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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. The worst of our winters arrive fast,

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snapping the town still as ice before anyone can even

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salt the walkways. That night, Stackhouse County Library hunkered under

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its crust of rime, exhaling threads of steam from every

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vent and gutter inside. Beyond the fogged glass, I walked

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the last patrol of the lake. Shift the air hummed

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fluorescence always did more rattling and buzzing. Toward three a m.

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And my boots clicked, and cadence of her grace spectile.

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Every so often a book spine shifted the building, settling.

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I now that sound was background to me, walls, shelves,

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and a rattling HVAC making the only music of my nights.

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Some people imagine libraries as serenely silent ires. Never truly

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is this. A print is coughing, the heat is cycling

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on and off, the distant shuffles, staff boots, but the

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empty stacks themselves seemed to listen and breathe. That night,

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the quiet went strange, too perfect, like a break in

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the weather after a storm. I finished the sweep of

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the children's alcove radio my position to the invisible night supervisor.

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I made my way through archives hall spine, trailing a

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finger along rows of local histories that always smelled of

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old glue and dust, like buried paper memories. It was

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somewhere between the lost frow and the corner carrol light

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already off in most of the south stack, that I

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heard a noise that shouldn't have happened to soft deliberate,

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that not a book sliding down or page a set thing,

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but the sound of some one re shelding. I paused

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every since, draw and tight and called out libraries, closing

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any one in there no answer, This islands flinched, then returned,

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flashlight in hand. I slid along the shelves. The glow

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landed on shelf O nine hundred seventy four point two

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Stackhouse Local History Volumes of committee records, school district clippings,

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mid century land service. Nobody ever requested one of them,

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sat ascued angl haafway out of its place, thick thumbprint

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and the ancient dust and the stove for too long.

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Astroisk Local Histories of Stackhouse, County, Volume Rum and two.

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Astroist The Coal number was wrong. This book should be

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four aisles over. The stickers looked fresh, almost new, beneath

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yellowed plastic. My heart kicked in my chest, slow and cold.

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I leaned closer, checked the circulation card. It had been

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checked in about fifteen minutes ago, stamped by the auto check.

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I'd been at the desk then, had shelved nothing. I

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wasn't alone in the stacks, at least not entirely unless

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someone was playing games. But the only other scheduled staff

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had left ages ago, and no patron would wonder hey

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after midnight without being noticed. I wove the book back

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into its correct plays, marking the file with its last

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time stamp. The sense of being watch tightened its grip,

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not with menace, but with an insistent, almost pleading attention,

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like the pressure you feel before thunderclap. On the next look,

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maybe an I or my steps slowed at the same

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cross section. There it was again. Astrois Local histories of

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Stackhouse County Volume moment tu Astor sitting upright, freshly reshoved

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into the rung shelf, though I just moved it myself

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and entered its location into the shift lock. I tracked

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the circulation record the system said it was checked in

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many minutes before a kiosk that should have locked hours ago.

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I ran my hand over the warn cover. As I

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started to slide it back to its correct aisle, my

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phone buzzed in my jacket. The director, mister severin Is

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voice bawled with tension. I need you early tomorrow. Missess

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Weckler hasn't reported for inventory. Don't mention this to any

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one else yet. I expect a detailed shiflock blind snap

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dead before I could ask more. Stackhouse County Library, awake

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at the witching ires, was suddenly full of eyes that

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didn't blink. It wasn't the first time I felt that,

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but this time something had shifted. When Night first landed

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the Graveyard Shift nearly a decade ago, it was out

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of necessity, not preference. The Midnight IROs are a soft

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net for the lonely, those who need a place outside

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their own lives. The older employees jerked about my punctuality,

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my allergy to meaningless chatter. Back then, I didn't mind

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their ribbing. The regulars barely glanced up when I checked

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the locks or replaced a copy of Astors. The grapes

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of Rathasterisk for the twentieth time. Now a decade passed

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the divorce and a handful of birthdays later. At the

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routine meant more. It gave ship to day snapped off

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from the rest of the world. Before the recent strangeness,

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my shifts were reliable, blessed by small rituals. I started

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with the slow circle of the rottenda, thumbing the faded

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woodwork born from decades of repairs and renovations. Ancient stacks

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rose in our geometries where the original conegye foundation met

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at a new drival. At the main desk, Celley would

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relieve the evening staff, always with a sleepy hay Bille.

