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It had been storming when the man had stumbled through the door. She remembered that he had looked spooked and in pain, collapsing to the floor without making a sound. She wondered later if he had even registered that she had been occupying the desk. She had rushed to his side, talking to him, turning him on his side into a stable position. His eyes had been barely open. The side of his leg was so badly bloodstained, she had to fight against nausea seeing all this red. She couldn't call for help, the landline was down. So she took him on on her own, dragged him to one of the couches, cleaned the wound, it was a long gash down his calf and wrapped it like she had learned before in fiest aid classes. Once she had gotten him more lucid and managed to make him drink some water she got him into the shower in her apartement above her library, made him wash up and got him dressed in her brothers clothes. They were too big but it didn't matter when she helped him lay down on her bed. He had watched her with hazy blue eyes. He didn't say anything, didn't make a noise. He fell asleep soon, while the storm raged on.
He was strange that man, she found, and curious. He didn't talk after he had woken up but once she had noticed that he listened closely when she spoke and he wanted to respond but couldn't she had found pen and paper for him to write with. And writing he did. At first it was questions, Wheres and Whens and Whos. He tilted his head to the side curiously while she read. She responded kindly over breakfast and a cup of tea. The Where was easy. She named her town, as small as it was and the bigger cities around. He scrunched up his face in wonder. It was the same with the When. When she introduced herself his face softened slighty.
He tapped his pen repeatedly against the blank paper when she asked for his Where's and Whens and Who's. He shrugged in the end, his face fell and he bit the inside of his lip. He looked lost. So she squeezed his hand and promised to help. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
She would find him wandering the library later, leaning on a crutch, eyes flitting over the books. She had given him a small notebook so he didn't have to carry around a bunch of loose papers and he filled it quickly with historical facts and elaborate art analysis and other scientific things that made her head swim when he showed her, giddy like a child. She started to call him Professor afterwards and he just laughed mutely and shook his head. It was fascinating.
In the mornings he wrote down what he had dreamed about the last night. About a library bigger than hers and people in it, about magic and danger and the world that needed protection from all of it. She had tried to draw their faces based on his descriptions but it never seemed quiet right. It gave him headaches to think about it too much, and she didn't push when he started to rub at his temple every time he tried to make sense of everything.
He even cried sometimes without making a noise and it had been dumb luck that she had noticed. He only reluctantly allowed her to hold him and his tears soaked through her shirt. His body shook under her fingertips and she was certain there would be even more lost pieces to pick up if she let go before he did.
They had settled into something resembling a rhythm after a few days had passed. And he helped out when his leg didn't bother him and his head didn't plague him.
Once he shoved a bible in front of her and pointed somewhere in the text. The name 'Eve' precisely. He looked at her pleading, as if she could make more sense of whatever he was thinking. She asked if he knew that name and he nodded, but he shook his head when she asked why. Afterwards he filled another notebook with ideas and all research he could find on the name and the historical meaning. He loved to do research. She was impressed but helpless because she could see how much he struggled to connect the loose facts in his head, if his wild, spiky hair was anything to go by. He had a habit of running his hand through it when he was thinking. It was almost cute if he hadn't been so desperate.
Later he pulled more texts from other religions and marked down the word 'Ezechiel', frowned at it and exchanged the 'ch' with a 'k'. She had commented that it was the name of a holy person and the professor shook his had and wrote down 'opposite of holy'. He frowned again but there was something warmer in his eyes now.
Its not that she didn't do her own research while he did his, even spoke to the police once, which had frightened him. But no one knew who he was or where he had come from. He was a riddle she couldn't solve. Then he got into a book about synesthesia which scared her a little because that was completely out of context. His notebook (he was on his 4th) got filled with medical terms after that. That and another name 'Cassandra'. He looked at it for a long time afterwards, lost in his shattered mind.
So they had three names: Eve, Ezekiel and Cassandra. Two religious names and one that originated from greek mythology (that had been the 5th notebook, he had written all night). And Cassandra maybe had synethesia because thats what he had connected her to. They pulled up his dream diary again and the pictures she had drawn. There were more people than names and nothing fit quite right. He balled his fists at that in frustration. He had released them when she squeezed his arm.
