Page 4 of The Library of Second Chances
‘Get back to your party, yeah.’
The glowing book.
Throwing the man a glance, Chloe sidled back to the shelf where she had seen the classics. There wasthe book she’d flicked through earlier, and the faint glow she thought she’d seen before was more conspicuous now. A burnt-orangey hue emanated from its pages, as if a faint light were beckoning her closer.
She pulled out the book, letting out a small breath. This couldn’t be real. Maybe Mrs Cook was playing some elaborateprank on her. Any moment now, the older lady would appear among the shelves, giggling at Chloe’s expense. But when she glanced up, the stranger was watching her, worry and expectation on his face.
She opened the book anyway. She would humour them both, give this guy in costume and Mrs Cook a true laugh.
She thought it felt warmer in her hands than it should. She held it and looked at the cover, unsure what to do. The rain drummed on the roof above her head, lighter now, and Clementine appeared once again at her feet. He looked expectantly up at her as he sat, his tail curling around him as he watched. The light of the fake lanterns made his orange fur burn gold.
Go on, he seemed to say.
Chloe flicked through the pages, once again remembering reading this in her first year living away from home. She scanned the familiar lines, taking in the ink on paper, seeing a grand mansion and manicured lawns, gossiping girls in frilly dresses and well-dressed noblemen watching them from afar.
She continued reading from where she had left off. Nothing happened. The man waited.
‘Try the back,’ he suggested.
She flicked to the end, to the ending she loved so much. She could remember closing the book in her university dorm, giggling with pleasure as she hugged the book to her chest. She found the character’s line and read it aloud, feeling a bit foolish.
She felt something this time: an ineffable energy washing over her, gentler than a breeze. Then silence.
‘Sir?’ She looked up, but the man was gone. Maybe he was in the next aisle. ‘Did it work?’
Nothing answered her except the rain and her own breath.
‘Hello?’ She peered round the next shelf, expecting to see the man waiting there, perhaps brushing away imaginary dust fromhis jacket. But nothing greeted her save the bookcases, as quiet as when she’d found them.
Agitated, Chloe checked aisle after aisle, calling out for the mysterious man who now appeared eerily similar to the main love interest in the book she was holding. If she didn’t know any better, she would say thatwashim.
The glow around the book had now disappeared.
Chloe put the book back where it belonged, thoroughly freaked out. She glanced around her again, then at the book, which definitely wasn’t glowing any more. Had she just imagined that burnt-orange hue around it?
Her mind raced with explanations, each less plausible than the last. Then she allowed herself a small laugh, shaking her head. ‘Nah.’
It was a trick or a coincidence. People liked to dress in all kinds of ways these days. Maybe he had seen her reading the bookand decided to tease her a bit. He could easily have slipped off while she was reading.
Still, the way the man had looked so worried when talking about getting back, and how he’d suddenly disappeared . . . and what were the odds of him wandering the library, looking like he had just stepped out of the exact book she’d decided to pick up? The spiral staircase, which led to one of the library’s two exits, was within Chloe’s sight. If he had descended to the archives, she wouldn’t have missed him. His shoes would have echoed on the wooden staircase at least.
‘He’s really not here?’ she said to Clementine when the cat reappeared around a corner, watching her with interest. She checked the rest of the shelves, half expecting to see the man hiding in a dark corner. But she was alone up here. She could feel it.
‘Hmm.’ She picked up the book one more time. She took a breath and read a random page, focusing on the scene. An image of the man she had just spoken to materialised in her mind.
She waited. She didn’t feel a presence, that strange breeze-like sensation. She didn’t hear a footstep or a cough or a breath. There was no one here except her and the cat.
Chloe grabbed another book at random and read out a passage. Nothing. She tried another, and still nothing happened. She slid a heavy collection of short storiesback into its place, feeling silly.
The logical explanation held no logic at all.
Her phone told her it was already past ten o’clock. She had to be here in twelve hours to start her shift. Chloe quickly made sure she had left the library as she’d found it and did a final sweep of the upper floor. The man was nowhere to be seen, not hiding in a dark corner or sitting on one of the armchairs placed beside the rain-strewn gothic windows. She was alone up here, except for Clementine, who was now having a case of the zoomies, sprinting up and down the spiral staircases, the gentle jingle of his bell following him. The sound was comforting.
‘See you tomorrow, Clemmy,’ she said, catching him long enough to stroke his orange fur. She gave him a cat biscuit, then gave him one final pat before sliding on her heels and braving the cold drizzle outside.
I was tipsy, she firmly told herself as she wrapped her jacket tighter around her body, squinting through the rain as it fell on her head.I imagined the whole thing.As frightening as that thought was, that she had invented a whole scenario about a fictional book boyfriend to cope with the misery of her life, it was the only plausible explanation she could come up with.
That’s what she told herself as she entered her house in the Moorhall neighbourhood, wet and shivering. At least this event had helped her almost forget the terrible date, but now, standingin her dark hallway, it all came roaring back, and she let out an embarrassed groan. At least it could be an amusing story sometime in the future if she ever had the guts to tell it.
