My Polaroid camera hung from my hip, tapping it as I came to a stop. I fingered the knobs, biting my lip as I scrutinized what I now knew as “the library.” The sun winked above me like a lucky coin, goading me on. I didn’t know how much further luck was willing to take me after yesterday, so I recited some ground rules to myself before going in: Be brave. Be careful. And don’t climb anything.

Click click. The processor released a black-and-white Polaroid tongue that I shook before dropping it into my bag. The camera had been a gift from an aunt who once drove all the way to Treade to give Mum a piece of her mind for moving to the middle of nowhere. The camera was to keep me busy. And it would. With it, I could get instant proof that this rabbit hole was real. A digital camera could be tampered with before the evidence was produced. These pictures would be the solid proof that my injured (had it been?) hand had failed to be. I obviously couldn’t trust my eyes anymore, that was certain.

Down on my knees, squishing the damp ground underneath, I squeezed through my opening in the wall. The table legs came into focus and the bookshelves, too, but I stopped myself, sucked in a breath, and listened. The lights were on, but I hoped nobody was home. It wouldn’t take much for some meddling kids to have discovered my hole and crashed the party. But all was silent. After slithering through the opening, I got to my feet with slow, steel-spring determination. For a second I reconsidered having come alone, but I needed a few things figured out before anyone else followed in my uncertain footsteps.

I sneaked past the lofty bookcase and took a good look around the centre of the room. Everything was meticulous and untouched, barely a grain of dust or a cobweb in sight. The paint and varnish looked as fresh as the day it’d been applied. The lights shone with crystal clarity. In the dark of the storm and the glow of my flashlight, it had looked dingy and unkempt. Had someone been in here to clean house since yesterday? I raised my camera and clicked. My heart valves flapped like wild wings as I wandered further, finger finding the capture button for every little thing I saw. It wasn’t long before I stopped collecting the pictures, instead leaving them in my wake to come back to later. Reloading the camera from the packs in my bag became rote. I was too lost in what I saw; the books, the sheer magnitude of the space, all contained and standing away from me with apprehensive beauty. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, and only a trace of what I dreamed of.

Aim and click. I’m suddenly girl-Hansel, Polaroids my bread crumbs in this looming forest whose trees have been pulped and printed. I stopped at the far wall, got a good close-up shot of the antler-bedecked clock, and leaned in closer to see that the antlers were attached to tiny, prancing deer, encircling the mother-of-pearl face. I suddenly realized that the clock’s ticking was counting the seconds with my pulse. I pulled out my cell phone, and sure enough, it was keeping perfect time. I leaned in even closer, impulse dictating I touch the clock face to make sure it was really there—

Something flew across the room and smacked the clock just where I was about to touch it. I wheeled backwards, accidentally sending my camera flash in the direction of the onslaught before throwing myself behind a reading table. I breathed hard, looking around wildly and finding no one before I shakily scooped up the last five photos I’d taken.

I shuffled the pile. There was a picture of the curving twin iron staircases snaking up to the library’s second level; another of the never-ending row of shelves captured from a strange angle, then two more of the ghostly, untouched tables . . . but I doubled back. There was something crouching behind the staircase, which was very close to my right. I looked from the picture to the stairs, squinting. A shadow. A face.

It wasn’t clear enough, though, whatever it was. A reflection of light off a lamp, maybe. I sighed and berated myself for being such an idiot, acting like I was trapped in a Nancy Drew mystery and was about to be set upon by a flock of ghosts. I got to my feet and decided to go after all the pictures I’d left behind.

But after taking one look at where I’d only just come from, I froze. No pictures. How could I have expected otherwise? There was something in these walls slowly eating away at the reality it inhabited, and I’d become a part of it.

A creaking echoed from behind me. I stood mannequin-still, eyes and head swivelling around slowly.

“I know you’re there! I’m not stupid!”

