#elsewhere

and, perhaps not to his surprise, the childling watching is a sluagh boy

He gives the child a nervous look; sluagh, after all.

And takes his books away to a carrel to read.

The boy looks annoyed at having been spoted, then pLEASED that he made a grown up nervous

he buffs his knuckles of his left hand, then makes a wriggly reaching finger motion...

a long shadow stretches along the wall...

That Autumn stuff..harmless in this case

A -mean- squint at the urchin.

the boy stickss his dark unhealthy tongue out... then retreats... the shadow going with him

A loud "HURRRMPH" or at least loud to the lad and Abner settles in to read; he's looking for specific info.

Well, the boy gives him space, for now. More importantly Abner has come across as a harmless if slightly grumpy old boggan. Which fits well

-Just- the point. He carries on with his research, keeping an eye on Cecily.

Cecily , on the contrary smiles at the boy, and acts spooked (Melodramticly so) when he tries to scare her, making the boy pleased

He glances up from time to time, and goes to replace and fetch another book, but he is clearly very serious about this.

One librarian, a mortal woman, asks "I see you're into bird watching, sir?"

"Oh, my, yes." he brightens.

"There's a group that birdwatches together locally on the weekends if you wanted to get in contact with them. it's rather informal but they start here some times" (Presses SEND)

"I'd love to have their contact information, thank you."

She gives it, a helpful woman this

And CC is close again

He takes it and smiles. "Thank you so much." and then smiles shyly at Cecily.

Cecily joins him after the lady says you're welcome and goes off. "Oh honey, good news? Do they have a yellow bellied sap sucker in these parts after all?"

"Oh, I'm afraid not, but come look at this with me." he makes room for her to join him "Are you finding what you were looking for?"

"Oh yes" She beams

"Wonderful. I'm not -quite- done yet; can we spend a little longer?"

"Oh of COURSE, sugar plum"

"Thank you, dumplin'. Let me get another couple books." He heads into the stacks; the books turn about to be two about birds sandwiching two on herbs and one pharmaceuticals. He settles back in to read efficiently and quickly, tapping a line on a page occasionally.

Cecily helps, and reads a bit on her own, and if she should help any childldren about, well, who is to notice she's good with kids?

Finally, he has what he needs; he nods to her. "Well. I think that's it. We'll need to stop at a few stores on the way, if that's ok?"

"I wanted to hit the woolworth's anyway" A nod

"Then let's." On the way out he reshelfs some books (CORRECTLY!) and checks out the birdwatching ones.

The librarian waves. The sluagh boy readies to follow them, to hound them to the ends of the... only to have his mother pull him away to check out books

drat

Abner helps Cecily into the RV, handing the books up and climbing in after her.

Making sure they are alone, door closed, CC smiles "that went well. What is it with you and slaugh snoops deciding you're a challenge anyway?"