Signs of You (13 page)

Chapter 14

Information Ninjas

The front lobby of the CPL is intense. There's a crazy-huge entry with carpet that looks like it's covered in hundreds of giant rubies. And behind the front desk is this big carved wooden—
thing.
It almost looks like an organ? Or an altar? And the ceiling is domed and covered with gem-shaped blue and orange tiles. It feels like we've stepped into a giant jewelry box.

Jay conf idently strides up to the front desk. “I need to see a librarian,” he says, dropping his voice to a deeper tone, as if he's asking to meet with a foreign dignitary or something.

The woman behind the counter is totally cool. She looks like she's just out of college. She's wearing an old-school blouse with a peter pan collar, a tweed jacket, and super-huge black-rimmed glasses.

“Well that's a good thing,” she says sarcastically, peering over her thick rims. “Because you're looking at one.”

Jay smiles and looks all f lustered for a second. He kind of leans on the front desk and gets closer. “Cool. We're sort of on a mission.”

“We're doing research,” I interrupt, nudging Jay out of the way. “On a Catholic saint. Saint Ignatius of Loyola.”

“Oh?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. “For European history class?”

“Um, no,” I say. “We're just . . . interested.”

She lights up. I think I just learned my f irst research lesson.
Librarians: tell them you're interested in arcane subject matter best left for college.

“Research just for the hell of it? That's so cool,” she says. Then she pauses. She peers over her glasses at us. “But wait. Shouldn't you be in school right now?”

“We have this period and the next period free,” Noah lies way too smoothly.

“Wow. And you're spending your free time here? That's awesome.” She takes off her glasses and kind of waves her arms around as she keeps talking, like Noah does. I wonder if this is some sort of shared trait among the very smart: arm-waving in times of intellectual excitement. “We've actually had
a lot
of people come in asking about Ignatius and the Jesuits because of Pope Francis. He's the very f irst Jesuit pope in history, you know. And
Time
's Man of the Year. I mean, I'm totally against male-dominated church patriarchies, but even I have to admit, he's kind of a rock star. I mean, he goes around kissing female prisoners' feet and says we have to save the environment from becoming a pile of f ilth.
Winning.
”

Noah nudges my arm and whispers in my ear. “Isn't that redundant? Male-dominated patriarchies?”

“We're aware of Pope Francis,” Kate interjects. “But we kind of have to get back to school soon. Can you tell us where to start?”

The librarian's arms f lop to her sides. “Of course. History Department. Sixth Floor. Louis Stokes wing. Ask for Gary once you get there. Good luck.”

When the elevator opens
on the sixth f loor, a guy with a head full of perfect, black braids is waiting for us. He's wearing a red CPL shirt and jeans.

“I'm Gary,” he says, motioning for us to follow him. “Liz already called up. Said you guys were
interested
in
Saint Ignatius.” He leads us to an empty table with a cool little green study lamp on it. “So what do you need to know? Are we talking basics here?”

“No. Not basics,” Noah says, matching Gary's conf idence. I can't help but notice how comfortable Noah seems as he sits in a plastic orange chair. It makes me happy; there really are places in the world that are safe for people like Noah, safe from idiotic bullies like Carl and the air band crew. “Two things, really . . . What languages Ignatius might have known, and the second: an extremely detailed history of Jesuit symbolism.”

Gary nods. “Dig it.” His eyes f licker slightly, as if Noah has passed some kind of CPL hipster test with f lying colors. “Tell me what phase you're in,” he says. “Still on secondary sources or have you moved on to primaries?”

“Huh?” Kate asks. She pulls a granola bar out of her backpack and starts chomping down.

“Um, can you eat that in the World Maps Café?” Gary asks loudly, with a frozen smile. Kate sighs and stuffs the bar back into her bag. “Thanks. We have a rodent problem. So . . . primary sources. What I mean is, have you read enough material already that you are now looking at what Ignatius and the early Jesuits actually wrote themselves?”

