Page 83 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“What else?”

“The fish co-op.”

“Of course.”

“They needed the building.”

“Anything else?”

He considers this. “The reading room was not entirely me.”

I give him a look, and he adds, “But I paid for the majority of it.”

“And wouldn’t let them put your name on it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

His expression makes it clear he thinks the answer is obvious.

“A name can be compared to another name.”

Right. Of course. I look through the open door at shelves containing centuries of everyone else’s names.

“You’ve been the caretaker.” He goes very still, but he doesn’t say anything. “That’s what you’ve been doing. Looking after Black Harbor the way somebody looks after a house that belongs to someone else. Fixing things. Paying for things. Remembering everybody who lived in it.”

“Penny—”

“And then every thirty years you leave before anyone notices you’re not getting older, and when you come back you act like you’re the new tenant.”

His face doesn’t change, but I know him well enough now to know what that costs him.

“This is your town,” I say.

“That’s a complicated statement.”

“No, it’s really not. You’ve been here longer than the library.”

“That is not the usual standard for residency.”

“You’ve been here longer than Maine has been a state.”

“That is also not⁠—”

“Julian.”

He stops.

“You’re allowed to be in it.”

A complicated expression crosses his face.

“That has not always been available to me.”

“I know.” And I do. It’s the part I couldn’t have understood before tonight. “But some of it is now. Theo hands you things because he expects you to help. Peg Halloran moves down the bench to give you room. Eunice Ballard will tell you about Walter’s green Buick until one of you dies, and unfortunately for you, it’s probably going to be her.”

“Almost certainly.”