Children of Chicago

by Cynthia Pelayo

  Lauren had been to Newberry Library just once, a long time ago. During that field trip for Mr. Sylvan’s class her first year of high school.

  “Newberry is an independent research library with an extensive non-circulating collection of rare books, maps, music, manuscripts, and other printed material spanning over six centuries,” Mr. Sylvan had said.

  As they walked up the stairway to the second floor, Mr. Sylvan had told his class that the library’s collection included over 1.5 million books. Just as Lauren felt skeptical that all of the books could not possibly be held here in this building, Mr. Sylvan had clarified that some books were kept in a facility next door.

  “The majority of the Newberry’s collections are stored in the stacks building, which is not open to the public. When you request a book, manuscript, or a map, a staff member goes to the stacks building and retrieves that specific item. They are then brought to the reader in one of the reading rooms. And as you noticed, there are a few rules that need to be followed in the reading room.”

  He led the class up two more flight of stairs to a large room with emerald green carpeting and long dark wood tables and chairs.

  “Thank you for leaving your items on the bus. Just to reiterate, no food or beverages are allowed here, nor are backpacks, book bags, scotch tape, glue, post-it notes, highlighters or markers.” Mr. Sylvan bounced on his heels as he inspected his class as they entered the room. He held a handout, directing them over to the large wooden tables at the far end.

  “A few other items to note. Pencils—not pens—must be used. You’ll find white sheets of paper and pencils in front of you. Again, we are in the Special Collections Reading Room. This room has a specially regulated temperature for some of the books we’re going to be viewing today to protect the material.”

  He motioned to the items in front of each pair of chairs that were covered in a black cloth. He looked around the room. Lauren could see that everyone seemed disinterested.

  “Gently remove the cloth from the top of your pieces,” he’d said.

  There were a few sounds of ‘What’s this?’ and a few gasps as people unveiled the antique books they would be handling today.

  “I made this exercise easy for you. There’s an envelope next to your book and within that is a card that gives you the title, year published, author, and the significance of that work. Take five minutes, review, and then we’ll go around the room, and you can share what you have.”

  The big brown book in front of Lauren looked weather-worn and damaged. It smelled like their basement after it flooded, and she hesitated to even touch its binding.

  “Time’s up,” Mr. Sylvan said, his tone just below a shout. “Let’s start over here.” He pointed to the girl seated next to Lauren. “What do you have?”

  “This is a first edition Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft, which is pretty cool.”

  “It is pretty cool,” Mr. Sylvan said. “We’ll be reading that in the coming weeks.”

  Lauren clumsily took hold of her card. It slipped and fell out of her hands and onto the table. She took hold of it again, her cheeks flushing pink. “This is a really old book.”

  She looked to Mr. Sylvan, who smiled encouraging. “Just read the card,” he said.

  “Right, it’s the German Popular Stories by...umm...the Brothers Grimm from 1823.”

  “Very good. That’s their second edition. We’re reading some of the Grimm’s works in the coming weeks.”

  “Fairy tales?” She asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Sylvan said and then moved to the next person.

  As people continued to present, Lauren stared at the plain cover. She wondered how many hands had touched the binding. The book was over a hundred years old. Had seen so much. Had traveled so far. She turned the cover. The leather binding feeling almost like human skin between her fingertips. She looked at the elaborate ink stamped image from a publisher long gone. She turned the page and found a table of contents in a language she could not read: German.

  She continued turning pages, fascinated by intricate script. She turned pages in chunks of twenty or thirty pages until she landed on a page with the title Rattenfanger von Hamelin. It was not the title that made her pause, it was the single black page with golden script written in English which she could read.

  As Mr. Sylvan continued going around the room. He did not notice her, and so Lauren read:

  Pied Piper of Hamelin

  Please remove my worry

  Payment will be in blood

  To get the deed done

  If I fail to meet my obligation

  I’ll offer the ultimate item for confiscation

  Before Lauren knew it, she was saying the words softly under her breath. When she finished, she looked around the room. No one had noticed what she had been doing. Mr. Sylvan was talking to the last student about the book in front of him. It was a first edition Agatha Christie novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

  Mr. Sylvan told them all how Agatha Christie was the “grande dame” of mystery and suspense. Lauren had learned very early on in the class how to tune out Mr. Sylvan, and so she did. She scanned the room, noting the large windows, and the large bookshelves. She looked back to the doorway they had entered through.

  She gasped when she saw him. A tall, pale, gaunt man stood in the doorway wearing a dark suit. Something about him made him look not like a man, not like from this era, or even human, but she could not tell what it was that made him so strange. He raised a hand and waved, just to her.

  No one else seemed to notice him.

  The girl seated next to her gave her a dirty look and moved her chair an inch away. Mr. Sylvan glanced in her direction but was now remarking how The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was not only one of Christie’s best works but one of the best crime novels of all time because of the twist at the end.

