Read It and Weep!

by P. J. Night

  Mrs. Lazer guided her, with a hand to her back, around bookcases full of books and toward the back of the vast room.

  It was hot and stuffy. Charlotte loved the smell of old books, but down here it was overpowering.

  “There’s an old bathroom through here,” said Mrs. Lazer, gesturing toward a heavy oak door standing slightly ajar. “No windows. I think it’s probably the safest place for us.”

  They moved into the small bathroom, which contained an old-fashioned toilet—the kind with the tank mounted on the wall above and that you flushed by pulling on a chain. There was also an old-fashioned sink that had separate faucets for hot and cold, but nothing in the middle. The walls seemed to be made of marble or granite, and the floor was patterned with small, old-fashioned tiles.

  Mrs. Lazer had brought along her battery-powered, portable radio, but the reception was fuzzy and staticky. Several agitated voices kept coming in and out, talking about high winds and touchdowns and other things Charlotte couldn’t make out. “We’ll just stay in here until we think the coast is clear,” said Mrs. Lazer.

  Charlotte nodded, wondering where her mother and brothers were right now. Their house had a basement. That was good. Were they at home? She hadn’t even called to check in this morning before she’d headed from Lauren’s house to the library.

  There was nowhere to sit except on top of the closed lid of the toilet. Charlotte insisted Mrs. Lazer sit there, and Charlotte slid down the wall next to the sink until she was sitting on the floor.

  They heard the roaring wind, which rapidly grew louder and louder like a huge locomotive bearing down on them. The lights went out, plunging them into darkness, but Charlotte was too afraid of what was happening outside to worry about being afraid of the dark. She felt Mrs. Lazer lean forward to clasp her hand and squeeze it. It was a reassuring kind of squeeze. She was glad Mrs. Lazer was there with her. But her mouth went dry from terror and every muscle in her body tensed. The roaring became so loud it was almost unbearable. Had Charlotte chosen to scream at the top of her lungs, Mrs. Lazer probably wouldn’t have heard it, the roaring was that loud. With her back to the wall, Charlotte could feel the very building shaking and quivering. She thought again about her family and prayed that they were all right.

  How much time elapsed while the roaring and the popping and the shaking of the entire building continued? It felt like half an hour. It was probably about a minute. But then everything went still. The roaring stopped almost as suddenly as it had started.

  Charlotte realized she’d had her eyes squeezed tightly closed the whole time. Now she opened them. She couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but a lighter patch of gray appeared, and she realized Mrs. Lazer had opened the bathroom door.

  “Are you all right, sweetie?” she asked. She sounded out of breath, as though she’d just finished a race.

  “Um, yes, fine,” Charlotte replied in a high, tremulous voice.

  “Watch your step now. It looks like some books have fallen down from their shelves.”

  They made their way through the dim basement. It was hard to see with the lights out, but now a somewhat brighter light filtered in through the small windows close to the ceiling. Charlotte was relieved to find that, at least on this side of the room, none of the windows were broken.

  Mrs. Lazer led the way up the stairs, with Charlotte following cautiously behind.

  The small entryway seemed fine. A picture had fallen off the wall but hadn’t broken. Through the door leading into the library, Charlotte could see that the library seemed okay too. A few books were on the floor. Maybe, she thought with relief, it hadn’t been an actual tornado. Maybe it hadn’t—

  Then they stepped inside and saw the whole room.

  Charlotte’s jaw dropped open. Next to her, Mrs. Lazer seemed unable to speak, any more than Charlotte could.

  Along the west side of the library, toward the back, an entire section of wall was missing. Beyond the piles of rubble, dust, and books Charlotte could see green grass and bright sky, a bit of parking lot, and broken fence.

  Piles of books had been thrown off their shelves and lay in haphazard heaps. One of the shelves had tipped on its side, spewing books onto the floor and against the shelf next to it. And one whole section of shelves was missing altogether. It had simply vanished.

