The Lake and the Library (9 page)

When I turned back to him, he was staring at me with those relentless, piercing spheres. He quickly looked away and shook his head, like I shouldn't really be jealous of him after all.

“It would've also been nice to have met you sooner, too,” I dared to admit, pivoting towards him. “Have you lived in Treade for long? I've lived here forever and I've never seen you before. And believe me, I would have seen you.”
I would have been drawn to you
, I thought, but I swallowed that away like a lot of my awkward adolescence.

He didn't look up or even try and sign an answer. “You
are
from Treade, aren't you? Or maybe Winnipeg? Do you have family here?”

Leaning the back of his head against the wall, he shut his eyes and let go of an immense sigh. He pointed to the floor.

“What?” I looked down. “You mean . . . here? You don't . . .”

Slowly, his eyes opened. A smile flickered past his teeth.

“Li . . . you
live
here?”

I'd never considered the idea until it had fallen out of my mouth. If I had asked myself before, I wouldn't have believed my head. But his way with this room, the mischief in his eyes . . . the library's blueprints were his fingerprints. It was more his mansion palace than it would ever be mine, and he was the vagabond king.

Some of his vitality came back, my moment of realization floating off towards the climbing sun as he took credit for my guess. He curtsied, welcoming me into his sacred inner sanctum. I returned the favour.

“Well, thank you for having me, and for not kicking me out when you had the chance.” I laughed. “I hope you don't get in trouble for squatting here. You'll eventually have to hightail it once they tear this place down though . . .”

He cocked his head, unsure of what I meant. “Well, some development company owns this place, now. That's okay. You really don't have to stay here, though. Really. Whatever the problem is, you can always come to my mom's place. We have a spare room and—”

Even as I offered, I knew it wouldn't fly. He waved me off like I was one of his court jesters who was offering too many empty praises to the king. I wondered what Mum would think if I brought a strange, homeless mute boy home, especially one that dressed in the wrinkled remains of a suit shirt and pants, with eyes like gleaming agate who could do real magic. Bend reality. Make true dreams. She probably wouldn't think much of it, anyway. But Li was as hard to pin down as the little bit of light filtering through that porthole window. And that just made me want to see him more often. Keep him company. Harmonize the threads of our daydreams. Even if, for a second, I wondered if it was something sinister that had forced him to hide here. I shook my head.

“Okay, fine, I'll let you continue being homeless and I won't say a word to anyone. That's your business.” I acquiesced and bowed low, and he knighted me with an invisible sword, welcoming me into his fold. “Besides, who wouldn't want to live in a library?”

I
have always had books. I couldn't remember ever being without them. In them was the magic the world was all too keen on forgetting. Every moment of my life could have been a line, every shining memory an etching beside a chapter heading. I always had two books on me — just in case I finished one, I'd always have a backup. Books were my way of losing myself, of dreaming myself elsewhere and elsewhen. Every single one became my world in the reading, while the real world turned, ignored, under my feet.

When I was twelve, I was in love with Jake Ackerman. He wasn't anything special, and he'd never said a word to me, but my daydreaming made him into someone else. He was from the upper school of Treade Collegiate, and I sometimes saw him reading at lunch period . . . when he wasn't surrounded by his goofball buddies, anyway. But he had a golden mane like Aslan, held himself like Holden Caulfield without the entitlement, and had the kind of eyes that might have (wrongly) convinced Catherine that Heathcliff was not the devil incarnate after all. He was also on the junior high football team, and I was obsessed with romance and the concept of true love happening anywhere, anytime. Always hopeful, in an awkward kind of way. But the awkward ones were always dreaming their way out, and I was keen to do the same.

So I went to all his games, which were always losing ones. I'd sit at the top of the bleachers, bent over a book, only looking up when Jake's number forty-two flashed feebly across the field. And one day it flashed my way.

“Hey, it's the
reader
,” one of the guys with him said, passing my bleacher on their way home after the game.

“Yeah,” I shrugged, putting my
Secret Garden
face down in my lap as all his friends looked on, shoving each other and grinning as my face grew hotter. I looked quickly at Jake.

One of the boys snorted, “Aww, I think she likes you, Jakey. Jakey loves to read all kindsa girly shit, too, dontcha buddy?”

