The Lake and the Library (15 page)

But Li wouldn't let us stay there for long. Just as I was getting settled into familiar territory, Li was bidding me to get up, to help him build another word country and trounce off. But my physical body was weak without nourishment, and even though he was doing everything to feed my senses, it wasn't enough.

“I'm tired,” I'd say. But he would level me with that same stare, like I was being an obstinate, disobedient child. He was so persistent that we stay enveloped in these dreams longer and longer. When I let them fall apart from simply being worn out, he would scold me with a harsher tone of silence than I had known him to give.

“Please don't look at me like that. I'm not doing it on purpose. I just don't—”

He would put his hand over my mouth and shake his head again, pulling me close, running a hand over my hair as he kissed and kissed it.
No words now. Hush. You don't need them.
Don't worry, you'll get used to this
.

Sometimes we would lie together in the quiet, testing each other's bodies like iridescent puddles. He would lie behind me, arms holding me tight and fitting the curve of my spine perfectly against him. He wanted us to occupy the same space, and that need radiated into me, and I did my best to open myself up to him. His breath was shallow, and unnaturally cold, against my alert nape. He was trying to name each strand of my hair, memorizing my shape, and owning me little by little. I turned over in his hands to face him, his finger stroking the pulse beat at my throat. There was that smile again.
It's getting easier
,
it said.
It won't be long now
.
He pressed his ghost lips to mine.

The whispering died away.

And then there was the water.

It did not come in a rush or a wave, did not drown everything out like it once did. It merely haunted my steps; things sounded wet, looked wet. And the whispering came back the closer I was to it; a lake, a river, the sea. I felt like I could let the water swallow me and bear me away, but I was afraid of this feeling. And water became suddenly prevalent in every story we dove into, even though I tried to resist, tried to will it to become something else, something stable. But Li only smiled and reached out for my hand, and all I could do was trust.

We were in Shalott. It felt far more familiar than it should have, considering we had never been there before. I was the lady, melancholy on my barge filled with tapestries and possessions. Li was my Lancelot, riding alongside my boat as it cruised down the river towards its end. The sun felt so real against my pale skin, and I basked in it as Li watched me from his gleaming-white steed, eyes trained on every shift of muscle under my flesh. It felt like he was expecting something to happen here, some end that both of us had been working towards.

I ignored him and turned away, sitting at the prow, looking out into the distance. The sky had turned to lead. There was the dark promise of a storm haunting the air, a demonic mobile over the baby's crib as the infant shied away. It was quiet for the first time, and the water was calm as glass. It did not bring up any fear in me, and I leaned over the edge, letting my hand skim the surface. This was peace, and I embraced it. I looked down into the black water, and lost myself there.

The whispering rocketed into my head like a heavy moth battering inside my skull.

“
Listen
,” it said.

I prickled but didn't move, didn't give anything away. I glanced at Li. His horse was nickering and shying, trying to pull away from the river. The boat was moving slower now as it made its way to Camelot, and when I looked ahead, I saw a single house coming into view on the horizon. I suddenly remembered how this poem ended, and my heart clenched. But the whispering grew into a hum, one voice overlapping again and again, like a wave hushing against a rock. And I strained to hear.

“
Closer
,” it said.
“Closer
.
”

Something was moving under the water, rising from the riverbed. I leaned nearer to the surface, ear first, eyes locked onto Li's. He was trying to control his horse, but his face was stricken, because he knew I had heard the question, knew that he couldn't get to me in time:

“
What's your name
?” said the water voice.

“My . . .” I tried to repeat the words, but I had forgotten them. Forgotten everything.

Then a hand that had haunted even my waking dreams broke the glass surface and grabbed hold of my medallion, yanking me off the boat, dragging me down into somewhere else.

I am looking out at the crashing waters of Lake Jovan, churning with absolution like they never have before. The wind weeps for me, weeps for itself, and forces me to look on. A sick throb pulses in my belly through my torn cotton dress, clinging with sheet rain to my shaking skin. The cold has me in its grip and confiscates what little warmth has been keeping my heart beating. I'm not alone. I see her standing on the precipice, looking at the water along with me. She turns her sad, watery eyes to me.

“He is trying to take your name from you so he can keep you with him forever,” she whispers, but her mouth doesn't move. “He lost his own name, and it is what has trapped him here. Protect your name. Protect your story. Listen. Listen.” The voice was rising, desperate. “What's your
name
?”

I stumble, falling backwards into empty space, into a purling blackness. She turns back to the water, watching. Waiting.

I hit the hardwood of the library floor with an urgency that sends a jolt up my spine. Wind knocked out of me, I watched the edges of Shalott scatter across the ceiling like frightened water striders, crackling away as the shelves and the walls came back into their own. Li was at my side, trying to get me to stand, and all of a sudden something struck me like I was a hollow bell. I lunged away from him.

