The Book of Lost Friends(12)

The girl shuts the hall doors, all right, and I think to myself, Oh Lord! Ain’t no way Seddie didn’t hear that.

Every hair on my body stands up, but no one comes, and little Juneau Jane moves on with her business. This girl is either smart or the biggest fool I ever came upon, because next she takes her papa’s little pocket lantern from the desk, opens the tin case, strikes up a Lucifer, and lights the candle.

I can see her face clear then, lit up in that circle of yellow light. She ain’t a child anymore, but she ain’t a woman, either, someplace in-between. A strange creature with long, dark curls that circle her like angel hair and hang far down her back. That hair moves with life of its own. She’s still got that light skin, straight brows like Old Mister’s, and wide eyes that slant up at the corners, same’s my mama’s, same’s mine. But this girl’s are silvery bright. Unnatural. Witchy.

She sets the lantern ’neath the desk, just enough to give some light, and she commences to fetching out ledger books from the drawer, turning pages by the light, her thin, pointed finger tracing a line here and there. She can read, reckon. Them sons and daughters born in pla?age live high, boys sent to France to get educated, and the girls to convent schools.

She checks over every ledger book and slip of paper she can find, shakes her head, hisses through her teeth, not happy one bit. She lifts up boxes of powdered ink, pens, pencils, tobacco, pipes, holds them to the light and looks underneath.

Be a sure miracle if this girl don’t get caught. Child’s getting noisier and braver by the minute.

Or else just more desperate.

Holding up the candle lamp, she goes to the shelves that rise floor to ceiling against the walls, higher than three men could reach if they stood on shoulders. For a minute, she’s got the flame so close, I think it’s in her mind to burn the books and the Grand House to the ground.

There’s hired women and girls asleep at the attic. I can’t let Juneau Jane set that flame, if she tries to. I shift from behind the curtain, creep three steps ’cross the room, almost to the moonlight squares on the cherry wood floors.

But she don’t do it. She’s trying to make out what the books are. Lifts onto her toes and holds the lantern high as she can. The candle tin tips, wax funneling over onto her wrist. She gasps and drops the lamp, and it falls on the carpet, the flame drowned in a wax pool. She don’t even bother to go after it, just stands there with her hands on her waist, looking up at the high shelves. There’s no ladder to get up there. The house girls probably took it to use for cleaning someplace.

Ain’t two seconds before the cape is off that girl’s shoulders, and she’s testing the bottom shelf with one foot, and then climbing. Lucky thing she’s still in child’s skirts, just only halfway betwixt her knee and her silk slippers. She skitters her way up like a squirrel, the long hair trailing down her back making a big, fluffy tail.

Her toe slips near the top.

Careful, I want to say, but she rights herself and goes on, then grabs and sidesteps along the high shelves like the young boys traveling the rafters in the wagon shed.

The muscles in her arms and legs shake from the strain, and the shelf bows under her when she gets toward the middle. It’s a single book she’s after, one that’s thick and heavy and tall. She pulls it loose and scoots it along the wobbling wood and gets herself back to the edge where it’s stronger.

Down she comes, setting the book ahead of her, one shelf lower, one shelf lower.

The very last time she lays that book down, it pitches like somebody’s shoved it from behind, and off it topples. Seems like forever, it goes end over end through shadows and light, then hits the floor with a smack that rattles the room and races out the door.

There’s stirrings upstairs. “Sedd-ieeee?” Old Missus calls through the house, that screech cutting up my spine like a kitchen knife. “Seddie! Who is there? Is it you? Answer me this instant! One of you girls come lift me from this bed! Put me in my chair!”

Feet scramble and doors open overhead. A housemaid runs down the attic steps and along the second-floor hall. Good thing Missus can’t get up from that bed on her own. Seddie’s a whole other matter, though. She’s probably grabbing the old breechloader rifle right now, fixing to lay somebody under with it.

“Mother?” It’s Missy Lavinia’s voice comes then. What’s she doing home? Ain’t yet the end of spring term at the Melrose Female School in New Orleans. Ain’t even close.

Juneau Jane grabs that book and she’s out the window so quick, she don’t even remember to get her cloak. She don’t close the window, either, and that’s good because I’m bound to get out of here, same way she did. Can’t leave that cloak there, though. If Missus sees it, she’ll know Tati’s stitching and come asking us about it. If I can get it and close that window, kick the travel lantern under the desk, the rest might be all right. This library’s the last place they’d think of a thief coming. Folks steal food or silver goods, not books. Any luck, a few days might pass before the candle wax on the carpet gets noticed. Even better luck, the house help will clean it up without saying a word.

I stuff the cloak down my shirt, nudge that candle lamp with my foot, glance at the mess on the rug, think, Oh Lord. Lord, Lord, cover me over. I want to live some more years before I die. Marry a good man. Have babies. Own that land.