by Brenda Drake
“I have lip gloss on.”
“Root beer flavored Lip Smacker doesn’t count.”
“Get serious. I swear that guy just vanished.”
“You probably imagined him.”
“Whatever, he was there.” I pushed my chair away from me. Was he? Or did I imagine it? I was determined to find out.
“Where are you going?” Afton’s frown deepened.
“To find that guy,” I said, already walking away.
“He probably went out the back or something,” she whispered after me.
“I would have seen him walk away,” I said over my shoulder, a little too loudly, judging by how the man sitting at the settee across the room jumped.
The dark clouds outside made the reading room bleak and somewhat sinister. With the old graveyard right outside the windows, I envisioned all sorts of Revolutionary ghosts soaring around the burnished metal-disk light fixtures hanging from the white wooden arches of the cathedral ceiling. It felt like an ice cube skittered down my back, and I inhaled deeply. The musty smell of books filled my nose. Get over it, Gia. Seriously. How dangerous can a library be? But that didn’t stop me from jolting when a girl slid her notebook along a table.
Creepy plaster busts of famous men stared down from the niches above. A small table and two spindle chairs stood between the stairwells in the alcoves, surrounded by the balconied bookracks. The smacking of my sandals against my heels startled a woman sitting in one of the alcoves. The guy wasn’t in any of them.
I slinked up the stairs to the gallery, ears pricked. He hadn’t gone up there. What was wrong with me? He was just some random guy.
I headed back toward Afton, hesitating as I passed the table he’d occupied. The book he’d been reading lay open to a full-page photograph of a room in a library in Oxford, England. He might not be real, but the book he was reading definitely is. I hesitated then reached out and closed it. The title, printed in gold letters, read Libraries of the World. The book was proof I’d seen him, otherwise, how had it gotten here? No one else had been in this part of the room.
The heavy reference volume sat awkwardly in my arms as I carried it over to the table where Afton sat with wide eyes. “See,” I said under my breath. “He was there. This is his book.”
“You took his book. That’s just a whole lot of wrong.”
“No, it isn’t. He’s obviously done with it.”
“You don’t know that. You didn’t see him leave.” Her eyes darted around the reading room. “Put it back before he returns.”
“He probably went down the back stairs.”
“Or just went to the bathroom.”
I flipped the cover over. “I can’t believe someone like him is into libraries or reads children’s classics.”
“Like him? What do you mean?”
“He looks like he’d read a muscle magazine, not this.”
Afton came to my side and leaned over my shoulder. “What’d you say it was?”
“It’s a listing of the world’s libraries.” I leafed through the pages, pausing at every photograph. Each library was uniquely beautiful. A shiver rode down my spine as I traced each picture with my fingertips. “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could go see each one up close and personal?”
“Yeah, that would be awesome, if I were a book nerd like you.”
“Well, the buildings are amazing. Does that appeal to your inner architect?”
She slammed her hand on the page. “Stop flipping so fast. Look at that fresco. I wish I could paint like that.”
A voice came from behind us. “What’s up?”
Afton gasped, and I started. “Nick!”
The man sitting on the antique settee in the middle of the room angrily rustled his newspaper and glared at us. The woman from the reading nook passed us on her way out, giving us a disapproving look.
Afton placed a finger to her lips. “Shh.”
Nick dropped a hand on each of our shoulders and glanced at the photograph. “Whatcha reading?”
“Wow, you finally decided to join us.” I swiveled around in my seat to face him. “Wait. Let me guess. Did Miss Beacon Hill leave or something?”
“Are you pissed at me?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you sensitive impaired?” Afton whispered, shrugging Nick’s hand off her shoulder. “Of course she’s mad. She’s researching your summer essay on Samuel Adams while you goof off. You should be doing your own work. And about that, what lame-ass chooses a subject because it’s a name of a beer, anyway? Oh. Wait. That would be you.”
“I never asked you to research for me, Gia,” Nick said.
“Riiight. You don’t have to ask, she just does it, and you always take advantage of her.”
“Guys,” I interrupted. “I really don’t mind research. Actually, I love it. So can you both just chill, already?”
“Sure. Whatever,” Afton said with a tight smile.
The man with the newspaper sighed, stood, and stomped off, leaving us alone in the reading room.
I tossed another page. “Check out this library in Paris. It’s so awesome. The Bibliothèque nationale de France.”
They leaned over to get a better view. “Wow, those arches are massive,” said Afton.
“I’ll show you massive.” Nick waggled his eyebrows at her.
Afton straightened and rested her fists on her hips. “Oh no, you didn’t just say that.”
“Hey, what’s this?” Nick reached over me and grabbed a folded piece of yellowing paper. He unfolded it carefully. “Damn, it’s old. I think it’s written in Latin or something. What do you think?”
“It must have fallen out of the book.” I took the paper from him and studied the fancy script. “It’s definitely in Italian. Jeesh, Nick. You’re more Italian than I am.”
“And your point?”
“You should know this,” I said. Nick and I took years of Italian lessons together, but he’d never gotten it. His lack of passion for his Italian heritage bugged me.
