eamon in the Library

    Chapter 1

     It was just a regular Monday in late October, and I was trying to make my mom feel better. She was sitting at one of the computer tables in the Central Library, staring at the screen in front of her. Supposedly she was looking for work. But when I looked over her shoulder I only saw pictures of big houses, swimming pools, people wearing sunglasses and hats and fancy clothes. She was dreaming again.

     I went around to the other side of the table and leaned toward her, making faces and bobbing my head around like a clown in a circus. Sometimes that helped. She would look up from the computer and smile at me and maybe roll her eyes. “Oh Eamon!” she’d say, and we’d both feel a little better. But today she didn’t smile, she just scowled at me and shook her head. I could tell she was about to get mad, so I went to look for a book.

     The Central Library was my favorite place in the world. It was a big red brick building with wide stone steps that pulled you almost magically up from the sidewalk to the front doors. Inside there were four huge marble pillars, like the legs of a stone dragon. Past those a curving marble staircase led to three floors of massive rooms with rows and rows of colorful books on any subject you could imagine. In all the rooms there were tall windows that looked out onto the rooftops and trees of the city. To me it was a enchanted place where all the most important secrets were kept, and all the best things happened. It was also the only place in the world I felt safe. 

     I walked through the computer tables to the children’s book section, which was on the far side of the room. (And by the way, I really don’t like that they call it the children’s book section. I’m not a child. I may not be an adult yet, but there’s a huge difference between me and the little kids that look through the picture books. I’m eleven. They should come up with a different name. And not just middle grade or young adult. Obviously, those are dumb.) I’d been up and down the rows of bookshelves a hundred times, and there was always a new book to find, or one I hadn’t noticed before. I pulled out a few books, reading the back covers and maybe a couple pages, and tried not to worry about my mom. 

     I saw a family wandering through the aisles. Next to the mom and dad there were two kids, one girl about my age and a boy who was a lot younger. The boy was hanging onto his dad’s legs, and the girl was looking at the covers of lots of books, like I was. They seemed happy, and normal, not like us. We were not normal, I knew that. Normal people didn’t have to ask strangers for money, and didn’t sleep in shelters next to people who hadn’t bathed for so long they smelled like they were rotting. Normal people ate all kinds of things, not just the endless bland canned stuff they served us in the shelters. Normal people sat on big soft couches watching television, and ran around their yards with their dogs or went to the park to play with their friends. The family in front of me seemed more real than I was, and just…better. 

     The last thing I wanted to do just then was think about the past couple years of being homeless. I thought about it too much already—and also lately I’d been worrying more and more about my mom. She just didn’t seem that well. She got mad a lot quicker than she ever did, and she was acting a little strange, her eyes jumping this way and that. I’d started to wonder if maybe some of it was my fault. Like, if I was a better son, or even if I’d never been born, her life would be a lot easier—she wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of me, she could’ve gotten a job, and she’d be happier. My stomach was always tangled up, like there was a bunch of barbed wire in there. One day I realized that tangle was fear. I was constantly afraid.

     But, also, there was another feeling inside me. No matter how bad things got, it was there, so far down it felt like it wasn’t in my body but somewhere in the middle of the earth. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it made me feel…strong, maybe even hopeful, like there was something I could believe in. Which made me feel a little crazy. What it the world could I possibly believe in? My insides would start to buzz, out of the blue, when I sitting in the library, or even walking in the rain with my mom. The buzz of belief would fight against the tangle of fear inside me, like a battle between two great animals. 

     The buzz was always strongest in the library. I felt it that day, when I was looking for a book near the happy family. 

     Listen to me, it said. Your mom will be all right. Follow me. Here I am. This way. Go down this aisle, look at this book, smell the pages, read the wonderful words, come over here next to this shelf. Feel me, hear me. Now walk this way, into the quietest corner, no one is here. You will be all right. If you always listen to me. You are a good boy and you love your mom. Now come this way, that’s right, over here, by the window. Stand here and wait…wait for me.

     Chapter 2

     I did what the buzz told me to. I was standing in front of the window, looking out onto the city. I was surprised to see it was already almost dark—we’d been in the library longer than I thought. The lights of the city had started to twinkle, and I could see the faces of the people on the street as they passed under the streetlamps. I searched each one, wondering which of the men were fathers, what they did with their kids, if any of them knew my father. I imagined what kinds of lives those people lived—I thought of them in warm houses, sometimes with fireplaces, and pets, always with families. I said hello to a few of them, the window glass fogging a little from my breath. 

     I said it to a man in a tan coat who looked like someone who would be a good father. 

     “Hello,” I whispered. The glass fogged and cleared. 

     “Hello,” someone said. 

     I turned around, expecting to see the one of the library attendants. But there was no one. 

     “Hello,” I heard again. It was a man’s voice, deep and soothing, and it sounded like the voice of the buzz in my stomach. 

