Page 39 of The Missing Pages
“Harry,” she whispered. She looked at the photograph intently, hoping it might help. “If you can hear me, can you make some sort of sound?” She was hoping maybe another book would drop or the desk lamp might flicker to send her a signal.
She waited several seconds and thought nothing would come of it. She knew she had only a few minutes before one of the night librarians saw her and told her to get up from the table. Maybe her transgression would be discovered by Madeline. Maybe she’d even lose her job.
“Harry,” she said his name again. “I’m listening.”
It was then she swore she heard a noise. She looked around the room. But there was no one, absolutely no one, there. Still, she was sure she’d heard something.
The sound had emerged from underneath the desk.
“Harry…” She wanted absolute confirmation she wasn’t imagining things. “Just signal one more time. Okay?”
Violet sat completely still, her hands knitted on her lap.
But this time the sound was unmistakable. She heard him knock.
He had signaled her. He had communicated from the other side.
It was too crazy to share with anyone. But in the few minutes she’d sat at the table, Violet had managed to ask him a question:
“Have you ever been in love? One knock for yes, two for no.”
He answered again with a single knock. Hearing it made Violet’s heartbeat accelerate.
But just when she was about to ask Harry another question, the night librarian entered the room.
“Violet?” His voice was stern. “You know no one is allowed to sit at Mr. Widener’s desk!”
She shot up, nearly falling into the desk. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Berns. I just wanted to think about what flowers to order for next week. It was a mistake, and I swear it won’t ever happen again.”
“I certainly hope not,” he glowered. He gave her a look that went right through her.
Violet had been forewarned by the other pages not to sit at any of the furniture in the Memorial Room, not the large table and certainly not Harry’s desk. The only person who had ever been allowed at Harry’s desk was Eleanor Widener when she was alive. Madeline had told Violet that her first boss at the library, a woman who was in her latesixties when Madeline began working there over thirty years earlier, once relayed a story of seeing Mrs. Widener visit the library before her death in 1937.
Supposedly she asked for a particular book to be brought down from the collection. “I believe it was Harry’s cherished first edition ofTreasure Island,” Madeline had told her. “Ms. Widener sat at his desk reading each page very slowly until it was nearly dusk. Then she quietly gathered herself and left.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE BOOK, ONE THAT YOU RETURNto above all the others?” Ada asked over dessert.
“That would probably beTreasure Island,” I told her as I broke the crust of my crème brûlée with my spoon.
“And why that one?”
“Well, every time I read it, I see something new. When I was younger, I read it purely as an adventure book. I loved Jim Hawkins’s quest for treasure. The treacherous voyage. But as I became older, the coming-of-age narrative became more poignant to me… a young man’s journey from boyhood into adulthood. And, of course, the painful lessons about human nature he learns along the way.”
“It’s wonderful when one finds such a deep connection with a protagonist,” Ada remarked.
“More than that.” I laughed. “I wanted to be Jim Hawkins!
“And what about you?”
“Ah,” she said. “I guess I’ve always had a weak spot for Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”
“Really?” Her answer surprised me. I was expecting her to say Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë.
“Yes. I’ve been positively mad about his poetry since I was a first year at college.” She grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Can I let you in on a little secret, Harry?”
“Please do. I’m all ears.”