“Well, I do know it’s talking about a door,” he said. “Porta means door, right?”
“Yeah, it’s door. Open the door.”
“Well, that’s just strange,” Afton said. “It was probably someone’s bookmark or something.”
“It looks ancient,” I said. “It’s in formal Italian, and the script might be calligraphy, I think.”
Nick leaned farther over my shoulder and tried to read it out loud. “Apre–apra–”
A vision of a young boy wearing Victorian clothes came to me. The paper slipped from my hand, and my breath hitched. The boy stared down at the book, which lay open on a table, and he struggled to say the same phrase just as Nick had. He reached into the pocket of a threadbare coat, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and read it.
“Gia?” Nick’s voice brought my attention back to the paper.
“Yes?” I answered, distracted, still stunned by what I saw. The image felt real. As if I were there standing behind the boy, my hands twisting together while waiting for my turn. My turn at what, I didn’t know.
“I asked how to pronounce it,” he said.
I inhaled, deeply, because I needed air, and tried to focus on Nick’s words. “Pronounce it?”
“The paper?”
“Oh, sorry.” I picked the slip back up and studied it. “It’s aprire la porta.”
The book quivered and its spine thumped against the table.
“It’s an earthquake,” Afton shrieked.
“In Boston? I don’t think so—” The words jammed in my throat as a strong wind swirled around us, smashing me into Afton and Nick and squeezing us together until I couldn’t breathe. The wind whirled faster and faster, drawing us into the page. My heartbeat sped up and when I tried to call out to them, nothing came out.
The squeezing pressure intensified and then it was gone. Wheezing and kicking my legs, I grabbed for something to hold onto, but there was nothing. We were in a pitch-black void. Afton and Nick pant
ed nearby. And before I could call out to them, we fell, the cold air speeding past and wailing in my ears.
Shit, shit, shit!
Afton let out a piercing scream and Nick cursed. My sandals were sucked away from my toes.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Afton cried.
I recited the Hail Mary.
Nick repeated each verse.
Musty air punched my face.
My stomach clenched.
Legs thrashed.
Arms flailed.
We plunged farther.
And farther.
I jerked to a stop, suspended mid-air in inky darkness, my legs level with my body. Afton’s and Nick’s silhouettes were gray masses against the blackness, their whimpers hushed against the wind.
Then we plummeted again.
I held my breath.
Silence.
Cold.
Fear.
Smack!
A dim light tickled through my eyelashes. Sprawled across a carpet, I tried to move, prickly rug fibers scratching my cheek. One sandal hit my head and the other landed on my back. A thud sounded to the right of me and another thud to the left. Books tumbled down around me from the shelves of a nearby bookcase.
Terror pumping through me, I lay there for several minutes, evaluating the pain. My left shoulder and hip throbbed, but nothing was broken. “Afton?” I called out. “Nick?”
“Yes,” he groaned.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“Afton?” She didn’t answer, so I got to my knees and crawled over the books to her. I shook her shoulder. “Afton?”
She didn’t move, but she breathed. I pulled her head onto my lap and Nick scooted to my side, wrapping his arm around my back. The world was a Tilt-A-Whirl, and I wanted desperately to get off. I needed to stop freaking out and get help for Afton, but panic rocked my insides and rooted me firmly in place.
Nick muttered something, and I only caught the word “dead.”
Tears wet my cheeks, and my nose started running. “What did you say?”
“Are we dead?”
I sniffed. “I don’t think so.”
Nick pulled a wad of tissues he always kept for his fierce allergies from his pocket and then passed them to me with a shaky hand. “Here, they’re not used.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the wad and then blowing my nose.
Afton stirred. “Ouch,” she moaned. “What happened?”
“We fell through a wormhole,” Nick said.
Afton sat up slowly. “What’s a wormhole?”
“It’s a shortcut through space.”
“This isn’t Star Wars or one of your video games.” I helped Afton to her feet. “It’s some sort of…something.” But nothing I’d ever experienced before.
“Okay. I’m freaking.” Afton’s lower lip quivered. “We fell. It was dark. This can’t be happening, right?”
“Oh, it’s happening.” Nick struggled to his feet. “Where do you think we are?”
A dim light illuminated the stadium-sized room. Above us, circular windows resembling flowers rimmed the edge of a vast domed ceiling. Underneath the dome, massive concrete arches vaulted over cherry wood bookshelves. Library lamps with green glass shades lined the tops of several long tables stretched across the room.
We’d landed in a reading room I recognized.
Fear grabbed me, but I sucked it back, willing myself to stay calm. My arms and legs betrayed me, though, trembling uncontrollably. “I think we’re in the library from the photo in that book. The one in Paris.” My voice came out shaky. Though certain we were in that library, I hardly believed it myself. I had to stay calm and figure this out.
I turned to Afton and asked, “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. I think I just fainted.” She wobbled a little before righting herself. “Do you think that guy had something to do with this?”
“Maybe,” I said, searching under the scattered books for my sandals. I found them and struggled to put them on with trembling hands. “I don’t know. What time was it back home?”
“Three or so,” Nick said. “Why?”