  “Look,” breathed Mrs. Lazer, who seemed to have found her voice at last. “The horror section has blown clean away. Weren’t you standing right there when the storm hit?” She clutched Charlotte’s arm. “To think what might have happened.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  Charlotte looked. It was true. Where she had been standing—was it just five minutes before?—there was nothing left. Just a view to the sky, which was now clearing.

  Her mind was a whirl of thoughts, fears, worries. She had to get home to find her family, to see if they were okay. She had to see if her house was okay. And then a thought popped into her mind.

  The card.

  The tornado must have taken it away. All thirteen pieces. The books were gone. The bits of card inside the books were gone. Had she, Charlotte, done this? Had she caused the tornado to come? To blow away part of the library?

  She felt sick just thinking about it.

  Mrs. Lazer had her ear to the radio, listening intently.

  “Does your phone work, Charlotte?”

  Her phone. Of course! She could call her mother. With trembling hands she turned it on.

  No service.

  “There’s no service,” she said. “I need to know if my family is okay. Can I go now? It’s only three blocks.”

  They could hear the wail of sirens in the distance.

  Mrs. Lazer nodded, still listening to the radio. “I think it’s all right now. The sky looks clear and blue. Yes, go. Be careful. I’m going to lock up and go see what’s what with my own house too. Although it feels a little silly to lock the place, when there’s a whole wall missing.”

  Charlotte took off running. She’d only just made it down the front steps of the library when she felt her phone buzz. Was cell service back?

  She whipped it out of her jacket pocket. It was a message from the mysterious texter.

  It’s over. For now.

  Chapter 13

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  Lauren staggered over with another huge box and deposited it on the table in front of Charlotte with a loud thump.

  “Wow. More, huh?” said Charlotte, looking around for the scissors. “I think people have donated five times more books than the library actually lost in the tornado.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Lauren with a grin. She picked up the scissors that were behind the box she’d just brought over and handed them to her friend. Then she gestured with her chin toward the western wall of the main reading room. “And really, you’d never in a million years guess there’d been a tornado at all. Kind of amazing how quickly they repaired it.”

  “It really was bizarre how the only tornado damage happened here at the library,” said Charlotte.

  “Well, there were some barns that got damaged farther out of town,” Lauren pointed out.

  Charlotte nodded. “I know. But still.”

  Neither girl said anything more. But Charlotte was sure Lauren was thinking what she was thinking. That the damage from this tornado had been no coincidence.

  “Hey, congratulations again about your father,” said Charlotte, smiling at her friend.

  “Thanks,” said Lauren, grinning back. “I’m pretty psyched he got the grant. His research suddenly took a turn for the better. Funny how fortunes can change so quickly.”

  The two exchanged another look. Charlotte’s phone buzzed. It was her mom.

  She groaned. “Ugh. The Bianchis want me to babysit tonight. They live in that big, creepy house on the edge of town that has really crummy Internet service, and they’r
e always later than they say they’ll be.”

  “Don’t they have twin girls?” asked Lauren.

  “Yep,” said Charlotte. “I think they think that since I have twin brothers I’m the only babysitter capable of handling them. Which actually might be true. Those kids really are a handful.” She shrugged. “I’ll tell her yes, though. They pay well.” She texted her mother back.

  Mrs. Lazer came in, wheeling a hand truck stacked with three more boxes. “Look at all this!” she said happily. “From three different publishing companies, all the way from New York! You young people and your social networks! It’s remarkable how well you two have spread the word about our rebuilding campaign!”

  The girls smiled at each other, and then hurried over to help Mrs. Lazer unload the newest boxes.

  “I’ll need to leave the two of you to hold down the fort,” said Mrs. Lazer, “while I go work on the accounting end of all this. If we’re going to reopen next week, I have so much paperwork to get through!”

  The girls assured her they had everything under control, and Mrs. Lazer left them.

