Promise Under the Moonlight

Episode 5 - The Hidden Library

He walked ahead, leading her between the shelves. She noticed that his steps did not quite make a sound on the wooden floor, though hers did. She did not ask about that. She filed it away with the other questions.

He stopped at a low shelf and pulled out a thin volume bound in dark blue cloth. It looked very much like the book he carried in class.

'This is the most recent record,' he said. 'Our generation. Since I was born, really.' He opened it and flipped through. 'Most nights, this school is just a school. But every few years, something wakes up in the courtyard. I was trained to calm it. My father was. His mother before him.'

'So your family -'

'Has taken care of Mingyuan for a long time. Yes.'

Lin Yue stared at him. She tried to picture him as a small child, learning how to hold a silver star in his hand. The thought made something ache in her chest.

'And me?' she asked. 'Why me?'

He closed the book slowly. 'I do not know yet. But the school called you. The blossom came to you. That does not happen to just anyone.'

He hesitated, then added, 'There is a section of the library that might tell us more. But I have not gone there yet. I wanted to wait for you.'

'Why?'

'Because whatever we find, you should be the first to see it.'

He led her further in, to a narrow stair that spiraled down into a lower level she could not have imagined. The wood of the steps was worn soft by years of footsteps. Down here, the lamps were dimmer, the air cooler. At the bottom of the stair was a small round room, and in the middle of the room was a low pedestal, and on the pedestal was a book.

It was not a large book. It was simple, unremarkable, bound in pale cloth the color of moonlight.

On the cover, written in the same old-fashioned hand she had seen that morning, were three characters: Lin Yue.

She stopped breathing for a moment.

'That is my name,' she said.

'I know,' Gu Yan said quietly. 'It has always been there. Since long before you came.'

She walked slowly to the pedestal. The book did not move. It did not glow. It only waited. She reached out with a hand that trembled a little, and she touched the cover.

The book opened.

Inside, the pages were almost blank. Only a few lines were written, in handwriting she did not yet recognize as her own.

'She will come when the plum trees bloom out of season. She will not remember why she came. But there will be a boy beneath the oldest tree who remembers her, and he will keep her safe until she is ready to remember herself.'

Lin Yue read the lines once. Twice. Her eyes stung.

She did not understand them. She did not know who had written them, or how her name could be on a book older than she was. But something very old in her chest, something she had not known was there, quietly turned over in its sleep and recognized the words.

'Gu Yan,' she whispered.

He was standing behind her, close enough that she could feel his warmth but not close enough to touch. He did not answer at first. He seemed to be waiting for her to find her own voice.

'Did you write this?' she asked.

'No,' he said. 'But I have read it many times.'

She closed the book very carefully. She put both hands flat on the cover, as if she could feel her own name through the cloth.

'I do not remember anything,' she said.

'I know.'

'Then how can I be the person in that book?'

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, 'Maybe you do not have to be her yet. Maybe you just have to be you, and we find out the rest together.'

She turned then and looked at him. The dim lamps cast shadows along the sharp line of his jaw and softened the darkness of his eyes. He looked almost young, almost like a boy who had never had to hold a silver star in his palm.

'Together,' she repeated.

He nodded, just once.

She did not realize she had reached out until her fingers brushed the sleeve of his uniform.

'Okay,' she said. 'Together.'

Autumn deepened. The plum trees in the main courtyard shed the last of their out-of-season blossoms, and the ordinary, slower rhythm of school returned. Exams approached. Mr. Chen gave more homework. Shen Xi complained about the cafeteria food with increasing creativity. On the surface, everything was ordinary.