The Librarian

by Christy Sloat

  “I am just confused about Jack and, well, my task really. Remember when you asked me if I was falling in love with him?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I am. And I’ve never been in love before. I just don’t know what to do about my situation. I want nothing more than to be with him, but on the other hand, I don’t know him that well. I’ve never met his family and I’ve never spent more than one night with him. How do I give up my life, for that?”

  Tarryn squealed and Becca yelped. “You’re going to live with him?” Becca asked in shock.

  I rolled my eyes because that’s not what I said.

  “He asked me to, but I don’t think I can. Then again, I didn’t think I could run a library either. You guys don’t get it,” I sighed. “I’ve never been in love or had a serious boyfriend. The way Jack makes me feel is special to me. I can’t decide what to do about it or him.”

  Becca nodded and her face calmed a bit more.

  “You need to do what your heart tells you, Emme,” Becca began. “I tried to give this one love advice and it didn’t go so well.” She pointed her thumb toward Tarryn, who snorted.

  “Take it from me, Emme, once you find love, don’t let go. But if it means giving up your life to be with him, it isn’t worth it,” Tarryn said as she stared out the window. “I gave up a lot for my ex. Even my own self-worth. He ended up treating me like dirt and left me feeling worthless and unloved.”

  For the rest of the drive I thought about what Tarryn had said. I would have to give up my life to be with Jack. I would have to leave my whole world to join his, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that. I would be joining a time where women had basically no rights to anything and no voices either. I couldn’t handle not being able to be myself in a time where a girl like me was an oddity.

  I loved him, but did love mean giving up everything?

  ****

  The small library just outside of Providence, Rhode Island, sat back from the street and was surrounded by large trees. We had arrived early enough to meet with Ariane, but I was tired as if it were night. I sipped my coffee as we walked into the library, and I suddenly felt nervous.

  Jenny Bailey Hancock had left her life behind, including her own daughter, and I was about to learn why. Somehow I felt like this day would either make or break my future with Jack.

  A petite woman sat at the desk, and I knew right away it wasn’t Jenny’s daughter. I remembered Jenny from the photograph, and this woman was not related. She greeted us politely and Tarryn told her who we were here to see. While we waited I meandered over to a large glass case where pictures were pinned. I noticed Jenny’s face right away. She was standing with a baby in her arms and her curly light blonde hair was pinned to her head fashionably.

  “I love that photo of her, but I can’t say that I remember her like that at all.” I turned around and knew that this woman was Ariane.

  “How do you remember her then?” I asked.

  She sighed. “Gone. I remember that she left me a lot, and then one day, she didn’t come back.”

  Ariane was older than I thought she would be with curling white hair and soft wrinkles that spread along her face.

  “I’d love to tell you about my mother, Miss Bailey. We are family after all.” That was true, but I didn’t feel right calling this woman, I hardly knew, family. “Follow me into the meeting room and we can talk about everything.”

  We followed Ariane down a small staircase and into a bright room that held several bookcases full of books. She tapped a button on the wall and the bookcase that was there opened to another set of stairs. This library had a secret room just like mine did. We followed her in silence as we descended into a dark room. My heart pounded in anticipation of what was to come next when a light came on. The room was a lot like Gram’s, with the photographs of Librarians and books that no doubt they’d traveled in.

  “Have a seat, ladies. Would anyone like tea or coffee?” Ariane asked.

  “I think we just want to get some answers about how Jenny disappeared.” I spoke for all of us.

  We sat at a large stone table, and Ariane sat down slowly with a grunt.

  “It’s not as easy getting down here these days. It used to be easier when I was younger. I used to follow my mother down here when I was a toddler, and she would let me play in here when I got a little older,” she said, her eyes downcast. “Then one day she told me about who we were: The Bailey women. She told me the importance of our tasks and that I would be able to travel and preserve just like her. But I never was taught how because she left me too soon.”

  I wondered if Ariane ever got over this fact or if she thought about her mom every day. I used to think about mine all the time and then one day I just stopped. I didn’t cry anymore and I didn’t wish for her to come back either. I wasn’t going to change the fact that she died, no matter how much I cried or wished. But disappearing was harder, I supposed. You never knew where they were, not exactly.

  “What about Beverly? Didn’t she try to teach you?” Becca asked.

  Ariane shook her head. “Sadly, no. Beverly didn’t take my mother’s disappearance well. She died about a year after she left us.”

  The whole room went still. I suppose that a protector really was linked to the traveler, and now I understood how scared Tarryn was when I didn’t come back. It made me feel awful.

  Ariane looked at me then and her eyes got very serious.

  “Emmeline,” she began, “you are a visitor in his life and you’ve been given a huge responsibility to preserve his book, not to have a relationship with him.”

  I shook my head confused on several levels. How did she even know about Jack at all?

  “How do you know that I’m having a relationship with him?” I asked.