My defiance ricocheted through the empty building. When it boomeranged back, it sounded almost as dumb as the idea of coming here alone. I wasn’t about to be scared into leaving, though. Not by a long shot. A role reversal of cat and mouse was imminent.

Swallowing my suspicion, I went the casual route, strolling around and taking more pictures at my leisure. With a pause, I glanced back at the ground a few feet behind me. Pictures gone. Of course. I turned and kept on, walking down the centre aisle, aiming up. Click. Spit. Click. Spit. Reload. Pause. Turn. Gone. Okay, time for plan B. I started snapping pictures feverishly, stepping backwards as the pile of fresh photos at my feet grew. They didn’t disappear, and for a second I felt vindicated.

Almost, anyway, until I backed up into something. Someone.

Whoever it was didn’t even give me a fair chance to turn around. There were hands suddenly pinioned around my arm and torso, pushing and trying to pry the camera out of my hands. When I couldn’t fight any longer and had to let go of the camera, the momentum of letting go drove me forwards in a half spin. I caught myself. It was him.

He experimented with the camera, recoiling and shocked when a picture came out. At that he grinned, aiming it at my face to snap a few.

I lunged at him. “Don’t do that! You’re wasting film!” I tried to grab it but he buckled backwards with a half step, teasing me, taking more, and dancing away. He wanted a chase, and I was more than willing to give it.

Midsprint, I whined, “Give it back! It’s an antique! You’re gonna wreck it!”

I skidded to a halt as he ducked around a darker corner. As soon as I lost sight of him, he was gone, but a few flashes from above gave him away instantly. He was lazing on his belly on top of a bookshelf without a care, even for heights, and thoroughly enjoying himself.

“Okay, okay!” I shied away behind my hand. “I get the point; you can stop any time.”

He gave a mock-pout, saddened that I wasn’t amusing him anymore, so he turned the camera on himself and snapped one. While he sat, temporarily distracted by sudden blindness, I scaled the ladder nearest to him, but stopped just out of arm’s reach remembering yesterday. I held out my hand.

“Give it here, whoever you are, and I promise I won’t sue for damages.”

He cocked an eyebrow and curled a half smile, those strange eyes looking for a fair trade but willing to give in. The camera came close to my hand, and as I wrapped my fingers around it, he yanked it towards him, bringing me, rolling ladder and all, right to him.

I shrieked. “This isn’t funny, just let go—” But his ice-chip eyes were concentrated on me, relentless. I wanted him to just say what he wanted, rather than keeping me constantly suspicious. He was coming in closer, closer, his pupils about to devour, until he pinched my nose and made a throaty honking noise before letting the camera go. I rubbed my nose, disgusted that I fell for it and muttered “Idiot” while checking the camera over.

He kept watching me like an amused feline, face planted in folded arms and fascinated as I hung the camera around my neck. I grappled with my thoughts, still shaken and uncertain about what was there between us. Impatient with myself, I finally said, “So I guess you’re L-I.”

He wrinkled his nose, shaking his head.

“Um. I mean. Li?” I pronounced it “Lee.”

At that he looked genuinely insulted. I threw up my hands. “Well, maybe if you just told me what it is I wouldn’t keep guessing wrong.”

He leaned back on his arms, crossing his ankles and looking bored.

“How about ‘Lie.’ As in li-on?”

He squinted, wrinkling his nose again like he was trying to work out whether or not I was right. Then he made a face like it hurt him to think, and at the end of it all he shrugged, conceding, and gave me a slow clap. “Lie” it was, then. I couldn’t dodge my own smile.

“Are you this annoying to everyone who asks?”

Li’s grin engaged every muscle and line on his face before he raised his shoulders cartoonishly, again.

“Figures.” My mistrust was waning, though. He was just a prankster. Messy, rumpled, partway good-looking in a dogged kind of way, and only irritating as far as he knew it was amusing. But there were still some unanswered questions that were gnawing hesitation into my bones.

