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consulting him when it came to setting up the library. They had two dozen old stackable bookcases, which, along with the furniture, the clipper ship, a pole lamp and an old Chinese rug made for a tolerably comfortable room. Andrew picked through his own books, finding copies to fill the shelves. The idea of transient tourists thumbing through anything good, though—perhaps slipping volumes down their pants and into their purses—made him cautious. He took Pickett’s advice and plied Aunt Naomi with chocolate truffles and latex cat toys, and the following day he and Pickett made a serious trip to Bertram Smith’s Acres of Books and, spending Aunt Naomi’s money, brought out enough crates to half-bury the old pickup truck.
    But the shelves still weren’t quite filled up. Rose suggested knickknacks, but Andrew stood firm against them. Pennyman, in a show of kindness, lent them two hundred or so volumes from his own considerable library. His books looked right—old dark spines, dusty, comfortable—but most of them had to do with faintly unsavory subjects or were written in foreign languages, mostly German. Andrew secretly doubted that Pennyman knew the languages. He was just being ostentatious. “Pennyman is a phony,” Andrew had said to Pickett, showing him an old German volume inked up with what appeared to be alchemical symbols. Pickett shook his head and studied the drawings, then asked to borrow the book. There were other books—on Masonic history, on the Illuminati, on gypsies and Mormons and suppressed Protestant ritual.
    Andrew saw a clear link between Pennyman’s obsessive self-barbering and his interest in secret knowledge. There was something slimy about it. Rose didn’t see it at all. She didn’t say so, but he feared that after she would talk with Pennyman she would size Andrew up—study his old shirts, his burlap shoes torn out in the toe, his hair rumpled west in the morning and east in the afternoon. Andrew couldn’t stand Mr. Pennyman. He couldn’t, in fact, call him
Mr
. Pennyman. The name was idiotic.
    Pennyman adjusted his collar, dusted off his hands, and stepped into the kitchen. He bowed just a little to Rose—something which had struck her from the first as being “European” and gallant. “Trouble with opossums, then? I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t help hearing just a bit of your conversation.”
    Rose hesitated a moment, smiled weakly, and admitted that there was, apparently, trouble with ‘possums. Nothing that should concern Mr. Pennyman, though. Andrew had taken steps. It was poor Aunt Naomi that they were worried about. A ‘possum in her room could be the last straw. She had such delicate health.
    Pennyman nodded his head. “I might stop in and see her this morning, in fact. She was understandably upset last night. She quite likely still doesn’t fathom all the clamor.” He paused and picked up Andrew’s empty coffee cup, peering at the trout painted on the front of it. He set it down, frowning. “I’m not sure, now that I think of it,
that I
entirely understand all the ruckus. Andrew, though, has it all sorted out, I’m certain. He’s a stout lad, Rosannah, a stout lad. You won’t find another like him.” He nodded at her pleasantly. “May I call you Rose, do you think? I feel as if we’ve gotten rather closer in the last month. All this formality wears me out. I’m a simple man, really, with simple ways. That’s why I admire your husband. He’s so—what? Simple, I suppose.” He gestured at the tabletop, at the half-dozen boxes of breakfast cereal: Captain Crunch, Kix, Grapenuts, Wheat Chex. watched her, smiling. He seemed to admire the way she moved—sure, quick, never a wasted gesture. She worked almost like a machine—washing the stove front and wiping down cabinet doors even as she poured coffee. He nodded for no reason at all, except to communicate his admiration.
    “Aah,” he said, sipping the coffee. “Wonderful.” He sloshed it around