Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 (7 page)

9

The library is so beautiful, and grand. More grand than anything I have ever seen, though to be fair, I haven’t seen much in my time. I was even too embarrassed to admit to Mr. Connelly that I had never been to Oxford, a mere 60 miles from London. I wish to be more world traveled; I wish to see America especially: the land of Hollywood and glamour. I would take my pigtails down and hobnob with all the actresses and cowboys. In America, I could be anybody; I just know it, and someday I will find my way there.

Then again,
their architecture would not be so fine as this, here at Bodley. The proprietor is a chubby man with outdated mutton chops on his face (he makes me think of someone straight out of A Christmas Carol) and a habit of turning every conversation into a history lesson, even our introductions. I confess to feigning interest while my thoughts run away with myself.

I am picturing a young girl, a young, frail blonde girl, amongst the books. She would be daring and light on her feet and very quick. You might think you saw something, a shadow perhaps, over your shoulder or near your knee, but in the split second it would take your eyes to adjust, it would be gone. Light as a feather and twice as shifty, the ghost of what you thought you saw would be gone forever. The ghost of the library, she called herself, and it seemed to me that I could imagine her as such without any trouble at all.

I touch the spine of a volume of Shakespeare and recall what she wrote about The Bard; she was a lover of the tragedies and found the comedies a waste of his talent. What a twisted mind our Rose had. Has. Did I expect to find her here, among her treasures and the dusty memories of her childhood? Why would I think she would come back to the spot of her abandonment by Solomon, the cruel pretender? Would I, in such a spot? No, but I may have left a clue, and that is what I am wishing for.

“
Do you have photographs of your librarians?” I ask Mr. Mutton Chops, and when he turns his gray eyes to me in surprise, I realize I have interrupted him rudely. I believe he was going on about the collection when my question flattened his diatribe. “Pardon me, sir. Do forgive me. I’m just terribly interested in the history of libraries, in the biographies of librarians, to be precise.”

“
A commendable pursuit in your education, Miss, but I am afraid I do not know of many photographs of the Bodleian’s librarians. A few perhaps, scattered here and there. But you may ask away, young lady, and my substantial knowledge shall fill your hunger!” He beams at me proudly. Puffed like a peacock, he is, but I can’t help but like the silly man.

“
I heard tale of a ghost,” I lower my voice conspiratorially. “A young child maybe? That haunts the books? This would have been, what?” I turn my gaze to Mr. Connelly for confirmation. “Recently? Within the last decade, certainly?”

Mr. Connelly ignores me; he seems distracted. He too, is running his hands along the spines of the old books. I feel like an interloper, a trespasser, and the touch of his hands is like a lover on skin. He does not seem to remember where we are, and I feel
like I’m an intruder in his strange memories.

The mutton
-chopped wonder does not seem to notice anything amiss, and he laughs when I mention the ghost.

“
Ah! Yes! The ghost! How I’ve longed to see her myself, I have.”

“
Her?” I echo, curiously, as though I didn’t know the sex.

“
Yes, the murdered daughter of a French aristocrat. Or was it the murdered sister of a Belgian actress? The murdered mother of an English prostitute? Ah, well, the details don’t matter, do they? The murdered someone of someone who roams our ancient aisles by night! Walking to and fro, she does, creaking the floor boards and shaking loose the dust. Softly murmuring your name, though she has no business knowing it, lifting the novels off your hands and dropping them upon the floor…”

He is making things up and yet the description is so fitting of what I experienced that night at Bedlam that I am uncomfortable and find myself rubbing my arms to get rid of the gooseflesh there.

“Just a legend then? Was there no child that lived here at the library, even for a short time? The daughter of a librarian, perhaps?”

“
Aye, there was, but they were employed only a short while. Left quite suddenly, they did, and never came back.”

“
What happened to them? Did you know them?”

“
No, not I. I’m not nearly old enough! This would have been… oh, dear me. The only librarian with a daughter was, if I’m not mistaken, was nearly a hundred years ago, to be sure. That’s why she’s just a ghost now, isn’t it? Can’t hardly be a ghost if you’re alive, now can you?”