“. . . my name!” I heard myself blurt. The sound of any speech at all seemed foreign, since we had grown accustomed to not speaking, only reading each other. I needed words now, though, so I repeated again and again. “My name. My
name.
”

I was shaking, muttering under my breath.
How could I have forgotten it? How?
He took both of my hands and pressed them to his chest, trying to comfort me.

“Don't!” I ripped them away and stalked off, pacing. “How could I forget it? I mean. I've always had one. I've always been . . .”

My mind flashed back to the lake I'd only just dreamed of, to the woman. She was looking at me with the same kind of expectation Li had been grinding into me.

“I'm . . .”

Smoke, tea, a hospital bed. The sun glinting over trees. A house. A canvas.

And a library.

“I'm Ash.”

I suddenly remembered Li and our first meeting, in the library back when I had first seen it, diminished and dark in the eye of a rainstorm. I remembered Li looking down at my proffered hand and how he had whitened. Because I knew his name had been taken from him, too. Until I had given it back.

“I'm Ash,” I repeated, jolting back into the here and now. I slowly turned around to face Li, his eyes a pair of overcast funnel clouds. He reached out a hand to me but I shied away from it, raising a hand to my head as every memory pounded fresh into my cortex. My eyes felt bleary, like I had been asleep for too long.

“God,” I muttered. “What time is it? What . . .” I looked around, instinct kicking in to find a window, find the sun. “What
day
is it? Li? How long have I been here with you?”

He kept trying to gather me close to him, to mend the seam between us that was slowly starting to pop apart. But I was having none of it.

“No, don't.” I backed away, woozy and panting as I was caught up in the net of his worried face. “Please, I . . . Oh, God. Mum.
Mum
.”

I broke into a panicked sob, remembering her in her hospital bed, looking so small and vulnerable. And I had left her there alone. “Is she okay? Is she still sick? Oh, God, I don't even remember leaving the hospital.” I whirled around, trying to find my bag, racing and weaving around the shelves. “Help me find it, okay? My bag. I need my bag,” I said over my shoulder, trying to keep it together even though I was so light-headed. He followed heavily in my footsteps, almost at a prowl. I stopped, overcome, leaning against one of the inset shelves and trying to catch my breath. I pressed my palm deep into my forehead. I wanted to throw up and pass out all at once, but I had to get to my phone. My phone . . .

“Maybe it's upstairs, in our room—” I spun into the aisle, nearly falling over myself. Li caught me and steadied me. “Thanks,” I sighed, grateful. “I feel so strange . . .”

I tried pulling away towards the stairs, but he wouldn't let go. He knew I was trying to leave.

“What is it?”

His eyes were becoming as dark as pools of ink. Beyond him, I could see reams and reams of pages floating down from the ceiling, the shelves. Our sky was unfolding on itself, our birds and creatures limp. There was so much paper raining down that I couldn't focus on Li. But he shook me, hard and impatiently.

“
What
?” I snapped, pushing him away. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as he fought with his inability to communicate, his frustration that I could no longer read and understand him. I slipped around him, towards the stairs. “My mother, she's sick and I . . .” I shook my head, trying to escape his stare. “I have to go.”

He clattered up the stairs behind me, and I tried to walk faster, tried to shake him. I couldn't stand him so close to me right now, not when he was acting like this. The floorboards groaned under my feet, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic surrounded by shelves. At the top of the stairs he grabbed me again.

“Stop it, Li, I'm serious.” He pulled me to him, tried to capture me in an embrace, but I prickled. “I don't have time for this!” I snapped again, suddenly afraid of his urgency and desperation to keep me close. Something gleamed in the corner of my eye: water was beading out of the bookshelves, dripping.

I pushed back. “Please, just let me go.” His forearms tightened around me like I was cutting him each time I tried to get away. “I'll . . . I'll come back,” I lied. “I promise I will.” He shook his head, not believing me for a second. I pried his hands off. “I have to,” I whispered firmly, the weight of the words giving me the strength to move away.

In a sudden turn he nabbed me by the shoulders and checked me into the banister of the landing, pinning me there. The carved wood rail dug an angry groove into my spine. I cried out. “What are you—”

He took my face between his hands, searching it, the grimace at his mouth reeling back as he tried to take us into a story, a dream, just so he could shackle me down to him and the library, to make me accept whatever my fate would be. I could feel it closing in, but I shouted, “No! I don't want this, not this way.” The dream hissed backwards like a feral beast, receding into the walls. Water was cascading down them, creeping towards our feet. I still had some power here, even though it was quickly ebbing away.