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My name's not Bill, but I stopped correcting her years ago.

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The bad scanner usually glitched, and the overhead monitor cycled

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for sleepy camera feeds. Parking lots empty except maybe a

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stray possum. The glass lobby reflecting faint grosse of pars librarians.

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The brickrom off at Sanctuary, painted in sun bleached nineteen

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ages green. Above the batted microfrige hung a crooked watercolor

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of the building at its opening. The colors bled together

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by time. There was always a tin of horrid candles

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on the table, and the scent of over caffeinated staff lingered.

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We were a small, tried Shelley with her bottomless cup

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of camomele Evan the circulation assistant two mounded as a poet,

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and Jeff the Knight maintenance man, a bare of a

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man with a permanent all stain across his sleeve. They

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were good people, or at least they made the nights

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feel less hollow. Missess Wexler was the last remnant of

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the old Guard. Part archivist, part historian, and all backbone

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under her careful shell. She could quote the dewy decimal

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system as easily as she doled out gentle advice. You

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have to let the stack sleety, sometimes should say ice twinkling.

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Her hair was always pinned up, her hands unfailing the steady,

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and her card battle field of yellowing referenced lips and

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ancient geniality binders. Contrary to every stereotype, she wasn't sternly,

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just careful to her. Every volume had a soul worth remembering.

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I found myself missing her before I realized she was gone.

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She'd always been last to leave. Keith rosping gently at

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her belt double checking the genealogy vertical files. Her words

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came back at odd moments, usually when showing some incomprehensibly

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dull County Register. I realized, in truth, I'd leaned on

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her more than i'd known. The library had its own quirks.

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There was a hidden draft under the archive stairwell, cold

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enough to fog your glasses, Shelley swore. The radio in

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the meeting room picked up a stat to kill local

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pirate station below the aim dial every other week precisely

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two thirteen a m. Sometimes news broadcasts, sometimes nonsense, mole's code,

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how surgiers could flick the overheads and alternating rose like dominoes.

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Nobody trusts said the old elevator after midnight, that their

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floorer was left for daytime staff. The mural in the stairwell,

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a gift from Judge Ward, who later lost his seat

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in disgrace, depicted a ride a scene of boats and bridges.

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It unnerved most of us. The artist had painted faces

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into the brickworks and claimed new ones appeared after heavy storms.

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The first week after missus Wexler's vanishing, the mood sired.

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Shelley got defensive when asked about her schedule Evan tapped

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his foot to her entire shifts, barely answering questions. Patrons

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noticed the change. Their usual small talk evaporated. The director

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a measure presents to begin with, kept closed door meetings,

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and something passed between the staff as that didn't fully meet.

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Conversations clip short. When I entered one night, I overheard

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Shelly snap in at Jeff about keeping the doors locked

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like it matters now. No one mentioned miss s Wexler

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by name. Rumors multiplied. Some said she'd taken a leave

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of absence because of illness. Others claimed there had been

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arguments about the trustees budget. Evan let slept that missus

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Wicks had prided herself on never missing a close out,

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as if the absence alone was a statement. The sense

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of routine was thinner, more fragile. I caught the director

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in the basement wants fiddling with the circuit break and

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marked talk. I slashed do not shut off. He avoided

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my eyes and muttered about necessary redundancy. No one knew

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why that breaker needed to be left on at all irs,

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but none of us were curious enough then to ask.

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The library's bones creaked When old buildings shift, they send

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messages from the past. Now each echo felt like a warning,

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but no one named what we might be missing. Early

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the next night, with most of the fidgeting abmin staff gone,

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I found myself drawn back to the scene in local histories.