“
Can you?” I wonder to myself. It seems she can. Because Rose haunts this library the same way she haunts Bedlam, and if Mr. Connelly isn’t lying—which I don’t believe him to be—Rose is very much alive.

But why the discrepancy in dates? There must be some sort of mistake somewhere. I look to Connelly again, but he acts as though he hasn
’t heard a word spoken, and he stares off into space. No help to me at all. It seems as though I must continue my investigation myself, so I plunge deeper.

“
Will you be so kind as to point me towards Dante, sir? I’m afraid I am quite obsessed with him.”

“
But of course, child. Right this way.”

We leave Connelly standing where he is, a sad expression on his face. Of course, I must be imagining things, but as I turn to leave him, he meets my eye, and the expression there is of such wistfulness and yearning that I am nearly undone. I feel as though I want to cry, and yet I do not know what I would be crying for.

********************

I convince the librarian to leave me in the Dante area alone by telling him I hear the footsteps of other wandering patrons on the floor above us, and he bustles off to attend to them and their literary desires. I thumb through each volume patiently and slowly, partly so as not to miss anything, and partly to delay my search. I do not really expect to find anything of value to me, and when I do, my heart leaps into my throat. I shake so that I nearly drop the book when I see Rose
’s writing peering up at me from between the covers of Inferno. The original manuscript had been ripped out, and the edges of those old papers were jagged and torn and cradled a new sort of tale: that of Rose Gray. Trembling, I slip it under my coat as Connelly rounds the corner.

“
Ah, there you are. Find anything useful?” His sorrowful demeanor is gone now, and I am left to wonder if I imagined it after all.

I hesitate, but only for the briefest of moments. Then I smile brightly.

“No, not really. It was a fool’s errand, I suppose. Still, it was nice to get out of the hospital. I’m ready if you are.”

“
I thought we might stay a bit? I do find myself closer to Rose here than I thought. I would like to explore just a while? Would you mind very much?” His eyes, his nice eyes, peer into my heart it seems. He seems so… lost.

“
That’s fine. I’ll stay here a spell, shall I? Never got to read much as a child, what with all the slave labor I was forced to perform at the orphanage. Ha ha, that was a joke. Don’t mind catching up a little now.” Again, my bright smile is back, and I wave him off.

“
You won’t come then? Take a tour with me?” He appears disappointed though I suppose it is only politeness that pricks his conscience enough to ask me.

“
No, I’ll stay right here where you can find me.” I smile, brightly.

He leaves, though he glances backwards at me once, peculiarly. I busy myself with volumes I
’ve no intention to read, though I do intend to look quite immersed in books should anyone happen upon me. I am only interested in one, and the heat from it feels as though it will burn a hole in my chest. I can nearly feel it beating like a heart beneath my coat and when I pull it out, nestled in Dante’s arms, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Finally, I would know what happened after she left this place she loved to haunt.

I kept waiting, long after I knew he was never coming back, I kept waiting. Like a jilted lover, I kept waiting. I didn
’t eat, nor did I sleep, though that was usual for me. I couldn’t believe Solomon would just discard me like a puppy or a bit of overcooked beef. I meant more to him than that, didn’t I? His golden girl? His Goose?

Ah, but those missing drawings and designs of mine. Those damned him and his excuses. His disappearance I could fantasize explanations for, but my magic plans, my schemes and ideas? Why would he take those for a simple trip to the market? The swindler had swindled me, and I had been taken in.

I felt a white hot rage like none I had never felt before. The hatred I had felt for the girl who eventually felt my anger at the tip of a blade was nothing compared to what I felt for the emotions that consumed me now. Not hatred for Solomon exactly, but hatred at my stupidity. Him I still respected, still lauded, still loved. I could not merely stop; it would be like ceasing to breathe. He was all I ever had, and I could not despise him for what he was, when what he was was what made me love him so desperately.

No, what I felt was a rage so thick and smothering that everything else melted away in the heat. I was angry at losing him, not learning everything I could from him, being alone. It was the left behind feeling of my family, only worse. My family, such as they were, I barely remembered anyway. Memories of Solomon invaded every pore.