He also wouldn’t stop staring.

“So . . . How’d you get in here? Did you follow me through the back?”

Maybe we were fellow trespassers, unified under breach of conduct, which made me feel a little less guilty in treading all over someone else’s memories. Li didn’t bother with a reply, though, now too busy digging around in the breast pocket of his faded wool peacoat to give me a second’s notice.

I wasn’t about to let it go. “Well?” I insisted, drumming my fingers on a shelf. “Are you going to say anything or what?”

A Polaroid suddenly cuffed me square between the eyes. I rubbed my face, and before I could blurt a “don’t” he was chucking another one. I caught sight of the big pile of pictures he’d scooped up from the library floor, the pile that had started this whole thing in the first place. He flipped his thumb over the edges, back and forth, like he was a hotshot blackjack dealer straight off the tables. Without those pictures, I had nothing to take back with me, nothing to show. He knew I needed them, picking another one and handling it like a ninja star under his thumb.

I dove further up the ladder, defying what happened the last time, and went after him. But Li was already to his feet, flipping over the balcony and mounting the second level like a lemur. He twisted and waved the pile around, flicking one out and snapping it in my direction. Onslaught occurring, counterstrike! I ducked as three sailed past my head, and in spite of myself, I laughed.

Despite not knowing him, despite having almost met such a terrifying end yesterday, despite the sheer mystery that cloaked this entire place, I felt like I could be free here, and chasing after Li, wherever he was leading me, was what I needed to do. But when I got to the top of the ladder, I remembered how much I hated heights and could go no further.

He clicked his tongue and whistled, beckoning. All right, new plan. Without a beat, I scurried down to the floor and made a break for the spiral staircase on the left. I looked up to the balcony to make sure I could find him amongst the stacks, but he darted into the dark where I knew he’d be waiting.

When I finally made it up, trying to rein in my panting breaths, the black monolithic shelves hid him well. My chest quaked, body tensed for the attack, smile unable to be pushed into a concentrated frown. I caught myself wondering why I was chasing a total stranger.

“Come on, Raggedy Andy . . .” I murmured, biting my lip as I slowly took in each corner.

I patted the bookcases as I passed them. Solid. Nothing hiding in them, behind them . . . safe. I cast my searching eyes just ahead and up. At the end of the aisle was a short staircase with a black door at the top. I fixated on it for a second, wondering if he could’ve sneaked away up there, but there was a rush of air on my right. Out and fast came Li, and I braced myself as he lifted me from behind, twirling me as I kicked the air midspin. His hands held fast and kept me airborne.

“Okay, okay!” On a reflex I kicked out, which made the up-til-then perfect performer catch his foot and bring us both down. We slammed tailbones-first into the hardwood. All I could do was laugh at the look of utter shame on Li’s face at having made such a terrible landing. I was surprised that we were having fun, were laughing, were finding all this acceptable. Especially since I didn’t know anything about this mystery boy.

I sat up and shuffled back-first into a shelf as he composed himself, but he got me by the ankle. He held out his hand, pointing to the camera, then flicking what was left of his photo pile. A trade.

I huffed. “Fine then.”

The pictures and the camera changed hands, and we both weighed our prizes as equals.

“Agh.” I scrunched my nose at one of my mug, captured midscreech. “Too much of a close-up.”

He snagged the picture from me and held it up to my blinking face. He shrugged as if to say, looks the same to me.

I flicked that one at him. “Gee, thanks.”

I dove back into perusing the stack at hand, until the camera flashed and I flinched away. “Okay, already! One’s enough! What’s so special about my face, anyway?”

Laughing in his almost noiseless way, he physically zoomed in for another take. The flash went off, but without result. His elation deflated as he shook the thing at his ear.

“It’s out of film,” I sang tauntingly, stealing the thing back before he could chuck it elsewhere. “I’ll get more, don’t cry about it.”

