Chapter Nine

This time I ended up waking—if you'll call it that—alone. No one was tugging on me and asking questions. It was just me and the book alone in the library. Tarryn was still asleep upstairs from what I could tell. I looked outside and it was still dark, so that meant I couldn't have been there too long. I hadn't been missing from this world for as long as the time before. Yet it was hard to tell where my actual body went while I was in the book and how long I was away. I really knew nothing. It was all just guesses and estimations right now. I needed to set up a video camera next time. I needed actual proof.

I pulled the blanket off my sweaty legs and opened the window a crack to cool off. My body was still heated; I could feel the weather lingering from Lisa's world. I ran my hand through my hair and found it as poofy as it was when I was with her.

Her.

I actually felt awful for leaving again. Did I miss her? I wasn't sure.

I wasn't sure what I felt about anything that happened to me or how I felt about this whole situation, but one thing was certain, I wanted to go back soon. I realized I wasn't any closer to figuring out why my great-grandmother was there.

I got up and scrambled to bed, exhausted from my little visit. I fell into bed still in the same clothes and looked forward to a new day where I could hopefully find answers.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of Tarryn cooking. I heard a lot of clinking and dishes being moved around. I pulled on a robe and shuffled into the kitchen. She took one look at me and handed me a cup full of coffee.

"You look like you need this more than me right now," she laughed lightly. "I made bacon and eggs."

She sat down a plate full of greasy bacon and scrambled eggs. "Thank you, Tarryn. But you don't have to cook for me in the morning."

"I know that. I wanted to. I like to cook, so I have no problem making meals for you if you're around." She smiled and dug into her breakfast. I did the same. Having her here wouldn't be so bad. We got along and she cooked, so that was a bonus.

In California, it took me a while to warm up to all of my roommates in college. Chahee and I hit a few rough patches in the beginning and we worked through it. Maybe living with Tarryn would be easier somehow.

"I have some errands to run, but I'll be back later to help you with anything in the library," she said as she finished her eggs.

I ate and nodded, saying, "I appreciate it. But we open tomorrow, so let's take the day off today."

"Sounds good to me," she said as she got up and rinsed her plate. "Okay, see you later."

"Bye. Thanks for breakfast," I told her as she walked out the door.

Later in the day I found myself surrounded by college papers. I already had a paper due by next week, and I had just started the online class. This was going to be challenging for sure, but I loved it.

I reached for my cup of coffee and realized it was empty. This was no good. I sat up to stretch my legs and wake myself up somehow. I was down in the library's open space doing my work in the quiet surroundings. Gram had this room done for students who needed a little quiet time to do homework. How ironic that I was using it in an empty library.

I walked to the office where Gram did everything behind the scenes: ordered books, planned meetings, paid bills, and everything else a librarian does. The space wasn't very big, but it was big enough for Gram. I ran my hand over the small desk she sat in and realized that I remembered her working in here for hours sometimes. And this room was always off limits to me or Rose. We were never allowed in here at any time.

"What were you hiding, Gram?" I asked alloud.

I looked through the cabinets, now extremely curious about what she was doing in here all the time.

I found nothing.

So I went through her desk, still nothing. No clues left that I could see and no answers about why she needed me to guard this forsaken library.

I sat in her chair with a loud thump and rolled around the room. If she saw me now, she'd kill me. I pushed off the desk and the chair hit the wall behind me with a thud. I laughed then spun in the chair and rested my feet on the wall.

"Gram, why am I here? What the hell do you want from me, huh?" Tears now took over and the laughter ceased. "Why am I traveling into a book? Why does it have to be me? It's absolute torture to meet her and to be taken away so suddenly, especially when I'm so damn lonely without you."

Frustrated now, I gave the wall a good solid kick with both feet and the chair spun across the room. I looked up and heard a loud creaking noise.

"Oh shit."

I'd broken the stupid old building. The wall seemed to move slightly and I shot up out of my chair fearful of collapse. I stood there watching the wall shift and gradually, before my eyes, open. I gasped and looked into a room that was now visible in front of me.

A trick wall In my Gram's office. This was insane. I had once dreamt about Gram having a hidden room, but maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe it was a memory,

It was like Narnia, and I was a kid again with hidden passages and magic books. I was going batshit crazy, so I did the only thing a crazy woman could do; I looked around for my trusty flashlight I put on the desk. I clicked it on and shined it into the large space. Dust and debris fell from the opening and I hesitated before entering. What would happen if I went in and the door closed? I'd be trapped because I didn't know the trick to opening it back up. I took a book and jammed it underneath the door for good measure before going inside.

