Chapter 1 #2
She’d been lucky in one regard. She’d had a full ride scholarship to Ohio State, which she happily took.
She had the same from the NYU grad school.
She’d worked enough, saved enough, all through high school and undergrad, to pay her own bills.
Until she came to the city. Until she tried to do something to help drag herself out of the cycle of poverty by using her head instead of her hands.
She worked her ass off in school for her stipend, worked hard every day at this internship, but the reality of the world was she worked and worked and worked, and every day, her savings dwindled down lower and lower.
She’d had to take out her first student loan at the beginning of the year.
Took all they’d give her after they deducted her stipend, her scholarships, everything else they gave her in her financial aid package.
It was enough to cover necessities for a year.
Then, her roommate, who owned the apartment she lived in thanks to a generous gift from her parents, left for an internship at the British Library.
E was happy for Lisa, but it meant she had to take on all the bills instead of just half.
Okay, so technically she didn’t have to take it all on herself.
Lisa had offered to keep their arrangement as it was, but she already paid so little in rent it was bordering on charity. The least she could do was pay all the monthly bills for the place while Lisa wasn’t even living there.
Lisa didn’t have to worry about such things, as her parents were paying for her flat in London while she lived there. No shade to Lisa, but it made E jealous when she thought about it too long. And she loved Lisa, so she tried not to think about it too much.
E wanted to make her own way in the world, like she knew she’d be able to in a few short months.
She was all set to move back to Columbus, return to the Special Collections Library at Ohio State where she’d had a work study position as an undergrad.
This time, though, she’d do it with a respectable Midwestern salary.
She’d never be rich, sure, but she’d never want like she had growing up, either.
It was a step up for her. If only she could get there.
And she was trying like hell to get there, which included having this demeaning conversation with her uppity boss.
“Well, Edith, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.
My budget for the quarter was set months ago, the money already allocated.
I have no additional funds to give you.” He shrugged at her, as if it were nothing.
As if money wasn’t a very real, very pressing concern.
As if he’d never known hard times, and E figured he probably hadn’t.
Not with his manners and his dress and his flippant question earlier.
He’d never understand what it was to live on bologna and crackers for a week because there was nothing else.
She fisted her hands, digging her nails into her palms to help her fight back the tears creeping up her throat. “Very well,” she said, rising to leave. With her back to him, her hand on the doorknob, he stopped her.
“Edith, if I could…” He let the sentence drop.
Good thing, because anything he said after those four words would’ve been a lie. They both knew it. She nodded, more to shake out her head than to acknowledge his words, and left, her hopes of surviving two more months in the city on her own steam no more than dust on Mitchel’s lush Persian rug.
Ewent to the bathroom to gather herself and then went back to work.
No one would ever say she didn’t work hard, didn’t do what was asked of her, even when she suffered.
She meticulously reported, catalogued, and unbound for six more hours, letting the history in her hands and delicacy of her job force out the cacophony of worry in her mind. Mostly.
She did think on it some. Couldn’t help it.
The worry over money was constant background noise in her head.
Always had been and might always be. At one point she caught herself in the middle of a brood, thinking about all she wanted, all others had that she didn’t have, and the unfairness of it all.
She gripped a metal ruler so tightly it left harsh red lines in her palm.
She might have not noticed it if a bustle across the room hadn’t brought her out of the worry trance.
Anne, one of her more vocal and friendly co-workers, was frantically searching for something over at her workstation. She specialized in medieval texts, and she was counting and recounting a small stack of books. “It was just here,” she said. The soft words dropped like a mallet in the quiet room.
“Anne, you okay?” E asked.
“No. I’m going bonkers. I could’ve sworn Mitchel brought me three new books to review, these two Latin manuscripts and a Latin and Middle English text.
I hadn’t even really looked at it when he put the stack here, but the Middle English stood out.
I rarely see those here. And it looked like it could be a spell-book, which would be an impressive find. Now, I can’t find it anywhere.”
E moved over to the woman, scanning the small room and other workstations as she did. “Did he come pick it back up? Maybe it got requested by a researcher. Let’s check the log.”
“Yeesh. I hope the log isn’t being wonky again.
” The week before, their Romance language expert, Brian, had expressed some concern about a few books missing from the database.
Mitchel waved away the concern, saying it was likely a bug in the system, but it made everyone a little wary.
There were even mutters of wishing card catalogues were still a thing, which, fair enough.
E bumped Anne’s shoulder and called her over to her workstation laptop.
She balanced it on her knee, as there was no room on her desk with her own manuscript in pieces there, but she managed to pull up the official log on their employee site.
It showed what each person was assigned at any given time.
Anne’s name popped up after E’s search, and there on the screen were two new Latin titles.
Exactly what was on her station. No Middle English with Latin book in sight.
“This is still wonky, or I’m going cuckoo,” the middle-aged woman said, tightening her cashmere cardigan around herself. “I swear I saw…”
“It’s okay, Anne,” E said, patting her shoulder in comfort. An awkward, rusty gesture, but one, nonetheless. “All that Latin muddles the brain.”
Anne laughed, the sound cracking through the room.
“No, seriously. Mitchel probably just reassigned it.” Anne bit her lip but thanked E before she shuffled back to her own station and silence again fell over the space.
E thought nothing of the missing book or glitching database as she worked. Didn’t think about it as she carefully packed away her unfinished tasks at closing time. Not a thought of it when she slung her messenger bag on, and it felt a smidge heftier than it should.
She took the subway all the way from Madison to her third-floor apartment on 8th.
It was one-bedroom but had a small, exposed brick alcove big enough for a double bed, bookcase, and desk, which is where she stayed, even with Lisa out of the country.
It was Lisa’s apartment; E wouldn’t take Lisa’s room even if she was gone.
She threw her bag on her bed, unzipped it to get out a notebook, but pulled out a slim, cracked leather book instead.
Latin shone in gilded print on the spine and cover.
E knew enough Latin to decipher this title.
Knew it from the words and the odd tingle creeping down her spine at what she saw.
Liber Desideriorum it read. The Book of Desires.