His fathering of me.

His instructions.

His nose when I threw the book at him.

The way he shielded me from the gypsies and their accusing looks.

The view I had of the top of his head from atop Vlad, that dark night we escaped.

Learning to read.

The books.

So I took my rage out on the books. I brought stacks, as heavy as I could carry and as high as I could heap them in my arms, and I dumped them in the street in front of the library. Of course, by my fourth trip, I had drawn a crowd. I lit a fire as quickly as I could, in our little kitchen hearth in our living quarters, and carried a burning twig.

I hadn’t planned my little act of wrath out very well, and the twig was snatched before I could light the books. Someone yelled, and someone slapped me, and someone pulled the books to safety, out of the mud, and someone accused me of being the librarian’s daughter, and someone took me to the police. I bit someone, and I scratched someone else, and then I cursed so passionately and in so many different languages that someone spoke in low tones of an exorcist. Someone asked where my shoes were, and someone tried to give me a blanket; I bit them too. Someone shouted for my father, and I shouted for him too, and eventually all the someones went away, and I was strapped to a bed in a place they called Bedlam.

And I grew up.

I feel tears on my cheeks, though I hadn
’t realized I was crying. I don’t wipe them away, but allow them to drip silently down onto Rose’s writing. A baptism of sorts. What a poor, wretched girl she was.

10

At first I ignored everything and everyone around me, for weeks perhaps; I do not really know how much time went by. From the impression I got from the staff around me and the way they were wary of me and the way they spoke under their breath when they thought I was asleep, it seemed clear that I was in turn either extremely violent or extremely passive. It must have seemed like a strange pendulum in my moods to them, but I was simply too tired at times to be my normal, passionate self. I couldn’t muster the energy to be wicked, so I sulked for a while, and then I struck out at them, only vocally of course, because I was nearly always strapped down to my bed or chair.

Escape was impossible. Besides the straps that bound my hands and arms, there were bars on my window and locks on my door. The lock I felt sure I could pick if I could only get to it
—I used to skulk about Old Babba’s door when she bolted me out, and made her nervous by finding ways back in—but the smallness of the room seemed immense to someone tied to the other end of it. The bars were too close together, even for my narrow frame. And the medicines they forced down my throat made me too tired to plot. They were full of poison in one form or another, I was sure of it.

So tired…

And then I realized that was the key. These past years I had been training myself to stay awake, so as not to leave Solomon. I had made sleep my enemy. Now it would be my ally and my way of escaping this place!

My little body revolted. My head ached. I was unaccustomed to long bouts of slumber; I had trained my body to revive itself every hour, at least. I could not seem to relax.

And there was a doctor. There was a doctor who fancied my brain.

“
She’s so very interesting, isn’t she?” he mused one day to another doctor. They lurked over my bed like vultures. I feigned sleep.

“
She has no one then? Alone completely? No one to miss her should something go wrong?”

“
That’s right. Her addition to science could be invaluable.”

At first I thought they meant to slice me up and dissect me in order to learn more about me and why I did the things I did. I was not scared, only curious at how far they would go in their plan.

“Lobotomies are a risky business. What if it doesn’t cure her but makes her worse?” the first doctor mused.

“
Is that even possible?” the other joked and they both laughed.

Stupid men.
“What a couple of asses,” I thought.

“
All joshing aside, my good man, she is an interesting case.”

“
Mmm,” the other agreed, slowly. I could practically see him stroking his beard, though my eyes were still closed. I could smell his dreadful hair pomade. He probably combed it through his sparse whiskers. I coughed. Maybe even bathed in it. “Has the electroshock had no effect then?”

“
Haven’t tried it yet. Perhaps we combine the two? She is a difficult case, after all. Two birds with one stone, so to speak, eh? Or two stones with one bird, I suppose I should say.”

Again, they chuckled. I didn
’t much care what they decided, so long as they went away.

It was impossible to fall asleep with those idiots near.

Do you know what they say about electroshock therapy, dear little reader of mine?

