Excerpt from The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

part i
the library at garrison oaks

Chapter 1
Sunrise
i

Carolyn, blood-drenched and barefoot, walked alone down the two-lane stretch of blacktop that the Americans called Highway 78. Most of the librarians, Carolyn included, had come to think of this road as the Path of Tacos, so-called in honor of a Mexican joint they snuck out to sometimes. The guacamole, she remembered, is really good. Her stomach rumbled. Oak leaves, reddish-orange and delightfully crunchy, crackled underfoot as she walked. Her breath puffed white in the predawn air. The obsidian knife she had used to murder Detective Miner lay nestled in the small of her back, sharp and secret.

She was smiling.

Cars were scarce but not unheard-of on this road. Over the course of her night's walk she had seen five of them. The one braking to a halt now, a battered Ford F-250, was the third that had stopped to take a closer look. The driver pulled to the opposite shoulder, gravel crunching, and idled there. When the window came down she smelled chewing tobacco, old grease, and hay. A white-haired man sat behind the wheel. Next to him, a German shepherd eyed her suspiciously from the passenger seat.

Ahhh, crap. She didn't want to hurt them.

"Jesus," he said. "Was there an accident?" His voice was warm with concern—the real kind, not the predator's fake that the last man had tried. She heard this and knew the old man was seeing her as a father might see his daughter. She relaxed a little.



"Nope," she said, eyeing the dog. "Nothing like that. Just a mess at the barn. One of the horses." There was no barn, no horse. But she knew from the smell of the man that he would be sympathetic to animals, and that he would understand their business could be bloody. "Rough delivery, for me and for her." She smiled ruefully and held her hands to frame her torso, the green silk now black and stiff with Detective Miner's blood. "I ruined my dress."

"Try a little club sody," the man said dryly. The dog growled a little. "Hush up, Buddy."

She wasn't clear on what "club sody" was, but she could tell from his tone that this was a joke. Not the laugh-out-loud sort, the commiserating sort. She snorted. "I'll do that."

"The horse OK?" Real concern again.

"Yeah, she's fine. The colt, too. Long night, though. Just taking a walk to clear my head."

"Barefoot?"

She shrugged. "They grow 'em tough around here." This part was true.

"You want a lift?"

"Nah. Thanks, though. My Father's place is over that way, not far." That was true too.

"Which, over by the post office?"

"It's in Garrison Oaks."

The old man's eyes went distant for a moment, trying to remember how he knew that name. He thought about it for a while, then gave up. Carolyn might have told him that he could drive by Garrison Oaks four times a day every day for a thousand years and still not remember it, but she didn't.

"Ohhh . . ." the old guy said vaguely. "Right." He glanced at her legs in a way that wasn't particularly fatherly. "Sure you don't want a lift? Buddy don't mind, do ya?" He patted the fat dog in the seat next to him. Buddy only watched, his brown eyes feral and suspicious.

"I'm good. Still clearing my head. Thanks, though." She stretched her face into something like a smile.

"Sure thing."

The old man put his truck into gear and drove on, bathing her in a warm cloud of diesel fumes.

She stood watching until his taillights disappeared around a curve. That's enough socializing for one night, I think. She scrambled up the bluff and slipped into the woods. The moon was still up, still full. Americans called this time of year "October" or, sometimes, "Autumn," but the Librarians reckoned time by the heavens. Tonight was the seventh moon, which is the moon of black lament. Under its light the shadows of bare branches flashed across her scars.

Excerpted from The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. Copyright © 2015 by Scott Hawkins. Excerpted by permission of Crown. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.