Part 11

At the bookshelf, Lila stood looking for something interesting. Every once in a while, there would be a new book, but mostly they were the same ones that she read over and over. She brushed her fingers along the row of books, lined neatly on the edge of the shelf, in alphabetical order. She smiled, loving the order, the calm of the library. She liked it when she had the room all to herself. Selecting a book, she pulled it from the shelf and took it with her to a large armchair in the corner. She curled up in the chair with a small contented sigh.

Abigail wandered into the room. She walked slowly around the room, dragging her fingers across the rows of books as she passed, every wall, every shelf at the level of her drifting hand. Abigail came to a stop and stood, motionless except for the long strand of dark hair that she twirled around one fingertip. She stood there for so long like a small statue, that Lila could no longer ignore her. She glanced up at the small girl and saw that she wasn’t even really looking at the books. Abigail just stood there, frowning blankly at the shelf, her eyes unfocused. Lila cleared her throat and Abigail jumped.

“Are you going to choose a book?” Lila asked her.

“What?” said Abigail.

“A book,” replied Lila. “Are you going to choose a book? Normally when people come into this room, they’re looking for a book to read. Are you going to choose a book and sit down, or are you going to keep standing there?”

Abigail looked around confusedly. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Well, why don’t you go out until you decide? You’re making it hard for me to concentrate.”

Isabel came into the room. “It’s like a refrigerator,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” Lila asked her. This is a room for reading, she thought. Why is everyone so intent on using it for anything but reading?

“A refrigerator,” said Isabel. “You know, when you’re hungry, but you’re not sure for what, so you go and stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open and look at all the food until you decide what sounds good.” She pulled a book off of the shelf and flipped through the pages. “Right, Abigail?”

Abigail, who had fallen back into her silent reflection, looked up at Isabel. “What?”

“There’s no point in talking to her,” Lila told Isabel. “She doesn’t pay attention to anything outside her own head.”

Abigail looked at Lila for a moment and then turned and left the room. With no comment, Lila returned to her book. Isabel dropped into the chair next to Lila and watched Abigail go. She quietly flipped through the book she had taken from the shelf. She tossed it aside and gazed at Lila.

“What?” Lila said, her eyes still on the page.

“Where did you come from?” Isabel asked her.

“What to you mean? I came here the same way everyone else did. The same way you did.”

“But,” continued Isabel, “why are you... that way?”

“What way?”

“You know,” the other girl flapped her hand. “With all the books and the big long words and how you act like you’re intellectually superior to everyone else.”

Lila adjusted her glasses. “I am myself. Just like everyone else here. No one sits around asking why Cheyne is the way she is. We all just accept the fact that she’s crazy.”

“But we know why she is the way she is. After the hell that she went through… I’d be crazy too, if I had to deal with that.”

Lila felt suddenly angry. “You haven’t been here for very long, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume that you’re just stupid.”

“What did I say?” asked Isabel.

Sophie came into the room then, moving to a shelf in the corner.

“Sophie,” Lila’s voice was loud. “You might want to have a talk with Isabel here and tell her to mind her own affairs.” She snapped her book shut.

Sophie looked at both girls in surprise. “What’s up?”

Lila stood and went to the door.

“Where are you going?” Sophie asked her.

“The air in here has gotten very dense,” replied the younger girl, before sweeping out of the room.

Sophie sighed, pulling a large picture book off of the shelf and taking the chair the Lila had just vacated.

“What happened?” she asked Isabel.

Isabel shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just asking her about herself. Why she insists on being a human lexicon; the supercilious bullshit we have to put up with. Like we don’t have enough to worry about with Cheyne running around like a lunatic.”

Sophie turned the pages quietly. “You’re still getting to know everyone,” she said. “We’re all here for a reason and we all have ways of escaping. Lila escapes into her books. She hides behind vocabulary. She looks for reasons to keep people at a distance, and when they don’t measure up intellectually, that’s reason enough. Lila is a practical genius, and she knows it. And if she can keep herself believing that no one can match her in that area, she’ll never have to make any connections.”

“Everyone here is clever though,” said Isabel thoughtfully. “I mean, I know some of them are young, but they’re all bright.”

“You can say bright. I would say brilliant. They’re all different, but they’re all highly intelligent. Have you seen Echo’s numbers and her drawings? And it wouldn’t surprise me if I found out that the two little ones have something profound swimming around in their brains, extreme aptitude in music or mathematics or something. With Abigail, if you can get past the suicidal ideation you’ll find a quick wit that can rival most educated adults when it comes to discussing anything with moral, theological or ethical significance. Of course, her life experience is somewhat limited, so many of her beliefs are skewed, but she can reason through almost anything. She’s quite insightful. And Cheyne is unbalanced, I’ll admit….”

Isabel snorted.

“But,” Sophie continued, “she’s extremely intuitive and highly observant. She has a gift for seeing patterns and connections and can discern people’s strengths and weaknesses almost instantaneously. She’s sensitive, on every level. During the moments when she’s lucid, I sometimes think, out of all of us, that she’s got it figured out.”

“She’s got what figured out?”

“Everything.” Sophie outlined one of the illustrations in the book with her right index finger. “Everything that means anything.”

“Everything?” asked Isabel incredulously. “How is that even possible?”

“Her mind operates on a different level.” Sophie shook her head. “Sure, it’s buried under layers of psychosis. But if we were to cut it open and get down to how she really looks at the world, it wouldn’t surprise me to find something incredibly considerable in there….” Her voice trailed off.

“Considerable how?” wondered Isabel.

Sophie leaned her head back against the chair. “Oh, I don’t know. Something as significant as the Theory of Relativity.”

Isabel laughed. “Ha. You think that there’s something like that, locked up inside there?”

Sophie turned her head on the seat back and regarded Isabel. “I’m just saying it wouldn’t surprise me. What were we talking about?”

“We were talking about Lila and how she treats all of us like we’re morons.”

Sophie closed her eyes. “Right. All I meant to say was, don’t judge Lila too harshly. And don’t ask questions about her past. Just give her space. She’s opinionated, but at least she’s not out to destroy anyone.”

“So, what about you?” Isabel asked.

“What about me?”

“Well, according to you, Lila’s a literary genius, Echo has the numbers and the art, Abigail has socio-scientific debate, Cheyne’s figured out quantum physics, the little ones are going to be criminal masterminds. What do you have?”

Sophie didn’t look at her. “I’m just here to help.”

Isabel shook her head. “Oh, c’mon.”

“No, really. Maybe my skills lie in the direction of ... creative arbitration. I have no idea. I just know what I’ve seen in the others. Cleverness seems to be one of the few things that we all share.”

Isabel considered this. “What else is there?”

Sophie opened her eyes and looked over at Isabel. “Cheyne’s not the only one who has been through hell.”