by Keary Taylor
Finally, he took my hand, shaking it twice. “Nathaniel Nightingale.”
Even his name was a little intimidating and elegant.
“It’s nice to meet you, Nathaniel,” I said. “Do people call you Nate?”
“No,” he answered simply.
He was a little cold and a lot blunt. I wasn’t quite sure how to take it yet.
“I’m hoping that maybe someone’s checked a book back in,” I said, moving on. I rattled the title off to him and he turned to check the large rolling shelf behind him, filled with books waiting to be returned to their proper places.
My eyes dropped to the desk. There were dozens of books spread across the counter. Some of the titles were familiar, some weren’t. Some I’d heard of, some were materials for classes far above my own freshman courses.
A particularly old-looking book lay just to my right. It was opened to the middle, like maybe Nathaniel had been reading before he’d gotten busy working.
I braced my forearms on the counter and leaned forward, curious about what someone like him might read for enjoyment, or perhaps what he was studying for his degree.
The words were in a language I didn’t recognize, though many of the characters were of Latin origins. I squinted, tilting my head, trying to decipher it since it was upside down.
I glanced up, seeing that Nathaniel’s back was still turned to me as he searched for my book. Quickly, I reached across the counter and dragged his toward me.
I felt stupid for not being able to read it upside down. As soon as I pulled it toward me and turned it right side up, I could read every single word.
My eyes took in a few key words while I looked at the top for a title or an author or a subject.
Soul.
Feeling.
Origins.
A hand with long fingers slapped down in the middle of the spine, and I cringed when it made a cracking sound. With wide, startled eyes, I looked up to meet Nathaniel’s.
“This book is very old, and from my personal collection,” he said, his voice dark and hinting at controlled anger. “It is not for student study.”
“I wasn’t—” I started to defend. But I absolutely was.
With his long fingers, he dragged the book toward him and away from me, out of my grip.
As my eyes fell back down to it, the words once more looked foreign.
“Wait, I…” Words left my brain as I tried to pick out the words I’d read before. But like the first moment I looked at it, they were once more foreign. “What…what language is that written in?”
“Scottish Gaelic,” Nathaniel said, sliding it back to the place I’d found it, and closing the cover.
I blinked, shaking my head. “I don’t know much Gaelic, but I swear I could read that page for a second.”
Instantly, Nathaniel’s gaze snapped back to me, his brows furrowing with his penetrating gaze. “Are you a Celtic languages major?”
I shook my head. “No, Latin.”
I didn’t know what to say as Nathaniel continued to stare at me, his gaze intense and intimidating.
He took half a step back from the counter and bent. I watched in confusion as he rummaged around for something below, where I could not see. Eight seconds later, he stood back up, and laid the book I had been looking for on the desk.
“This is also from my personal collection,” he said, his voice calmer now, but more controlled sounding. “The library currently doesn’t have any more copies. I’ll need it back. But you can borrow it for the weekend.”
My eyes slid back up to his and I just looked at him for a few seconds too long, feeling totally at a loss for words. But eventually, I blinked, and nodded. “Thank you,” I said, cautiously reaching for the book and pulling it toward me.
He just held my gaze, and I couldn’t help feeling like he was studying me. Like he was trying to read some kind of information right off my skin.
I couldn’t take the stare-off any longer. I looked away, tucking the book back into my bag. “Do you work again Monday evening?” I asked, trying to move past the intensity.
“Yes,” he replied simply. As if the word snapped him back into the reality of this moment, he turned, and continued working his way through the books, and I felt the finality of our conversation.
I hadn’t realized how shallowly I’d been breathing until I turned and walked down the aisle of study desks, and finally took one deep breath.
Chapter Two
Sunday evening played out much the same as all the others in my life.
Dad and I had eaten dinner and cleaned up. We’d washed the dishes together, dried them, put them back in the cupboard. Then we made our way into the living room. From mid-September to May there would be a fire roaring, but we weren’t quite there yet, so for now, Dad had lit half a dozen candles and set them on the hearth. Together, we each sat in an overstuffed chair in the bay window, and we read.
I doubted anyone in the world had read more than my dad. He went through a book a day, rarely did it take him two to finish one. He read everything, from autobiographies to science-fiction, and from books on physics to research papers on the dark arts in ancient times. He devoured it all.
I guessed that’s what made him such a good professor. He was interesting and he was smart.
I was nearly done with the book Nathaniel had lent me. The refresher had been good, though not entirely necessary. I’d remembered more than I expected and completed the homework assignment without any trouble. Now I just wanted to finish the book again for my own fun.
The scent of the house was warm and cozy. Our house smelled like a library, because it very nearly was one. Every spare wall in the house contained a bookshelf. None of them matched. But every single shelf was stuffed to the brim. It was a hobby of my parents, to rummage books at yard sales and used bookstores. Occasionally the area libraries would sell their surplus books, and you could guarantee my parents would be there.
