The Lake and the Library by S. M. Beiko Read Free Book Online Page B

my room. “I’m going to paint a bit,” I lied.
    I did a quick shoulder check from the hall. Mum was getting up to change the radio station, her best friend, her own electric Tabitha. The voices were her confidantes, like the intercom at work that echoed distresses and desires. She’d rather bare her soul at a frequency right now, and she knew I’d rather bare mine at my walls. Her nursing expertise saw my teenaged apathy and treated it with a tried and true dose of silent withdrawal and keep-it-to-yourself. Which suited us fine. She was energy sapped from the demands of managing other people’s lives, and I was wrecked from managing my own.
    Things’ll be different soon
, echoed in my skull.
    I shut my bedroom door so it barely made a sound against the carpet. I breathed out the mysteries tumbling inside me — the library, the boy — exhaling them in the vinyls hanging on my walls, in the posters and printouts papering the rest. Old concert and play tickets from city trips, cards, notes written in Sharpie; they absorbed my secrets as they always had, with room to spare. My mind fast-forwarded to taking it all down and pasting it on foreign walls.
    Keep my secret for me
, I asked the room.
    Putting down my tea mug on a side table, I sprang from the floor like a haphazard bird, careening to the bed. I flicked the crystals hanging off the night table lamp; beyond them I saw the dancing canvas princess by the window looking resentfully away. I had used elements of Tabitha’s face on her, and the result left me wanting to turn the painting the other way.
    I looked at my hand.
Li
. I tested the word on my tongue. Or is it a name? Lee? Was that how you said it? Or lie? Li. Li-brary.
    I rolled up to the edge of my bed, slowly unwrapping my hand. When the bandage ran out I turned it over. My palm was clean and pink. Nothing there. Not even a scratch.
    I shut my eyes, still trying to wake myself up.

M y Polaroid camera hung from my hip, tapping it as I came to a stop. I fingered the knobs, biting my lip as I scrutinized what I now knew as “the library.” The sun winked above me like a lucky coin, goading me on. I didn’t know how much further luck was willing to take me after yesterday, so I recited some ground rules to myself before going in:
Be brave. Be careful. And don’t climb anything.
    Click click.
The processor released a black-and-white Polaroid tongue that I shook before dropping it into my bag. The camera had been a gift from an aunt who once drove all the way to Treade to give Mum a piece of her mind for moving to the middle of nowhere. The camera was to keep me busy. And it would. With it, I could get instant proof that this rabbit hole was real. A digital camera could be tampered with before the evidence was produced. These pictures would be the solid proof that my injured (had it been?) hand had failed to be. I obviously couldn’t trust my eyes anymore, that was certain.
    Down on my knees, squishing the damp ground underneath, I squeezed through my opening in the wall. The table legs came into focus and the bookshelves, too, but I stopped myself, sucked in a breath, and listened. The lights were on, but I hoped nobody was home. It wouldn’t take much for some meddling kids to have discovered my hole and crashed the party. But all was silent. After slithering through the opening, I got to my feet with slow, steel-spring determination. For a second I reconsidered having come alone, but I needed a few things figured out before anyone else followed in my uncertain footsteps.
    I sneaked past the lofty bookcase and took a good look around the centre of the room. Everything was meticulous and untouched, barely a grain of dust or a cobweb in sight. The paint and varnish looked as fresh as the day it’d been applied. The lights shone with crystal clarity. In the dark of the storm and the glow of my flashlight, it had looked dingy and unkempt. Had someone been