Laura Mongiello
from Divine Mr. Dellany

The sky was pink with the fading sun, and Audrey could see the puffs of her warm breath disappear, one by one against the backdrop of the dark, thirteenth century stone. She hugged her peacoat tightly around her. A short, shaky looking guard in an engineer’s cap was locking the main entrance. He turned, noticing her, and called: “Closing up. Got to exit through Catte Street.”

Obediently, she spun on her mary-janes and glanced up into the windows of the enclosing quad. For the first time, she noticed the faintly glowing, orange-gilded rooms of the upper Bodleian Library. Piles upon piles of even more books and rough-looking manuscripts—antiqued mirrors adorning every wall. Just as she thought she had seen everything, just as she was afraid of becoming numb to her surroundings and never again feeling in awe of the world—the sight caused her soul to pirouette, and a child’s smile spread across her frost-rigid lips. She would explore those rooms tomorrow. Audrey passed under the rear archway and stopped short in front of the Catte Street gate.

There was the Bridge of Sighs, majestic, as usual, and there was the exit beckoning her forward—yet for just a moment she stood there, feeling slightly ill. The sight was a replica of a photograph from Ethan’s Web page. He had been standing right here, in this exact spot, last weekend. Ethan had been inside this city—in her city—in this very Bodley quad. She exhaled audibly and shuddered to rid herself of the disgust. He knew I would be in Italy that weekend; that’s why he came. She stepped aside as though to free her feet from the spoiled ground. And then the thought passed and she trotted back to St. Anne’s, humming and fighting off the chill of the impending English winter.

<< Back to Issue 8, 2005