Read The Library of Borrowed Lives — Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4
It was the same symbol I’d seen on the blank book the day before – the only book I’d ever seen that symbol on.
I let three more days go by, tedious, uneventful as usual, while I mulled over what the moonlit girl had asked of me. It was risky. But would she ask me to risk my life, my family’s well-being, and probably her own skin as well, if it were not important? Her beautiful, sad eyes and her floral perfume haunted me, following me through my day until every book I shelved seemed to whisper to me, “Help her. Help her.”
It was too much to bear.
There comes a time, I convinced myself, in everyone’s life, when you either make the choice to take action, or you lie down and let life sweep you away, relinquish control to the powers that be, accept life as a fated series of events over which you have no authority.
I found myself, once again, staring at that door.
There is a door without a handle, through which no one ever goes.
There is a book without a story, which a stranger wants to read.
And there is me, a boy without a life, who had to make a choice.
It was relatively easy to find the book with the symbol that had been crudely drawn on the sheet of paper the girl had slipped me. After all, I had been the one who shelved it. What was harder was finding a way to slip it down off the shelf and conceal it in my meagre clothing without getting caught. I’d gained weight during my job ticket there at the library, and my clothes were no longer hanging off me the way they’d been when I arrived.
Still, I waited until the end of the day, waited until no one was in sight, and pulled the book off the shelf. I don’t know why I expected alarm bells to go off, or a team of overseers to pounce around the corner immediately. No one noticed as I shoved the bulky volume down the back waistband of my pants and pulled my shirt down over it. Handily for me, it was frigid in the library, and so no one questioned why I’d worn my coat that day. I wrapped it around me too and hoped that no one could see a rectangular outline against the back of my coat.
The time between end of shift and when everyone fell asleep seemed to last for days. My hands were clammy, my face flushed. My heart beat so hard in my chest that I was sure it was keeping everyone awake. When the last sounds of stirring faded and all I could hear were long, even breaths and soft snores, I crept out of my bunk, the book still concealed under my coat.
This night was darker than the last, the moon hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds. I could see nothing in the courtyard. I had no way of knowing whether the girl would even come back that night. I felt foolish standing there, blindly waiting. How long should I stay? How would she find me? The longer the questions swirled, the colder the dread I felt. I was just about to give up and return to my bunk when I heard footsteps behind me.
I whirled around, not that I could see who approached through the dark. A light flashed in my eyes, just for a second, blinding me further. Then a hand grasped my wrist and pulled.
Come back on the first Tuesday in December to read the next instalment of this dystopian series: The Library of Borrowed Lives
