The Noel Letters (The Noel Collection #4) - Richard Paul Evans Page 0,28

the register.”

“I’ll do it.” I was about to leave when she said, “Oh, this came for you.” She handed me an envelope. The paper it was made from was textured and uneven, as if it were handmade. It was a light cream color.

“It’s beautiful stationery,” I said. “No return address. Who knows I’m here?”

“I suspect there are a few people who know you’re in Utah.”

“I mean at the bookstore.”

“I haven’t told anyone,” Wendy said. “Probably just the IRS. They know everything.”

I looked back down at the envelope. “I don’t think the IRS has taken to using handmade cotton rag envelopes.”

“You know stationery?”

“It’s a passion of mine. There’s a little stationery shop on Sixth Avenue. The owner makes his own paper and notebooks.”

“It’s a lost art,” Wendy said. “Your father loved it too.”

I walked out to the front counter, then looked at the envelope again. After all the legal junk I’d been through with my divorce, I was just glad it wasn’t a registered letter.

The postmark was from Salt Lake City and dated just the day before. I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter, which was written on the same paper. The handwriting was in a delicate, feminine script.

Dear Noel,

Home is the port we seek when we weary of the turbulent sea. You have weathered enough storms, sweetheart. Welcome home.

Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa?

I was still looking down at the letter when Wendy emerged from the back. “I forgot to ask, were you planning on working late tonight?”

“I can.”

“That would be good. Cyndee called in sick.”

“I got it.” She was about to go when I asked, “Do you know someone named Tabula Rasa?”

She looked at me quizzically. “You don’t know what that is?”

I shook my head. “Not a clue.”

“Tabula rasa,” she said, carefully pronouncing the word, “isn’t a who. It’s a what. It’s Latin for the theory that humans are born without mental content—so all we know is what we’ve been taught or experienced. Literally, the phrase means ‘scraped tablet.’ In other words, a blank slate. Why do you ask?”

I lifted the paper. “The letter I just got was signed ‘Tabula Rasa.’ ”

“May I see it?”

I handed her the letter. She read it over, then handed it back. “Interesting pseudonym. I’d guess it was written by someone from the past who knows you’re back in town and is hoping for a fresh start.”

“Why would they write anonymously?”

She shrugged. “Best way to get read, right? Everyone loves a mystery. We’ve got two bookcases as proof. Any idea who might have written it?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I guess I’ll wait to see.”

Wendy walked back to her office as I returned the letter to the envelope. I wondered what Dylan was up to.

CHAPTER fifteen

You can make anything by writing.

—C. S. Lewis

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6

I first met Dylan when I was twelve, about a year and a half before my mother died. I immediately recognized that there was something different about him from the other boys my age. Even our schoolteachers seemed to treat him differently. I didn’t learn until later that he was a foster child with a checkered past.

Dylan was the only child of two drug addicts. After he’d suffered years of neglect and abuse, his parents were reported to the state, and they gave up custody of him without protest—no doubt adding to the psychological damage that had already been done.

Dylan stayed with his maternal grandmother for a while, but, in his words, he was “too hot for her to handle.” By “hot” he meant shoplifting, drinking, smoking, and running away. His grandmother was already in her eighties, and the two of them were an unlikely combination at best. Just four months later he was deemed a ward of the state.

Dylan was already in his third foster home when we met. I had two classes with him in seventh grade: algebra and English. I was immediately drawn to him. He wasn’t hard to notice, as he naturally drew attention to himself, both good and bad. He was rebellious but also funny. Once he made our algebra teacher laugh, something the rest of us considered akin to parting the Red Sea.

Children always know who the “bad” kids in school are, and though Dylan was labeled as one, he wasn’t mean. In fact, other than the occasional fight he’d get in, there was a surprising gentleness to his demeanor. Even my mother once commented that he was “such a polite young man.”

Academically, Dylan was naturally gifted at math, something I had little interest in. On the other