We all look at each other. I force myself to stay quiet and not say what I want to.
Let's see. Have we looked at actual documents? Like, say, the lost original manuscript of
The Spiritual Exercises
written by the Saint himself?

“You could say primary sources,” I respond in the silence. “Def initely primary.”

Gary nods and motions for us to follow him. He takes us to a computer terminal and uses this as a teaching moment, settling into a very obviously well-rehearsed spiel. He shows us how to search the catalogue and digitally scroll through shelf contents. Then he escorts us back into the elevator, down into the bowels of the library, and through darkened rows of books. We watch in awe as Gary reads the numbers on book spines like they're tea leaves. He's amazing, really. It's like watching an artist at work in his studio.

“Bingo,” he says as his f ingers come to a stop mid-row. “An early translation of Ignatius. Translations often have prefaces that discuss the various languages of prior versions. And as for symbolism . . .” He breaks off and jogs to a computer console. We watch as he returns with a slip of paper. He points us in the direction of the Fine Arts section, and holds out a list of call numbers for books about early Jesuit art.

Jay takes it and shoves it into his pocket. “Thanks, Gary,” he says. “You were a huge help, man. I mean it.”

“No worries,” he says, heading back to the elevator.

When the doors close behind him, a familiar idea comes:

Think it, do it.

I look at Kate and Noah. “Jay and I will go,” I blurt out. “To f ind the art books.”

Kate raises her eyebrows. “Okaaay,” she says. “I guess Noah and I will stay here and read what we've got. You two . . . have fun.”

I roll my eyes at her and grab Jay's arm. We head for the elevators. I push the button, anxiously looking at fellow library patrons as they pass. I'm fully aware of how on edge I am, how I expect to see Mom around every corner. I jump a little as the elevator bell chimes upon arrival. The doors swoosh open. No one is inside. We go in and stand in the elevator alone. I glance over at him as the car starts to move.
It's time. I've liked him long enough.

It's an urge, it's a whim—could be coming from me, could be coming from a spirit who's messing with me. Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe this is what spirits have been trying to get me to do since the ninth grade. I've got to f igure out what they want; maybe they want this.

Jay looks at the f loor, lost in thought. Or maybe sadness.

“You okay?” I ask. I'm wishing he'd look at me; I want to know if he sees a spirit. But he doesn't. He keeps his eyes f irmly on the elevator f loor.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess.”

The thought again:
do it.

I take what I hope is a non-obvious little side-step closer to him, catch a whiff of the drier sheet scent that's coming from his shirt. I plot my course. I've never done this before. I go over what I imagine the steps should be:
lean, turn, lip alignment, contact, done
. Right? And if there's a spirit with me, urging me on, I need to move quickly. It would be so weird for Jay to be kissed by me—when he doesn't see just me. It needs to be over before he has time to realize what's happening.

I take a deep breath. But before I can whip up the nanosecond of heroics that the lip-alignment step requires, the elevator lurches to a halt with a loud chime. We're at the Fine Arts f loor. The doors slide open, and like a def lating balloon, all the romantic tension that may or may not have been building in the elevator empties out in one sad whoosh of air.

“I need a minute,” Jay says as we step out. He hands me the list of call numbers. “Can you f ind the books? I'm going to head outside. Okay?”

“Um,” I say slowly. “Okay.” If it weren't so amazingly obvious that he wanted to be alone, I would try to go with him. But the armor of numbness f its better than ever. I play it cool. And he takes off.

I f ind a few
books on Jesuit symbolism and head back to the History Section. Jay is nowhere in sight. Kate has spread a variety of snacks out on the table with the cool green study lamp, and Noah is hunched over three different books.

“You're going to get us kicked out,” I say, eyeing Kate's snack selection. “You're only supposed to eat in the maps café.”

“Whatever,” she says, popping a handful of gummy bears into her mouth. “I f ind breaking small rules strangely fulf illing.”

Noah pats the seat next to him. “Sit down. Check out what I found in the book Gary gave us.”

