In retrospect, shooting the horse was probably excessive.

Nowadays, there would be repercussions, but thirty years ago, people minded their own business. Drakes Forge was, and still is, a fairly small village. We don’t bring the authorities into anything unless absolutely necessary.

Through the thick, wavy glass of the alcove window, I can see snow falling in broad flakes outside, but the electricity, notoriously fickle out here, is still on. I have a good fire going in the fireplace, plenty of wood stacked on the hearth, and an excellent bottle of Bordeaux breathing in the heavy, cut-glass decanter I didn’t throw through the window back when I was fighting to hang on to the estate. I can feel the presence of the books on the shelves all around me, just as I can feel the absence of my husband in the large leather chair across from me. There’s already a foot of snow on the ground outside, and more on the way. I sent my housekeeper home. She lives with her grown daughter and four Corgis down the road in the village, and I know she was nervous about getting stuck here. She left me a pot of Brunswick stew on the stove and a loaf of her bread on the counter. The stew is good, but I may just bring the whole loaf of bread in here to have with the wine. Adele makes the most marvelous bread.

I’ve decided to use this time to write. I’ve taken so much from the books over the years; it feels time to acknowledge it. I have no intention of actually publishing my memoir, of course. I expect that the statute of limitations has run out and I defy anyone to get me committed at this point in my life, but there’s no need to tempt fate. No, no formal publication. But I do want to put to paper, as best I can remember, what happened all those years ago. I feel as though I owe it to the books. When I’m done, I’ll tuck the pages away in this library. I doubt anyone will ever find them or, if they stumble upon them, take the time to read them. I don’t think anyone but me has taken a book from these shelves in nearly twenty years.

I take that back. There is the young man I hired a few years ago to fix up the old cottage. He borrowed As I Lay Dying the day I had him for coffee here in the library, and has borrowed other books from time to time. He’s a good carpenter and always returns the books without a single dog-eared page or smudge. I would trust him with my secrets, I think. He has the look of one who can keep secrets. The books sometimes hum when he’s here, but they don’t speak to me about him. They’re helping him keep his own secrets. That’s fine. It’s as my Great Aunt Genevieve told me all those years ago—books can be fickle. They don’t speak on cue nor respond to our desire to have them speak.

But when books do speak, I’ve learned to pay attention.