The shelves seemed unharmed, but they’d need to be cleared to make sure. The mantel itself was a fussy, old-fashioned design in thickly varnished oak, finished in red mahogany. A little railing, about four centimetres high, with tiny urn-shaped balusters, skirted the outside edge of the shelf. The panels down each side of the fireplace opening had small decorative shelves also bordered by little dowel fences. The mantel was not only charred from the heat of the fire but also warped beyond hope. So, another question for Mrs. Stoppini: replicate the mantel or replace it with a simpler design?
Conscious of the resentment that seemed to seep from every corner of the silent library, I left the room without looking back.
UNLIKE RAPHAELLA, I had always been a two-brained personality. I had a sort of divided and contradictory way of looking at the world. One part of me was scientific and logical, with a love of gadgets and gizmos. The other I didn’t know how to describe-spiritual? intuitive? Raphaella called the first one “techno-mode,” and until getting to know her I saw things from that perspective most of the time. She brought out the other side of me, the part that realized some of the best things about my life, like love, exhilaration, friendship, couldn’t be measured or explained and weren’t always predictable. Both of us had learned from experience that spirits and what we called “presences”-the remains of minds or souls who came before us-existed all around us, and that Raphaella had been born with a gift that allowed her to sense them much more deeply than I could. I wasn’t New Age, or whatever it was called. I wasn’t about to change my name to Prairie Sunburst or something. But the threatening undercurrent in the dead professor’s library was as strong-and as real-as the chaos of scattered books and the stink of smoke, and I knew there was no way I could ignore it.
Three
I
“HOUSEKEEPER AND COMPANION, she said?”
“Yup. Her very words.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm indeed, as Mrs. Stoppini would put it.”
“Of course, companion could mean a number of things,” Raphaella mused.
“My theory is that they lived common-law because one of them was legally tied to someone else.”
“But why describe yourself as a housekeeper if you’re partners?”
“Who knows?”
As I set up the rice steamer, chopped vegetables, and arranged spices at the counter in our kitchen, I filled Raphaella in on the offer Mrs. Stoppini had made me earlier that day. Raphaella was sitting at the table with a cup of green tea, watching me work.
I crushed a green and a red chili, a couple of cloves of garlic, some black peppercorns, and a bit of shredded ginger, and put them in a small bowl. In another dish I piled the vegetables-snow peas, whole baby corn, diced red bell pepper, and chopped spring onion. Rice noodles were soaking in a bath of warm water beside a platter of raw shrimp, shelled and de-veined. I hauled a big iron wok out of the cupboard beside the sink and set it on the stove.
“Are you going to accept?” Raphaella asked.
A polished copper ankh hung from her neck on a leather thong. As usual-and, I sometimes thought, only to tempt me-she wore her hair long, caught at the back of her neck with a sterling silver brooch. She was wearing black denims, leather sandals, and a canary yellow T-shirt depicting a street sign in crimson across the curvy front.
WITCHES’ PARKING ONLY ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOAD
The lame T-shirt joke reminded me of our high school days, when Raphaella’s transfer from Park Street Collegiate to my school came with a bundle of unflattering rumours-the tastiest one being that she was a witch. Little did the rumourmongers know, I thought.
“That’s what I need to discuss with you,” I replied, leaning against the counter. “I told her I wanted to think about it, even though I was tempted to snatch the opportunity on the spot.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit… surprising,” Raphaella commented. “Almost too good to be true. You wonder, What’s the catch?”
“Marco warned me there’d be one, but I’d like to accept anyway.”
“But?”
“Well, it all sounds straightforward enough.”
Mrs. Stoppini had replied to my two questions very clearly. Yes, the new mantel should be an exact copy of the old one, and yes, some of the books required full notification, but not the majority.
“The woodworking will take time,” I continued. “I can replicate the mantel and refinish the floor in front of the hearth. There may be damage to the bookcases that I didn’t notice. But cataloguing all those books… I’ll never get through it.”
“Ow!” Raphaella smirked, hands over her ears.
“What’s the matter?”
“The loud clang from the hint you just dropped.”
“It might be fun, you and I working together.”
“Hmm.”
“And we could take breaks, go for a swim, smooch.”
“Hmm.”
“But I guess, with MOO and all… And your mother will want you to work in the store as much as you can.”
Mrs. Skye owned and operated the Demeter Natural Food and Medicinal Herbs Shop on Peter Street. She didn’t like me.
“Don’t lay the guilt on too thick,” Raphaella said. “How many books did you say?”
“Four thousand, minimum. Maybe five.”
“And how many are to be fully catalogued?”
“Fewer than a quarter, I’d guess.”
“Hmm.”
“That’s your third ‘Hmm.’ ”
“It might be interesting.”
“That isn’t the first word that springs to mind,” I admitted.
“Working with you, I mean.”
“Oh. Well, definitely.”
I had been careful to describe the mansion, the eccentric Mrs. Stoppini, and what little I had learned about the tragically dead Professor Corbizzi in a way that I hoped would intrigue Raphaella. But I hadn’t mentioned the uncomfortable, oppressive atmosphere of the library or how the prof had died.
“I’ll talk it over with Mother,” Raphaella said. “Maybe I can work away at the books in my spare time.”
“As soon as she hears you’ll be with me she’ll object,” I said, turning on the gas under the wok.
Raphaella’s mother had never accepted me. She wanted Raphaella to lead a life without males in it. When Raphaella was a little girl her father had humiliated her mother by having affairs and eventually being charged with sexual exploitation of a woman in his firm. Mrs. Skye had learned to dislike and distrust men in general. But in my bumbling manner, without really knowing how I had done it, I had won Raphaella’s heart and ruined Mrs. Skye’s plans. She wasn’t grateful.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think she’s warming up to you. Give her a few years.”
“So you’ll help?”
“How could I turn you down?”
“You’re an angel,” I said with relief.
“But there’s one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You have to tell me what’s bothering you about the Corbizzi place.”
Raphaella’s ability to tune in to my feelings used to catch me by surprise, but not anymore. She had what her late grandmother had called “the gift,” although Raphaella sometimes complained it was more like a curse. She could sense things-emotions and even past happenings. I’d seen her walk into a building or a churchyard and know that something horrible had occurred there because she felt the presence of the people who had suffered. Raphaella once told me it was as if she was a string on a musical instrument and vibrated in sympathy with her surroundings. But her powers, her spiritualism, were a secret only she, her mother, and I knew.