The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate Page A

my desk. . . .” Blood drained from my face as I prepared to reveal the contraband, leaving me vaguely light-headed. I heard Jamie’s warnings. Those people in the pages aren’t going to rescue you when you lose your job, either. And you’re never going to find another place like Vida House. . . . How in the world would I explain all this? How could I even bring it up without sounding like I was mentally off?
    Yet the obsession had begun to consume me, and it was only getting stronger.
    Mitch’s eyes narrowed, drifted lower, until she was focused on the emerging envelope. Was it my imagination, or was there a spark of recognition?
    “Mitch, I don’t know how this came to be in my office, I promise. I just found it on my desk one morning, but the postmark is twenty years old. I think it came off   —”
    She lifted a hand, palm out, stopping me. “Hold it. Don’t say another word. When did you find that thing, exactly?”
    “I’ve had it . . . a few days. Long enough to do a little research on it.”
    “Why?” A change in posture distanced her as she squinted over the top of her reading glasses. “We haven’t given you enough to do here?”
    “I want it.”
    She blinked, then blinked again, dropping her chin and rolling a surprised look. “You . . . what ? You know where that came from, right? There’s nothing twenty years old around here, still sitting in an envelope, unless it’s off . . .”
    “Yes, Slush Mountain. I know.”
    Mitch checked the doorway behind me, taking in the office still blanketed with morning stillness. Her hand twitched nervously, then whipped off the eyeglasses, tapped them on the chair arm. Tap, tap, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. “I don’t know what’s happening here, but I’m going to give you a piece of good advice. Put it back. Don’t let this happen again.”
    “I can’t,” I blurted, and my boss’s head jerked backward like I’d landed a blind left hook. I babbled on. “Put it back, I mean. I have a feeling about this thing. I’ve figured out who wrote it, I think. If you could just look . . .”
    “Nope. Cease. Desist. Alto. I don’t need or want to hear any more about whatever that is.” Pausing, she let me dangle on a thread while she gathered her thoughts. “Listen, Jen, I’m not going to tell you what to do. There are no dictators here at Vida. What I am going to tell you is that, whatever choice you makefrom here, you make at your own risk. I know nothing about this, you did not ask me about it, and no, I do not want to see that thing you have in the folder.” She softened then, seeming slightly more sympathetic. “I understand falling in love with a project   —blindly, even. But my advice is to think long and hard about whether this is worth it.”
    She waited for the tip of that reality to break the surface before she drove the point home. “It’s a huge gamble, Jen, and I’m not exactly sure what it is you’re shooting for. But if anyone here would know anything more about that manuscript, it is probably George Vida. And if anyone has the ability to get answers about it, it is probably him as well. But like I said, think about it. Hard. I expect great things from you here, as you get up to speed with projects of your own. I appreciate your input on the war bride proposal. You helped to give it just the right touch at pub board. George Vida likes you, and trust me, he doesn’t warm up to every new recruit in that way. But you know the rules about Slush Mountain. Whether George Vida will buy the idea that this thing just showed up on your desk, I have no idea. I’m having a hard time with that one right now myself, but . . . I can’t quite imagine why, having just joined our team, you’d decide to flout the rules. You seem smarter than that. Much smarter.”
    I let the envelope fall back into the file folder, feeling the burn of Mitch’s comments as she returned to her computer, indicating that I should withdraw from her office and