  “I can see it in your eyes—the look of love. And your friends told me over the phone, but do not be mad at them. You have to see that a relationship of this magnitude could ultimately damage not only your life but his.”

  I couldn’t see how I would be damaging Jack’s life in any way.

  Sure her mom left her, but I didn’t have a child to leave behind. I wouldn’t be hurting myself in any way other than leaving what I knew and loved behind. But when I thought about what I had here in this time, I knew that if I left it all would be okay. If anything, I would be the one who would have to adjust to the harsh time of Jack’s life. Besides, I never set anything into motion about leaving this world for Jack’s. All I knew at that moment was I loved him and we couldn’t be together like I wanted.

  “My mother was married to my father for many years, but over time I suppose the romance faded. My mother had a job to preserve books that had come in from a colleague of hers overseas. She took to the task right away, and I was with my father most of the time. He didn’t know what Mother was doing; he thought she was only preserving old books, not the actual history inside them. She was one of the first to form The Librarians along with her cousin, Grace Bailey.”

  My great-grandmother.

  “Grace and Jenny formed a tight bond and soon began visiting one another inside the stories themselves; they would read about similar historians at the same time. I don’t exactly know how they did it, but they loved what they did.”

  Ariane took a drink of water and settled into her chair. I sat back and realized I was biting my fingernails in anticipation.

  “For a while, this appeased her and she didn’t really mind that my father was gone while she was tending to me. But when I was ten, that all changed. Grace Bailey sent a package to my mother, and I remember that I was sent upstairs to my room to play while she worked. She did her job, and when I was called down for dinner, she seemed happy. Happier and more delightful than I had ever seen her.”

  I gasped. “She met someone inside the pages, didn’t she?”

&nb
sp; She nodded solemnly. “Indeed, she did. Alberto Ruiz was an explorer from Spain, and my mother fell in love with him from page one. She started traveling without Beverly, and I’ll never forget the last time they spoke. They had a huge argument over him and my mother told Beverly to leave. Before she left, Beverly warned Jenny that she was going to regret leaving this world for his. That not only would it hurt me and my father, but that it would alter his future and he would never be known as an explorer. His future would change upon the arrival of my mother into his life, and this would damage the world around him and her. I didn’t understand until after my mother left me. I couldn’t comprehend the warning then.”

  I was sitting at the edge of my seat, curious about the warning as well. I bit my cheek dying to hear what happened to Jenny.

  “Well, what happened?” I blurted.

  “My father searched for her for years after she left, but I knew where she was. And when I was twelve years old, we learned about the Spanish explorers in our history books. I wondered what I would learn about Alberto Ruiz and if I would see or hear about my mother as well. It was the only connection I had to her now that she had left me.

  “When my history teacher taught us all there was to learn, I asked him one day after class about Alberto, and he told me that there was never a Spanish explorer by that name. I thought maybe he was wrong, so I took my search to the local library where I learned the fate of Alberto Ruiz. After my mother joined him in the book, she had altered his life so dramatically that he never became the amazing historian and explorer he was meant to be. I found out by books and by meeting with a fellow Librarian of our sect that she had swayed his path just enough that he never became the great man he was supposed to be.”

  She leaned closer to me and took my hands in hers. Her soft skin reminded me of Gram, but nothing could calm my pounding heart at that moment. Hearing what Jenny had done to Alberto’s life made everything different. I could see now the life-altering effects of what Jenny had done and of what I could have done if I didn’t come back from the last trip.

  “Emme,” she began, “your job is to preserve his story, a story already set in motion. You go into his books at the most pivotal points in his life. Times when he is making amazing changes that could impact who he becomes in the end.”

  I thought about all the times I entered the book and saw Jack.

  Having his goodbye party; right before he left for America; boarding the ship; his arrival in Maine. All times that would be important in shaping who Jack was to become, and I could have ruined it for him. Suddenly, I thought of the things I said to him about being his own man and not letting his father run his life for him. And also about the times I kissed him and when it was more than kissing. Could I have ruined the person Jack became by doing those things? I was just there to observe and report, not to fall in love.

  An idea popped into my head in hopes that it wasn’t too late.

  “He’s already famous, isn’t he? How would I change his future if it’s already happened?”

  That was the most confusing part of this whole journey I was on. Thinking about it literally gave me a headache.

  “Harold Lockhart explained it best in his fourth guide book,” she said, before pulling out the book and placing it into my hands. “He explains that even if it’s already happened, the past isn’t fixed. Nothing is set into stone. A preserver can alter the future because how would we, in the present, even know if something changed? We only know what we remember and if the past is changed. If a historian’s life is wiped-out, then that alters our memory as well.”

  My head swam at just the thought of such a thing occurring. I could have screwed up his life and never knew it.

  “Yeah, like if you went back and stopped my birth, how would you know I was ever alive?” Tarryn said to Becca, who laughed.

  “Sometimes I wish I could change such things,” Becca teased.

