Clear blue sky merged with crystal blue-green water as Harper sat on the beach. Gentle waves rolled onto the white sand and softly ebbed back out to sea.
Taking a deep breath, Harper Lansbury dug her toes into the sand, watching her turquoise nail polish disappear. She had to be at the library in fifteen minutes, but she always loved these quiet moments first thing in the morning. There was nothing like this back in Los Angeles where she was born and raised. But that was the whole point. Marilee Island was nothing like Los Angeles and it was everything Harper wanted.
Moving to the island had been one of the best decisions of her adult life, right up there with becoming a librarian. Every summer when she was growing up, she’d come to the island to stay with her grandmother, who refused to move to the mainland and be with her parents. Summer was always the highlight of Harper’s year and she soaked up every minute on the island that she could, always dreading the day she would have to go back to Los Angeles.
After falling into the trap of adulthood, she’d stopped coming out to the island for long, extended visits and spent most of her time doing the daily nine-to-five grind at a large public library in the heart of a bustling city. She loved it, but a lot happened at inner-city libraries that she’d rather forget. More than anything, she wished she could go back to her carefree youth on the island.
When Grandma Angie passed away, she’d left everything—house and fortune—to Harper, her only grandchild. After talking things through with her parents, Harper resigned from the city library and moved to Marilee Island permanently. Shortly after that, a position at the island’s one and only library opened up and her former boss recommended her for the job.
That was five years ago. Now, she spent most mornings with her toes in the sand instead of sitting bumper-to-bumper in morning rush hour traffic on the way to work.
Sighing, Harper stood up and brushed the sand off her backside before trudging back up the white sandy beach to the boardwalk. At the top of the short flight of stairs, she’d left her sunny yellow beach cruiser bicycle for her morning jaunt. Pulling her sandals out of the little basket at the front of the bike, she slipped her shoes back on after dusting the sand off her feet and zipped up her light jacket.
Using her foot to move the kickstand, Harper took off down the boardwalk and crossed the street, turning the corner before the long road continued up the hillside. Ahead of her, Marilee Island Public Library sat just behind a popular coffee shop, Bouncing Beans. The plain tan building with palm trees lining the front greeted her like always and felt like home as she rode up to it.
She left her bicycle in the bike rack beneath a tall palm tree, smiling at the other bicycle already there. Walking to the front door of the library, Harper took a deep breath and inhaled that heady scent of library and books that always soothed her nerves. It was a combination of smells that not everyone appreciated, but it was comforting to her.
“Meow!”
Looking to the left, Harper smiled when she saw the resident library cat sitting on the counter to greet her.
“Good morning, Pippin. What mischief have you gotten up to today?” Harper asked the sleek black cat with a penchant for stealing things from unsuspecting guests.
When he was a kitten, he sneaked into the library one night and kept himself hidden for a couple of weeks. Every now and then, something would be knocked over or little presents would appear on the circulation desk. Nobody could figure out what was going on until he nearly scared Harper out of her skin one day when she was cataloging books and he decided to wind around her ankles, meowing pitifully. She’d taken him to the veterinarian clinic and found out he was just hungry and wanted a home.
Everyone at the library agreed he should stay and they’d made him an honorary librarian. After all the trouble he caused, Harper decided his name should be Pippin. He greeted everyone who walked in the door and was content to have people pet him all day.
“Meow,” he cried and head-butted her on the chin as he purred in contentment.
“Ah, no trouble yet. I see. Well, the day is young,” she said, scratching him under the chin before heading to the staff lounge to set her purse down. Pippin trailed behind her, rubbing against her ankles when she stood still.
Plush blue carpet whispered beneath her feet as she walked back out to the main part of the library. On her way, Harper glanced through the rows upon rows of bookshelves lined with books just waiting to meet new friends. Large windows at the front and back of the library filtered in plenty of natural sunlight. Computer stations were pushed against the far wall, behind the double row of desks with individual reading lamps.