     “Come here,” he said. I couldn’t resist the pull of his voice. It was coming from behind the nearest shelf. I went slowly, wondering what I would see, excited and also very scared. That there was a voice in the library that sounded like a feeling in my body seemed terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

    As I started to round the corner I caught a glimpse of a pair of grey leather boots, ancient and worn and cracked, pointed at the toes, like the boots of a wizard. The top of the boots disappeared into some kind of cape or cloak, which was also grey, but darker than the boots. 

    I looked up to see his face, and saw something black and curved, pointed at the end, sticking out from behind the shelf. There was no face—and I realized the black thing was a beak. 

     “Come closer,” the beak said. “You know who I am.”

      And I did know who he was—but how could I? I was a boy without a father who lived in shelters, and he was…I had no idea what he was. But something inside me knew who he was. The beak and the boots disappeared behind the shelf, and I followed. 

     On the other side of the shelf I saw a swirl of cape disappearing behind another shelf, deeper into the farthest reaches of the third floor of the library. There were no children’s books back there, only books about strange subjects like Necromancy and Astromancy and other words I didn’t understand. The few times I had ventured that far I had gotten a funny feeling, so I hadn’t gone back. 

     Around the next shelf there were a couple of padded chairs next to a tall, arched window looking out onto the west hills of the city. I had never seen the chairs or the window. The lights in that corner had burned out or weren’t working, so it was fairly dark, like twilight. I did not see the…thing in the cape. 

     There was a slight movement over behind one of the chairs. The wall seemed to have gone soft, like a curtain, moving and swaying. A figure stepped out, as if it had been part of the wall itself. He—it—was tall, taller than anyone I’d ever seen. Seven feet, that’s what I thought—he must’ve been at least seven feet tall. As my eyes adjusted to the gloomy light I could see the grey cape covered all his body, extending down to his shins. 

     And…he was a bird. Feathers on his head, a beak, slightly down-curving, with a pointed tip on the upper part, almost like a little hook. I’d seen a beak like that on a bird in a bird book—I spent a lot of time looking at birds in bird books. It was unlike any of the other bird’s beaks, and I had read all about the bird. It was called a shrike. His beak was like a shrike’s beak. 

But, as I looked at him, I realized he wasn’t like a…regular bird. His head and eyes weren’t bird-shaped, but they also weren’t exactly human-shaped. He was a bird-human. I wondered if wings were concealed beneath the cape. I looked at the boots again, making sure they hadn’t been replaced by talons. It was then I realized I wasn’t afraid.

     “Eamon,” he said, in that voice that matched the feeling of the buzz in my stomach.

     “Yes?” I said. The sound of my voice seemed different to me, like it was the voice of another boy, more confident and stronger than I was. It sounded…good, next to the deep, thrumming sound of his voice.

     “It is good to finally see you,” he said. He didn’t say anything else, just stood, looking at me, tilting his head this way and that. 

     “Um,” I said. “Who are you?”

     He tilted his head. “Shall I tell you my name?” he said. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to answer. We stood for a moment in silence.

     “Um,” I said.

     “No, that’s not my name,” he said, and then made a churtling sound. He was laughing. 

     “Um would be a good name,” he said. “But that’s not my name. My name is Lammam. I know you, Eamon, though I have never seen you. You are a good boy, Eamon.” The words and the sound of his voice ran through my body, just like that buzz. I had never felt so happy.

     “Lammam,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

     “Yes,” Lammam said. “Do you know why I am here?” 

     “Um,” I said again. “No.”

     “No, of course not,” Lammam said. “An unfair question. I am here because there is something that must be done, Eamon. And the time has come to do it. Tomorrow is your twelfth birthday, correct, Eamon?”

     “I…” I hadn’t remembered my birthday was coming up. And then, for the first time, I realized that for many years I had been trying not to remember my birthday. Simply because it hurt too much when it came around and there was no celebration or presents, no cake, or even a cupcake, no party at school—because my mom had long since forgotten to tell the teachers when my birthday was. “Good morning good Eamon,” my mom would say. “It’s a good Eamon day today…your birthday!” And then we would go stand in line for breakfast, or eat a granola bar we’d gotten from the food bank, and either make our way to the city bus to get me to school or start toward the library so my mom could do one of her fake searches for work, and within fifteen minutes she’d have forgotten what the day was. So of course it made sense that the significance of October twenty-first had been hidden from my memory. I had just blocked it out. 

     I had been quiet for a moment, staring blankly out the window. I turned my head and looked at Lammam. He couldn’t smile, not with his beak, but his eyes were glinting and flashing. 

     “Yes, it is your birthday,” he said. The glint and flash was in his voice as well. “And your twelfth one at that. Do you know the importance of your twelfth birthday?” 

I shook my head.

     “Craww,” he said, tossing his head. “No one knows that anymore—they have all forgotten. We haven’t, but they have. It is a travesty, an injustice; but more than that, it leaves a hole in the fabric of the very continuum. It must be remedied; but how, that is the question, and one for which I do not have an answer—and I’m afraid none of us do. It is a conundrum.”

