He Rejected Me Out Loud and Kept Other Women, So I Never Answered novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: The Tide-Book
The church smelled of wax and wet wool, and the Sunday light came through the windows in long pale bars.
Hester sat at a table in the vestry with the tide-book open and a lamp lit, though it was only four.
"Shut the door," she said.
I shut it.
"Sit."
I sat across from her.
The book was a great slab bound in cracked black leather, and I had seen it carried through the Settling every year of my life.
I had never seen it open at the front.
She turned the pages with two fingers, and the paper made a dry whispering sound.
The ink changed as she turned, from black to brown to a pale rust.
The hands changed too, from tight little copperplate to loops to a heavy scrawl I could hardly read.
"This is the oldest part," Hester said. "Sixty years since anyone opened it past the middle. Nobody wanted to read the old hand."
"Why me?" I asked.
"You've good eyes, and you don't owe a favor to anyone on this island."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Rejected Me Out Loud and Kept Other Women, So I Never Answered are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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