After stowing the camera and the pictures safely in my bag, I turned to see that Li had adopted his never-ending stare tactic again, blinking and expectant, eyes boring deep into me like twin mining drills. I pushed a stray bit of hair behind my ear, trying to ignore how my face was getting hot, and looked down.

“Look, I . . . I’m really grateful for yesterday, you know. You were gone before I could really thank you, so I’m glad you’re here again and that I could say thank you properly . . . even though you’re sort of a scary kleptomaniac, but I don’t mind, really, there are weirder things to be . . . but yeah, I just wanted to say thanks, and I’m also glad you’re here, because there are a few things that have been bugging me about this place, about yesterday, the whole thing with my hand . . . and how you got in here, too—”

When I looked back up he was closer than before, still staring, and I reflexively nudged him on the shoulder to get the message across; if he moved any closer I’d be impaled on his angled nose.

“You’ve gotta stop that,” I said, standing my ground. “You don’t have to keep staring. If there’s something you wanna say, just say it.”

Parting his hair from his eyes, Li looked away, ashamed, crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap. I waited for him to say something, anything, and just as I was about to lay into him for ignoring me, for playing this terrible game with me that wasn’t funny anymore, I saw what little colour he had was draining from his cheeks. He put a slender-fingered hand around his neck, looked me straight in the eye, and shook his head. A breath hissed and caught in my throat as it thickened.

“Oh,” I said, sounding just as dumb as I felt. “Oh. I’m so sorry. I just thought you . . . I don’t know what I thought, I guess.” Mute-button eternal. Maybe you should practice that every once in a while, Ash . . .

Li waved his hands, trying to make it seem like it really wasn’t that big a deal. He patted me on the shoulder, reached over, and picked up half of my pile so he could have a good look, too. We sat in the musty quiet, all the hundreds of questions I had suddenly seeming pretty mediocre and small. I felt like I had no right to talk, worried and embarrassed that it would make Li feel bad. He nudged me in the ribs, probably sensing this, trying to get me to lighten up. I scooped up a Polaroid.

“This one’s my favourite so far,” I said, handing over a close-up of the deer clock. “I wish you hadn’t wasted all that film. I don’t have a proper one of you, but hundreds of me.”

He made a noise like tsk, rolling his eyes. The pictures were my proof. Maybe I needed proof that he was real, too. At least today he looked more apt to play, happier, lit up from the inside, even. My mind kept flashing between the relaxed smile of now to the drawn and worried grimace of then. Was he here hiding from something? Or someone . . .

Tabitha. I fumbled through my bag for my cell, checking the time. Two missed alerts. Damn, I was supposed to be over there half an hour ago.

“Oh, God, sorry. I have to go.” I scrambled to my feet. The library was meant to be my apology card, and all the proof of it, too. It had been my bright idea to document everything I could, then flash it at her as a means of bandaging over our sour parting yesterday. But as soon as I had slipped in here, my intentions fell away behind me.

Li got up just as fast, and as I was shouldering my bag and making my way to go, he was in my path. “I really have to go,” I tried, ducking around him. I couldn’t play with him forever, even though, I thought suddenly, I’d like to.

He grabbed me by the bag but I yanked free, serving him a triumphant raspberry as I bounded off.

“You’re holding me up, crazy boy,” I shouted, words ricocheting here and there off shelves and balcony rails as I skipped down the stairs. “We’ll talk more again, sometime . . . Well, I’ll talk more, right?”

I looked up at the railing where Li had followed as far as the landing would allow, stopping at the edge restlessly. I genuinely thought he was going to try to swan dive after me, his confident trickster mask cracking free. Will I see you again? his apprehension whispered.

I tried to offer a flimsy buffer of comfort, because I felt he deserved it. “I’ll come back soon. We seem to like the same haunts. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

His eyes darted around the room, frustrated. He was searching for words without sound, so he plucked them from the air with his fingers. Point to me, point to him, panoramic hand view.