At this, I startle and nearly drop the journal. This is the first time she has ever addressed me, and I could not have been more surprised if she called me by name. I am disturbed and feel uneasy.

Sylvia Plath I think said it best. I read her later. Much later.

“
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me. I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet. The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid: A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket. A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree. If he were I, he would do what I did.”

Of course, you do not know Sylvia yet, but you will.

You do not know me either, do you?

You poor, pitiful thing.

I can’t help but feel insulted, silly as it sounds. I snap shut the diary and untangle my legs from my perch. I should put away the books I pulled from their shelves willy-nilly, but I don’t. I leave to find Mr. Connelly. I have questions I wonder if he might have the answers to.

He is speaking in whispers to the mutton
-chopped man, and when they see me approaching, they stop.

“
And did you find Dante entertaining enough?” the librarian asks me, brightly.

I am instantly suspicious of their little tete-a-tete.
“What were you speaking of just now?” I keep my tone as bright as his on purpose, as I answer his question with a question.

“
Ah, a sharp young thing,” he nudges Mr. Connelly.

“
Her?” Mr. Connelly pretends to eye me judgmentally and with an expression of feigned boredom. “She’s quite obnoxious actually.”

“
Flattery will get you nowhere. Did you ask him about Rose?” I decide to jump right in and quit beating around the bush.

“
I did.” Connelly takes his cigarette from his breast pocket and lights it, calmly. “If she’s been here, he didn’t see her.”

“
Ah, well, she’s a sneaky thing,” I mutter. “Do you want to leave then?”

He puffs on his
cigarette a moment and eyes me, thoughtfully. “I suppose I do. We should get you back to hospital. I don’t want to be accused of kidnapping.”

“
I’m not a kid.” I stand up straighter.

“
Mmm.” The corners of his mouth turn up again, in that maddening way I’ve come to learn is what he does when he’s trying (not very hard) not to laugh at me. “Come along then, Grandmother.”

We barely say a parting word to the librarian, who is urging us to return again someday.

“It’s these braids,” I protest, descending the stairs outside. “They make me look fourteen.”

“
I have the same problem when I do my hair that way,” he teases. He opens the door to his magnificent chariot for me, and I climb in.

It has begun to rain lightly, a drizzle, and it splashes on the windshield in airy plops. Dancing splashes of water skitter and skate across the car like water skippers. I watch Connelly as he circles the Rolls
-Royce: his hat askew, giving him a rakish appearance, his new cigarette in his mouth, those nice-looking lips hugging it.

Goodness, Lizzie!
I give myself a mental shake. What schoolgirl, idiotic thoughts!

He is rather nice to look at though. Even my practical self has to admit it. But he
’s entangled with a lunatic. Well, the best ones always are, I expect.

Being so young, they went slowly with me, and carefully. Oh yes, one must be careful if you are remove bits of bone and brain and matter. Of course, I don
’t recall it really; I’m only relaying what I was told after by the nurses. They read from my charts in dull, clipped voices. I didn’t feel any different, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Did I want to be different? What was so wrong with me anyway?

I was just a little girl!

Recovering, I remember feeling very blurry. The world outside my little window was smudged. Everything in my room was smudged. I held my hand up to my face, and it was smudged. Blurred. Like it had rained upon my life and someone had smeared the colors: a bad watercolor painting. It got a little better later, but for the most part, life still looks like that to me, years later.

I sat there by my window, staring lethargically out, and the doctors came and went. I ignored them. They were pleased. I was not. I was becoming bored with them. Sleeping was coming easier, but I was not traveling. I was awaking in the same place in which I had fallen asleep, and it was maddening. I tried to sleep for longer and longer periods, and sometimes I would dream of being in some far off land, some distant or future time, and then I would wake. One morning a nurse shook me awake for my pills right in the middle of a lovely dream
, when it had taken me so long to fall asleep. I was so angry; I slapped her hard and pulled out a chunk of her hair.

The doctors concluded my loboto
my was not a success. They became bored of me and left me tied for hours in bed.