He was talking to himself, not to me. It seemed like there was another part of him that was listening closely, and might answer the first part at any moment. I had no idea what he was talking about—continuum and conundrum—so I just watched him talking. To see a beak moving like that and hear words coming out instead of whistles or caws, trills, chirps, was a very strange thing, like watching something I’d dreamed come to life. Especially after having spent so much time staring at birds in bird books, memorizing the shapes and colors of different types of birds—and also looking at the birds in the city, identifying them and listening to them sing or call. But, though it was strange and fantastic, it was also perfectly natural, even more than natural, touching the edge of some kind of deep trueness, down somewhere beyond where my thoughts or imagination had been able to go. 

     “Mm,” Lammam said, continuing his conversation with himself. “Mm. This is why there is such disturbance. Well—it is not the only reason, that’s true, there are many reasons, but it is emblematic of them all. And of course I already knew this; it is why I have come.” He focused again on me. “It is why I’ve come, Eamon. We have not appeared suchly, in person, for—ah who knows when the last time was. Beyond the history that you read of in your books. We have become unknown. And, it is true, in that we have been remiss. We have renounced our duty. But, there are reasons for that, which I…ah, forgive me, Eamon.” Lammam bowed his head. “I am often chastised for babbling on, like a brook in the mountains, with perhaps less freshness to impart to my listeners. These things are peripheral, not the center of what you must know, the actions ahead of you. Of that, talking will do nothing.” He peered at me, his black eyes twinkling. 

     “Are you ready, good Eamon?” he said. 

I stared at his dark eyes, wondering ready for what? and also knowing something inside, like the knowledge of Lammam’s voice matching my own inner voice. I was not ready, not at all, because my mom and I lived in shelters and I was scared every day of my life and I could not imagine any different future for us. But I knew I was going to have to do whatever it was Lammam was there to ask me to do—and also, how could it be worse, or harder, than the life I was living? 

     “Um,” I said. “I guess so. But my mom—”

     My words were swept up in a great wind, for Lammam’s cape had opened and expanded until there were two huge wings extending from his body, and he had flipped me with his beak onto his back, and the window in front of us was gone, and we were out, out, going, flying, first in a low swoop over the street, then straight up into the dark sky, going so fast I had to cling to the feathers on Lammam’s back as hard as I could or I would be thrown from his back and fall down forever to my death. 

     I should’ve been afraid, but I wasn’t. I felt free, like I could go wherever I wanted, do whatever I wanted, always. It was the most perfect feeling I could imagine. 

Lammam finally leveled off and slowed, so I didn’t have to grip him so tightly. I looked down and saw the city so far below us it was just a little patch of light, like a flashlight covered with a blanket in a dark room. The sky around us was pitch-black, but above us were the stars, all of them, that’s what I thought—I could see all of the stars everywhere at once. 

     “What do you think, good Eamon?” Lammam’s voice buzzed from below me.

     “I…well, it’s fantastic!” I said. 

     “Yes, yes,” Lammam said. “This is the deepest part of you, the part you have not been able to feel the past few years. You need to know it’s there, good Eamon, always there, even if perhaps you can’t always fly. This is you.”

     This was me? That couldn’t be. This was him, some old, weirdly friendly bird-human who had kidnapped me and taken me on stupendous flight above everything. He would bring me back and that would be that. I couldn’t fly. It definitely wasn’t me. 

     “Yes, Eamon, it’s true,” Lammam said, as if he’d heard every thought in my head. “It’s fine and quite understandable that you don’t believe me. It would, really, be odd if you did believe me, at least at first. But you might understand it this way: it is not the flight itself that is you, for of course you have no wings, you are not a bird. But the essence of the flight is you. This is why you dream so much of birds. You are one with the sky, with the air, with the clouds and all that begins above. And now, as you turn twelve, that essence will become something more solid than it ever has. You will, my good Eamon, be called upon to do wonderful things!” 

     His buzzing voice was making every part of my body vibrate, and it tickled my insides like a good joke does. He was like my father, or my grandfather, or all the relatives I’ve ever had put together, all believing in me and loving me. And the stars above me kept going and going. It was all too wonderful. 

     But there was also something bothering me, like a little prickle under my shirt. It was my mom. She wasn’t very happy, and she wasn’t…well. And did she believe in me? I had no idea, but it didn’t really feel like she did. And, I was very far away from her. In fact, we were going farther and farther from her every second. Lammam had started to speed up again, and we were flying higher and higher toward the stars. The wind felt suddenly cold and very sharp, almost as if it were slicing my face with tiny razors.

I imagined my mom in the library looking for me, and the fear she’d feel when she couldn’t find me. And the thought came to me—the terrible thought—that maybe she would not be afraid, maybe she would be relieved, even…happy. She would pretend to be afraid, and she would frantically run around the shelves looking for me—but inside she would be thinking of all the things she wouldn’t have to worry about anymore, no more taking me to school, trying to keep me warm, find me food. She would only have to take care of herself, and it would be easier to find a job and get off the streets and into a better life. All because I was not there anymore. 

     Lammam kept flying, straight up, and I felt like we were going into the center of nothingness. I thought of letting go of the feathers I was clutching so fiercely, just falling away…and then, suddenly, I did let go. I just relaxed my hands. It was as easy as that. It would be best for everyone.