The Mortal Heart

She sighed, slid the paper back into the folder, and returned it to the librarian at the desk, who also happened to be her roommate and best friend in the world. Lila Jane had used Marian’s keys at the library more often than her friend knew. Lila Jane was nothing if not singular in pursuit of her passions, and this nineteenth-century American verse—discovered in one of South Carolina’s oldest plantation houses—was a mystery she intended to solve.

“No luck, Janie?” Marian asked, already pulling on her jacket. She never called her best friend Lila, not when Lila Jane allowed for so many variations. Lila Jane was the best friend Marian had always dreamed of having but had never found. Lila Jane was every bit as serious as Marian, if a bit harder to predict. If Marian wanted to do well in school, Lila Jane wanted to understand the heart of the entire universe. If Marian wanted to debate Kafka over coffee, Lila Jane wanted to actually metamorphose.

“No luck, Mare. Not today,” Lila Jane said.

“Tomorrow’s going to be your lucky day,” Marian said. “I can feel it.”

“You can? Then I guess I’ll see you here tomorrow. I’m going to go brush up on a little Latin before I leave tonight.”

“Please, Janie. Just come to the Sunday Salon with me. You’ll have fun.”

“Okay, first, I would never go to anything called a salon. And second, you know I never have fun when I’m supposed to. It’s one of my defining characteristics.”

Marian nudged her best friend. “It’s at our apartment. You can’t hide.”

“Yes, I can. That’s why they invented Latin.”

Lila Jane grabbed her battered leather satchel and navy peacoat, taking off before Marian could say another word. The coat was comforting, and as soon as she slipped it on she felt better. It was a man’s coat, but Lila Jane had bought it anyway because she loved the enormous pockets. She was always finding some strange object and hiding it inside one of them. Marian joked that she was curating a rare old collection of her own inside that jacket. Lila Jane didn’t care what anyone said—another of her defining characteristics.

As Lila Jane left the rare books library, she felt the eyes on her back.

One pair in particular.

She cut sharply to her right and ducked through the door that led to the stacks, before anyone could follow.





Three hours later, Lila Jane regretted her decision to stay at the library. She was definitely being followed. She glanced out the window from her spot in the stacks again, but the moon was hardly a sliver in the wash of an inky sky.

She tossed her papers into her bag and hit the stairs. She hadn’t taken ten steps into the dim shadows of the stairwell when she heard the quiet footsteps behind her. And felt the eyes settle on her back.

Lila Jane shot out of the stairwell and into the main library lobby. Empty. Of course. She stopped just inside the entrance and tried to think.

She imagined the whole walk home. Across the quad, through the leafless trees, around the corner, and up the street, almost all the way to her apartment. Marian would be waiting. Their kitchen (which always smelled like burnt coffee) and their tiny living room would be full of pompous, beret-wearing lit majors drinking absinthe, smoking French cigarettes, and talking about the gaze—things Lila Jane normally hated.

Now she desperately wished she was there.

Behind her, the footsteps grew louder and then stopped.

She moved her fingers to the handle of the library’s front door. Outside, the quad and the streets were dark and deserted—the perfect place to grab a girl walking alone.

Please let me make it to the apartment. I haven’t been to Paris, London, Rome, or New York City. I haven’t seen the White House or the Capitol. I haven’t even fallen in love.

She listened. The silence unnerved her. Then it irritated her, and she took her hand off the door.

“I know you’re following me.” Her words echoed against the glass in front of her, though they were meant for the owner of the footsteps behind her. “I have Mace.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” The low voice belonged to a man, but there was nothing menacing about his tone. It almost sounded as if he was amused.

Unfortunately, Lila Jane wasn’t. “Did you think I was too stupid to notice you were following me?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid.” Now he really did sound as if he was trying not to laugh. “I think you might be the smartest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of not meeting.” His words had become warm and low, almost conspiratorial. “Yet.”

Lila Jane slowly turned around.

The boy—or man, depending on your definition—in front of her was tall and lanky, with dark hair and even darker eyes. His oxford shirt was finely stitched, and his pants looked unusually well cut beneath the dark overcoat flapping open at his sides. She tried to piece the resulting picture together, but it wasn’t a familiar one. Lila Jane had never seen a boy like him at Duke, or anywhere else.

He doesn’t look like a murderer. But you never know.

Either way, he was still rude to follow her through the entire library without saying a word until now.

Rude, or very strange.

Lila Jane frowned. “I’m Lila. So now you’ve met me. Can you leave me alone?”