In the center, a large dome arched high above with skylights that fanned out before meeting the flat ceiling again. Below the dome was a large open reading area decorated with various chairs for reading. That was one of Harper’s favorite spots in the whole library. When they had reading time for children, everyone would gather on a large ocean-themed rug. Outside of story time, large chairs sat in that space to make the perfect cozy reading spot. It was a place Harper had spent many long summer days on her island vacation.
Walking to the circulation desk that functioned as the main librarian station, Harper waved good morning to a fellow librarian, Rebecca “Reb” Devon.
“Did you hear about what Mr. Tremayne is planning now?” asked Reb, one of the assistant librarians and owner of the bike next to Harper’s outside. Reb had worked at the library since Harper was a kid visiting the island—something like twenty years by now. If something happened on the island, Reb was the one to hear about it first.
“No, did something new happen?” Harper asked, frowning.
Lucas Tremayne was a local businessman and a wannabe politician. Ever since the reigning mayor decided to not run for re-election, there had been a feeding frenzy of people who wanted the title. Lucas was one of them and he was no friend of the library. In fact, Harper didn’t think he was a friend of anyone who wasn’t willing to fork over substantial amounts of money.
“He wants to shut the library down.”
Harper blinked in shock and said, “You must be joking!”
“We’re not the only place. Apparently, libraries don’t bring in any revenue or add value to the island.”
“We don’t add value?” Harper echoed, disgusted with the thought. “We provide literary value, people value, and educational value.”
“But not monetary value. As the new mayor—”
“He hasn’t even been elected yet!” Harper interrupted.
“He plans to bulldoze the library to the ground and turn it into…a casino.”
“A casino? On Marilee Island? The residents will never go for that.”
“He’s planning to take Bouncing Beans, as well, and a few other places on our street.”
“He wants the whole block, actually,” said Martin Hayworth, the head librarian. Besides Harper, he was the only other professional librarian on the island and had been there as long as Reb had.
“Lucas can’t really do that, can he?” Harper asked. “I mean, yeah, the mayor has plenty of power, but he can’t just remove a Los Angeles public institution just because it doesn’t generate revenue. We’re funded by the county government.”
“You’re the one with the fancy degree,” Reb said, shrugging her shoulders and making her blonde bob bounce with the movement. “But I’d sure hate to see this place go.”
“We won’t go down without a fight. Don’t worry too much about it,” Martin said, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose and smiling gently before he went to his office. His words were optimistic, but worry hung in his kind blue eyes.
Frowning, Harper stared down at her list of duties for the day. A mayor-elect couldn’t really shut down the library, could he? She shook her head. There was no way. Just no way that was possible.
Forcing herself to ignore all of that, Harper got to work. The books wouldn’t re-shelve themselves. She also had a batch of new books sent over from the mainland that she had to catalog and add to the system.
The rest of the day flew by as she fell into the natural rhythm of the library, helping residents as they stopped by throughout the day. At closing, Harper locked up the library tight, saying goodnight to all the books and Pippin on her way out the door.
As she pulled her bike out of the bike rack, a grating noise, like rocks grinding together, sounded behind her. Whipping around, Harper looked into the dark shadows of night. It was only February, and the days were still short on the island, with the sun going down before she closed the library for the evening. Even the coffee shop next door was closed. The street was quiet and empty and dark, except for the solitary street lamp that flickered at the corner.
“I doubt the self-elected mayor Lucas Tremayne would deign to fix that,” she grumbled but didn’t move.
That noise had come from somewhere and it wasn’t her. Staring into the darkness, she didn’t see anyone or anything. As she stood frozen on the spot, she could have sworn she saw a shadow move across the courtyard. Blinking a few times and peering harder, Harper decided it was just a trick of the flickering light bouncing around the swaying short palm trees around the library.
“It’s just the light,” she told herself, sliding onto the seat of the bike and moving the kickstand.
Marilee had very little crime on the island, but there was still some. Add in the year-round tourists and it wasn’t crime free.
“Just the light,” she told herself again as she pedaled down the street and around the corner where the oceanfront restaurants and shops were ablaze with comforting light.
She had a book club to get to. Maybe the other ladies could help her figure out what to do so she could stop worrying about the future of the library.