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“And then he just died?”
“After a few days in the hospital, yeah, he died.”
“And nobody knows where he’d been or what happened to him? Like, at all?”
“There are a lot of theories,” he said. “That’s why we’re covering it in the project.”
“Like, what are some of the theories?” she asked.
“Well.” Varen’s chair creaked as he leaned back. His eyes went distant again, and for the first time, that iron gate guard of his seemed to lower an inch. “A lot of people stick to the theory that he drank himself to death.”
Isobel’s gaze trailed down to his hands. She’d never seen a boy with hands like that, with long, delicate fingers, beautiful but still masculine. His fingernails were long too, almost crystalline, tapered to points. They were the kind of hands you’d expect to see under lace cuffs, like Mozart or something.
“And it was election day,” he said, “so a lot of people think he was drugged and used as a repeat voter. That’s one of the most popular theories.” He shrugged. “Some people even say it was rabies, just because he liked cats.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t they have been able to tell if he’d been drinking?”
“The accounts got mixed up,” he said. “And he had enemies. A lot of gossip got spread around.”
“So what do you think happened to him?”
To Isobel’s surprise, he made a face like that question bothered him. His eyebrows furrowed, his gaze darkened, and he frowned. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think a lot of those theories are too convenient. But at the same time, I don’t have any of my own.”
Moments passed. A balding man in a gray suit got up from a nearby table. Gathering his books, he passed them, taking a path through the stacks, leaving them even more alone than they had been before. A palpable silence took his place and seemed to condense the air between them.
Isobel flipped open another one of the books on the table, this one small and as thin as a magazine. She opened her mouth, ready to say something, though she didn’t know what.
Anything to break the silence.
He beat her to it, though, when without warning, he got up from the table, looming tall.
“Go through that one,” he said, indicating with a stiff nod the book she held, “and see if you can find the poem ‘Annabel Lee.’ I’ve got to go check the shelf again.”
Unable to help a small smirk, Isobel raised one hand in a salute. “Aye, aye, O Captain! My Captain!”
He turned. “Right era,” he muttered, “wrong poet,” then vanished between the shelves.
When he was out of sight, Isobel snapped closed the little book of poetry and leaned forward. She shifted away the yellow steno notepad and lifted the corner of his black hardback book. She peeked into the opening and peeled apart the pages, keeping the book open just a crack. She took a quick glance up to the row of shelves he’d slipped between. At no sign of him, she returned her eyes to the book, halfway standing to get a better look.
Its spine made a soft creaking noise as she pulled it open all the way. It went easily, as though the pages spent more time being pinned apart than clamped together.
Purple writing covered every inch of white paper. What was the deal with the purple ink, anyway? But it was the most beautiful handwriting Isobel had ever seen. Each loop and every curl connected cleanly to make the writing itself appear as perfect and uniform as a printed font. It baffled her how someone could sit and take the time to form letters so meticulously.
She checked around her one more time before flipping the page over and there, her suspicions confirmed, she found still more writing. The guy was a regular Shakespeare.
In some places, there were big spaces where he had written around drawings. They were more like loose sketches, actually, the lines never certain but nevertheless making pictures.
They were strange sketches too. People with crazy hair and with whole pieces of their faces missing like they were made of glass. She leafed past another page, this time daring to read a little of what was there.
She stood in the mist, waiting for him again,
always in the same place.
Isobel glanced up, stooping slightly to try and see through the shelves and towers of books for any hint of moving black or silver. No sign of him. He must have gone all the way to the stacks at the far end of the library. Her eyes darted back down to the page, searching for the place where she’d left off. She’d read just a little bit more. It wasn’t like it was a personal journal or anything, right?