The room wasn't as dark and scary as I anticipated it to be; it was actually quite the opposite. It looked like it had been in use not too long ago, a month maybe, before Gram died. It was a guess, but with this being her office, I only assumed she knew about this room. Books filled a small shelf on one wall and I found a hurricane lamp on a table. I lit it and its orange glow flooded the room. Posters hung on the wall with drawings of things I couldn't understand. From my best estimation they were scientific drawings full of numbers and calculations. Pictures filled up another wall. I noticed Gram in a few, but the others I had to really squint to see.

One photo held my attention. Four women in dresses, depicting the photo's origin were probably in Lisa's time or earlier. I pulled the photo down and tried to see if any of the women looked familiar, but they didn't. One girl with dark curls resembled Gram from when she was younger, yet she looked different. A relative maybe.

I yanked the photo from the frame and found an inscription on the back: The Librarians 1850.

The fact that I'd been off about the year didn't even faze me. What did in fact shock me was the name they had for themselves. The Librarians.

Were they actual librarians, and if so, was this a family business? I wasn't so sure, but I would find out. I searched the wall for more photos of these ladies and found them. Some of them were with other people, but never were they all together again like they were in this one photo that I held in my hand. No, it could never be that simple. Not in my life at least.

The woman that looked like Gram was in a photo that read 1957, and she looked exactly the same as she did in the group photo.

A curly-haired was also in a picture from another date that read 1925, and you guessed it, she looked the same. I needed to find out who these women were, so I took all the photos from their frames and flipped them over. I pulled out a sheet of notebook paper from a journal and wrote all the women's names and dates down. After a while I had everyone's name and the dates that they were in separate photos.

Tessa 1925, the curly-haired blonde.

Alice 1950, a feisty looking red head with a fierce smile.

Laura 1982, a pretty girl who looked shy.

And last but not least, Grace, my great-grandmother with her dark curls. The same year, now that I remembered, that Nancy told me that Harold Lockhart and Grace arrived in the book. Things weren't making sense, but the pieces of the puzzle were lining up, if I could only fit them all together. I laid all of the pictures in a row and stared at them until my eyes watered. I had no answers, but I knew one thing; these women were together once and they were all from different time periods.

Did Harold find a way to travel through time? It was possible. It was also possible that the answers lie in one of the many books on the shelf behind me. As bad as I wanted to scour them and find out, I was dog tired and needed a break from this library.

I left the room and kept the door open, just in case. I locked Gram's office and headed upstairs. The house was still empty so I called Rose. She answered in hushed breath.

"Did I catch you sleeping?"

She sighed and said, "No. I'm at a guy's house."

"A guy? What guy would that be?" I teased. I'd caught her in the act of an indecent situation and I would revel in it. Rose was always the one who was shy about her relationships. She never talked about boys when we were young or sex when we got older. She was the modest one out of the both of us, but now I'd turned into a boring librarian. I hadn't been with a guy in months, and I decided Rose's love life was now a huge interest to me.

"Oh please, don't make this a big deal, Jennie. I swear I'll kill you."

I laughed and said, "I swear I won't. Are you hiding in his house? Where is he?"

"I'm in the bathroom. I'm so embarrassed, Jennie. I didn't mean for this to happen," she sighed. "He's only asked me out a thousand times, so I figured one date won't hurt, right? Well that date turned into…sex." She whispered sex like it was a dirty word.

"Good for you, Rose. You're turning into a little vixen; I like it."

"He's so hot, Jennie. What the hell am I gonna do? We work together!"

I grabbed a cookie and munched on it while I thought about what I would do if I had been in her situation. I realized what I would have done was left the house right then and there. I wouldn't have considered the situation awkward at all. Being around him wouldn't have bothered me. But Rose, she was different.

"My best advice is to stay where you are and talk to him about it. He isn't married, right?"

"Oh God, no! What do you think I am?"

"Okay, calm down. I was just making sure," I said with a laugh. "Wait for him to wake up and have breakfast. Things don't have to be difficult or awkward. Relationships in the workplace work out all the time."

"That's really grown up advice. Thanks, Jennie."

"Sometimes I can be a grown up. Now go back to bed and do something dirty with him," I half joked.

She laughed and said bye. I hung up the phone with a smile on my face. Good lord, I needed to leave this house. I grabbed my purse and my credit card; time for a shopping trip.