This was his chance to come to my rescue, that John Hughes moment where he told them all to back off and admitted that we were made for each other. Our eyes met. His Heathcliff eyes crinkled in disgust like someone had barfed at his feet. Then he looked away. “You guys wanna go to 7-Eleven or not?”

They continued down the end of the field like I hadn't been there at all. And I wish I hadn't.

But now . . . I sat on the vanity stool in my bedroom, contemplating my face in my chipped-plaster mirror as all the Jake Ackermans in my life slipped away like old skin. I had no use for them. The stories I read, those fantasies and adventures. They were my swords in the dark. They were what kept me from giving up on myself, on my heart. They were woven into the fabric of me, and I did not need to be rescued by anyone. I would be the hero of my fairy tale, real or not.

Except now I was inhabiting that fairy tale in a way I never thought possible.

The magic of it, the library, Li. All of it rolled together in my chest and became my secret. And maybe I was Li's secret, too. But he took ownership of it, let it infiltrate his flesh and blood and become part of him. It was happening to me, too, because this secret was shaping me, insinuating folds and creases where there were none, and throwing me into the air like a paper bird. I twitched a smile at myself in the mirror, and a gentle hum revved up beneath my breast bone. There was magic in this world to be grasped at, and I was a part of it. My eyes darted to the porcelain masks and china jesters hanging drolly about the mirror, trappings I'd collected over the years because I somehow thought they'd bring me closer to Wonderland, to Oz. But I'd found it without them; it was
me
that made that sparrow fly. It was in me, all along, in some way. And the library was where that power could grow. We spent the entire day wrapped up in paper charms, making hundreds of birds flit around us until the air was thick with them. I had touched them, felt them, seen them. And for now, that was enough for me.

The sense of possession I immediately felt was enough to make my nerves tighten, make my arms quake, and make my self-importance soar. Finally, something existed just for me in this sterile town where everything was everyone's until it was smothered. I alone was illuminated against the secret's quiet glow.

I padded kitten quiet down the stairs and into the kitchen, hopping and skipping over the tumult of boxes littering the floor that were, as yet, unfilled. Mum was already trying to square our lives away in a few cardboard cubes so we could start it anew somewhere else, but for the moment she had given up. I couldn't hear her puttering anywhere in the house, and, assuming she still hadn't come home from the night shift, I eased up my air of inconspicuousness. The night before, I had filled an old picnic basket with things she wouldn't miss: extra cheese, soup, canned veggies, sandwiches, fruit. Apple turnovers (store bought) and soda. As much as I could grab without it looking like we'd been raided. I didn't know where Li was getting food, or how, but I felt like I had to pay him back for giving me . . . well, something I couldn't explain yet. I must have got carried away in my giddiness to make good my escape, but facing my mother's appearance in the living room, I was graceful enough to give away only surprise. Instead of the usual curiosity, she smiled, kissed me on the forehead, and said, “Have a good time, sweetie.”

I blinked as she climbed to the top floor, her slipper-shuffling and ensuing cigarette smoke fading to her room.
That was easier than I thought . .
.
Though
, I continued to reason in my head as I thrust the door open,
she probably just thinks that I'm heading out to see
—

As Paul shifted his Buick into park and Tabitha popped the passenger door, I saw why Mum had been so blasé.

I froze, feeling like my blood was draining out of my feet and onto our front stoop. Both guilt and bitterness reared their heads, battling for the victor in the pit of my stomach. My weakened smile at their approach raised the flag for bitterness's take of the win.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked, letting the genuine shock play the part for me.

“Thought we'd drop by.” Paul shrugged, passing a secluded glance to Tabitha.
Just like before
. Something else, something I had not really taken account of in a few days, snarled to life inside my chest. How could it be jealousy when I'd been consciously avoiding them?

His plotting eyes targeted my basket. “Hey, picnic!”

“Yeah, I was . . .” If I said
meeting someone
the jig would be up. It felt like there really was a rock slide coming for me, but it was made out of empty excuses and awkward pauses, and there was no jungle or adventure waiting for me in the back seat of that car.

Paul took a step back, starting to appraise the truth. It was his turn to look hurt. “Well, if you're . . . busy . . .”

“No!” I scrambled to evade the truth. “I was . . . going to surprise Tabs.” I looked at her and forced myself to nod. “Surprise.”

