The package came on a Tuesday, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It was addressed in shaky handwriting to *The Librarian, Pine Hollow Carnegie Library, Elm Street, Pine Hollow, Ohio.*
No street number. No zip code. The post office delivered it anyway. In a town of 2,400, there is only one library on Elm Street.
Ruth Ann Mercer opened it at the front desk, the way she opened everything: carefully, saving the string.
Inside was a book.
An old hardcover copy of *Treasure Island*, green cloth gone gray at the corners, the spine cracked from being opened many, many times. Stamped on the edge of the pages, in faded purple ink: PROPERTY OF PINE HOLLOW CARNEGIE LIBRARY.
Ruth Ann turned to the back cover. The paper pocket was still glued inside, and the checkout card was still in it. One name in pencil on the last line, in a child's handwriting.
*Tommy Murphy. Elm St.*
And the stamp beside it: DUE NOV 14 1961.
Folded inside the front cover was a one-hundred-dollar bill and a letter.
*To whoever is the librarian now,*
*I am sorry this book is late. I figure the fine is about a hundred dollars by now, and I would rather pay too much than too little.*
*I borrowed it when I was ten years old. I never brought it back, because it was the only thing I took with me when we left Pine Hollow. For a long time, it was the only thing I had.*
*This book saved my life. I don't say that lightly.*
*If Miss Abernathy is still living, please tell her I kept my promise.*
*A boy from Elm Street*
The postmark said Phoenix, Arizona. There was no return address.
Ruth Ann sat down slowly in the desk chair.
Miss Clara Abernathy had been the Pine Hollow librarian from 1950 to 1990. She had been Ruth Ann's librarian when Ruth Ann was a little girl with scabby knees, and she was the reason Ruth Ann had become a teacher. She was ninety-six years old now, living at Maple Grove, the county care home. Some days she knew everyone. Some days she didn't.
*Please tell her I kept my promise.*
What promise?
Ruth Ann did what she always did when she didn't know something. She went to the basement.
The county records lived in the tall green cabinets, along with forty years of the old *Calder County Ledger* on brittle paper. She found the Murphys in the 1960 city directory. Frank and Irene Murphy, Elm Street, one son, Thomas. Frank worked the night shift at the glass works.
Then she went through the *Ledger*, week by week, starting in November 1961.
She found it in the December 7 issue, on page one.
*FIRE DESTROYS ELM STREET HOME*
*A fire late Saturday evening destroyed the home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murphy on Elm Street. Fire Chief R. Dunbar reported that the blaze began shortly after 9 p.m. in an upstairs bedroom, likely from a faulty electric heater. Mrs. Murphy escaped without injury. Mr. Murphy was at work at the time.*
*The bedroom where the fire started belonged to the couple's son, Thomas, age 10. The boy was not at home at the time of the fire.*
That was all. The article didn't say where he was.
Ruth Ann read it three times. Then she looked back at the checkout card. The book had been due on November 14. The fire was on December 2. Almost three weeks later.
So where was a ten-year-old boy at nine o'clock on a December night, in a town where everything closed at six?
And why had he never told anyone but a librarian?