Page 25 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

I was getting close, but I couldn’t seem to force the words out. Giving Jasper the care of my brother was almost as bad as handing Noodle the phone number none of us wanted to call. You didn’t just open the gates and invite the enemy in. Shakespeare didn’t say it first, but he certainly said it best:That way madness lies.

“Chloe?” Noodle prodded. The longer I took to respond, the more his face balled up in a worried pinch. “You don’t mind, do you? I promise to be good and not get in the way. I like Jasper. He doesn’t pick.”

Noodle’s remark gave me pause. My brother didn’t like very many people, and headmittedto liking even less. And that small concession—that Jasper didn’t “pick”—carried a lot more meaning than either of them realized. Every day of his life, Noodle was surrounded by adults who chipped away at him. At his confidence and his courage, at all the things about him they refused to understand. I suspected that Jasper’s restraint in this arena had more to do with his lack of interest in his fellowhuman beings than softhearted sentiment, but I wasn’t about to attempt an explanation.

“Okay. Fine. Whatever.” With each concession, I felt myself moving closer to the dark side. “But I want to state for the record that I don’t like any of this.”

“Yes!” Noodle said.

“Awwooo!” Gummy Bear agreed.

Jasper was the last to react. “There’s no need to be so dramatic,” he said. He came as near to rolling his eyes as I imagined he was capable. “I won’t hurt the boy. Contrary to popular legend, I wasn’t always the village outcast.”

Since this was very much in line with what was scribbled in the margins of the library books, I felt emboldened to speak.

“If that’s true, then whatdidyou used to be?” I asked.

I could tell I’d caught him off guard. He blinked at me a few times before managing a grunt. “The problem with young people,” he said in a tone that oozed sarcasm, “is that you believe you’re the only ones to experience life. You think everything that came before you walked onto the scene is just make-believe.”

“Is this where you tell me about your friend Beef fighting his way through life again?” I asked. “Because I’m not sure that metaphor is going to work a second time.”

Jasper picked up his book and flipped it to the bookmarked section. I craned my neck to see if there was any writing in it, but the pages were as crisp and clear as a new Scholastic Book Fair purchase.

“No,” he said and started to read. “This is where I tell you that a librarian should know better. If you aren’t aware of the power of a good piece of fiction by now, you never will be.”

10

1960

Jasper Holmes was the most difficult man Catherine had ever encountered.

Afternotrunning into him in the drugstore, she continuednotrunning into him at various locations across town.

Early one Saturday morning, when her mother sent her to the feed store with instructions to pick up the tomato seedlings she’d ordered, Catherine saw him buying a dozen bags of fertilizer. His body was bathed in sweat as he hoisted the heavy ammonia-scented bags into the back of his truck. She’d lifted a hand in greeting, but all he’d done was turn around and start hoisting faster.

With the tomato plants perched in the basket at the front of her bicycle, she’d immediately pedaled over to the library and flipped through the pages ofA Farewell to Armsuntil she found what she was looking for.

It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I cannot.

She no longer felt a twinge of conscience when she picked up herpen and wrote in the margins. If Jasper refused to talk to her in anything but the pages of the book, then the pages of the book it would have to be. Half a loaf was better than none.

For a minute there, I thought you were going to wave back. That was silly of me, wasn’t it?

I don’t know what you want from me.

Hope, obviously.

…why?

Their method of communication was a necessarily laborious and time-consuming one, so it took almost a week for the entire conversation to unfold. In the interim, Catherine saw Jasper at the movie theater (he didn’t buy a ticket), the gas station (he was helping old Mrs. Winters fuel up her station wagon), and once, hanging off the back of a logging truck as it wound its way down Main Street with a full load rattling on its bed. (That time, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d looked so exhausted, he’d barely noticed the air around him, let alone her furtive attempts to catch his attention.)

In all that time, Jasper never waved, never smiled, never so much as nodded at her in greeting. She’d have suspected she’d fallen prey to aCyrano de Bergeracswitcheroo, if not for how completely he avoided her. That level of disregard could only come from a determined campaign.

As the daughter of a major, she knew a determined campaign when she saw it. One might even say she was waging one. She lifted the pen and scrawled:

Try chapter seventeen. Near the end.

Catherine returned for her shift a few days later to find a gap where the book was usually found. Her heart leapt to her throat as she scanned for any signs that it had been misplaced or put away on the wrong shelf. It beat even faster when she noticed Mrs. Peters watching her every movement like a hawk fixed on its prey.