The Hum and the Shiver

35

Craig visited the town of Cricket on the Monday following Kell Hyatt’s funeral. When he looked up the directions online, he found a link to the town’s official Web site, and read its history with wonder.

The Roy Howard Library in Cricket had one door and a spire like a church, only with no cross atop it. The roof was plated with metal sheets stained to look like the original copper. It stood in a little grove of trees next to the visitors’ center, with no connection to the sidewalk.

Inside, the library consisted of one big room, with ten-foot-high shelves along every available bit of the walls. Two standing shelf units took up the middle of the floor, along with a table covered with elaborate first editions.

The librarian, a tall freckled woman with short hair and glasses, stood as he entered. “Welcome to the Howard Library. I have to tell you not to touch anything without putting on these.” She tapped a box of disposable cotton gloves.

“Why?” Craig asked.

“Almost every book in here is a rare first edition over a hundred years old. The oil from your fingers can damage the paper. Were you looking for anything in particular?”

“I’m supposed to ask to see the painting.”

She gestured at the walls above the shelves, where several old-fashioned paintings hung in the dimness. “Which painting?”

“I’m not sure. I was told just to ask to see the painting.”

“By whom?”

“Bronwyn Hyatt, actually.”

The librarian’s expression turned skeptical. “The war hero? Well, she is a Cloud County Tufa, I’ve heard.”

“She is,” Craig assured her.

“Then I know the one she means.”

“Wait for me,” said another voice.

Craig turned. Don Swayback had entered silently, and now offered his hand. “Hey there, Reverend. Good to see you again.”

“Don,” Craig said as they shook. “Missed you in church yesterday.”

“Stayed out in the wind too long,” he said, and grinned as if it were a private joke.

“What brings you here?”

“From what I just overheard, the same thing as you. Somebody told me to come check out the painting.”

The librarian led them to the back of one of the freestanding shelf units. There, hanging on the end piece, was a painting two feet high by a foot wide, displayed in an elaborate wooden frame that made it appear much larger. It depicted a score of diminutive European storybook fairies gathered around a dominant central figure. This main subject faced away from the viewer and held what looked like an ax above his head. He seemed about to bring it down on a hickory nut at his feet. Stems of grass and flower blossoms laced through the image gave it both scale and depth. The style was a kind of hyperrealism, in which the characters’ proportions seemed slightly distorted beneath the wealth of surface detail.

“The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke,” the librarian said. “It’s one of our most prized pieces. And it’s not the watercolor copy, either. That’s in the Tate Gallery in London. This,” she said with pride, “is the original.”

Don noted its location. “You don’t exactly show it off.”

“We’ve left it exactly where the charter residents of Cricket placed it,” the librarian said. “Would you like to see something especially impressive about it?”

She took out her keychain and switched on a tiny flashlight. “Watch this.” She slowly moved the circle of light across the surface.

It was astounding. The painting was almost done in three dimensions, with layer upon layer of paint creating a depth hidden by flat illumination. The librarian continued, “The artist worked on this one canvas for eight years, from 1855 to 1864, while confined in an asylum after he killed his father.”

Craig barely heard her words. To the left of center the figure of a woman, looking away as if distracted by her friend behind her, bore an uncanny resemblance to Bronwyn despite the artist’s stylization. The similarity was so strong, he couldn’t believe it was mere coincidence, yet how could it be otherwise?

“They all look like Tufas,” Don said softly.

Craig slowly nodded. “Wow. Who told you to come see this?”

“A little Tufa girl I met. You?” But before Craig could answer, Don looked at his watch and exclaimed, “Oh, hell, I’ve got to go, I’m going to be late. Good to see you again, Reverend.”

“Where are you off to?” Craig asked.

“I’ve got my exclusive interview this afternoon with Bronwyn Hyatt. What about you?”

He smiled. “I have to finish some work early to get ready for a date tonight.” He deliberately didn’t mention Bronwyn’s name.

“A date?” Don teased. “Are preachers allowed to date?”

“Yes,” Craig deadpanned. “We’re not priests.”

Don laughed. “I reckon not. Well, hope my interview and your date both work out.”

“Same here.”

The two men thanked the librarian and went outside. Don stopped as he opened his car door. “Oh, and if you’re looking for something to do on your date, I’m playing at a local barn dance. Bronwyn knows where it is. I’ve got a new song about all the recent trouble, you know with Dwayne Gitterman and that patrolman.”

“You wrote a song about it?”

He shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do. Even the Tufa need a reporter of some kind, don’t they?” He climbed into his car and started the engine.

“Hey, wait!” Craig called. “How did you know I had a date with Bronwyn?”

Don rolled down the driver’s side window, shook his head, and shrugged. “A good reporter never reveals his sources.” As he drove away, he waved and called out, “See you tonight, maybe!”

Craig stared after him. He finally laughed and shook his head, got into his own car, and headed back into Cloud County.