Page 26 of The Missing Pages

The very next morning, Violet pulled the carved leaf from her knapsack and showed it to Madeline.

“I tried to keep it safe,” Violet said as she unwrapped it from a T-shirt. “I didn’t want anything to happen to it.”

Madeline picked it up and examined it. “I’m glad you held on to it.”

“It was the weirdest thing,” Violet added.

“Yesterday, I was sitting in the Widener reading room trying to do my homework, and then all of a sudden I smelled smoke. It didn’t smell like the library was on fire or anything,” she clarified.

“More like the kind of smoke that comes from a gentleman’s pipe.

I looked around, but no one else seemed to smell it.

” Violet shook her head. She knew she must sound crazy to Madeline.

“I even got up to move and the smell followed me all the way to the Memorial Room.”

“How odd,” Madeline said.

“Then when I got to the rotunda, the scent was even stronger. And as I stepped closer to the Memorial Room, it became even more intense… like I was sitting in a cloud of it.”

“Really?” Madeline sounded confused.

“I was standing at the doorway staring at Harry’s portrait when the leaf just fell off the wall and landed in front of the mantel,” Violet explained.

The decorative leaf lay on the table between them. Madeline lifted it carefully.

“That’s quite a story. I don’t know what to say.” She put the leaf down on the table. “The library staff doesn’t know much about the frieze surrounding Harry’s portrait. It was designed by a firm in London under the guidance of the library’s architect, Horace Trombauer.”

Violet reached with her finger to trace the leaf’s edges, her body softening as she touched it.

“It’s definitely laurel, which in Greek mythology symbolized wisdom,” Madeline elaborated. “And not just the kind you learn from books, but also the kind that comes from the gods. The spiritual realm, you might say.”

“Really?” Violet asked. She was intrigued.

“Yes, and, in fact, the female face that’s carved in the center over Harry’s portrait is supposed to represent Athena, the goddess of wisdom,” Madeline added. “At least that’s what my predecessor told me when I inquired about it,” she said and smiled.

Violet turned her head and glanced over at the painting, and then looked back at the leaf. “It was so strange. Nothing struck it or shook it from the wall or anything like that. There was no sound or reverberation. It just came off and fell all by itself.”

Madeline laughed. “Let me share a little secret with you. Your experience makes me think that I actually wasn’t so crazy all those times I felt like Harry’s ghost might be lurking somewhere in the stacks.

“Maybe Harry was just trying to get your attention.”