I’m pretty sure that when my mother suggested a ‘change of scenery’ for my post-graduate work she’d expected that I’d stay in Boston or even move back to Concord and into my childhood bedroom—not halfway around the world to Rome. I’d been fantasizing about moving overseas for as long as I could remember, but that’s what growing up in a small town can do to you.

I leaned out the window above my bed and stared out over the Piazza Navona and the ancient city I now called home and took a deep breath. I loved the smell of this place. The sound of the church bells, the bustle of the streets, and the elusive sparkle of the Tiber… my apartment was almost certainly illegal. The money I paid to the man who lived downstairs definitely didn’t reflect its quality. But for this view… I’d pay anything.

My apartment, if you could call it that, was dark and draughty, and a pair of pigeons had made a nest in the corner near the door. I didn’t mind them so much, and it was nice to have company when I came home late from the library. Besides, it was close to work, and there was no way I was going to complain about that.

“You’re an archivist, a history major… you can work anywhere! Why do you have to go so far away?”  

It was as though I could hear my mother’s voice echoing in my tiny excuse for an apartment. I’d only been in Rome for a year, and it seemed like every week I’d receive a letter from her full of hope that I wasn’t enjoying myself and that I needed to come home.

“All you need to do is say the word and I’ll have you back on a plane heading for the States… don’t forget… just one word, Gideon.”

I rested my chin on my arm and watched the sun rising over the city.

Why the hell would I want to go back to Boston?  

My ancient travel clock buzzed on the windowsill next to me and I stopped it gently and re-set the alarm. This clock had been through a lot, had been repaired more times that I could count, and I honestly didn’t know what I’d do with myself when it finally died. I reluctantly pulled myself away from the window and rolled off the bed.

As soon as my feet hit the floor, I heard a shout from the apartment below mine and I smiled just a little. Without fail.

“Buongiorno, signor Tavatti,” I said loudly.

A loud stream of muffled Italian cursing was the only reply I ever received for my efforts. I shook my head and grabbed my towel. The shared bathroom was on the same floor as the old man’s apartment, and I could hear him cursing through the weathered door as I padded to the shower. My grasp of the language was getting better, and I’d learned all the swear words I’d ever need from him.

It was the same every morning. Up at dawn, listen to Mr. Tavatti shout at whatever was making noise, and then make my way to the library to take my place in the archives.

The Biblioteca Vallicelliana was almost hidden, easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. The door was mundane enough—a wide wooden door painted black that looked like it had been there since the library opened its doors in 1644—barely out of place in this area of the city. Some days there were even cars parked across it that blocked the entrance to anyone but those who really wanted to find us.

This might not have been the position any average college grad would want. But I was twenty-six, and as my mother liked to remind me, I was a ‘super nerd.’ She wasn’t wrong, and I wasn’t about to hide from that fact. This was what I wanted. To be surrounded by history on the streets, and enveloped in it at my job. I wouldn’t trade anything for the way these ancient rooms smelled, and the way I felt when I walked through that black door and stepped inside.

The library had always been my ‘safe place.’ When I was a kid, my mother always said that if I ever wandered off, she could always find me in the book aisle of the grocery store. Some kids went straight for the toys or the bulk food bins, but I went straight for the books and magazines. My friends at school always tried to reach for the foil wrapped magazines their fathers brought home, but I always had my nose in whatever book looked like it had the most pages. Sure, I’d read a few things I probably shouldn’t have at a very young age, but books were my life, and I’m sure my mother appreciated the quiet my obsession afforded her.

While she was doing night school, I was doing homework way above my grade level and the librarians at the Boston Public Library all knew me by name. Now, I was apprenticed to one of the most respected archivists in Europe, if not the world, and I spent my days with the things I loved best in the whole world: words.

Some people came here to see the beautifully illuminated bible that had been owned by Charlemagne… but my favorite section in the Vallicelliana was the collection of books that had been banned by the Catholic Church. It was delightfully blasphemous to handle them in such a devout city, and I made a point of checking on them every day to be sure that everything was in its place.

The familiar creak of the floorboards beneath my feet and the cushioned silence of the library always brought a smile to my face, and I stood in the doorway with my eyes closed, just letting the stillness settle over me. After the bustle of the Piazza Navona, the stillness was pure bliss.

This was what I envisioned heaven would be like.

“Gideon!”