“Me, you, here?” I translated. His nod was more than eager, body dangerously pressed to the railing in order to be close without jumping down. I laughed and rocked on my heels. “What makes you think I spend my summers meeting crazy thief boys in abandoned libraries?”

Shrilling out a whistle, he twirled his finger at his temple and pointed at me.

“I’m the crazy one?”

Curt nod.

I couldn’t help it. He was master and commander of an entire circus all on his own, and I didn’t mind coming along for the tour. He was the colour and poetry that Treade owed me.

“All right!” I agreed. “When?”

He held out his hand, beckoning me for an offer.

“Tomorrow?” I laughed. “How about tomorrow?”

The corners of his lips twitched like nothing could make him happier. I had never felt so wanted with so few words to prove it, and it made my chest expand as I found my exit hole. Could there really be something that special about me? A candid thought reverberated sharply through me as I squeezed out into the open, trying to avoid clumps of mud and wall debris.

Li was just one more last to add to this summer’s list.

I rounded Tabitha’s downhill bay, trying to keep my knees in check on the slope so I wouldn’t find myself with a mouthful of sidewalk. My sheer, brilliant excitement alone propelled me like a meteor. Two days had been enough time for me to keep all this a secret. Tabs had to know, had just as much right as me to know, and soon there would be no dissension, no hurt, only lasting memories.

And right after, we’d pass the story on to Paul, the words and inspiration slipping out of me like twinkling coins into his lap. Our reunion would electrify our tender souls back to life. The three of us would bask in this new adventure, this new sanctuary, relishing in the tale with each dive into it. After all the time we’d spent dreaming, the mystery would be ours. Our escape. Until time moved us on and tapped us out.

I came to the bottom of the bay hill, bag slapping feverishly against my back. The kingdom would be ours, and I had just the thing to get Tabitha back in on it.

My mind shunted so suddenly onto Li that it made me jerk to a stop just a house away from Tabitha’s. His desperate, pleading eyes jutted out like chalk lines on asphalt, gemstones in the depths:

You, me, here?

He’d been in the library before me. The kingdom couldn’t truly be mine, Tabitha’s, or Paul’s. Not really. Not with the brotherhood that Li’s feet seemed to share with the floors and the walls, making him able to navigate the darkest shadow to save my sorry self. I had him to thank for letting me live to see this adventure come true. What would I tell them about Li, when I knew so little? Where did he go after I left? And had I ever seen him in town before? A population of under 3,000 made it hard to miss a face, but . . . there he was. At first he was so aloof and closed in, until he transformed into a wild mischief-maker needing chase and attention. So many fragmented aspects. Schizophrenic, joyful stranger — what could I expect from him? Who are you, mystery boy?

But his eyes, afraid of being lied to, afraid I would disappear in front of them. The teasing, the playing. It felt like this sharp expression of gratefulness for something I didn’t know I had done. He was the one who had saved me, after all.

I’d promised Li I’d see him tomorrow. I owe him more than I can imagine, I suddenly realized. More than a promise, anyway. It hit me harder as I walked slower down the sidewalk, the enthusiasm draining into the cracks I stared at. I suddenly felt trapped between two worlds, unable to compromise or cultivate the promises I had made to either one.

Just him and me. How would he feel if the others were there? He could say nothing, his silence worse than words.

I woke up from all the thoughts shuddering behind my eyes like caged moths, and found myself on Tabitha’s doorstep. My hand was poised on the knocker, even though I didn’t even remember putting it there. I was so close, but the hesitation reel had caught into my skin and was pulling me back. I wanted to tell Tabs, I did, but a roughshod series of bad reasons made me drop my hand as I talked myself out of being accountable. I mean, to be fair, maybe her spark had gone out after all. If I gave her this last ember back, this little flicker, she’d expect more from me. So would Paul. Just as we were attempting the cut, we’d be freshly reattached at the hip. Maybe she was right. “You’ve let go, Ash, why can’t we?” she had said, and the words assaulted me, even now. No, I decided. I couldn’t tell her. My poor string of logic as to why I couldn’t, though, was constructed by a careful, quiet shadow, one that wanted nothing and no one else to interfere with what it felt it had so long deserved. I wasn’t willing to see that it was there, waiting in the pit of my stomach, so I let it have its way.