Where there weren’t bookshelves, the floors creaked, and the house tilted to the north just a little bit. It was old. One of the oldest in Harrington, built along the perimeter around Alderidge. All the houses on this row belonged to professors. They were all a mix of brick and white siding, dating back over two hundred years. When Dad wasn’t reading, or teaching, or grading papers, he was fixing problems on the house, or hiring someone to do the job.
But this was home. And it had been home my entire life.
I came to the end of the book, filled with that familiar sensation of reflection and sadness that the story was over. I closed it and uncurled my legs from beneath me.
“I’m heading to bed,” I said softly. I stood and stepped forward to press a kiss to my father’s forehead. He glanced up at me quickly with a smile, whispered goodnight, and returned to his book.
The stairs creaked as I climbed them. The handrail was getting worn down from being touched so much. We would need to get it re-stained and lacquered again soon or there would be splinters to deal with.
I started down the hall and passed my parents’ bedroom with a quick glance.
The bed was perfectly made. My father’s nightstand was, of course, filled with books, but also random coins, the occasional tie, and a pocket watch he was always forgetting.
My mother’s side contained an array of books and a few scraps of paper with her loopy handwriting. All of it was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Her slippers lay beside the bed, unmoved in a long time.
While my father’s side of the room was well used, lived in, my mother’s was frozen in time.
I tore my eyes away from their bedroom and moved down the hall.
I brushed my teeth in my small bathroom with the clawfoot tub. I braided my hair over my shoulder and turned out the light.
There was a small dormer in my bedroom with a window that looked out at the side of Alderidge. My room, just like the rest of the house, was filled with books. Not posters of singers. There weren’t clothes strewn everywhere or rows o
f shoes taking up entire walls.
I climbed into bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin. I laid Nathaniel’s book on the nightstand, feeling uneasy and excited at the same time about seeing him again tomorrow evening.
I turned in my paper in my Latin class and listened intently to the lesson, even though I knew everything Laurence talked about. When the class was over, I wrote down the next assignment in my planner and packed up my things.
I walked out of my classroom and turned left down the hall to head to my next. I was halfway there when I spotted my father standing in the doorway to his classroom, talking with Nathaniel. My father’s expression was relaxed, casual, none of what I felt during my one and only conversation with the strange young man. Nathaniel listened to my father with rapt attention, his hands in the pockets of his slacks.
I really wanted to go over there and see what they were talking about. It was likely nothing. There was a high probability that my father was his professor or had been in a past semester.
But I didn’t have time right now. I had to get to my writing class, and it was on the opposite end of this building.
The lesson today was dull, and I had to use every ounce of my willpower to concentrate. This was one of those classes that started off with rudimentary basics. This was all stuff that should have easily been mastered by everyone in high school.
Which likely meant that we were about to launch forward with rocket speed at any moment. This was Alderidge, after all.
I walked out of class, ignoring my growling stomach. My schedule had worked out in a way that I started early in the day, ran through the lunch hour, and I finished by 1:30. It was going to take a few weeks for my stomach to adjust to eating lunch that late.
I’d just turned down the hall to head to my Social Studies class when I suddenly found myself shoulder-to-shoulder with Nathaniel Nightingale.
We looked at each other in slight surprise at the timing but fixed our sights forward.
“When you told me your name was Margot Bell and you knew most of the other students here, I did not put two and two together that you are Professor Bell’s daughter.”
“Guilty,” I said as we walked through the halls side by side.
“Your father is a brilliant man,” Nathaniel said. “I’ve taken two classes from him.”
“So, you’re a history major?” I asked, aware of how close he suddenly was as the crowd surged, pressing us together.
“I am,” he confirmed. “With a minor in linguistics.”
“Which explains how you were reading a book written in Gaelic.”
I felt his eyes flick to me, weight and evaluation in his gaze. He was studying me, my features. “Yes,” he said after a beat too long, which made me think it was a lie. But he didn’t look away, which was…confusing. “I also speak French and have studied Olde English. I’m currently working on German and Italian.”
“You don’t need to brag, Nathaniel,” I said. “You’ve already been admitted to Alderidge. I figured out you were smart without so many words.”
I looked back at him and his brows furrowed for a moment. “I thought I was merely making conversation, Miss Bell.”
I gave a little shrug and barely contained a smile. This was fun. I hadn’t had someone my own age to harass in a while.
The problem was that I didn’t think Nathaniel realized I was just making conversation, too.
I eyed the door to my class and Nathaniel slowed when I did, pausing outside the door. “Well, perhaps I can teach you Latin as well, and then you’ll be the smartest lad in all the land.”
Nathaniel looked at me, and I could see the evaluation in his eyes. He didn’t know me yet, didn’t know how to have a conversation with me. I didn’t know him yet either and I had no idea how much I could tease or joke.
“You teach me Latin, and I’ll see if I can teach you to read that book,” he said, and I knew he meant the Gaelic book I’d thought I could read at the reference desk.
“Deal,” I said, and for a moment, my smile cracked through.