A shout echoed through the library, and I winced as a chorus of shhh’s followed the cry. A new cadre of volunteers had been brought in for what our director, Dottore Mariano, called our ‘busy season.’ While we didn’t see a huge rise in foot traffic at this time of year, it was enough that he had decided to put up notices at the local hostels and backpacker’s inns to catch anyone who might be interested in acting as a street atlas for lost wanderers, or point actual patrons to their proper sections of the library.

I opened my eyes carefully, hoping that the shout had been a false alarm.

“Gideon! Up here!”

Nope.       

With gritted teeth I ignored the stares of those reading between the stacks and walked into the Sala Monumentale across the hall from the main reception desk. The high-ceilinged room was lined with two-story stacks of precious leather-bound books and I walked across the threshold with my sternest librarian expression plastered on my face.

On the second floor of the vast room was Emilie, one of the newer volunteers. She had just arrived from London, and claimed to be working on her applications for a Masters Program and a classical literature post in Exeter, respectively. If that was really her intention, I hadn’t seen any sign of it. She leaned over the balcony and wiggled her fingers at me.

“Hey, hey, hey! I need you to do me a favor,” she said loudly. Someone harrumphed loudly in the corner. I glared up at her and pointed to the hidden spiral staircase in the corner that led to the second floor. “Oh, fine, fine,” she huffed and disappeared from the railing.

I flinched at the sound of her boots on the spiral stairs and at the loud creak of the wooden floorboards as she jumped down the final stairs.

“So, yeah, I’m glad you’re here—” she began. I pressed my lips together and grabbed her arm. I dragged her, protesting, towards the front desk. An elderly gentleman fixed us with a glare of admonishment, and I tightened my grip on Emilie’s arm.

She yelped quietly and picked up her pace to keep up with me.

When we reached the desk I let her go and crossed my arms across my chest.

“What?” I asked through gritted teeth.

Emilie rubbed her arm and then batted her eyelashes at me, instantly recovered. “You’re just the person I wanted to see today, Gideon,” she purred.

I raised an eyebrow. That could only mean one thing. “Look, Em, I have a busy day ahead of me. I don’t have time to—”

“It won’t take all day, I promise!” She interrupted me by grabbing my hands and tugging on them sharply. “I just have a quick appointment and then I’ll be back! Signore de Sarno won’t even notice you’re not in the archive room. I promise. You’re just the sweetest, and you’re doing me the biggest favor… pleeeease?” She blinked up at me and pushed out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.

Did that actually work on anyone… ever?

“I’ll owe you bigtime. I’ll bring you back gelato from that place you love!”

“Em, it’s ten in the morning…”

“Exactly! Gelato for breakfast, Viva Italia! You’re the best, thank you so much!”

Before I could argue or even close my mouth, Emilie had grabbed her backpack from behind the desk and planted a kiss on my cheek before she ran out the door.

“Uhhh…”

“Shhh!” Came the reply from an angry looking older gentleman hunched over one of the map tables.

I smothered my groan of annoyance and took my place behind the desk. With any luck, it would be a quiet morning; but my luck had never been very good, or particularly useful, and today wasn’t shaping up any differently.

“Bloody volunteers,” I muttered as I refilled the tourist maps and straightened literally everything in the reception area. Emilie was one of three volunteers who had come on in the last month. She wasn’t the best we’d had, but she was the most reliable, and her Italian wasn’t as horrible as some of our volunteers’ had been. With a long sigh, I put on my best customer service face and tried to prepare myself for the day.

This ‘favor’ I’d been roped into would set me back in my work more than I liked, but now that I was here, I could appreciate the library a little more.

Being in the archive rooms wasn’t the worst thing, but once I settled into my temporary post, I remembered how much I liked being a part of the living, breathing, life of the library and how much I enjoyed the people who came every day to pay their respects to hundreds of years of knowledge and learning.

I wasn’t even ashamed to admit that I was hoping to see one patron in particular… in the year I’d been at the library I had never really met the man, and we’d only exchanged a few words in passing. Behind his imposing glare and his gruff, heavily accented replies I could sense that there was something different about him. As though he didn’t quite belong. He wasn’t the youngest patron of the Vallicelliana, but his appetite for books was well known among the senior staff and Dottore Mariano had allowed him to examine some very fragile and valuable works with perfect trust.  

This particular gentleman always had strange requests for the volunteers, and I’d seen more than one turn away from him with a hunted expression and shaking hands, as though they’d received a threat upon their lives and not a query about a book or piece of archival material.