I do and he scoots our chairs close. He holds up a green book so I can see the front.
The Spiritual Exercises
. “This is the oldest English translation of Ignatius's book that they have here
.
Published in 1914.” He sets it down and opens to the preface.
“Here it talks about all the versions that ever existed. Basically, there was the original that Saint Ignatius wrote by hand, which is lost.” His eyes sparkle. “Which is I'm sure what you guys found in the cave. And it's likely a mix of three languages: totally incorrect Old Castilian, made-up Latin words, and Ignatius's native Basque.”

“Made-up Latin?” I ask.

Noah nods. Then I remember when Jay read some of the history of the saint. How in early life he was terrible at Latin and didn't know it very well. “And what's Old Castilian?”

“Don't know,” Noah says. “Kate, can you Google?”

“On it,” she says. She takes a swig of Mountain Dew and pops more gummy bears in her mouth. “Okay, Castilian in Ignatius's time would be Old Castilian, or Medieval Spanish. It's just an old form of Spanish that was used from the tenth century through the f ifteenth.”

“So that's why some of the words in the original look
sort of
Spanish,” I say.

Noah nods. “So maybe the words in the original manuscript that totally stumped Google Translate are—”

“Made-up Latin,” I conclude. “Since he made them up, Google Translate couldn't make sense of them at all. So it threw up its little digital hands and guessed Finnish. And Slovak. But Ignatius got some of the Latin and Castilian close enough, that GT was able to detect them.”

Noah smiles and kicks back in his chair. “Think we could have future careers in the FBI? CIA?”

The elevator chimes, and Jay emerges. He slides into the open chair at our table. We all scowl at exactly the same moment. In his wake is an unmistakable, completely nasty, almost choking cloud of cigarette smoke.

“OMG,” Kate says, pulling her T-shirt up over her mouth. “You
reek.
”

“What?” Jay asks, trying to look all innocent.

“
Really?”
Noah says. It's all any of us need to say.

Jay runs a hand through his bed-head hair. “Don't judge, okay? I kept the smokes I bought at the gas station on our way up here. I just . . . needed one.”

“What do you mean, you
needed
one?” I ask. “What does that even mean?” But before I can continue my smoking inquisition, I see something. Where Jay sits. A shadow passing over him: f lashes of someone I've seen before; I recognize the mean hazel eyes and blond hair. It's the same person I saw when this was all starting, when Jay was texting Sarah that night after we got back from the cemetery.

Kate scoots her chair back from the table. Her eyes are wide and glossed over like they're coated with gummy bear sugar. I know she sees it, too. She stares at the spirit f lickering inside Jay, and then holds her hand over her mouth like she's going to throw up.

“
I can't take this anymore,
” she whispers. And then she makes a beeline for the bathroom.

Noah watches Kate go and then leans toward me. “Is he—?”

I nod my head and mouth the word
yes,
not saying it out loud. And as I sit there watching it happen, thinking back to the elevator before Jay took off to smoke, something occurs to me. I wonder if he was inhabited before he went outside, and if this spirit we're seeing is an evil one. Maybe he was with Jay in the elevator, and I missed it because I wasn't looking at him. And as I inhale the third-hand smoke emanating from Jay's clothes and I see the sad, lost-rebel look in his eyes, I wonder if damaged people are easy targets. Because I know that beside the def inition of
damaged
in the dictionary, there needs to be a hyperlink to Jay's Facebook page and to mine. And to our whole Back on Track crew
.
I wonder how often evil spirits have been toying with all of us—the messed up, the grieving—subtly steering us in the wrong direction.

The spirit passes, and Jay is back to himself.

I look down at the pile of books we've amassed on the table, and the memory of Mom's last night alive comes to me again. How there might have been evil spirits there, urging me to stay quiet. How I ignored the good ones crying out to stop her
.
And I know I've got to f igure this out, how to discern what these spirits want from us—and fast. I don't ever want to make another mistake like I did that night. And if there's a way to see Mom again, to tell her I'm sorry, to help her, I have to f igure it out. I
have
to.

“Hand me Kate's Mountain Dew,” I say to Noah. “I'm going to need it.”