The Library
The Marien house stood
behind two grinning stone lions at the end of a crackled cobblestone path.
Maeve brushed one of the paws for luck as she passed. Old raindrops hung from
the ivy above the ancient door.
Inside, Old Marien hovered
behind a reception desk, a short stack of precise papers resting on the desk in
front of her. Her withered shoulders stooped forward and her brilliant eyes,
sunk in a mass of wrinkles and cavities, stared right at Maeve as she made the
long walk down the entryway to the desk.
“Have you thought about
it?”
Maeve smiled. “I’m ready.”
Old Marien pointed with one
long, remarkably straight finger at the pen. A faint smell of incense rose from
her clothes as she moved.
“Sign on the first and last
page.”
When Maeve set the pen back
in the inkwell, Old Marien’s long fingers closed around the stack of paper and
drew it backward.
“One year,” Old Marien
said. Her seamed face cracked into something like a smile, lined with yellow
teeth. “You know the boundaries. Cross the lions and your deposit is forfeit.”
Maeve offered a handshake
across the desk. Old Marien ignored it. Upright except for the stooped
shoulders, she set a single skeleton key in the center of the desk, picked up
her pocketbook, and left. The door clunked shut behind her.
Maeve made a beeline for
the library.
****
Old Marien had lit a fire
in the library. Draped in a blanket in one of the two overstuffed black easy
chairs in front of the fireplace, Maeve looked out across the room, lit from
dim yellow wall sconces. Stacks of books cast long shadows across the room and
holes gaped black on shelves where books used to be.
Nearly two a.m. The hour he
always appeared. Maeve squinted into the dim room.
The newspaper ad had been
the strangest Maeve had ever seen. Beneath the toe of her paint-stained black
sock one morning, she had caught sight of it. Marien family seeking to dispose
of their mansion in town. The house would go to anyone who could remain on the
grounds for a year.
No caveats. Maeve had
checked. She had been the only applicant.
And she knew why. Maeve
opened her book, still scanning the room. She had seen him on her long late
night walks past the house.
The Marien house was
haunted.
Maeve’s eyelids drooped,
the soft roar of the fire smothering her senses. On the edge of sleep, she
thought something cold passed over the fire. But she startled awake to find
nothing there. The draft in the chimney pulled the fire up in jagged
gasps.
She shivered and settled
deeper into her blanket. She sat by the cold fire, watching for him, until the
sun rose.
****
He did not appear that
night. Nor the following night. Nor the night after that. Maeve went to bed as
the sun rose, catnapping on a bed that felt larger than her entire apartment,
and in the evenings she painted, listening to jazz records and drinking hot
honey lavender tea. She left the door open to the patter of the evening rain
and the chatter of the evening traffic on the sidewalk.
And then, as the night
quieted and sank toward midnight, she crept into the library and settled into
her armchair, watching. Waiting.
He never appeared.
A tiny sliver of moon
cleared the top of the fence and hung in the sky, shining faintly. Maeve pulled
her jacket closer, catching a whiff of the paint she’d spilled onto the sleeve,
and closed the front door. Faint strains of Frank Sinatra floated into the dim
hall from the kitchen. Sliding a little on the smooth floor in her socks, Maeve
made her way toward the kitchen, draining the last of her tea. She glanced in
at the library, shrouded in gloom and the faint glow of the fire that never
quite died, in passing.
She froze, the record
suddenly distant and tinny.
In one of the armchairs by
the fireplace sat a long, lean figure, washed-out and faded. Small round
glasses caught the firelight as he bent over a book open in his lap. The pages
rustled as he turned them, searching for something.
Maeve took a soft step into
the room, blinking hard. The figure was pale but not transparent. He wore a
smoking jacket of a deep hunter green.
He was beautiful. For a
long moment Maeve wondered what his story was, wished she had her notebook in
her hands to draw him as she drew the rest, to preserve him for posterity.
She took another step
forward. The pages ruffled as he continued to turn them, still searching for
something. What a life, to be constantly doomed to searching for answers.
Maeve’s socked foot slid
across a rough patch in the flooring and she stumbled. Catching herself, she
slowly straightened and let out a long, silent breath before she looked
up.
Straight into his
eyes.
Stomach sinking, Maeve
found herself unable to look away from pale brown eyes staring at her,
unblinking.
Never look them in the
eyes, she remembered, too late.
The book closed and he laid
it on the table beside his chair. He unfolded himself and stood, long-limbed
and still intently focused on Maeve. The pale brown eyes were deep and wide and
sparkling. Maeve leaned forward, fighting the urge to push closer.
She had months left in the
house. Months to study him. Months to possibly put him to rest. If she could
just avoid touching him.
She reached out. Her
fingers closed on cold air.
Instantly roaring filled
her ears, then the chatter of a thousand people. Images flashed through her
mind--people, faces. Waves of heat and cold swept over her body and she gritted
her teeth so she would not scream as her stomach sank.
When she opened her eyes he
was gone. He left only the ruffling pages of an open book behind.
