Illuminate by Aimee Agresti Read Free Book Online

clutching several volumes in his arms and sliding them one by one into empty gaps on a high shelf. He looked over when he heard me enter.
    “Hi, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. You’re actually working in here.” I started to leave.
    “Hey, no,” he said, looking away quickly. “No problem.” He fidgeted with the books in his hand. One fell. I stepped back into the room, picked up what had dropped, and handed it to him. “Thanks. Lucian put me to work shelving and alphabetizing.”
    “Wow.”
    “Yeah, it’s going to take me forever. The Harold Washington Library has got nothing on this place. And they say that people don’t read anymore.”
    “Do you want some help?” I wandered in farther and sifted through a stack left on the long wooden table near the door. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Oscar Wilde.
    “Nah, I’ll save you. I bet you’ve got your hands full anyway.” He snuck a conspiratorial glance at me.
    “I’m on a photo project.”
    “How did that go?”
    “Okay so far, I think. Check back with me tomorrow. I’m off the rest of the day, I guess. Which feels weird.”
    “Yeah. Right now we would be in AP Euro.”
    I checked my watch; he was right. That reminded me.
    “I think I’d better do a little reading up on Chicago history, you know? After this morning . . .” I didn’t need to elaborate.
    “I know what you mean.” He pushed his glasses up on his face and shook his head, recalling our collective embarrassment earlier. “I’ve been trying to pull some books out as I go. I put a couple good ones over there. Great history ones and some really good Chicago architecture coffee-table books too, but I’ve got first dibs on those.” He pointed to a stack on a delicate wooden secretary’s desk.
    “Mind if I take a look?”
    “Help yourself,” he said, and returned to his shelving. I took a seat and began leafing through a book called Chicago During Prohibition, with a grainy sepia-toned cover shot of men in 1920s-style suits and hats lined up against a bar.
    “I almost forgot.” Lance swung around again, climbing down the ladder. It creaked and moaned as he hit each rung. “I found something for you.”
    “For me?” I twisted around in my chair, resting my chin on its back.
    He tapped the tops of the stacks on the long table, searching. Finally he grabbed a slim black hardcover sitting on its own in the corner. He pulled at a slip of paper on the cover.
    “Yeah, I mean, I guess. I was going through one of the boxes and I found this one with your name on it.” He held out a leather- bound tome, old and worn, with gold-etched lines bordering the spine and front cover. Sure enough, on a black-and-white postcard of Michigan Avenue from a bygone era taped to the front, someone had written “For Haven Terra” in a script I didn’t recognize.
    “Huh. Thanks.” I took it in my hands and leafed through. The wispy pages, all edged in gold, were entirely blank. Lance nodded and creaked back up to his place at the top of the ladder. “You sure this is for me?”
    “It had your name. That’s all I know.”
    “I just mean, it’s totally empty.”
    “Yeah, I noticed that too.” He scratched his head, shrugging. “Maybe it’s a birthday gift or something.”
    “Maybe,” I said, looking at the postcard again as he got back to work. I opened the book again, this time going through slowly page by tissue-like page. They crinkled and crackled under my gentle fingers and seemed almost too delicate to write upon.
    Suddenly, a bell pealed, ringing out Ding-dong-ding.
    Lance and I looked at each other, eyebrows twisted in puzzlement, then we looked toward the hallway where the sound was getting louder.
    Dante appeared in the doorway, apron on, dreads tied back in a bandana under a cylindrical marshmallow of a chef’s hat. In his fingertips, he swung a piercing golden bell. We stared, speechless.
    “Check this out. Cool, right?” He grinned, thrilled with himself.
    “I dig the hat,”