  When Lauren looked back to the doorway, the strange man was gone.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” Lauren had asked as she stood up. Mr. Sylvan continued speaking and only pointed out the doorway they had entered.

  Lauren rushed to the door. She found herself in the room that was taken up by old card catalog cabinets. Mr. Sylvan had mentioned that the library was in the process of phasing out the old card catalog system. People, were moving their research online. They could all very soon be able to request books online from their home, and when they visited the library, the books would be waiting for them here.

  Lauren passed the aisles of large, gray metal filing cabinets. Searching. She approached the final aisle. Then she’d heard it. A low, soft, airy tone. It was just a few notes, but it was full of melancholy.

  He had been standing at the far end of the aisle, leaning against the wall. A flute in his hands, his lips pressed against the instrument. When he saw her, he dropped it. It fell to his chest, hanging there by a black string. His clothes were black. A black wide brim boater hat rested on his head. His eyes were black marbles. His skin a sickly gray.

  He smiled a sharp smile.

  He removed his hat and gave a bow.

  “I am at your service,” he said.

  Today, they entered an empty reading room.

  “I get a private room?” Lauren mused. The emerald green carpeting was still there.

  “It’s better that way so that the patrons don’t get nervous…with the gun and all,” Sara said, looking down to Lauren’s holster.

  “Sorry, should’ve worn a longer jacket,” she said as she took a seat.

  On the table behind where Sara had brought her, there was a massive book that had taken up nearly half the table.

  “Maps?” Lauren asked.

  Sara smiled. “The Malleus Maleficarum. It translates into roughly the Hammer of Witches. It was written by Catholic clergyman, first published in Germany in 1487. It endorsed the extermination of witches. It was also the second most sold book behind the Bible for 200 years.”

  “Witches?” Lauren arc
hed an eyebrow.

  “These people weren’t real witches, in the supernatural sense.”

  “But that’s what the authors believed?”

  Sara nodded.

  “I don’t believe in the supernatural,” Lauren offered, even though that was false. If she did not really believe, she would not be here right now.

  “You are here to look at a book of fairy tales,” Sara motioned to a covered book at a nearby table. Sara instructed Lauren to wear white cotton gloves provided and to turn the pages slowly. Also, she was not to lift the book up from its bed.

  “Make sure it rests well there...like Sleeping Beauty.”

  “Funny.” Lauren was not amused by the joke, but Sara did not seem to care.

  Before Sara left Lauren asked, “Could you let me know who else has requested to see this book...for the past I don’t know, ten or twenty years?”

  “I’m assuming you don’t have a warrant and you’re hoping that I’ll just show it to you because I’m that kind?’

  “A lot of being a cop is really asking people for things and hoping they are kind enough to do it.”

  “I’ll do it in the hopes that you catch the criminal that you’re looking for.”

  The book did not look spectacular. Its cover did not have gold lettering. It looked old, much older than an old library book perched high up on a shelf no one would ever reach for.

  Carefully, she turned the cover. Then, even more precisely, she turned the next page, feeling the sensation of the paper beneath the glove. She stopped at the table of contents. The list of stories within the book ran down the length of the page on the left and right. She proceeded to turn pages as she had so many years ago, turning, turning, searching, but finding nothing. It was then that she found a gap where the book opened naturally to where a page had been ripped out. The black page with golden script was gone.

  “Here you go.” Sara reappeared and took a seat beside Lauren.

  Lauren closed the book.

  Sara handed her a printed page. “I can’t stand very long these days,” Sara said. “I’m retiring in three weeks. I’ll be back here volunteering, but it’s time I take a very long trip. Germany’s on my list,” she nodded over to the book.

  Lauren gave her a questioning look, all the while her heart raced wondering, who had torn out that page. Who had the rhyme? And worst of all, with the rhyme out of the book, how many people could now call him? She looked at the request sheet, Mr. Sylvan from DePaul College Prep once this year, once last year, and then there was a large gap with her year being the last time the book was requested, over ten years ago when Lauren had reviewed it, but then once yearly before that.

  “Wilhelm and Ludwig Emil Grimm were German, and that’s where they collected nearly all of their tales, Germany.”

  The Brothers Grimm. When Lauren first heard their name, she could not help associating it with the adjective grim, forbidding or uninviting. It was odd, in a way, for a name associated with children’s literature to be a homonym with a word that was related to dangerous and harsh things.

  “Do you know a lot about Chicago history?”

  Sara laughed. “What do you mean by ‘a lot’? This city has a long, complicated history.”

  “It was settled by a diverse group of immigrants, including Germans?”

  Sara nodded and crossed her right leg over her left, rubbing her knee. “Germans, Czechs, Italians, Poles, yes.”

  “And I imagine a lot of them brought their...stories with them?”

  Sara tilted her head. “You mean, superstitions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does this in part, explain the interest in fairy tales?”

  “A little bit.” It was then that Lauren could only assume that this cursed book had traveled here with someone from Germany long ago. Maybe it was a bookseller. Perhaps it was a regular citizen. Or, perhaps it was someone who had to unload this damned thing somewhere.