I knew all of our ‘regulars,’ but not him. And for some reason, that intrigued me. It didn’t help that I have a well-documented (thanks, Facebook) weakness for tall, tattooed nerds. Trapped in the archive room, there was little chance that we’d ever speak, and it was probably for the best.

I had terrible taste in men.

I greeted the regulars as they arrived and helped them with their selections; and when the day began to warm, I drew maps and gave directions to sweating tourists who wanted nothing more than a cold drink but were walking in circles in the Piazza instead.

“Gideon! Oh, my god, I was gone soooo much longer than I expected. I’m soooo sorry!”

I looked up from the map I was drawing as Emilie bounded up the stairs. Her long black braid bounced against her shoulder and she swept it away with an impatient and dramatic sigh.

The tourist I was helping fired a glance filled with annoyance in her direction and I fixed Emilie with a glare of my own and focused my attention back on the map.

Not taking any kind of a hint, Emilie pushed her way through the crowd and flopped down into the wooden chair behind the desk. It creaked in protest as she rocked absently. The old springs whined at the unfamiliar motion and I winced. “You would not believe the crowds today,” she groaned loudly. “Tourists everywhere. There must be a cruise ship at Civitavecchia for the weekend.”

I finished my map and watched the grumbling tour group make its way down the stairs and out into the street before turning to face her. The chair was too close and I felt trapped between her and the heavy wooden desk. She smiled as she looked up at me through dark lashes. What was her deal?     

“There are three cruise ships at Civitavecchia right now,” I said quietly, “and it feels like most of their passengers have been here today.”

“Oooo, lucky you,” she said as she rocked on the chair again.

I pointed at the clock meaningfully, and her gaze followed my finger slowly. “You’ve been gone for hours, and Signore de Sarno is going to turn my hide into bookbinding leather!” I narrowed my eyes at her. “What were you doing, anyway?”

She looked far too happy to have been at any kind of ‘appointment.’

“Oh! Nothing much… I met this guy—Nicos, or maybe Marco, I can’t remember, but he promised to buy me the best espresso in Rome, but—”

“You made me sit here all morning while you went on an espresso date with some guy you just met?” My voice was quiet, but my frustration should have been clear in my tone.

Emilie blinked at me; her pale eyes held an expression of confusion that I’d grown used to seeing there. I groaned and leaned against the desk.

“It wasn’t really a date, I mean I guess it would have been but—”

“Shut up, Em,” I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “Just shut up. Next time, call in sick. And don’t ever ask me for another favor.” I glared at her again. “And let me guess… No gelato?”

Emilie opened her empty hands and looked guilty for just a moment. “No?” she said in a small voice. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise!” she cried. Before I could move, she had scooted the chair farther forward and wrapped her arms around my waist so she could hug me tightly.

“Oh, noooo… No, no. I have to go.” I pried her arms off my hips, trying to ignore the way they lingered and tried to slide lower.

Did the girl have no self-awareness and no gay-dar?

“Rain check!” she called after me as I pulled my bag over my shoulder and fled down the hallway towards the archive room.

My face was probably red, and I kept my eyes on the toes of my Converse as I walked delicately over the hardwood floors, careful to avoid the spots that creaked the loudest.

I was almost at the door when something crashed against my shoulder, spinning me into the wall.

“Ow! What the fuck? Watch it!” I said aloud before immediately feeling stupid. The narrow hallway was empty.

“What the hell?” I whispered. I thought I heard a chuckle, and my heart beat just a little faster, but then one of the sparrows that somehow always found their way into the library flew from its hidden perch towards the front desk. I shook my head. “Now you’re hearing things,” I muttered.

“And you’re talking to yourself…”

I yelped in surprise as the face of my mentor appeared in the doorway of the archive room. Signore de Sarno was a pleasantly dusty gentleman whose hair was always in some manner of disarray and who always smelt of a mixture of expensive tobacco, ink, and leather polish.

“Signore,” I stammered, “Mi dispiace sono in ritardo… I was helping one of the volunteers…”

“Ah, Emilie,” he said sagely. “She caught Vittorio the same way last week. Let me guess… a mysterious appointment?”

I nodded, feeling like a moron.

“Ah, yes,” he said with a smile. “No matter now, Gideon, come along.”

I nodded and ducked under his arm and into the sanctuary of the archive room. I groaned inwardly when I saw the stack of books that had been placed on my desk. It was going to be a long day.