Bones & All (30 page)
Authors: Camille DeAngelis
She was still standing in the hall when I came down the stairs. “Well?” Her manner was blunt, but not rude. I could never see her inviting me into the kitchen for tea and cake.
“May I have the room?”
“Rent's two hundred a month. First month's and last month's makes four hundred, and it's yours.”
“Will you take cash?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You got that much on you?”
I took what was left of Travis's money roll out of my bag and counted four hundred in twenties.
“Not a wise idea, walking around town with that much money on you.”
“I don't, usually.” I handed her the money and she licked her forefinger before re-counting it.
“Now, you look like a good girl, but I'd better warn you anyway. It's my rule that I don't allow any men in this house apart from my grandson. He does odd jobs for me now and again, so if you see him don't be alarmed.”
“I understand,” I said. Then I went back to Kerri-Ann's room, packed my things, and closed the door behind me.
I had a job. I had a home. I should have been thrilled.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
It was true, what Mrs. Clipper said about the other girls in the houseâexcept they weren't church mice, they were ghosts. I saw them once or twice a week, disappearing into their bedrooms with dark, dripping hair, their bodies wrapped in white towels. Late one night I could've sworn I heard a man's voice as two sets of footsteps came sneaking up the stairs; I heard noises in the next room, but in the morning only one personâthe light-footed one, my ghostly housemateâwent down again. I wanted to knock on her door, but I knew she would deny it. I thought of Travis and wondered if there were people out there who did what I couldn't. There had to be.
I had a routine now. I shelved, then I passed my lunch break with a tuna sandwich and an Anne Rice novel in a secluded corner of the library, and then I went back to my spare little room in Mrs. Clipper's house and finished the books I'd begun during the day. I had off two mornings a week, and on those days I'd sit in on a lecture, taking notes like I had a grade depending on it. Other days, if Jason was at the library, I lost all sight of routineâespecially if he followed me into the stacks.
“Read any good field studies lately?”
I gasped and glanced up with the latest assortment of textbooks clasped to my chest. Jason smiled slightly, as if he were pleased he'd startled me. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“It's all right.” I peered at the label on the next spine and moved away from him as I looked for the right shelf.
He said my name, and I tried not to shiver. “Can you put the books down? Just for a second?”
I slid the stack onto a half-empty shelf, and he took a step forward. I felt myself turning to face himâlike metal to a magnet, a flower to the sun. He let his hand hover in the air between us. “May I?”
I nodded. He gently lifted my locket and pressed the tiny button, and the lid snapped open. Inside, Douglas Harmon humored a long-dead photographer with a movie-star smile.
“Good-looking guy,” Jason remarked. His shirt smelled faintly of laundry detergent, and when he breathed I caught the smoky tang of bacon under a wash of mint Listerine. “Your grandfather?”
I wish.
“He wasn't anybody's grandfather, I don't think.”
Jason frowned, but I didn't give him the chance to ask if I'd found the necklace in a junk shop. I backed away and the locket fell from his fingers, landing on my skin warmer than it had left. “I'd better get back to shelving.” I left him standing in the aisle, his hand outstretched as if Douglas Harmon's picture were still inside.
I never wore the locket after that. It just seemed wrong all of a sudden to be wearing a reminder of the love of somebody else's life, when I could never have one of my own.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Weeks went by, and I began to dress differently. Black cardigans, black skirts, black lace stockings. I thought Jason might like a better look at my legs. I pored over photographs of Babylonian stone carvings in the British Museum, beautiful monsters in polished granite.
The creature lures the foolish adventurer with the ghostly perfumes of the hanging gardens, tempting him to forget that all the flowers were turned to dust a thousand years before. He is a man for only a moment or two longer.
In the middle of November Jason cornered me with another armful of books and invited me to a Thanksgiving potluck. “I can't,” I said.
“It's not a problem if you're a vegetarian or something,” he said quickly. “There'll be plenty of other stuff to eat besides the turkey.”
I shook my head and tried not to smile. “I'm not a vegetarian,” I said. “Thank you for the invitation though, Jason. That was really sweet of you.”
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The first week of December he followed me into the stacks with a yellow call slip. You had to fill one of those out if there was some really old or obscure book that wasn't on the regular shelves, and a librarian would have to go and get it for you. But you were supposed to ask at the desk.
Jason came very near and let his breath fall hot on my neck. “I need this book,” he said quietly. “Do you think you could help me?”
I nodded, took the slip from his hand, and walked through the quietest section of the library. I punched in a code at a door on the back wall, and he followed me into the closed stacks. I led him left and right, zigzagging all the way into the back. The overhead lights flickered and gave out for a minute at a time, and I could smell the dust and mold off the old booksâwalls of words I would probably never read.
Finally I turned and looked at him. He stood in the aisle, his fingers absently tracing the spines of rare leather-bound volumes as he waited to see what I would do.
I turned away and began to undo the buttons of Kerri-Ann's frilly black blouse, listening as his breath caught in his throat. I unfastened the last button and pulled off the blouse, and when I turned around his eyes were gleaming, his fingers on his belt buckle. The gooseflesh rose on my arms and across my stomach as I balled up my shirt and tucked it above a row of books.
“Are we safe here?” He was undoing his belt, unzipping his fly. “Are you sure no one will find us?”
“I can't be sure of anything,” I said, and shivered. Sometimes you don't know how true something is until you've put the words around it.
“Oh, God.” Jason dipped his fingers below the waistband of his boxers. “Oh, God.”
I looked at the floor. “I'm not trying to turn you on.” That was just the opposite: I'd believed it as I was saying it, but now I couldn't tell if it was true or not.
“Well,” he breathed, and took a step closer, “it's not working.” With his free hand he reached out and ran a finger along my collarbone and under my right bra strap. I shuddered as he ran his hand along my side and dug his fingertips into the small of my back. Again he breathed on me, the ghost of a wholesome breakfast under mint-flavored chemicals.
“I only took off my blouse to keep it clean,” I said.
He grinned. “Then you may as well take off your skirt.”
I shook my head and took a step backward, just out of reach. “Do you know what the Dewey decimal number is for cannibalism, Jason?”
He looked at me blankly.
“It's three ninety-one point nine.”
Facts
.
I take such comfort in facts
. “Want me to tell you why I know that?”
He laughed as he came closer, his hand still hidden in his waistband. “Are you going to devour me, little Miss Bookworm?”
I took a step backward. “Demonology, one thirty-three.”
“Tell me more,” Jason whispered. “Are you a succubus, Maren?”
“If you don't leaveâright nowâI will eat you. Throat first, then the rest of you.” I took a deep breath and waited, but in that space a nasty little thought, a memory, wormed its way through.
There are some things I'm never going to tell you no matter how many times you ask.
All this time, I thought I'd wanted to know.
Jason's eyes shone in the gloom of the stacks. He stepped into me and ran his tongue along the edge of my jaw. “I had no idea you were so
twisted
.”
I sighed as I pressed my lips to his neck. “Nobody ever does.”
Â
Camille DeAngelis
is the author of the novels
Mary Modern
and
Petty Magic
and a first-edition guidebook,
Moon Ireland
. A graduate of NYU and the National University of Ireland, Galway, Camille currently lives in Boston. She is a vegan. Visit her online at
www.cometparty.com
or sign up for email updates
here
.
    
Â
ALSO BY
CAMILLE DeANGELIS
Mary Modern
Petty Magic
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CONTENTS
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
