Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
T he entry hall of the library dims once I shut the door behind me. The smell of old books with a hint of dust surrounds me, and immediately I feel relief, like I’m home, back in the castle in my favorite room.
An older woman sits at a dark wooden desk, writing in a large book on the desk in front of her. I hesitate. She is the first person I will ever have spoken to outside the castle. Despite knowing that my father kept any and all information about me secret, I still feel uneasy, like the moment I speak, my identity will be discovered, and they will send me straight back to the castle for the wrath of the king. I’m not ready to go back. Not yet.
I take a deep breath and school my face like I have done this a million times before, like I belong there.
“Excuse me,” I say quietly, breaking the silence of the library.
The woman glances up at me. “Yes? How may I help you?”
“Could you please point me toward the healing or medicinal section? ”
She nods and gestures to one side. “Yes, it is down this aisle, and to the left. There are a few shelves. Please let us know if you need any more assistance.”
“Thank you,” I say with a nod. “That should be fine.” I almost let out a breath of relief as I turn toward the aisle, but I stop short at her next words.
“Is this for the king?”
There is no way she could have recognized me already. All the possibilities of how my father will react to me being escorted back to the castle start cycling through my mind. I won’t let him deter me. I will hold my ground and defend my choices and reiterate how important this is.
“I did not get any word that the castle needed assistance, or I would have prepared for him,” she says, glancing at the uniform I forgot I was wearing.
Relief floods my body, and my shoulders relax. The uniform. She must have known right away that I came from the castle. I wasn’t expecting someone to call attention to it so quickly.
“No,” I stammer as I try to think up a lie. I didn’t realize that the library in the castle regularly sought the help of the librarians in the city, or that my father had, for that matter.
I mentally kick myself. Why didn’t I prepare for this? Come up with some sort of plan or backstory before just waltzing out of the castle?
“This is for my own personal knowledge. I, um,“ I stumble through, trying to sound convincing. “I hope to become a healer one day. I finished my work at the castle early and thought I would come do some research.”
She gives me a small smile and a nod. “Let me know if you need anything.” She turns back to her work, and the library is cast back into silence.
Dodged that one .
I drop into a small curtsey and quickly head toward the aisle. I glance around the library, taking it all in. The single open room isn’t very large, but it isn’t small either. There are tables and chairs strewn about, and rows of bookshelves covering almost every surface, creating aisles in the open space. At first glance, it seems to be split into sections, reference books on the side the woman directed me to, and all other books for all ages on the other. That side definitely looks to be the more popular side of the library, with people of all ages strewn about, reading.
A group of girls who look just younger than me sit in the corner trying to stifle giggles as they pass a book back and forth, their voices low as they whisper to each other.
I bet it is similar to what lives on Tila’s shelves. Maybe I’ve even read it before. I suppress the desire to walk over and see what they are reading.
A pang of jealousy hits deep in my chest as I spot mothers with small children sitting on the floor and looking at pictures drawn on the pages. My mind drifts back to one letter my mother wrote me, where she told me all the things she couldn’t wait to do with me. Things I wouldn’t ever get to experience. Sitting and reading to me, just as these mothers were to their children, was one of them.
Stop it, Lennox. Focus. You’re here for a reason.
I shake my head, snapping myself out of the thought, and push on. Once I find the section on healing, I scan the shelves to see how many texts I have to browse through. There are quite a few, at least three full shelves of them. Less than we have at the castle library, but still more than I expected would be here.
I grab a couple at random off the first shelf and quickly flip through. Some look to be printed, while others are full of drawings and handwritten notes. Some aren’t texts at all, but journals kept by healers over the years full of information on past patients, with different volumes carved into the spines.
No one has ever told me what is actually wrong with my mother. The only explanation ever offered to me was that this happened during childbirth…with me. I caused this. I ripped her from my life and didn’t even know it .
It’s one of the main reasons I am so determined to do something about it. Now that I feel the loss of her personally, saw the woman she was on the page, the mother that she was already and the one she wanted to be, I needed to right this wrong and fix what I had so innocently done simply by being born.
After scanning the shelves, I get to work. Intermittent coughs and footsteps break through the silence, but I ignore them, focused solely on my task. One by one, I pull the books off the shelf and flip through to see if it is relevant. Anything concerning childbirth, blood loss, unconscious sleeps, death. Something that might explain why she would have fallen asleep, never to wake.
I flip through the index if there is one, or skip the book if the title doesn’t seem promising. Some of the printed books I have already seen in the castle’s library, but many of the handwritten texts or journals are unique and we don’t have copies. I take extra time on those, looking closely to make sure I am not missing something important at first glance.
By the time I reach the end of the first shelf, I have a large stack of books in my arms. I need to find a table to go through these before I continue on to the other shelves. I walk to the end of the row and glance to the right, but all the tables look full, or already claimed. I turn around to check the other side and smack straight into someone’s hard chest.