she was knitting for Geraldine, who sat on the floor playing dominoes. The house was too quiet.
Then I heard my father behind me. “Let’s go, girl,” he said. I looked back at my mother, but she just stared at the orange yarn, moving the needles up and down.
I woke the next morning aching all over. My arms were tender and bruised. I tried lying on my back and then winced and sat up. The sun glared in. The night before I had thought I would never return to Mercy Library, but now I yearned for it so badly I was almost in tears. I was late for work already. I could not stay in that room, that house, another minute. I didn’t even wash, just pulled on a skirt and top. My heart thudded as I descended the stairs, but one glance out the back window proved that my father, mother, sister, and brothers were already in the fields.
The walk was slow going; every step hurt, moved my body in a dozen directions it didn’t want to go. A weight was pressing down on me, too, a deep sadness I had never experienced before. As I walked along the main road, past one of the neighboring farms, I looked up and saw Mary, bending back branches, ducking, and walking from behind a line of trees and into the road about a half mile down. She was wearing a bright red-and-white checked dress with a full skirt that fell to her knees. Her black hair tumbled past her shoulders. When she saw me, she waved and started running. I thought I was seeing things. I blinked, shook my head. Mary never came to this part of town, and would be way too busy opening the library by herself.
“Tessa!” I heard. I looked up and there she was, in front of me. “I was worried half to death.” She knelt down and threw her arms around me, and her scent of cinnamon and cloves made me start crying. Her arms pressed into my wounds. She leapt back, stared at me, frantic. “I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to come after you, but I didn’t want to get you into trouble. What happened?” She seemed to see me then, my wounds and bruises. Her face registered everything at once. I felt like she could see right through me.
“My father found a book under my mattress,” I said.
“Come,” she said gently, taking my hand. “Let’s go.”
I nodded, numb, wiping my face. “I’m sorry, Mary,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean those things.”
“I know, sweet child,” she said, squeezing my hand. “And if you had, that would be okay and we could talk. You know that, right? Nothing you could say could make us stop being friends.”
“Okay,” I said. “But I didn’t mean them.” The image of Mary on the bed flashed through my mind, pulling at my heart, but I blinked it away. “Really.”
She nodded. “Anything,” she said. “Don’t forget that. I’m your friend, Tessa. I love you. Okay? Even if I have other friends, it’s not the same. You and I are friends for life.”
Tears fell down my face, and I just let them. I clutched Mary’s hand, didn’t even care when we passed through the town square and people saw me crying. When we got to the library I saw that Mary had set a sign out in front, saying the library was closed until the next day. I looked at her, confused. “Come,” she said. She led me to the back of the library, to the kitchen. She pointed to the stool. “Sit.”
I watched dully as she opened the ivory box that sat on the table and took out two small pouches. Her face was serious, focused. She shook them up and measured about a teaspoon of powder from each one into her palm, then set a pot of water to boiling. She took a small vial from the box and poured oil into the powders in her palm. I smelled lavender, some type of flower scent, as she rubbed the powder through the oil. “Now just sit still,” she said. And then carefully, gently, she pulled off my top. I just sat there as she leaned in and rubbed the oil on the tender part of my right arm, which became warm and then burning hot in an instant. “Shhh,” she said, when I started to squirm. She walked around and spread the oil into my back, and then down my other arm.
Next, she lifted my skirt and rubbed the oil into my left thigh, where a long bruise trailed to my knee, and into my calves. She pulled my skirt back down, turned to the pot of hot water, and sprinkled in handfuls of herbs from two of the jars on the shelf above, ones I did not recognize. A few minutes later she drained the herbs through a strainer and wrapped them in a cloth that she pressed down over my right arm, where she had rubbed in the oil. The arm went from hot to cool immediately, and suddenly I felt no pain at all. She repeated the process all over, on my back and legs. Finally, she leaned down and patted the cloth over my face, my closed eyelids, my forehead and chin. She sat back, gently pulled my top back over my head. “There,” she said, kissing my forehead. “Now I’m going to show you something. Come on.”
I slipped off the stool and was astonished at how different I felt. My skin tingled and buzzed; almost all the pain was gone. I pulled up my sleeve and glanced down at the bruise on my right arm, saw that it had already faded from purple to pale pink. “How did you do that?” I asked. Suddenly I felt more alive, back in the world.
“Herbs,” she said, smiling. “Magic.”
“But I thought you said they didn’t work.”
“I said that the herbs have a mind of their own,” she said. “That’s all.” She winked mysteriously, then grabbed my hand and pulled me deeper into the library, all the way to the back of the stacks where there was extra space. I saw a long ladder propped against the shelves, a stool, and a small box filled with hardware. It slowly dawned on me what was happening.
“The trapeze,” I breathed. A shimmer of happiness rippled through me.
Mary smiled, climbed up the ladder, and fastened the rigging to a ceiling beam. “Watch what I’m doing,” she said. “You may have to do it yourself.” At her command, I passed the chains up to her and watched her throw them over the beam, fastening the trapeze ropes to the shackles. Two pieces of rope hung down and the bar stretched between them, about eight feet from the floor. The final effect was so clean, perfect: a perfect shape, a perfect confluence of lines cutting through the air.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, turning to her. “Are you sure you want to show me?” Guilt came over me; I felt so bad for pressuring her, for calling her names. I felt bad about everything.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll teach you to swing on the trapeze in a few days, when you’re done healing. Okay? But for now I wanted you to see it, feel the bar. Get comfortable with it.”
I nodded eagerly, stretched up to touch it.
“Here,” Mary said, pulling up the stool. “Stand on this.”
I climbed up on the stool and then stood, reaching out my arms. Mary’s hand pressed on my back to balance me.
I closed my palms around the bar, felt the cold metal of it against my skin. It was thinner than the bar in the window at home, and smoother, easier to grasp. I looked at Mary and smiled.
“Can I do it now?” I asked.
“You’re not ready,” she said. “You need to heal.”
“I’m okay, though. I don’t feel anything. Just once?”
She sighed, pretending to be exasperated. “Well, then, you’ll need to chalk up your hands, and you might as well change into a leotard so I can fix it up for you.” She made a face as I grabbed her hands and then jumped from the stool to the floor.
“Here,” she said, reaching into a small box on the floor, next to the rigging. “Put on this leotard. I’ll put one on, too.” I took the leotard she handed me and, with my back turned, slipped out of my clothes and into it. It hung from my body like a sheet. Once Mary was changed, she pinned mine up on the sides.
“Now chalk up your hands,” she said, gesturing to the canister she’d set out. “Dip your hands in and rub the chalk onto your palms. Like this.”
I pressed my hands in and was surprised by the cool powderiness, the clean smell.
“Now climb back up and grab the bar,” she said.
I nodded, swallowing, and climbed