It takes such a long time for her to return the book that it is all but guaranteed Wysteria has left it somewhere and forgotten about it entirely.

Only that isn't it at all. When the book is finally returned—simply set carefully beside his things—one sunny afternoon as he works in the garden, the purpose behind the extraordinarily long hold becomes clear.

Some repair has been done to the binding—the top layer of the spine peeled carefully back, a thick paper marbled with shades of darkening blue and bright ribbons of white used to reinforce it and then covered again with that tattered rectangle of the original spine so that only the edges of that marbled papers and its tabs folded over the inside of either board are visible. It is not quite like folding a letter into an elaborate shapes, but it isn't so far removed from it either. She isn't certain she should have done it. And so from some corner planter box where she is perched and meant to be watching while Mr. Dickerson's enchanted snake slithers through stalks of flowers and under the broad splay of the lavender bush, Wysteria instead watches his reception of it from the corner of her eye.

There is no note.