“It’s all right.” Simon reaches out and takes her hand in his. His fingers are warm and honey-sticky. Her heart is beating too fast. She tries to remember books with boys in frilly shirts to guess at how she is meant to behave. All she can remember is dancing, which seems inappropriate, and embroidery, which she does not know how to do. She probably shouldn’t be staring but he is staring back so she does not stop.
They continue to talk, sitting hand in hand. Eleanor traces tiny circles in his palm with her fingertips as they discuss the Harbor, the hallways, the rooms, the cats.
The books.
“Do you have a particular favorite?” Simon asks.
Eleanor considers this. It is not a question she has ever been asked, but a book comes to mind.
“I do. I…I do. It’s…” Eleanor pauses. “Would you like to read it?” she asks instead of trying to explain it. Books are always better when read rather than explained.
“I would, very much so,” Simon answers.
“I can get it and you can read it and then we could talk about it. If you like it. Or if you don’t, I would want to know why, exactly. It’s in my room, would you come with me?”
“Of course.”
Eleanor opens the door with the feather on it.
“I’m sorry it’s so dark,” she says. She takes a metal rod from her bag and presses something that makes it glow brightly, steady and white. She shines it into the darkness and Simon can see the crumbling remains of the room, the burned books. There is a scent like smoke.
Eleanor steps out of one room and into the other.
Simon follows and walks directly into a wall. When the stars behind his eyes from the impact clear he looks out at the darkness he had seen before, the burned room and the girl both gone.
Simon pushes against the darkness but it is solid.
He knocks upon it, as though the darkness were a door.
“Lenore?” he calls.
She will come back, he tells himself. She will fetch the book and return. If he cannot follow, he can wait.
He closes the door and rubs his forehead.
He turns his attention to the bookshelves. He recognizes volumes by Keats and Dante but the other names are unfamiliar. His thoughts keep returning to the girl.
He runs his fingers over the velvet pillows piled on the chaise longue.
The door with the feather opens and Eleanor enters, a book in her hand. She has changed her clothing, she wears a dark blue shirt that drapes over her shoulders with a long pink scarf looped around her neck.
When her eyes meet his, she starts, the door swinging shut behind her. She stares at him, wide-eyed.
“What happened?” Simon asks.
“How long was I gone?” she asks.
“A moment?” Simon had not thought to measure the time, distracted by his thoughts. “No more than ten minutes, surely.”
Eleanor drops the book and it falls, fluttering open and then closing again on the ground near her feet. Her hands fly to her face and cover her mouth and Simon, at a loss for what to do, retrieves the book, looking curiously at its gilded cover.
“Whatever is the matter?” he asks. He resists the urge to flip through the pages though the temptation is there.
“Six months,” Eleanor says. Simon does not understand. He raises an eyebrow and Eleanor scowls in frustration. “Six months,” she repeats, louder this time. “Six months this room has been empty every time I’ve opened that door and today here you are again.”
Simon laughs, despite her seriousness.
“That’s absurd,” he says.