Page 83 of Witches of Dubious Origin
“We shall.”
As we walked, I ignored him mostly, focusing instead on the figures I had remembered Mamie teaching me and trying to recall the name of the third symbol, which I had never seen before or since. Maybe it would come to me if I focused on something else.
The library was a small white clapboard cottage with green shutters nestled on a side street off the town square. Thankfully, it was open and Jasper held the door for me as we entered, stomping our feet on the doormat to get the excess rainwater off.
A just-past-middle-aged man wearing a cardigan and glasses—sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason—greeted us when we approached the reference desk.
“Hello, how can I help you?” he asked. I noted his name tag readRoger.
I stared at him, wondering for a moment if he might be undead. I wanted to reach out and pinch him. If he didn’t respond, I’d know, but it seemed a bit pushy. Realizing I was suffering from some sort of undead post-traumatic stress, I glanced away, noting that there was a story time happeningin the children’s area on the other side of the library and several patrons were using the free-internet-access computers in the main part of the room. Other than that, all was quiet.
“Do you have an archive of the local newspaper?” Jasper asked. He glanced at me, no doubt wondering why I didn’t identify myself as a fellow librarian, but I felt the less this man knew about us, the better for him. Jasper must have caught on, because his usual charming banter was kept to a minimum.
Roger pushed up his glasses and nodded. “Right this way. We keep them in the Hagshill History Room.”
We followed him through the wooden shelving units to the back of the building where we entered a glassed-in room with two ancient microfilm readers, a large steel microfilm case, and a wooden study table with four chairs. The few bookshelves in the room held old school yearbooks from the island’s only school, vintage phone directories, and a handful of books that I assumed were written by local residents.
“Do you know how to use microfilm?” Roger asked.
“I do,” I said. “I do a lot of research in my line of work.”
“Roger, Mrs. Chisholm is waiting at the reference desk.” A woman poked her head into the room.
“Excuse me,” Roger said. “I’ll be at the service desk if you need help.”
“Thank you,” Jasper and I said together.
As soon as the door shut behind him, I turned to Jasper. He took one look at my expression and said, “No, I don’t believe he is one of the undead.”
“I didn’t really think so.” I shook my head.
“If it makes you feel any better, it took me a long time to get comfortable with the…unexpected,” Jasper said.
“Why do I feel like that’s a typical British understatement?” I asked.
He smiled at me and I tried really hard not to be dazzled by the deep dimples in his cheeks or the creases in the corners of his eyes or the way his thick dark hair fell back from his face in perfect waves. It was a struggle. I turned and went to the microfilm cabinet, looking for the roll that would include Mamie’s obituary, assuming there had been one.
“Can you imagine living in such a quaint place that they haven’t even digitized their collection?” I asked. Wessex was no hub of modernity, but we were fully digitized.
“I rather like it,” Jasper said. “It feels calmer.”
I paused and took a breath. He was right. There was a quietness here that soothed my soul. Was this why Mamie had loved island life so much? It made perfect sense to me.
I glanced down at the drawer and pulled out two rolls of microfilm. I handed one to Jasper, and we sat down at the two machines. It took me a moment to remember how to feed the film through the reader. As the front pages of old newspapers scrolled by, I was careful to keep the speed slow enough that I didn’t give myself motion sickness.
“Antoinette Donadieu, that’s her, right?” Jasper asked.
I scooted my chair in beside his and glanced at the grainy black-and-white photo. I recognized the same wavy brown hair and close-lipped smile that my mother and I shared.
“Yes, that’s her.” My throat was inexplicably tight.
“The resemblance is uncanny,” Jasper said as he glanced from the photo to me and back. “She was a beauty.”
Was that a compliment? It felt like a compliment. But I couldn’t be sure. I studied Mamie’s photo. It was a headshottaken when she was in her late twenties. She had a heart-shaped face with large eyes, a long nose that turned up slightly at the end, and full lips with the upper one slightly larger than the lower. These were the same features I saw in my own reflection every day. On her, they seemed much more attractive than they did on me.
I remembered being told once that confidence was the most attractive quality in a person. Was that why Mamie appeared to be so glamorous? She definitely looked more self-assured than I ever had. I shook my head, forcing myself to focus.
The date at the top of the page was November 21, 1999. I knew from what Eloise had told me that Mamie had died shortly after the night we had fled. I hit print on the machine, hoping something in the obit would give me a clue as to what had happened more than two decades ago.