  “I hope you enjoy your retirement and your trip. I won’t keep you any longer, but thank you,” Lauren said.

  “Will we see a dramatic capture on the news, soon?”

  “You’ll be seeing something on the news, I’m sure.” Lauren slipped off the gloves, set them on the table, thanked Sara, and walked out of the building.

  Once she got to her car, she felt as if she had allowed a bomb to detonate in the world. She should have returned years ago, she had known that. Others had called him, and she should have set fire to that book or that building in order to stop him before he had collected more people.

  CHAPTER 27

  Today was Washington’s last day in Chicago. After this, he would be a permanent retiree. Washington had made it clear he did not want a party. “I’m just a man who cares about the law,” he said as he held up a glass of champagne at his forced send-off at the precinct. His desk had finally been cleared. There were tears, from nearly everyone except Washington. He did not have any more tears to cry, he’d once said.

  Washington was strangely quiet on the drive to the airport. Perhaps it was the shock of knowing that this was the last time he was leaving this city as a Chicagoan. Yes, he would return for his son’s graduation at Northwestern, but beyond that, how often would he be back?

  Lauren exited at the O’Hare International Airport exit off the Kennedy Expressway. She drove steadily towards Terminal 5, International Departures.

  Washington had his hand on his right knee. His leg shook the entire drive.

  Lauren pulled up to the curb, placing the car’s hazard lights on.

  “If you get a ticket, just blame Van,” Washington said.

  “I don’t mind getting a ticket. I just don’t want to get towed,” she said.

  Washington released his seat belt and opened the door. Standing on the curb, he stretched. Lauren opened the trunk of the car and carried his bag over to him.

  “Stop, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Please, you’re an official retired senior citizen. Your goal should be to live an easy life.”

  Washington’s voice cracked. “I miss your dad, and I’m going to miss you, kid.”

  Before she could step in and give him a hug, he started crying.

  “No, Washington, don’t.” She hugged her former partner, one of her only friends.

  He released his hold. “There’s something I need to tell you.” He took both of her hands in his.

  “I promise to take it easy on coffee, and I promise to eat and sleep.”

  He laughed. “This is serious.” He pressed his lips together, looked up to the sky, and then finally met her eyes. “I know,” he said, and that was all that he needed to say.

  “I...” She did not know what to say. There really was nothing left to say.

  He nodded as if telling her she did not need to speak. “At your dad’s funeral, I let myself into his office. He was trying to put something together right before he died. He didn’t finish it, but I was able to. It’s on his desk. You’re welcome to look at it. Do whatever you think is right. I put the key back in the cupboard.”

  Washington gave her one final hug. He promised to call. To email. To text.

  Lauren leaned against the car and watched as he walked through the automatic doors and out of her world.

  Playing chauffeur all morning, first driving Washington to the airport and then Jordan to Hadiya’s funeral almost made her late.

  To another funeral.

  She had not been to this church since Diana was alive. The part of this church that left the biggest impression on her was the chapel in the basement. The old deacon had told her and Diana after one Easter mass in the chapel that the stone that made up the altar was transported from the southwestern French town of Lourdes. Diana’s mouth had dropped. Lauren did not understand her immediate excitement. Lauren later learned that in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains, the Virgin Mary had appeared to a young woman, Marie-Bernadette Soubirous, on nearly twenty occasions. The
Catholic church went on to confirm the authenticity of the sightings as well as meeting Bernadette’s demands of building a chapel at the location of her sightings. Dozens of people had claimed to have been miraculously healed by the spring water that runs through that mountain. Lauren did not understand what the big deal was. How could people just blindly believe a young girl had seen a supernatural being?

  “Couldn’t she have been lying? She was just fourteen years old. Maybe she was doing it to get attention?” Lauren had later asked Diana who was going through a book of songs on her desk.

  “At first no one believed her. I’m sure it was investigated thoroughly, for that time. She’s a saint now.”

  “But...” Lauren stammered. “There’s no way to prove you’re seeing something the person next to you cannot see.”

  Diana looked up from the book and crossed her arms. “There’s nothing I can tell you other than you’re right. Maybe she made it all up. Maybe she didn’t see the Virgin, but I guess that’s what faith is. Wholehearted belief in something. In this case, it’s complete belief that challenges all of our laws of reality.”

  As the Father in the church spoke, Lauren was struck with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, the smell of frankincense, the light streaming in through the stained-glass windows on either side casting colored shadows, and the steady hum that vibrated in this place.

  A man approached her and asked if she would be interested in doing one of the readings. She hesitated but then looked around and realized very few people were capable of separating themselves from their grief today, fixated on the closed white coffin in front of them. The boy inside who would never graduate high school, who would never go to college, who would never smile and laugh and love again. Daniel.

  “Corinthians 15:50-57,” she began, and the words just tumbled out.

  “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

  But thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”