Page 25 of The Missing Pages

THE SMELL OF SMOKE HAD BEEN INTENTIONAL ON MY PART.

I knew that if Violet detected the scent of something burning—even if it was only the scent of pipe tobacco—I could capture her attention.

There isn’t a book lover in the world who is impervious to the scent of smoke coming from inside a library.

I was one step closer to getting through to her.

As a ghost, I’ve learned to be crafty. To use what powers I can harvest from the spiritual world and put them to good measure.

There was Oliver, who began working at my library at the mere age of fourteen as a “runner,” going up and down the stairs of the stacks, fetching requested books for eight hours a day.

Boys like him were the first “pages” of the library, scrappy lads from the North End of Boston whose Irish families needed them to bring in extra income.

For him, I made sure that he discovered a twenty-dollar bill on the floor every year at Christmastime.

There was Ella Archibald, who worked as a librarian during the Second World War, and for her, I made sure that the young man who was studying for his masters in literature couldn’t find a book he needed one afternoon so that he was forced to ask the beautiful and intelligent Ella for some help.

I felt my old ghostly heart rejoice inside my chest when their eighteen-year-old grandson walked up the steps of the library last year on his college tour.

So today when Violet wondered if the scent that was following her was a sign, that perhaps Harry Elkins Widener might actually be trying to signal to her that he wanted to communicate with her, I rejoiced.

I hovered over her and let the scent of tobacco fill her nostrils, the scent drawing her closer to my portrait.

She was a good girl and hated to break the rules.

But I needed her to enter the room. So I did something that caused a little pain to flicker in my heart.

I loosened one of the gilded laurel leaves that framed my painting and let it fall to the ground, knowing she would move past the rope to retrieve it.

Laurel leaves, you see, are the symbol of wisdom. Knowledge that is both acquired and intuitive. I wanted Violet to know she possessed both.