He stayed 4 weeks while his leg healed and they tried to put his mind back together. He still didn't spoke, made no sounds at all. He was on notebook 10 now. His dreams read like fantasynovels. He mentioned temples and traps, gods and characters of literature becoming real and it was magical. But it didn't make sense in this world where magic and gods belonged in myths and stories. Legends that would be forgotten one day, even with libraries keeping them alive.
She knew he was starting to give up hope when he pushed the books away in favor of learning signlanguage. The notebooks were piled on the table but he stopped opening them to find details he might have missed. She supported his change of interest as best she could but it was like watching a plant die, slowly withering away. Their communication got easier over time, he taught her along his own studies and sometimes he dropped a fact from before he hadn't remembered until then.
'Eve said to rotate my wrist more,' he had signed after he had scared off a burglar by getting into a fistfight with him. The professor was a natural fighter as it seemed. 'Cassandra would calculate that in her head," he commented with a grin when she struggled through her bookkeeping with a calculator because she did badly with math. 'That man reminds me of Jenkins,' he noted fondly after a serious white haired gentleman had checked his books out at the desk. The moments were always short and didn't last. They brought him joy for a moment and misery the next because he couldn't hold onto the memories. She wished she could help him more.
There was no denying that he was at least somewhat comfortable in the small library and the small town. Even though he couldn't speak, he had charmed most of the old ladies and all of the younger ones in no time. Some even had offered to adopt him and give him a proper place to stay and a proper job. He had declined and had pointed at her, as if he had any obligation to stay with her in the library.
It was another stormy night when the door flew wide open, even though she knew that she had locked it. The Professor stepped in front of her protectively in an instant when three people stumbled inside, soaking wet. A tall blond woman, a smaller redhead and an Asian boy. They stared at them, the three at him and her and them right back. She could see tears pooling in their eyes from afar, the redhead made a choked sound that sounded vaguely like 'Jake' and clasped her hands in front of her mouth while tears dripped down her face.
The Professor raised his hand to his temple, shaking his head, swaying slightly as if he just had taken a punch, a quiet groan escaping him. She barely managed to stop his head from hitting the floor when he collapsed. The three rushed to them.
Eve Baird, Cassandra Killian, Ezekiel Jones. And his name was Jake. Jacob Stone. They were his family, they told her, after they had gotten him upstairs and into bed. She teared up when they told her that they had thought they'd lost him. She had pictured them slightly different from Jakes dreams, but they fit the descriptions. She asked about Jenkins. They said he stayed in the Library in case he came back while they were gone. He was worried too. She showed them the notebooks. They confirmed most of the things he had written down about them. "I ain't the opposite of holy," Ezekiel had complained but he was crying again so it didn't carry much heat.
They told her about the library, about magic, about the way they had lost him. And her heart broke for them. She told her own tale, about his yearning for them and the silence, how he had given up even though there were still snippets coming to him every once in a while. They didn't want to believe her at first, but the last date in the notebooks had been almost two weeks ago and that was enough for them to understand.
They took turns with watching over him as he slept on. Eve sat on a chair next to the bed, talking quietly, telling him how they had tried to find him for so long, once threatening to bug him so he would never get lost again. Cassandra sat on the bed, one of her hands tightly wound around his. Ezekiel just stared, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.
It took till the morning for Jake to wake up. His voice was hoarse from lack of use when he said their names. It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. She watched all of them cry again, holding him tightly, promising to never let him go again.
The first time he spoke to her they were saying goodbye. The southern twang sounded slightly wrong. He was out of practice after being mute for so long. But he looked relieved and happy now, the desperation and frustration gone. He held her close for a moment, asking her to keep the books until he came back to pick them up. She promised. She didn't expect him to. He had his family to fill in any leftover gaps. Eve, Cassandra and Ezekiel said goodbye with long thank yous and tight hugs. Then she watched them leave through the door, which was opening into another room instead of a busy street for once. They didn't look back.
Many years later, she had started to believe everything had been a dream in spite of the books that were sitting neatly on a shelf in her hallway, when a man stepped through the door. He wore a beanie on his head, multiple light scarfs wrapped around his neck and slight stubble that hadn't been there before. But his eyes, she remembered his eyes. And he grinned and apologised for having taken so long. His voice was smooth and warm and she had never heard a more beautiful sound before as they fell into each other's arms laughing.