Chapter Two #2
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 from his 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 that was him.
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 book and 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 stories back 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, standing in 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.
After a long, hot shower and bed, Chloe could almost believe she had made up the encounter in the library. It made more sense than the alternative. Before she dozed off, she recalled what she had told the man about first impressions and second chances, and wondered if she believed it herself.
Clementine watched the new human leave through the heavy double doors, and the familiar sound of the door locking clicked through the lobby. Chloe, her name was. Well, it seemed she had a lot to learn about working in this library.
He finished his biscuit and lapped up some water from his bowl, listening to the rain, then curled up on his favourite cushion in the non-fiction section. The sound of the drumming rain comforted him and slowly lulled him to sleep.