  “So, Char?” asked Lauren when they were by themselves again. “Do you think it was, you know, the card?”

  They’d never talked about the card, not since the morning of the tornado, when Charlotte had left Lauren and Aunt Marina to head to the library.

  Charlotte nodded. “Yes, I do think it was the card. It’s too much of a coincidence. Why did it strike just after I’d stuck the thirteen pieces into those thirteen books? Why did it only touch down near the library and only carry away that particular section? Why were those books never found? It’s just too weird.”

  “And look how our fortunes changed after that,” said Lauren. “Teddy’s fine.” She ticked that off on her fingers. “The play went great. My dad got his grant. Stacy Matthews has actually decided we’re not as uncool as she thought.”

  “That’s true,” said Charlotte, grinning. “She’s been downright nice to the two of us recently. She even said happy birthday to me last week.”

  “Maybe now that you’re a teenager, she thinks you’re somewhat cooler,” joked Lauren.

  Charlotte smiled. “Maybe.”

  “And of course, your dad came home safe and sound a few days after the tornado,” Lauren continued. “All that bad stuff that had been happening seemed to stop happening as soon as you got rid of the card.”

  “It does seem that your Aunt Marina was right,” agreed Charlotte. “She said that the Wheel of Fortune card could change your fortune for worse or for better. It certainly seems like it’s changed for the better . . . now that the curse is gone.”

  “Knock wood,” said Lauren.

  “Knock wood,” said Charlotte, quickly rapping her knuckles on the table.

  “Speaking of Teddy,” said Lauren, glancing at the clock, “I need to run home and walk him and then get dressed for the banquet they’re having for my dad. He’s going to give a big presentation tonight. Are you okay by yourself here for a while?”

  “Of course,” said Charlotte with a laugh, shoving the big box to the side and picking up a brown envelope she hadn’t noticed before. It was addressed to the library and marked BOOK DONATION.

  “Okay, see ya soon,” said Lauren, hopping down from her stool. “You want me to turn the radio on to keep you company?”

  Charlotte grinned. “Mrs. Lazer is positive her little radio saved our lives with its tornado warning. She’s probably right. Sure, you can turn it on.”

  Lauren grinned and switched it on and then headed out.

  Charlotte reached for the letter opener—a fancy word for what was actually a butter knife—and slit open the brown package just as the weather came on.

  “No threat of tornadoes tonight, folks. But sleet and freezing rain begins later on tonight. And lots more snow in the forecast for the rest of the weekend.”

  She rolled her eyes as she slipped a small, leather-bound book out of the package. Why did there have to be sleet and freezing rain on a nonschool night? Such a waste of a potential school closing!

  She glanced down at the book to check the title, in order to see which pile it should go in. She turned it over. The title wasn’t visible anywhere, not even on the spine. The binding was old, dark-green leather, and the indecipherable lettering on its spine looked like it had once been embossed gold.

  Suddenly her heart rate quickened. She was getting that feeling. The same feeling she’d gotten months before. The time when that red book had felt as though it was calling to her. This book was sending out a powerful message too. It was telling her to open it.

  She dreaded what she might find, but her hands ignored her mind and opened up the book. Was it her imagination, or had she felt a slight crackling in the pages? She decided she’d just imagined it. Would she find another card? Or the same card, somehow miraculously restored to its original condition?

  There seemed to be no card inside. That was a relief. The title, in old-fashioned type, was A Girl’s Life. The book smelled musty, that old-book smell that Charlotte loved. It was almost intoxicating. The pages were silky soft and satisfyingly thick between her fingers as she turned to a random page and began to read, inhaling deeply as she did so:

  Suddenly the girl sat up in bed and flicked the light back on. She had that feeling again—as though something was beckoning to her. But this time it wasn’t the book. It was the thing that had fallen out of it. She felt an overwhelming need to find it and look at it. She swung her legs around and got out of bed. There it was. A stiff, cardboard card, sort of like a playing card except bigger, sturdier.

