Chapter 6: The Visitor on the Shell Path
In late April, when the wild white serviceberries and blue lupines were blooming across the rocky Maine coastline, an old rural commuter bus stopped at the highway junction three miles from the guild.
A single passenger stepped down into the gravel shoulder.
It was Julianna.
She had agreed to a comprehensive plea agreement with federal prosecutors, liquidating her remaining assets to provide full restitution to the literacy foundation, while Marcus remained in a federal holding facility awaiting final sentencing.
She was thirty-two years old, but she looked forty. Her styled hair was cropped into a plain, practical bob; her designer wardrobe was gone, replaced by a faded canvas field coat, dark denim work trousers, and scuffed leather boots. Her face was thin, pale, and etched with the deep, exhausting humiliation of a woman whose pride had been ground into dust.
She carried a single canvas duffel bag over her shoulder.
She walked the three miles down the winding dirt road beneath the canopy of moss-hung red spruce and white birch.
Through the trees, the steady, rhythmic *clack-clack* of an antique Heidelberg letterpress and the rich smell of linseed ink, damp paper pulp, and woodsmoke drifted on the crisp ocean breeze.
Julianna reached the split-rail cedar gate marking the boundary of the guild.
Standing near the open drying-shed doors was Catherine, wearing a canvas work apron, holding a bone folder, carefully inspecting the binding of a newly completed hand-sewn leather volume.
May you like
Julianna stopped at the gate, her hands gripping the rough cedar rail, her shoulders trembling violently.
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