Darkangel(62)

I just said goodnight to them and went upstairs, thinking I’d read in bed for a while or watch a show on my laptop. Something normal, prosaic. It felt way too early to go to bed, even though I was wiped out from the long day and all the heavy food I’d eaten.

But after I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth and climbed into the flannel pajama bottoms and long-sleeved thermal shirt I wore to bed — it was a magnificent house, but drafty — I found that the book I was partway through really didn’t interest me, and neither did any of the shows I had queued up on Netflix. So I shut my laptop and wandered down the hall to the library to see if I could find anything more enticing there.

I say “library” because that was what everyone called it, but it was really more of a combination study and library. A big rolltop desk stood against one wall, and two of the other walls were covered in bookshelves. This was a room I hadn’t touched yet, mainly because I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do with it. Sydney thought I should turn it into a media room, sort of a home theater, but I thought it felt sacrilegious to tear out those lovely dark oak bookshelves.

Not that what they contained looked all that intriguing. An old out-of-date set of World Book encyclopedias, probably from when Great-Aunt Ruby’s sons were young. Books of fairytales. Some tattered paperbacks looking out of place amongst the more dignified hard-bound books, mysteries and some science fiction and a few more sensational titles like Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls.

Wow, Ruby…who knew?

Fighting back a smile, I pulled out what looked like a first edition Wizard of Oz and shook my head. How much must that be worth? It still wasn’t really what I was looking for, though, so I put it back. As I did so, my gaze fell on a slim book bound in dark red leather. It had no lettering on the spine, but I didn’t know whether that was because it never did or because it had worn off over the years.

Intrigued, I opened it up and saw that, instead of being filled with type, it was hand-written. I flipped over to the flyleaf and saw inscribed on the yellowed paper there, Ruby Lee McAllister, 1947. I did some quick mental math. This was her diary, and from her twenty-first year.

My heart started to beat a little faster. Now, maybe I shouldn’t read her diary at all, since it was private. Then again, how private could it be if she’d just left it out on the shelf in plain view of everyone? And there could be things she’d written down that would help me now. A lot had happened to her that year. If there was anything in that diary that could be of use, it would be silly of me to ignore it. For all I knew, she’d put it there precisely so I would find it once the house came to me.

With that rationalization to buoy me, I tucked the book under my arm, and slipped out of the library and down the hall to my room. After closing the door behind me, I climbed back into bed, plumped up my pillows so they’d give me good support while reading, then opened the book to its first page.

Mama took me into Cottonwood today to go shopping as part of my birthday treat. Yesterday was my real birthday, and everyone came over for cake and ice cream. How nice to have a birthday in June when ice cream is appropriate. While we were in Cottonwood, she bought me this book. She said twenty-one is special for any girl, but especially for the next clan prima. It’s in this year that I’ll meet my consort, and everything will change.

I stopped for a moment, thinking of pretty young Ruby with the Rita Hayworth waves and the red lipstick. She hadn’t been afraid of her future — she’d had no reason to be. She had her parents and the members of her clan, and seemed to look forward to being prima. Of course, back then she couldn’t have had any idea how long she would have to hold that post. The prima of her youth, Abigail McAllister, had died early. Rheumatic fever, I thought, but I couldn’t remember for sure. What I did recall was that Ruby had barely a year after meeting her consort before she had to take over as prima. There was no comfortable overlap period for her, either.

Frowning, I looked back down at the book and began to read again. A lot of what I saw really was just commonplaces — descriptions of some new dresses she’d bought, comments about the weather, write-ups of various clan parties and gatherings. Here and there she’d mention working magic, but it wasn’t something she particularly dwelled on, as if it was taken far more for granted than a pretty new pair of shoes.

Then, The first candidate came today. I didn’t like his looks much, but I knew I had to kiss him, just in case he turned out to be the consort. To my relief, he wasn’t. It’s funny to think that if any other girl were discovered to have kissed so many boys, people would think she was fast, but in my case it’s expected.