A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb Read Free Book Online

beside him.
       The library was quiet but not silent. There were whispers.
       He crossed out the last two sentences and wrote, "Books are okay, I guess."
       I laughed. Next James wrote, "As I look around the quiet room, I see a thousand leather covers like doorways into worlds unknown." He paused and then wrote, "I hear..."
       "Silence," I suggested. "Eternity."
       "A silence like the mind of God," James wrote. He gave one small laugh, then wrote, "I feel..." He paused, then continued with, "a presence in the empty chair beside me."
       "James," I scolded.
       "But it's true," he whispered.
       "What does Mr. Blake really think of the library?" I asked him.
       "From what I've derived, he thinks it's unpleasant because there's no music and you aren't allowed to eat," said James.
       "I should be going," I told him. I could feel Mr. Brown preparing to leave, stopping in the hall to talk with another teacher. Soon he'd drive off without me if I didn't hurry. A skit tering panic moused up my spine. I had minutes, no more.
       "We've only just started," said James. "You can't quit me al ready."
       "Very well, then, but be serious," I said. I tried to reach out and take his right hand in order to control the pencil, but he laughed and moved to avoid me. "Do you have a suggestion, Miss Helen?"
       "Stop," I whispered.
       James looked into my eyes to make sure I wasn't truly angry. "Why do you whisper?" he whispered.
       "Because a library is a sacred place," I told him.

   "The library," he wrote, "is a sacred place."
       "You're supposed to be Mr. Blake," I reminded him. "At least misspell a word here and there."
       James thought this over and then erased sacred and replaced it with sacrid.
       I could feel Mr. Brown moving into the far corner of my reach. The pain crept into my bones, but I tried not to let it show. I craved more time with James. But I also knew that it was im portant not to let my desire pull me down, as when I had dropped away from my host during a Shakespeare play.
       "I'm leaving," I said.
       "She threatens to take her pulsing goddess light from this place," he wrote. His teasing charmed me. As I reached again for the pencil, he hid his hand under the table, laughing at my frus tration. Another warning chill made me recoil.
       "If you have an idea, let's hear it." He glanced at me and must've seen some discomfort in my eyes, for his smile fell.
       "What the fuck are you doing?"
       We both looked up. The instinct to lift a rifle at this animal made me stiffen. But it was just a boy with a scar on one cheek, wearing a stained army jacket. He frowned at James. "What're you doing, turning into a schizo?"
       "Hey," said James, deflated. He slid the page off the table and put it and the pencil in his pocket as the boy sat in the seat across from us.
       "Where've you been?" the boy asked. "It's like you don't know us anymore."
       "I had the flu," said James. "Puked my guts out for days."
       "Grady said you OD'd," the boy told him, looking him up and down, trying to determine what was different about him.
       "Pretty close," said James.
       I rose and began to flow slowly away. I could feel the flutter as I passed through James—he had put out his arm, pretending to stretch, as I was leaving. We were as close to touching as one spirit and one mortal could for a moment. I started to imagine putting my arms around him but was stopped suddenly by a wall of cold blocking me. Blinded, I reached up and felt wet mud, the slime of a leaking dirt cellar or the bottom of a grave. I had let Mr. Brown leave me behind. I pushed against the coldness, and it gave way in messy pieces, the chill now running down over me like rain on my face. I had no voice with which to call out. I dug through the mud, hearing students laugh, buses, trash can lids rattling. I felt cement under my feet, and then the darkness was pierced with white. I was sitting in the back