Chapter 6

Katherine walked up the library door and paused. She frowned as she carried Kailash in a comfortable nest box on one arm and carefully packed Qwerty on the other. Of all days for the library's handicap door button to be broken. She couldn't set down either of her precious items without tipping them in some way. She didn't want to put them down. If the doors were automatic or swung inward, that would be one thing, but nope they had handles that pulled outward.

"Do you need help Miss Katherine?" Katherine glanced around and smiled at Jamie Bennett as his mother held open the door as her daughter Sophie dashed through to the kids section to the play area.

"Thank you so much for your help." Katherine said as she sat down Kailash's nest box next to her comfortable armchair in which she read books to the children. Kailash was extremely well behaved enough that the library board and the director didn't mind Katherine bringing her in for a day.

Jamie handed the wooden box to Katherine. "What's in here?" He asked. If he didn't know any better Katherine seemed like the Katherine in his family drawings. She even had the same type of earrings that the other Katherine had. But her goose was too small. That is if that beak was a goose's beak and not just something silly that the artist drew with it.

Katherine's eyes light up as she grinned cheekily and in a mock whisper said, "A surprise for story-time. It is Mother Goose day after all. I couldn't just bring Kailash you know."

She was interrupted by a deep smooth sounding male voice. "Oh? Now I can't really wait until story-time to find out. Sounds mysterious."

Jamie turned from walking over to Kailash to give her a pet and his eyes widen. He backed away enough from the man to bump into Kailash who gave him a gentle peek of disapproval. He scratched her feathers in apology as he took in the tall, slim black haired, dark eyed man who was chatting with Ms. Katherine with too much familiarity in Jamie's option. He didn't know, but he had developed a little crush on the kind, pretty and selfless children's librarian over the last couple of months.

He kept petting Kailash to keep himself from doing something rash. The man looked too much like the bogey man aka Pitch Black for his approval. He continued to frown as he watched the man walk out of the library. Something seemed off about him, not completely Pitch Black but a close like relative maybe?

"Why are you so serious and frowning Jamie? Something wrong?" Katherine asked as she started to pet Kailash as well. Her goose was almost melting from affection.

"Who was that?" Jamie asked. They had at least a couple of hours until story-time so his family liked to come early, read and pick out books for the next week. The play area also gave his mom a slight break as it kept Sophie entertained for a few hours.

Katherine gave a small smile that was slightly sad. Once again her love life crashed and burned. At least this time she didn't invest a lot of time in it first. Her romantic relationships were brief ones, never going past a few months at a time, even years between them at times. It was hard to explain when she could age at will so she had to travel around the world almost none stop to keep people from knowing about her. She never really had a passionate relationship with anyone. Only a few really, really good make out sessions.

"That was the man who I was going to go on a date with. Kozmotis Pitchiner. He has a grown daughter, Emily Jane. I thought we were coming to an understanding of sorts enough to go out on a date. I apparently was wrong. He said he came to the realization last night after some reflection that he viewed me as almost a daughter but not quite." She frown at the statement. First romance and then, like a daughter? Hopefully he didn't have a kink of sorts, that would be gross.

Jamie blinked at the explanation. He had no idea why Katherine decided to confess that to him but he guessed it was really to Kailash. From what he could tell on short notice she was a intelligent goose since she kept her eyes on Mr. Pitchiner as he talked to Katherine. She was hissing slightly when Mr. Pitchiner was talking to Katherine, her eyes were on his right hand?

"I guess I'm just lonely Kailash. I wish..." Katherine trailed off when she noticed that Jamie was still there. She blushed slightly. "I'm sorry Jamie."

Jamie gave a laugh at his favorite librarian. "It's alright. I guess life is complicated as a grown-up?"

Katherine's answering smile light up her face as she started to laugh with him. Jamie's stomach felt like it was full of butterflies. He loved her smile.

For the next few hours as he picked out books, movies and games to bring home, and played with Sophie so his mom could chat with some of the other parents coming to the library for story-time. Jamie kept glancing over at his new favorite children's librarian who was getting the area ready for story-time. Jamie liked the graceful way Katherine moved, it was like a bird in flight or goose. He smiled at the thought but then frowned at Daniel, the male volunteer who came to help the pretty librarian. Daniel was leaning to far in Katherine's space, he knew from his mom that he was flirting, he asked a few minutes after Daniel's hands kept brushing against Katherine at times when she could handle moving something like a small chair herself.

Kailash was coming back from being petted in the play area, she could wander some parts of the library was a big hit when she came, which wasn't very often. Kailash seemed to be on top of things, as she not so gently nipped at Daniel's leg when he was standing at bit too close to Katherine, who was sitting down in her "Mother Goose" armchair.

Daniel yelped and tumbled back from the bit, which only snagged his pant leg and ripped it. Katherine got down from her chair and helped him up, fussing at the rip. Daniel only smiled gently, squeezing her hand, and walked off.

He was close enough to Katherine to hear her whisper to Kailash, "And this is why I don't date much. Thanks a lot Kailash. Oh, huh. Good thing you bit him then."

The accident wasn't seen by many people and they respected Katherine enough to not wonder about the goose nipping. Kailash was well known to only nip for serious reasons. She caught a angry man that way.

Katherine caught Jamie shamelessly listening in and smiled with a hint of mystery to it. Jamie sat down next to Katherine his eyes light up, he knew someone else with a great, but mysterious smile.

Jack! She should meet Jack. Jamie would know that they would get along really well. With her serious manner, she'll probably keep Jamie from losing more teeth the non traditional way, even if the sled ride was epic! The bruises afterwards were not fun, he had to take pills for the pain. His mom was such a worry wort. He did not break his face, thank you very much. It just got slightly bruised, a lot.

Katherine was quite shocked when Jamie came in for story-time a few days after the Easter holidays and saw him. She was in town for first interview and has such a care for the children she meet that the library board wanted her in for a second interview.

"How is Jack?" Katherine asked tarty as she gently took out Qwerty from his wooden box as more of the children arrived for the story, setting it by Jamie's feet.

"Better for you then Daniel." Jamie said, "um." His face was turning red from embarrassment, bumping into Qwery by accident.

Katherine just laughed clapping her hands signaling that she wanted the children to gather around for story-time.

As Jamie walked away out of embarrassment, and Katherine started story-time, they didn't notice that when he bumped into Qwerty, the statue flickered a deep gold that faded until the black overshadowed it but it still glittered into Qwerty's heart, which started to beat slowly unknown to anyone but Kailash.