  She picked it up and studied it. Weird. In the center was a round orange shape, which looked sort of like a compass—

  Charlotte slammed the book closed. Her heart walloped in her chest. Her hands shook so badly that she dropped the book onto the table. Almost move for move, the book described Charlotte’s actions on the night she had discovered the card.

  She picked up the envelope that the book had arrived in. Turned it over. No return address. The handwriting was eerily familiar though. It’d been a while, but she knew where she’d seen it before. The envelope had been addressed by the same hand that had written that message on the back of the card. There was no mistaking the old-fashioned, spidery lettering.

  With trembling hands she picked up the book again. She flipped the pages slowly, carefully, until she got to about the midway point.

  And then the pages became blank.

  The last half of the book was completely, entirely blank.

  The radio suddenly grew louder, although she hadn’t gone anywhere near it.

  “—no chance of tornadoes tonight, but stock up on those flashlights and batteries. There’s gonna be a doozy of a storm, and we may lose power! Who knows what might happen in the dark?”

  “I don’t want to go,” Jane whispered to herself. “I don’t want to go.”

  Ahead of her the huge, cavernous lobby of the Templeton Memorial Museum was ringing with the clamor of fifty other girls Jane’s age. They were lined up in front of a long table, eagerly signing in for the Templeton Lock-In. A poster on the wall above the tables blasted the neon-pink words: THRILL TO AN OVERNIGHT EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE MUSEUM! But from her place at the end of the line, Jane was not thrilled. Not one bit.

  “It will be good for you,” her mother had said to her that morning. “You need to socialize with more girls your own age.”

  But what, Jane wondered, am I supposed to say to girls I’ve never seen before in my life? And how on earth can I possibly spend an entire sleepover with them?

  She cast a miserable glance around the lobby—a bustling hive of girls and their parents and all their random good-bye conversations.

  “Dad, I don’t need an alarm clock! They’ll wake us up, I swear!” And “I don’t see your allergy pillow, honey. Where’s you
r allergy pillow?” And “Fine, then! I don’t want to hear another word about it!” And “No, Mommy, don’t hug me. Everyone will think I’m a baby.”

  I’m just not anything like these girls, Jane thought. I can tell just by looking at them. Why, why did I have to—

  “Are you here to register, dear?” came the friendly voice of a woman in front of her.

  Jane literally jumped out of her thoughts. The line had been moving along without her noticing, and now she was standing right at the registration table.

  “I guess so,” said Jane. Nervously she twisted a hank of her blond hair around one finger.

  “Okay! What’s your name?”

  “Jane Meunier.”

  The woman glanced through a sheaf of papers and checked off Jane’s name. “Have you done a lock-in with us before, Jane?”

  “No. We—I—uh—just moved here,” Jane stammered. “I don’t know anything about anything.”

  The woman chuckled. “Well, then, you are in for a wonderful surprise. This is going to be the best night of your life! Now, where’s your sleeping bag?”

  Jane pointed to a pile of blankets in her basket.

  “Oh, no sleeping bag?” remarked the woman. “Did you bring a foam pad to put under your blankets? That floor can feel awfully hard.”

  “Foam pad?” exclaimed Jane. “I’ve never heard of using a foam pad! Oh, I knew this was going to be bad!”

  “Don’t look so worried!” said the woman. “They’ve got extra foam mattresses in the Great Hall for people who need them. And you’ll have a wonderful time. The lock-in is one of our most popular events. There’s a huge waiting list every time.”

  “She’s right. The lock-in is really, really fun.” This voice was coming from in back of Jane. She turned around to see that the girl behind her—who had dark hair and brown eyes—was smiling at her. “I’m so excited!” the girl continued. “I’ve been waiting to be old enough ever since my sister did a lock-in here three years ago. Hi, Mrs. Crawford,” she added. “I guess you know I’m here to register.”