Nathaniel didn’t smile though. He continued to stare at me like I was some kind of puzzle. His eyes were dark, concentrated, slightly confused.
But I smiled and turned for my classroom. Just before I stepped inside, I turned back, my hand on the doorframe. “I’ll see you in the library tonight at seven?”
This broke his darkness, and he blinked. Just once, he nodded. “I’ll see you at seven.”
I let myself smile once again and turned into my class.
Nathaniel Nightingale was a strange one. He was so serious, so focused. I didn’t think he was flirting with me, but he stared more intently than any of the three boys who had ever asked me out. He was direct, yet mysterious.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so fascinated by him. He could be trouble. But I was finding it hard to look away.
I put the finishing touches on dinner and called Dad down to eat. Together, we sat at our little table.
“I saw you talking to Nathaniel Nightingale today,” I said as we ate.
Instantly, a smile crossed my father’s lips. “Brilliant boy. Do you know him?”
I gave a slight shrug. “I met him at the library the other day.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Dad said. “He was always my best student.”
“He wasn’t necessarily studying,” I said, picking at my chicken. “He was working. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad about being a male librarian, but I think I might have embarrassed him.”
“I highly doubt that,” my dad said, shaking his head. “He was a student of mine both his freshman and sophomore year. I’ve watched that young man endure a lot from the Society Boys. I don’t think much of anything bothers him.”
I mulled that over, not quite sure what to think of it. Maybe that explained some of the darkness that hovered in his eyes. “What else do you know about him?” I asked.
Dad swallowed his bite and shrugged. “Not that much, really. Just that he’s a history major and has an incredible memory. Bit of a loner. He’s at Alderidge on scholarship.”
This impressed me. Alderidge didn’t give out many scholarships. I was on one, but that was because I had two parents who were professors here. For Nathanial to obtain a scholarship, he must have had a truly brilliant mind.
“What were you two talking about today?” I asked.
My father’s eyes rose up to meet mine. His chewing slowed. “Why the sudden interest in Nathaniel Nightingale, Margot?”
I considered for a moment. I’ve never talked to my dad about boys much, even though he was the only option in the years I was allowed to date. I’ve only ever had one boyfriend, and that had only lasted for three months.
But I always liked to be honest with my father.
“I had kind of a weird interaction with him at the library,” I said. “Not bad, but…he’s just a little odd. He lent me the book I needed for Laurence’s class, from his personal collection. I’m taking it back to him tonight.”
My father looked at me for a few long moments, evaluating the situation. I trusted him. If there was anything to be worried or alarmed about, my father would tell me. If he’d gotten any negative impressions from Nathaniel, my father would warn me.
“Not all boys are social and smooth like the Society Boys,” he finally said. “And that’s a good thing.”
I held his eyes for a few more moments, trusting him and my own gut.
I finished my meal. I grabbed my bag, including Nathaniel’s book, and I headed for the library.
Chapter Three
Tonight, the library was busy. At least half of the tables in the study area were filled.
At the table in the very middle, were the Society Boys.
They weren’t hard to pick out. It was almost as if they were clones of the same person. Well cut, slicked back hair. Fancy, pressed suits. The shiniest shoes. Expensive overcoats. Mean eyes. Watching, probing stares.
They were like a club that didn’t really
do anything but stick together on campus, meet once a month for a party, live in the same houses on campus, and make life harder for the outsiders.
There was their leader—David Sinclair. Devilishly handsome, filthy wealthy, and a complete and utter asshole. And his right-hand man—Borden Stewart, the literal descendant of Scottish Royalty. His family was one of the oldest in the States and made short time in amassing a cache of wealth and property.
All of their other head boys were just as pretentious and unbearable. James Richards, Donald Kline, Gerald Paulson, and Howard Starrling.
I purposefully avoided the table the Society Boys sat at, skirting around the far side and walking down the aisle. But when I got to the circulation desk, I didn’t find Nathaniel, only Mrs. Walker.
“Evening, Margot,” she greeted me with a warm smile and a wink, because she always winked. “How’s your first week of university been?”
“Good,” I said to her, flashing her a smile. Once upon a time, she and my mother had been close friends. But time can change anything. And now Mrs. Walker was just the friendly woman who ran the library. “Not too big of a deal yet. Though I’d guess it will start getting a lot more intense this week.”
“I haven’t worried about you at school for one second,” she said, winking again.
I offered her a smile, pushing back a whole lifetime of memories of her in our kitchen on weekends, laughing and making jokes with my parents. “Hey, I was supposed to meet Nathaniel Nightingale. Do you know where I might find him?”
Mrs. Walker tipped her chin up in the direction over my left shoulder. “He took some books to put back in the British Isles section.”
“Thanks,” I offered with a forced smile.
I set off through the rows of books. Past the fiction section. Past the rooms of Greek and Roman history. I aimed for the fourth room down, my heart starting to beat a little harder, a little faster.
As I stepped into view of the room and found his back turned to me, I paused for just a moment.