  “The most important thing to remember is that you are there to record and to learn. Do not alter his life in any way, Emme. It’s normal to have feelings for him, but you mustn’t let those feelings change his course. Nothing should stop him from becoming the man he is to be,” Ariane said finally.

  I took her warning, and I wouldn’t forget it. I stood up from the chair on wobbly legs and shook her hand.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled. “I think we should be going back now. It’s getting late.”

  And before I could hear any argument, I left.

  Twenty-Four

  Two days had passed since we met with Ariane. I regretted how I left that day, but the emotions of the moment were hindering my manners. I would have normally not been such an ass, but what could I say? I was in shock.

  As the days went by, I couldn’t even look at Jack’s books; I was too scared. I could ruin his life if I went back. My plan was to get my head right and go back when I didn’t feel the way I did about him. If I waited a month, then so be it. I’d start dating and maybe I’d find a distraction. Then I’d be able to go back and I could actually do my job right.

  I read Harold’s book and found it quite boring, if not tiring. But there were a few times I didn’t fall asleep. Learning that the future can change rapidly and so could the past. I did have a duty to the sect of Librarians and I would uphold it. I promised Gram and I don’t go back on promises. Except that I promised Jack I would be back to see him soon, and I wouldn’t be upholding that one.

  ****

  The summer months went by like the breeze on the shore and, in all that time, no distractions were found. The guys in this town were either not available or not attractive. I couldn’t find a guy in Bay Ridge nor any town close to it. And I wasn’t settling for an okay guy either. He would have to be just as attractive as Jack for it to work.

  Every time I fell asleep I saw Jack’s face just before drifting off. Needless to say, I wasn’t sleeping well lately. I was on my third cup of coffee in the secret room, looking over old photos of Librarians. I had discovered many secrets about the women in our sect, places they had seen and people they had learned about. It was the only way for me to keep my mind busy since finding a guy wasn’t working out. I found that spending time reading about the women who preceded me as a Librarian kept me on track, for now. The phone rang, pulling me away from the room.

  “Bay Ridge Library,” I answered in a sleepy voice.

  “Emme?”

  It was Rose. I sighed. I was too tired to talk to Rose about anything, especially our fight.

  “Yeah, Rose. What’s up?”

  I wasn’t intending to be so brash, but dang, I was tired. If I wasn’t, I would have been happy to hear her voice. Truth be told, I didn’t even think about our fight; I had other more important things on my mind.

  “I called to see if we could meet up and talk,” she asked, sounding desperate.

  I yawned. “Yeah, sure. When?”

  There was a pause and soon after she said, “Um…is now okay?”

  Now? Really? I wanted nothing more than to shut off all the lights and drag my tired ass up the stairs to my bed. It was calling me as we spoke.

  “Okay. Where?” I gave in.

  “Well, there is this old bank building up on the hill. Can we meet there?”

  She wanted to talk to me and she wanted to meet at a bank? Weird place for a long talk about friendship, but whatever. I was too tired to argue.

  We said goodbye and I closed up the library. Tarryn was off doing who knows what, so I locked up and headed to the bank. The sun was beginning to lower in the sky, leaving a beautiful glow over our town. It was times like these that made me love Maine so much. Nothing was prettier than fall on the East Coast. I loved the summer but there was something so cozy about autumn.

  Autumn meant apple cider and pumpkin pie. And it also meant my first Thanksgiving without Gram.

 
I didn’t even know what I was going to do without her this year. And the thought of Christmas without her was even worse.

  I liked to think that I was doing pretty well for myself after her loss. I was independent and running the library like she wished. But hosting dinners and celebrating without her by my side was not going to be easy.

  It dawned on me then that maybe running away to be with Jack would be easier than dealing with life without her. I couldn’t keep walking away from my life though; I had to stay and live it.

  I pulled into the old bank building and saw Rose’s car parked in the lot. I swung the truck into a space and shut off the engine. The windows were down and a gush of ocean breeze blew through the cab. It felt amazing, and it reminded me of Jack and the time we played in the ocean water together. Life was never going to be easy and many things would remind me of him. I couldn’t deny that he had made a huge impression in my world; he made me fall in love for the first time. There was never going to be a first time for that again.

  “Emme!” Rose called out to me and waved.

  I waved back and got out of the truck. She sat down at a small bench overlooking the beautiful ocean below us.

  “I have to ask,” I said as I sat down next to her. “Why are we meeting here?”

  She laughed. “Well, it’s this building that made me realize what an ass I was the last time we saw each other. I was here making a deposit when I saw the sign on the building.”

  She pointed to the brass sign that I couldn’t read from where we stood, by the door.

  “It said how long this building has been standing in Bay Ridge. This bank was built in the early 1900s, and it survived the Great Depression. It’s a landmark, Emme.

  “I was a total bitch to you, Emme. I shouldn’t have said those things to you. It’s not your fault that you left. The truth is,” she paused. “The truth is, I’m jealous you got to leave and go to California.”