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Lilah

Lilah knew that going back to work would help her feel better, safer and less lonely. So she’d been dismayed when she rang Jimiyu and he said he’d already arranged all the work schedules for the month ahead and not included her. Fortunately—well, it was not fortunate, actually, it was a travesty—budget cuts meant that they were understaffed anyway, so Jimiyu was glad when Lilah asked if she could come in and volunteer some extra hours. She’d done Rhyme Time that morning and now she was doing a much-needed tidy of the Military History section, where the Early Modern books had been hopelessly muddled with World War I. It was a remote corner of the library with little foot traffic, which meant that it had been neglected for quite some time. Also, the fluorescent strip lighting here needed maintenance; it cast a frustratingly dim light and flickered constantly, which might have something to do with why all the books had been jumbled.

Even though she had to squint to see the titles and call numbers, it was soothing to remove books that were in the wrong spot, put the ones that needed repairs to one side on the book cart, and then place the ones that were in good shape back in the correct spot, neat and at home where they could be found, lined up with the edge of the shelf just so. She slid out a chunky volume and caught a glimpse of someone on the other side of the shelf, moving quickly out of sight.

Lilah froze, book held in mid-air.

She was in a public place. Of course there were other people around. But something about the way the person had scurried to the side, something about how quiet they had been, so quiet that Lilah never would have known there was anyone there at all...

Gripping the handle of the cart, she wheeled it between the shelves and around to the next aisle, into Asian History. It was an old cart and it squeaked, so anyone would be able to tell exactly where Lilah had gone. And there she waited, between Japan and India, listening.

Footsteps. Rubber-soled, cautious. She heard them approaching, on the other side of this shelf, now, where she had been a few minutes ago. The person stood there, but they didn’t remove any books from the shelf. Either they were reading the spines, or they were there for another reason. She tried to peer through the shelves, in the space left by the top of the books, but all she could see was a shadow, so she moved a little to the right, stood on tiptoe, craned her neck to see.

A brown eye stared back at her.

Startled, Lilah stumbled backwards, banging her hip against the cart, which squeaked and thudded against the shelf.

Whoever it was, they knew that she knew they were there now.

She rubbed her hip and tried to breathe deeply to calm down. Realistically, a thug who killed people for money wouldn’t be lurking in a library, would he?

Would he?

The overhead strip lighting flickered off for a moment, a long moment of paranoia and terror when Lilah expected to be hit on the head and bundled into a burlap sack, and then it came back on. She was still alone in the aisle, and her heart was beating so hard now that she wouldn’t be able to hear any footsteps.

This was ridiculous. She was acting...like a scared little rabbit.

Reaching into her fanny pack, she abandoned her cart and strode to the end of the aisle. As she rounded the shelf, she pulled out her canister of pepper spray. If it was S, she would face him down. Like she’d faced Zachary down. Like she’d dealt with the death of her father. She’d spray him in the face, and she’d scream and call for help. She would not go down without a fight.

She had nothing to lose.

The lighting went off so all she could see was a shadow, standing right there where she’d been rearranging the books. She aimed at where the shadow’s eyes would be and then the light came back on again and the shadow emitted a little squeal.

It wasn’t a man. It was Evil Alice.

“What are you doing?” Lilah started out shouting it but then she remembered they were in a library, so she finished the question in a strangled half-whisper.

“I...I wanted to talk with you,” whispered Evil Alice. “What’s that?” She pointed at the pepper spray.

“Oh. Nothing.” Lilah put it back in her bag, though she didn’t zip it up. “Why are you lurking in the 940s and peering through shelves? Why didn’t you just talk to me in the break room?”

She expected something cutting, so she braced herself, but Evil Alice just said, “I thought you might want to talk privately.”

“Why?”

“Because...well, this is awkward. And I know you and I haven’t been the best of friends, so I hope you...Anyway. I saw what you were looking up, the other day when you were here.”

Lilah stared at Evil Alice whilst she tried to work this out. Was she talking about her research about how to load and shoot eighteenthcentury flintlock pistols? Because why would she care that Lilah had been looking that up? Unless she knew something about how Zachary had died, and then...

Oh God she wasn’t going to have to shoot someone else, was she?

“The books on coercive control,” Evil Alice clarified. “And narcissistic abuse.”

“Oh. You mean...those books.”

“I don’t mean to pry, honestly. I know that none of us know what really goes on in other people’s lives. But I couldn’t bear to think...” She took a deep breath, as if she were fortifying herself. “You were trying to stay unnoticed. Hiding the titles, sitting back there by yourself. And I wanted to say, just in case you needed to hear it, that...well, I know what it’s like.”

“You...do?”

“Because I’ve been through it myself. Before my divorce, and before I moved here. And. Well, it changed me. It made me, you know, very unhappy. He isolated me from everyone, my family, friends, everyone, and I...well. I know how work can be the only place you can go to feel sane.”

Alice put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a card. “I’ve written down some resources. And I don’t want to assume that you were looking things up for yourself. Maybe it’s for a friend, and you can pass this on to her.”

Lilah took the card. She didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I don’t like to think of anyone going through what I did. But I also know...how hard it is to leave. And once you do leave, you think it’s over, but it’s not. It takes a long time to unlearn everything.”

Someone sneezed in another part of the library and Alice glanced over her shoulder. In that moment Lilah saw how frightened Alice was, and how brave.

“Thank you,” said Lilah again, and because that seemed totally inadequate, she hugged Alice. The other woman stiffened at the touch, but then relaxed. She didn’t quite hug Lilah back, but she did pat her on the shoulder.

“Well,” said Alice. “I will get back to the information desk. Just...call those numbers, if you need to.”

“I will.”

Lilah tucked the card into her bag next to the unused pepper spray. She had a lot to think about as she went about the rest of her day. Especially about how Alice had said that you never knew what was going in inside someone else’s life. And how other people had secrets that might not be as big as killing someone, secrets that might not even be their own fault, but they were still secrets full of shame and fear, secrets that could eat away at you forever, making you unhappy, or maybe even a little evil, unless you trusted someone enough to share them with.

She had even more to think about the next day when she saw the newspaper article.