The Library of Shadows

By the time Este left for archival training that night, she had enough caffeine in her system to keep her awake until high school graduation. The sky above the Lilith faded into blues as the first pinhole stars poked through. Each of the library’s peaked windows glowed from within. Este drew toward them like a moth to flame. Ivy clawed up the Lilith’s facade, and her gaze followed greenery toward the stone spire. An arched roof capped the circular room where the heirlooms were stored.

She still felt like she needed to pinch herself. She’d been so certain Ives would ask for her room key and request for her immediate removal. Was she excited about spending every weeknight working the late shift? No, not really. But it was better than the alternative.

If Mateo had a self-preserving thought in his head, he’d never come back to the Lilith, but for her sake, she hoped he would. The thought of seeing him again kept her on edge, blood simmering on low. How she’d convince him to return The Book of Fades once she found him, though, she didn’t know.

She peered over her shoulder for a head of inkblot curls or a pressed collar. What kind of teenage boy even owned an ironing board anyway? Only someone as pretentious as him.

Inside, the library had lulled into an amber quiet, still as if fossilized and wrapped in a lamplight glow. Tonight, there were no chatty campus tours or electromagnetic field readings. Classes wouldn’t start until after the weekend, but a few students sprawled across tufted chairs, their noses tucked inside the assigned summer reading as they scrambled to finish the last few pages. Walking up to the circulation desk, Este had expected Ives to be waiting with her features pinched in severe lines, but the head librarian was nowhere to be found.

Instead, striped through the bookcases, stood a familiar white button-down.

He walked down the other end of the stacks, and Este slinked behind him. No way was she letting him get away again.

The Roman mythology collection separated them, so Este lifted on her tiptoes so that she could see Mateo over the tops of shelved books. He crooked his arm on the bust of some old, dead white guy. A leather bag hung off one of his shoulders, and a smirk toyed at the edges of his lips. But he wasn’t alone. Around him huddled three other students—how a leech like him had friends was beyond her.

A tall boy with deep brown skin rocked Mateo by the shoulders, and Mateo elbowed him in the ribs, playful. A redhead in a silk dress giggled at something he said, and a shorter girl with straight, black hair faked a yawn at their antics. The sound of it all got carried away, whisked up into the stacks and dissolving like dust in the moonlight. They were a silent film she couldn’t look away from.

When they passed a sign for books on eighteenth-century French philosophy, Este crouched lower, crooking her head around the bookcase, but they weren’t there. Not again.

She doubled back, row by row by row. Empty. Empty. Empty.

Mateo had pulled another disappearing act. This time, his friends vanished with him. This had to be some kind of cruel joke, right?

Este marched down the aisles until she stood where they had. All that was left was the faint scent of cedar, this time mixed with something sweet—one of the girls’ perfumes maybe.

Dr. Kirk had mentioned the hidden passageways, but how was she supposed to know what to look for if they were, by nature, hidden? Este dragged her sneakers along the hardwood, feeling for a loose floorboard like she might spring open a secret hatch. When that didn’t work, she tugged books off the shelf, Voltaire and Rousseau, in case they turned out to be levers.

Behind her, someone cleared a throat.

“Should I have provided directions to the circulation desk?” Ives asked by way of greeting. Her face was just as pinched and severe as expected. Like Este was a stinging canker sore she couldn’t get rid of.

“Just familiarizing myself with the library.”

“Familiarize yourself instead with these.” Ives handed her a stack of stapled papers riddled with letters and numbers. “You’ll need to learn the Library of Congress classification system because—”

“Academic libraries don’t use the Dewey decimal system,” Este finished. Did she imagine it, or did Ives look kind of impressed?

Never in a million years would she admit she learned that from Mateo.

Ives trailed back toward the circulation desk, a U-shaped, hand-carved behemoth with about six hundred tiny drawers, and Este followed, peeking back toward the French Enlightenment section, but the stacks stayed empty. As Ives plucked a book from a pile collecting dust, Este tried to suppress the regret slithering around her chest. She’d find him again. She had to.

“Nothing here can be loaned or returned without a borrowing card.” Flipping the book open, Ives tapped her manicured nails against the back cover. Glued inside was a cardstock pocket holding a stamped paper slip. On the left side, the names of students who had borrowed the book were listed. On the right, the due date. The top had been covered by a barcode. “We’ve largely moved to online cataloging, but some of our oldest circulating items still require stamps. Others aren’t meant to circulate at all.”

In the distance, there was the unmistakable tenor of Mateo’s laugh. Este squinted through the shelves, searching, searching. The sound had to come from somewhere.

Ives asked, “Am I boring you?”

When Este spun back into attention, the head librarian’s eyes had narrowed.

“No, sorry. It’s just . . .” Este tugged on the ends of her sweater. “You must spend a lot of time here, right? Do you ever hear things?”

Ives let a sort of amused breath out of her nose. “Many. Some more interesting than others. Weekend plans, study sessions, how many marshmallows do you think we can stick in our mouths at one time. I think sometimes the choir director Mr. Liebowitz tells the chorus line to practice arpeggios on the fourth floor.” Back to business, she yanked open one of the desk’s endless drawers, revealing hundreds of thin plastic cards. “Lost library cards. We’ll need to clear this out sometime this century. Are you taking notes?”

Este swiped a scrap piece of paper and a pen from the desk, painting on a quick smile. She was now.