One night
I had an excruciating headache. I thought it was because of what they had done to me, and I pressed my fingers to my temple and rubbed the spot where they had taken out the bone fragments. It throbbed and ached and felt hot to the touch. I thought they had damaged me, but it turns out they must have heightened my abilities. That night I finally traveled.

Old Babba had always known what my family was: Lost. She told me the barest bits of what I needed to know. She had
“the sight,” a vague term people coined back then to explain visions or over active imaginations. At first I thought she was batty, an old lunatic, but then I began to see that for the most part, her mutterings made sense, and her predictions always came true. Once, when she was in a talkative mood and both of us feeling passive, I asked her where my family was. She eyed me warily but obliged me by falling into one of her strange trances. It was as though she talked in her sleep when she did this. (I’d seen it before when villagers came to her to ask their futures. I would duplicate it later, faking of course, during the sideshow when it was my turn to tell fortunes). She murmured about a place called Italy, a villa near the sea, and a number: 1571. Why hadn’t I gone with them when they left? I didn’t know, but I certainly meant to find out. She had enough truth in her visions to know that my family was gone for good, and that hopefully she’d lose me in the same way someday. I never paid too much attention to her mutterings until I woke under that table in India; then I knew I really was something special.

Traveling again, leaving Bedlam, was bittersweet. I knew I had left Solomon behind for good, and there would be no reconciliation.
I would never see him again. If I traveled to the future, he would be dead. If I traveled to the past, he would yet to be born.

I woke in a cornfield. A little boy, younger than I by a couple of years, was staring at me. He was sitting cross
-legged and chewing on a piece of straw. He barely blinked when I opened my eyes. We stared at each other. Finally, he spoke first.

“
My pa don’t like no hobos, even if you is a girl.”

“
I’m not a hobo,” I said. I didn’t know what one was, but I was certain I wasn’t. “Who are you?”

“
None yer business. You better scat!”

“
I don’t have anywhere to go.”

The boy sighed. He had an old man
’s sigh, deep and full of years. “Fine. Come home with me if you want, but you ain’t gettin’ any food.”

I brushed off my dress which was really just
the hospital’s old dressing gown, my knobby knees sticking out, and followed him. I was barefoot, and I kept stepping on hard rocks and prickly weeds. We moved through the cornfield like it was a maze. I hoped he knew where he was going.

“
Ma ain’t gonna like you neither,” he said.

“
Why?”

“
She just won’t, that’s all. Where’s yer family?”

“
I don’t know. Dead, I guess.”

He nodded and plucked a fresh weed out of the ground for chewing.
“You sure? Cuz I don’t want them showin’ up, too. I’m gonna get in enough trouble just bringing you home with me. I don’t need no scrawny brothers or sisters or nuttin’, okay?”

I was silent.

He stopped and sighed again. “Okay?” he repeated, slowly, like I was a dumb animal.

“
I don’t know what that means,” I mumbled. My English was good enough, but I didn’t know this word. His accent was so strange.

“
What? Okay? It mean, you know,” he paused. “Well, I don’t know how to explain it! You not from around here? You talk funny.”

“
I do not. You do.”

“
Fine. Anyway, we’re here.”

I stopped short and stared. It was a s
mall house, dingy white. There were three huge dogs chained up to a tree and a bony woman sitting on the porch, shelling peas. There was a rundown automobile nearby (though I didn’t know what in the world it was at the time. I’d never seen a car). There was a naked baby playing in the dirt, and a girl about fifteen was swinging on the gate. She stared at me and quit swinging.

“
Who’s that, Daniel?” the woman asked, warily. “Who are you, girl?”

“
Rose.”

“
What do you want? We ain’t got nothin’ to spare.”

The boy, Daniel, looked at me triumphantly.
“I told her so, Ma. She don’t listen.”

“
Then she’ll fit in real good ‘round here,” the girl on the gate said. “Nobody listens to nobody here.”

The mother gave her a look that could have curdled cream.
“Pipe down, Louise. Go get yer dad. It’s time for supper. We ain’t got nothin’ to spare,” she repeated, turning back to me.