Creatures of Charm and Hunger (The Diabolist's Library #1) - Molly Tanzer Page 0,21

“but I’m only sometimes able to be an adult about things. Maybe growing up is just about adjusting the percentages.”

Jane laughed. “That’s as good an explanation as any. Just the same, I wish they hadn’t quarreled like that. It was so embarrassing.” She said all this very rapidly, almost whispering it. “It’s an old argument between them, I guess.”

“Old argument?”

“Edith didn’t want Mother to become the Librarian.” Miriam wondered how Jane knew all this, but also didn’t want to interrupt to ask. “She thought Mother was too young to bury herself in the country for the sake of a bunch of books.”

Miriam couldn’t hold back any longer. “Did she tell you this?”

“No!” Jane grinned. “After their fight, I hid in the hall and listened to them.”

“Eavesdropping!”

“Oh, go on! But that seems to be it. When Mother was pregnant with me”—Jane’s face went all funny for a moment; Nancy would never tell Jane anything about her father, much to Jane’s chagrin—“she put her name forward for Librarian and was accepted. Up until then she and Edith had been traveling around together. Edith said, ‘You loved these books more than you loved me—you jumped at the chance to come here and leave me to deal with the world on my own.’ And Mother said, ‘You’re still jealous of this place?’ And they went on from there. Anyway, then Edith said, ‘You took away Jane’s chance at having the life she deserves.’?”

“No wonder they’ve been so polite to one another,” said Miriam. “This was quite a fight. What did Nancy say to that?”

Jane’s mood shifted slightly, her smile going from rueful to wry. “She said, ‘Perhaps, but I’m glad to have been able to offer Miriam a safe place to grow up when she needed it.’?”

Miriam didn’t know what to say.

“I’m glad too,” added Jane.

Miriam looked up, wondering if Jane might be attempting to traverse the rift between them, but then Nancy called them to breakfast.

Jane’s expression soured. “Shall we? Last one of these for a while, thank goodness. And they’re always perky on the last morning of a visit.”

They were indeed, and, even better, Nancy suggested the girls might like to ride in the back of the mule cart when it came to collect Edith’s luggage. A bumpy cart ride was one of the few outdoor activities Miriam really loved; she scrambled right up. Jane hesitated, but after Edith declared her intention to walk, Jane planted herself beside Miriam.

“See you there!” called Jane, and the two of them bid the boy, “Drive on, drive on!” just as they’d used to do when they were younger.

The cart jolted over the winter-rough road, and more than once the girls squealed as they knocked into one another. The weather had turned colder again, and their breath puffed out in white clouds that disappeared against the gray sky.

Even on a dreary day like this one, Miriam thought this the most beautiful countryside she’d ever seen. While at times she still missed the low, flat German landscape, Cumbria’s rolling, rock-strewn hills and rushing culverts had claimed her heart.

Since coming here she’d learned that Beatrix Potter’s sweet little depictions of ducks and rabbits weren’t inaccurate—but Cumbria was also a wild place, lonely and remote with as many black and mysterious pinewoods as it had sunny farmyards.

They arrived in Hawkshead well before Edith and Nancy, of course. Jane bemoaned the lack of ice cream, for she desperately wanted one—if Jane wanted something these days, she wanted it desperately. For her part, Miriam wanted a cup of tea at the Red Lion, but she could not speak this desire aloud.

Once Nancy and Edith arrived, there was the usual snippy fussing that went into loading all her luggage into her too-small car. Then Edith said her farewells.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back again, so please try not to grow up too, too much before I return?” she said, gazing fondly upon them both.

“No promises,” muttered Jane. Miriam said nothing at all.

Edith looked rather annoyed as she got into her car. “Upon second thought, perhaps you might both use my time away to push through this awkward stage you seem to be in. Ta!”

And with that, she roared away in her Citro?n.

“I’m surprised at you, Jane,” said Nancy. “Usually you’re one step away from stowing away in Edith’s boot.”

“We’re all very busy,” said Jane, “and it will be nice to get back into a routine.”

Miriam’s spirits sank further as they returned to the old farmhouse one Blackwood fewer. The rain-washed slate