Over the course of the next hour, Ives trained her how to keep the shelves straight, how to find books in the computer system, and how to stop the fax machine on the second floor from banshee screaming when someone pressed the wrong buttons. (Also, Este had learned what a fax machine was.) By the time they stood in front of the archives’ doors, Este could easily win Double Jeopardy! with What is Types of Tape Used for Book Repairs? and her legs ached from hiking up and down the Lilith’s floors.

The double doors felt bigger now than they had last night. Flanked on either side were two candlesticks, pilled wax clinging to the sides. Cold seeped through the threshold, and Este made a mental note to bring a cardigan next time.

From inside her blazer pocket, Ives retrieved a silver key ring, heavy with ten or fifteen keys in different shapes and sizes, and the box of matches from her desk. She hesitated, sizing Este up. It made Este hold her spine straighter.

“I heard from some of the other faculty members that your roommate has shown a special interest in certain aspects of school history,” Ives said finally. “You might find it difficult to work overnight in the archives if you’re prone to believing childish ghost stories.”

“I’m not.”

“Good, because this collection is temperature controlled, and recent studies have proven that ultraviolet light decays print materials. For the protection of the archives, we now store them in absolute darkness.” Ives handed her a candlestick and dragged a lit match over the wick. Very Wuthering Heights. ”Keep in mind, this is a restricted collection. To prevent any unwanted damages, the door will continue to be locked from the outside while we’re in the archives.”

Este wouldn’t ordinarily consider herself claustrophobic (she’d spent the last three years folded between a Subaru dashboard and a back seat filled with every one of her earthly belongings, after all), but the thought of being locked inside a glorified walk-in refrigerator made her skin itch.

Ives must have registered the panic in her eyes because she added, “You can leave at any time, but others will not be able to access it from the main floor. Safety and Security officers and I have keys to enter in case of emergency.” Her voice softened. “It’s the safest place on campus.”

The doors swung open with the force of Ives’s palm. Light from the main floor seeped inside, a single path in an otherwise invariable black, and blotted out when the doors locked behind them.

As they entered, the archives creaked, their old bones moaning. Este kept expecting her eyes to adjust to the low light, but every time she blinked, the shadows came back. She took a few tentative steps forward, led by her solitary orange flame.

“There are a few basic ground rules. Don’t bring guests into the archives. Don’t leave candles unattended or drip wax onto the materials. And don’t, under any circumstances, turn on a light.” Ives’s voice lowered, hardened. “I trust you won’t disobey this time.”

Este nodded. She pressed a palm to her chest to keep her heart from beating straight out. She really should’ve skipped that last cup of coffee.

Abandoning her in the darkness, Ives retrieved a metal book cart with a shaking wheel. It rattled and clanged as she pushed it, abrasive in the silence. A wobbly pile of books had been balanced on top. The shelf underneath held boxes of tape, glue, and whalebone folders. “I’ve pulled a few texts I’d like for you to repair and reshelve so that I can check your work.”

As Este went to grab the first text, Ives clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth.

“Gloves, Este.”

“Of course,” Este said with a forced laugh.

Ives excused herself to pull something for one of the other teachers, and Este worked through the first book, taping down loose edges and smoothing wrinkled pages. When she finished, she and the candlestick paced down a narrow corridor, the bookcases edging in on both sides. Somehow, the archives were more cramped than the spire.

As far as she could see—which wasn’t very—there were endless rows of tomes stacked ceiling high. Occasionally, she brushed past a rolling ladder, but she imagined the tracks would stick, caked over with rust. This deep in the archives, the air was too still, stiff as if it had been trapped for too long. It was easy to believe nothing had changed since Lilith herself wandered through these halls.

The distant drone of a baritone warbling shot goose bumps down Este’s arms. The sound dissipated, and a shaky breath parted her lips. Mr. Liebowitz and the chorus, obviously. These floors couldn’t have been that thick. Their vocal warm-ups must have seeped through the whole library.

Shoving the book where it belonged, she didn’t waste any time getting back to the cart. There were more books to be shelved. Maybe it was better to do them in batches. She could work more quickly and spend less time getting lost in the stacks.

Not that she was afraid. She was just being practical.

When she stuck her hand out to grab the tape, she came up empty. Hadn’t she just set it down there?

Huffing a breath out through her nose, Este scanned the aisle for any trace of the tape roll, peering under the cart, around the bookends, until a silver glint on the shelf caught her attention.

The hairs on the back of her neck shot up like a cat who’d seen a cucumber. She certainly hadn’t set it there. Este stretched onto her tiptoes, but it was just out of reach. Her palm grew slick around the candlestick as she lifted it.

“Ives, did you come back?”

Nothing and no one answered.

“Mateo?” she said, hating the way her voice wavered. “This isn’t funny anymore.”

With a cursory look around, Este couldn’t shake the feeling that shadows pooled heavier.

When the archives stayed quiet, a sharp laugh cut out of her chest. She dragged over the nearest ladder and lifted herself up rung by rung. This was ridiculous. Posy’s ghost stories were getting under her skin.

“What are you doing?”

A shriek tore up Este’s throat.

Then, the voice registered. Ives stood at the base of the ladder with her arms crossed against her chest. Wholly unamused.

“Sorry,” Este muttered. Her nerves were totally fried.

Ives said, “I beg of you to keep your feet on the ground for the time being. Neither of us needs to worry with an incident report tonight.”

Este grabbed the tape dispenser and skidded back down the ladder. She went back to work, and Ives trailed behind her, correcting her when she misplaced a first edition behind a third or used too much binding glue. Faint hums sifted through the stacks. Low, rasped. Este steeled herself, ignoring the way her stomach knotted and her hands shook. It was only the sound of shadows.