She drove with the windows down and followed the parkway, with Lake Ontario’s brilliant blue rippling on her right. After taking the County Line exit, she headed south, turned right onto Ridge Road, and, down ten miles or so, took a left onto Maple Grove. She had the roads almost entirely to herself and passed sweeping fields, orchards, a farmhouse dwarfed by its red barn, pecking chickens, penned goats, a John Deere tractor, a combine harvester, another farmhouse, another barn, more fields, more orchards …

She drove fast but could have been speeding on a big treadmill, so repetitive was the landscape. I’ve found the middle of nowhere. The thought gratified her. Nowhere was exactly where she wanted to be.

But Maple Grove eventually became the Main Street of a town … of sorts. The business section—from the looks of it, just Main Street itself—had beautiful buildings, elegant and ornate, one after the other, but except for a few, they were relics, their windows either empty and blackly glinting the late-afternoon sunshine or filled with junk. A canal cut through Kesley. The Erie Canal, Maggie guessed.

Tree Hollow Books appeared on her right, near the end of the block that came after the canal’s lift-bridge. She pulled into the municipal lot and had her pick of parking spots. After crossing the street, she hesitated outside the bookstore and admired its swirly-lettered sign, the window display (neat and colorful with new releases), and the beveled glass door, its woodwork trim painted a glossy red.

She was prepared to find the shop as empty as the parking lot, all the storefront’s charm and effort wasted, but when she entered, jangling the bells on the door, four young women glanced her way.

The floor was polished oak; the ceiling, high and decorated with pressed plates of tin. In between, from top to bottom: books, books, books. The walls were books. An old wooden table spanned the front of the shop. Farther down, the main space opened into smaller sections: HISTORY NOOK, BIOGRAPHY NOOK, COOKBOOK NOOK, TEEN NOOK.

By the door, an old-fashioned cash register sat on a tall counter. An employee perched on a stool there, legs crossed, a paperback splayed and propped up on her knee. She was around Maggie’s age, Asian, and wore her black hair in two tight knobs, like gleaming horns. And she eyed Maggie with open interest. “You’re new.”

Maggie wasn’t sure how to answer, so she just nodded and stuck her hands into her cardigan pockets. “Do you sell used books?”

“Basement.” She tilted her head. “The stairs are way back there in the reading nook.” She closed the paperback, half-stood, and asked hopefully, “Need help finding something?”

“Oh, no. No, thanks.” Maggie slipped past the desk and the other customers, pretty sure they were watching her, and found the staircase.