hated feeling like he was avoiding me, and not just because I was worried he was going to kick me out. I searched for something to say and blinked when I saw snow falling outside the library’s windows, barely visible against the dark winter sky.
“It’s snowing!” I gasped.
Holden followed my gaze, then shrugged.
“Is it the first snow of the year?” I asked.
He nodded. “Unfortunately. We still have most of December to get through.” He made it sound like a prison sentence.
“What did December ever do to you?”
“Jesus, do you ever not ask questions?” Holden arched an eyebrow, making me wish I hadn’t spoken.
“Sorry.” I resolved not to do it again.
“I just don’t like the month.”
“Why, do you hate Christmas or something?”
The question was out of my mouth before I realized I was breaking my mental promise less than five seconds after making it.
Holden gestured around the room. “Do you see any mistletoe or lights?”
“What about Hanukkah? Kwanzaa? The solstice?”
“None of the above.” His mouth pressed into a thin line, and I figured I was in for another shutdown, but when he spoke, he just said, “Your neck looks a little better.”
It was true. The bruises were fading to a yellowed green, which was still kind of gross, but a definite improvement.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out the other day,” Holden said. “When I touched it.”
Where the hell had that come from?
“It’s fine,” I told him. “I was just—don’t worry about it.”
I smiled and hoped that I was conveying that it wasn’t a big deal. Because yes, I’d panicked when Holden had touched my neck, but I knew why, now, and it had nothing to do with him. At this point, he was proving so elusive that I’d pay money to have him touch me anywhere. Besides, I didn’t want to talk about my injuries.
Holden’s brow furrowed. “You’re sure that dream was real?”
He really was jumping from topic to topic. At least I wasn’t the only one being awkward tonight, I supposed.
“I keep having it.” I shrugged. “Why would I have the same dream every night if it weren’t?”
“I don’t know. Head trauma?”
“It’s real,” I insisted. “It’s getting clearer, each night.”
That much was true. Just last night, I’d dreamt that I’d gotten away from the guy in the closet, made it out into the hallway before he tackled me and put his hands on my neck again. It was getting to the point where I dreaded going to sleep, but it was also the only lead I had at the moment. The internet wasn’t yielding anything.
“I still think we should go to the police,” Holden said.
“Why are you so insistent about that?” I shivered. I wasn’t sure why the police scared me so much, but the idea of involving anyone else in this shot chills straight through me.
“Because I want you to be safe, and figure out what the hell is going on.” Holden’s voice rose a bit. “Do you not want that?”
“I do,” I snapped. “But I already told you—”
“You feel safer here than out there.” He sounded exasperated.
“If you don’t want me here, just say it.”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth, because I didn’t have a backup plan if Holden took me up on it. But my temper had gotten the better of me.
“I’m not saying that.”
“Sure sounds like it.”
Holden sighed. “Forget it. It’s fine. I have to go work.”
He stomped off before I could point out that it was kind of late for work, or that he always used that excuse and it was getting pretty old, or even let him know that I’d left him a plate of food in the kitchen.
I sighed. My voice might be working better now, but the rest of my life was as confusing as ever.
It was still snowing on Wednesday, a day that—auspiciously or inauspiciously, I couldn’t decide which—marked my first full week at Edgecliffe. According to the internet, from which I could at least get semi-reliable weather information if not useful clues to my identity, it was supposed to pick up as the day went on and turn into a major blizzard by nightfall.
I worked through the morning, but not even the smell of old books and the feel of their pages could counter the bad mood I still felt from the night before. The painting in that book turned out to hang in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, but I hadn’t had any breakthroughs upon learning that.