In My Time of Dying

Chapter 14

                                                                                     Chapter 14

                                                                   "My Hoard of Goodies"

The first book I wrapped my fingers around was titled “A Complete Volume of Edgar Allen Poe’s Poetry”. I flipped it open and scanned over the first poem, titled "Annabelle Lee". Setting that aside, I pulled out the next one and was greeted by a work called "Slaughter House Five". I ran a hand over the nearly flawless cover and smiled sadly. My father would have been ecstatic at all the old books settled within the chest.

An hour later, I was only halfway done going through the abundance of novels, mostly because I paused to flip through a poetry collection of Robert Frost.

So far, I had five novels by Charles Dickens, a huge book of William Shakespeare's plays and poetry, four novels by William Faulkner, three novels by Robert Louis Stevenson, two novels of Feodor Dostoevsky, "Sonnets of the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, two novels by Daniel Defoe, several things from Oscar Wilde (which I was really looking forward to), and several others.

I picked up one of the books and hugged it to my chest, tears dried to my cheeks. A sudden sound made me drop the book and scramble to hide my treasure.

Lucca's head popped up from the opening; he scanned the room and paused when he saw me crouched down with my arms thrown backwards in an attempt to guard the books from prying eyes.

"Evangeline?" His confusion flowed in his voice and he didn't bother to continue climbing the ladder. He just used his arms to hoist himself up so that he was sitting on the floor.

"Lucca, what are you doing up here?" I hissed, my eyes narrowed at him.

His eyes narrowed in response and he got to his feet.

"I could ask you the same-- what is all of that?" his entire manner changed and he approached me curiously.

Feeling conflicted, I shifted so that he had more trouble seeing my precious find. Somehow it felt as though I needed to keep this to myself.

"I--it's nothing. Just go back downstairs and I'll be down in a minute."

He straightened up, drawing himself to his full height. He towered over my small form and suddenly seemed angry.

"No, you know what? When you feel like telling me the truth, you can come find me. I'm tired of trying to help you open up to someone other than yourself." He turned on his heel and was gone a moment later. He shut the door a little too forcefully on his way out and caused the house to shake a little bit.

Feeling even worse than I did before, I sprawled out onto the old dirty floor and just ran my fingers over my books. I wondered if I was going through a mental break.

Sometime later, after successfully organizing my thoughts, I got to my feet and put the books back into the chest. As a second thought, I took the key out of its box and put the box in the chest too. I closed it and locked it, slipping the beautiful key into my pocket.

I ran to the opening and jumped, not bothering to use the ladder. It was stupid but I landed okay and hastened to close the door to the attic. Having nothing other than fixing things before I thought twice on my mind, I sprinted to the front door, passing my mother and Kahlan, who both stared at me as though I was an alien.

I threw it open and raced past Lucca's house. He wouldn't be there and I knew exactly where to look.

I dodged trees as I ran blindly through the forest and I found the tree where we had seen the airplane. When he wasn't there, I started to cry. It wasn't fair to him that I was so secretive or that I had so much trouble letting him in.