Tabitha bundled me into a hug, laughing. I avoided her eyes. “We should go to the park,” she suggested as they steered me towards the car. I had nothing left in my arsenal except weak compliance.

I kept checking my phone for the time from the confidence of my pocket. I had expressly promised Li that I would meet him at the library two hours ago. I sat in the park while Paul and Tabitha chatted on and on, knees brought up to my mouth as I watched Wilson's Woods beyond the baseball diamond, trying to send my thoughts there.

“Are you okay, Ash?”

I whipped my head in Tabitha's direction. “Oh yeah. Why?”

I loved them. I did. And I knew that, after this summer had turned away from us, there would be a lonely hole inside of me that they used to occupy. But for now, I drowned in the highly pressurized depths of my thanklessness, feeling every bit intruded upon as they tried to keep me involved in the conversation.

Tabitha crumpled the wrapper of a turnover and tucked it back into the basket. “Canned veggies? What, were you running away?”

I felt the corner of my eye twitch as I looked away again, aggravation stabbing at me when I realized they had raided my carefully packed food. “I guess I haven't packed a picnic in a while.”

“Oh, hey, did you ever find that thing you wanted to show me?”

I clenched the sleeve of my shirt. “Hm? What?”

“The other day, you came by my place. What was it?”

I clenched harder, searching the inside of my eyelids for a lie. “Oh. No. I lost it. It was nothing. Just a . . . picture of something.”

The wind screamed in high reprieve at any unyielding suspect on the ground. It was a terrible day to be outside in the open, but we were pacifying nostalgia, bad weather or not. I had even spent a little extra time doing my hair, feeling more girly than I ever had, because for the first time I had someone special waiting for me and only me. The wind had ruined that now, flattening it against my head like a veil, eroding me down to the core.

The more they talked, the more it felt like there was water rushing in my ears, like something solid was growing and separating us, making me deaf to them. I let the water rise, because the day had been stolen from me, and they were being greedy with my time when I wanted to invest it somewhere else. With
someone
else. If Tabitha had just gone with me a few days ago instead of shutting me out, they could have been a part of it, too. But right at that moment, I didn't want them to be a part of anything. Especially the library. Especially Li.

When I didn't laugh or add anything to whatever jokes the two delivered, Tabitha pinched my knee.

“What?” I snapped back, the offender recoiling once I'd barked her away. The two exchanged glances, and the beast inside snarled again with reproach for their misplaced judgement.

“You seem kinda out of it, Ash.”

Paul's concern probed into me, his logic train building the rails as it moved. I bit the tongue that twisted inside my mouth as I shook my head, tempted to let it untangle and wag him into silence.

Tabitha nailed me deeper. “If it's about the other day, about our place . . .”

I got to my feet then, stretching with feigned casualness. I pocketed one hand and checked my phone, eyes blazing again at the lost time. I nabbed the basket and shrugged.

“It's kind of cold out here, and—” I managed a well-placed pause, all the possible excuses I could make bobbing to the surface of my impatience like shined apples. I plucked one, admiring its shine. “My mom needs a hand with squaring some stuff away that we had in storage. For the move, and all.”

Not only was it convincing, but it cut them, too, reminding them that I had things to do in order to secure my getaway. We made our goodbyes with weakened hugs and hushed waves, and I granted myself the pleasure of jogging off. Before I got very far Paul stopped me, and I could barely rein in my contempt any longer.

“Want a ride home?”

I kept walking, waving him off, not wanting to waste any more time. “It's okay. You guys hang here. Don't let me ruin the fun.”

I galloped down the hill past the playground, and at its end I turned, ducking down in a thick of trees. I felt instantly ashamed that I should hide from them now, waiting for them to pick up and leave so that I could prevent their attempt at being good to me.
You made a promise
, that dark beastie in my chest reassured me. I forgot that I had made my friends all kinds of promises, too.

Finally, after ten minutes that passed like snails caught in a glue spill, the two stood up and strolled down the field towards the road that would take them back to Paul's car. A smile shot up onto my lips like a triumphant arrow, ignoring the almost sad slump in my friends' shoulders as they ambled off, defeated. I was too caught up to notice I had done anything wrong as I sprung from hiding and headed for the chain-link fence.