“This library’s closed. Isn’t it like a seven or eight hour difference between Boston and Paris?”
“It’s six hours,” said Afton. “What’s your point?”
“Then it’s about nine at night here, and I’m guessing we’re stuck in this library until morning.”
“Th-this is a dream,” Afton stuttered and clung to Nick. “We’re going to wake up. We have to wake up.”
“You’ll be okay.” Nick wrapped his arm around her.
“We should see if anyone is still here,” I said.
Nick raked his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “How can you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Act like we took a trip on Delta or something, instead of being warped here by some insane magic.”
“Look, I’m freaked out, too, but let’s not panic.”
“Hello, already panicking here,” Afton said. “I just want to go home.”
Pounding my feet and shrieking wasn’t going to get us out of this mess. Funny how I normally was the one scared of everything—with reason—but here I was keeping everyone calm. I looked around. “Crap. I don’t have my bag. Do you guys have your cell phones?”
“No.” Afton swept a strand of hair away from her mascara-soaked cheeks. “It’s in my purse.” I handed her an unused tissue, and she wiped her inky tears away.
Nick dug his cell phone out of his front pants pocket and stared at it. “No service.” He held it up and walked around, searching for a connection. “Nothing.”
“It’s because you don’t have international roaming on your phone,” Afton said.
I headed to the door. “Let’s find something.”
“Like what?” Nick snapped.
“I don’t know…something…a landline maybe.”
“Oh yeah, let’s call our parents. I can hear it now.” Nick imitated my voice by raising his to a higher pitch. “Hello, Pop. My friends and I got warped to Paris. Can you pick us up? They’d think we were on drugs or something.”
“Oh, please.” Afton’s voice sounded strained. “Could you just stop with the sarcasm already?”
“What do you want to do, then?” I asked him.
Nick shrugged. “Go find a phone, I guess.”
I glared at him before crossing the ginormous reading room to the nearest door. Nick and Afton trailed behind me. When I touched the doorknob, a loud wail came from the other side of the door, and I snapped my hand back.
“Is that an alarm?” Afton asked.
“I don’t think so—”
Something like an animal’s claws scratching across the floor screeched from behind the door. I gulped. That didn’t sound like any guard dog I’d ever heard before.
“What the hell is that?” Nick said.
Afton grabbed Nick’s arm tighter, her eyes wider than her makeup compact.
I stumbled back. “Wh-whatever it is—” Thud! Something heavy slammed against the door. “Hide!”
Chapter Three
I grabbed a stapler and crouched behind the nearest cabinet. Nick and Afton ducked down beside me. I pulled the leg down on the stapler, held it up, and readied it to shoot.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Nick said.
“What are we doing?” Afton squeaked out. “If it’s security, they can help us.”
“How are we going to explain us being here after closing?” I whispered. “We’re trespassing. And we’re in a foreign country, we could get arrested—”
The door slammed against the wall, followed by heavy panting.
“That sounds like one big puppy,” Afton said.
“Be quiet.” I motioned for them to follow me as I squat-walked down the length of the cabinet to the other end. The dog sniffed the air, making a sound like an overheated game console.
“Gross,” Afton said in a small, choked voice. “Seriously
, gross. What is that smell?”
“A security dog with road kill breath, I’d say,” Nick whispered back.
I peered around the corner but couldn’t see it. Its howl skittered down my spine, and a nearby table rocked as it brushed by, almost toppling the lamps and sending their pull cords chiming against their brass bases.
A shadow caught at the corner of my vision. I tensed and spun around. Nothing was there.
The dog’s pants grew closer. The stink made me dizzy and I struggled to focus. We needed a safer place to hide. Across the room, bookcases lined the wall, and there was a balcony right above them. “Follow me,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Nick scooted closer. “To where?”
“See that balcony?” I pointed to it. “We can hide.”
“How are we getting up there?” Afton said.
“We have to climb the bookcases.” I eyed Afton’s sandals. “I think you should ditch the spikes or you won’t make it.”
“Crap. These are my faves.” She unbuckled the straps and removed them. “Okay, ready.”
I scooted around the corner and smacked straight into a guy resting on the heels of his boots and peering around the side of the cabinet. It was like running into a muscled barrier—he barely swayed. Intense dark eyes stared at me from the eyeholes of a knight-like helmet with gold wings. Threaded through the straps of a small shield, his arm bent across his chest for protection. The ornately textured handle of a sword stuck out of a metal scabbard at his side.
I fell back on my butt, gasping, and scrambled away from him.
He raised his finger to his lips to silence me, and, like a tracking panther, slipped around the corner and sneaked off in the direction of the animal’s sounds.
In a flash, an Asian girl appeared and sank to her knees beside me. She wore a black leather catsuit and a black-and-jade samurai helmet with a mask that covered half her face. A katana with a green corded handle balanced upright in her hands. She nodded at me and then slithered after the guy. Three other teenage boys, all wearing a cross between biker and knight-like gear, hurried past me.
“Where did they go? And why do they have swords?” Nick stretched up and peeked over the top of the cabinet. “I can’t see them. Is anyone else concerned they have weapons?”