If The Hat Fits – Sara Bourgeois

“Tate Hollis. He was requesting access, pushing people for information. Did he come here?” Adelma’s jaw tightened, just barely. “He tried. He was cosmically denied. As any mundane would be.” “But he was looking.” “He was looking at many things. That is what people like him do. They look, and they push, and they do not understand that some doors are closed for a reason.” She paused. “If you’re asking whether his death is connected to this library, the answer is no. If you’re asking whether his questions made people uncomfortable, the answer is yes.

Beyond that, I have nothing to offer you.” I should have left it there. Adelma had made her position clear, and I was standing in her territory wearing the hat of a bloodline she clearly considered a threat. But I’d come for answers, and I had one more question. “I found a note in the attic.

Older than Moira’s notebooks, different handwriting. It said, ‘When the Tree wakes, lock the doors.’ What does that mean?” Something shifted in Adelma’s face. It was small, controlled, and gone almost before it arrived. But I saw it. For one moment, the careful authority cracked, and what was underneath was not anger or dismissal. It was recognition. “Where did you find that?” she asked, and her voice had changed. Still cool, still measured, but there was an edge underneath that hadn’t been there before. “Between pages in one of the notebooks.”

She was quiet for several seconds. Pippin hadn’t moved from his spot near my feet, but his ears had rotated toward Adelma. “The Tree is not my area of expertise,” Adelma said finally. “And frankly, it never will be. That tree was used to execute witches. Our people. Hanged from its branches for what they were. The Stoneharts have never understood why any witch would choose to maintain it, let alone live beside it.” She looked at me steadily. “But the Tallowmeres did.

Generation after generation. They tended it, and they refused to cut it down. Whatever their reasons were, that knowledge is in your attic, not in my stacks.” “That’s not an answer.” “No. It’s a direction. Follow it.” She picked up her book and turned back to the shelf. “Close the door on your way out.”

We left. Pippin walked ahead of me up the stairs, through the main room, and out into the sunlight. He jumped into the passenger seat and sat there, paws together, staring straight ahead through the windshield. I started the car and pulled onto Main Street. We drove in silence for two blocks. Then it hit me. “You knew,” I said.

Pippin did not look at me. “You knew who ran that library. You knew she was a Stonehart. You knew what the Hat would mean to her, and you sent me in there without telling me any of it.” “I suggested a resource. You chose to visit it.” “You set me up,” I said.

Not a graceful death, either. It sputtered, shuddered, made a sound I can only describe as mechanical sobbing, and then quit. I managed to wrestle it onto the shoulder before it fully gave up, which was a small miracle considering I was towing a borrowed trailer that had been held together by a ratchet strap and sheer delusion since somewhere around the Kentucky border. I sat there for a second, hands still on the wheel, and stared at the dashboard like it might offer an explanation. It did not. “Okay,” I said.

“Okay.” I got out, walked to the front of the car, and popped the hood. This was pure performance. I knew nothing about engines. I could identify the battery, and that was only because it had the word BATTERY printed on it. Everything else was just greasy metal and tubing that might as well have been modern art for all the sense it made to me. What I needed was a mechanic. No, what I needed was a car that had been manufactured in this century. No, what I needed was to not have let my ex- husband convince me that his car was “the good one” while mine was “totally fine for what you need, Blythe.”

Fine for what I needed. The car had been the one thing I got in the divorce settlement, and apparently, even it didn’t want to be with me anymore. I closed the hood and put both hands flat on the warm metal. “Listen,” I said. “I know I haven’t taken care of you. I know I’m the worst. But it’s only a couple more miles. Just get me there, and I promise I will get you the best oil change money can buy.

As soon as I have money.” I got back in, turned the key, and the engine caught immediately. Not a rough start, not a cough-and-rally. It turned over clean, as if nothing had ever been wrong. Like it had just needed to hear me ask. Was it purring? Was the engine purring? This car had never sounded that good. It almost sounded new. Weird.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 666eaa43b355356e
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 740,390 bytes (0.706 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 136
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 209.93 minutes
• Total Words: 41,986
• Total Characters: 232,064
• Average Words per Page: 308.72
• Average Characters per Page: 1706.35

Most Frequent Words

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