As I leaped off the doorstep and paced down the driveway, I suddenly felt like I was doing everyone a favour by keeping the secret close. That maybe it would be a better idea to share it later in the game, after I’d left, after the library was a blank slot in an empty town archive. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone anymore, that was for sure, and I never wanted to see that look of absolute disenchantment on Tabitha’s face again.

“Ash?”

End of the driveway, getaway averted, I jerked to a stop on one foot and pirouetted. There was Tabitha, door open, eyebrow cocked at me. In my blank surprise, I twitched out a smile.

“Hey, Tabs. Sorry — I, um. Didn’t think you were home. No one answered when I knocked.”

Liar.

She shut the door, barring the dog from leaping out behind her as she crossed the front garden and huffed a curl out of her eye.

“Didn’t hear a knock,” she said. “You could’ve texted.”

Trapped. “Right. Well. I left my phone at home. Stupid.”

Still lying.

We were silent, awkward. Then Tabitha blurted, “I’m sorry for yesterday, Ash. It’s just . . . it’s gonna be hard, you know, when you’re gone. It’s not because of—”

“No, no,” I sighed, smiling, glad the ice was finally melting, “it’s okay, Tabs. I understand. It’s okay.”

Looking away, eyes misty, she shrugged one shoulder and the subject dropped dead away into the concrete beneath our feet. I abandoned the stupid idea of not telling her about the library, my resolve cracking. I wanted to heal that heartbreak lining her face and wordless mouth. I pawed around in my bag for my pile of Polaroid Band-Aids — my own remedy for the soon-to-be wounds.

“Hey, I wanted to show you this,” I said, fingers scrounging in excited plunges past my camera. They hit the bottom and found nothing else. I paused and kept looking, nearly putting my entire head in there, but my bag was empty, save one picture I looked at guardedly: the first photo I had taken of the library before going in. There was a fist around my heart.

Tabitha leaned in, speculating from her advantageous height. “Well? What is it?”

I couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or not that the pictures had been stolen from me, yet again. Nervously, uncomfortably, I laughed a bit and shouldered the bag. “Damn. Must’ve left it at home. I have to go, though; didn’t tell Mum I was going out. She’s been having crazy mood swings with the move so close. She’ll flip, you know?”

Tabitha’s disappointment was palpable, but her confusion surmounted it. “You came all the way over here, though. Are you sure you can’t just tell me what it is?”

I was already taking painful steps to leave her driveway. “No, no. I want to show you first. Anyway! I promise I’ll show you tomorrow.”

She just shrugged and came down off the steps to bundle me into a hug before I bounced away with a wave. We’d reconciled halfway. That was better than nothing.

“Bye, Tabs!”

As I curved round the corner, out of Tabitha’s view, my eyes winced shut and I squeezed my arms around myself. In a kinetic mind flash I could see, could feel, Li grappling with my bag to keep me back in the library. My imagination made up for the interlude where I wasn’t looking at him, and he must’ve grabbed the picture pile. I had felt them in my hand. I had taken them. They were solid. I opened my eyes and looked at said hand, the one that had met with so much trouble still disturbingly uninjured.

As I walked carefully home, shaking my head and feeling a bad, unfamiliar buzz coursing at my temples, I could clearly picture Li lounging in solitude in the quiet shadow of a bookcase, poring contentedly through my pictures. And I was left empty-handed, with one Polaroid that meant nothing at all.

Nothing to anyone, except me.