and a woman with wild hair behind the counter who knew just where to find them.
Mara closed the office door and pulled out a chair for her guest.
“Since we’re being frank with each other, Melody, why don’t you tell me why you want to poison your husband.”
“Did you read Darlene Honeywell’s post?” Melody sat with her legs crossed at the ankle and her hands balled into fists in her lap.