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The asterisk volume Room and two asters can normally weighed

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on me, not just because of its strange reappearance, but

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because its call number was out of sequence. The book

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itself slightly knew it than the volumes near it. I

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shoved it firmly where the records said it belonged, even

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took a photo with the date and time. Then I

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pressed a sliver of red electrical tape. Touts and a

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spine small enough to stay hidden within the ire of

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the book was gone from the shelf. By two a m.

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It was bacressing on its edge, balance in the wrong section,

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tait gone. No sign I had ever been marked. The

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sticker on the spines seemed slightly shifted, askew at just

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the angle my hands had left it when was shoving. Earlier,

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Love records showed a sequence of check ins and out

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with misses. Wexley's badge listed as the staff handling the

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latest entry. A logistical impossibility that system required a physical

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badge swipe. When I asked Shelly about odd entries on

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the locks, her frustrations slipped out. It's just the system

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acting up. Wex had probably left it in the wrong

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spot herself, if you want to blame someone. She didn't

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look up from her screen, but her fingers bowl tight

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around her MOUK. The next morning, Evan cornered me outside

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the equipment closet under the flicker of the hallway light.

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He leaned in and whispered, your camera feed's glutge again.

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All the ones from the hile gone. It's not me.

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Don't ask to check them. They erased. Director says, the

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surge is to blame. I checked the nighttime incident reports

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how our surgeon showed up around two thirteen a m.

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For three consecutive nights leading up to Missus Wexler's disappearance.

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On each the local history's I all was darkened or frozen.

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In the logs, print outs of entry locks showed in consistencies.

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Sometimes Missus Wexley's badge appeared in two places within minutes.

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Others logged her as present on a night she was

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supposedly home with a cold that night too. Regular patrons

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came in after hours. I didn't recognize their faces, but

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as half shadowed, they moved with the aimless authority of

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those who used the library as shelter. They asked about

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a genealogy book, but when I escorted them to the aisle,

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they both confided in the small way strangers to you,

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that someone had helped them last week. An older lady

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bun pearls polite, but ye know the woman hesitated, she

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taught funny, asked if I wanted to know the real

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old stackhouse. Both recounted being led to the shelf where

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asterisk Folly Roman two Asterisk Career appeared. It was as

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though someone were steering them toward the same anomaly over

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and over. Before dawn. As shellyclose the circulation desk, she lingered,

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the rumors are getting out of hand. If you're pulling

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pranks with records, don't drag us in. She muttered, voicetied,

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here are not Wexler. Back at my station, I watched

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Patron's orbit at isle repeatedly led to crumbling rarely read histories.

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The book never stayed where it should each time I

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shelved it. A system doubled back with a nonsensical log

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out of sequence. Replacing the callsticker fixed nothing. It peeled away,

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replaced impossibly in minutes. Most chilling, however, was a story

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that started to trickle upward. Three separate patrons, each regulos

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familiar with missus Wexler, claimed to have seen her walking

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the stacks, directing them to odd corners of the building

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at night. She said, my grandfather help with those old bridges.

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One sair. But she seemed tire, like she never slept.

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Her presence became a rumor in its own right. Night

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staff were jumpy, double checking doors and refusing to work

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the archives alone. I started to avoid the local History's

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ale unless absolutely necessary. The following night, Shelley was snippy,

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even in the break room, muttering about system hitches and

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phantom loggins. If you're not going to help inventory, don't bother.

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Last night, half the returns were it scanned in, but

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the system thinks theirsordered. If that book shows up again,

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leave it. Wexley's gone and not conning back. She looked

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over her shoulder when she said it, staring at her

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own reflection in the tiny breakroom window. On my break

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I wandered past the back allway, where light always flickered.

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The mural at the stairwell seemed different beneath the cone

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of my flat light. One if the faces near the

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ferry was angular, spare strangely familiar. I tried to recall

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if from says Wexler had ever mentioned the artist, but

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the memory slipped away orally and unbreastable. Throughout the night,

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the aster's volume Roman two Asters returned to its place

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again and again, no matter where I hid it. I

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once locked it in the supply cupboard by staff washrooms,

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only to find it an iolada sitting upright in the

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wrong stack the supply clauset, still locked by myron key.

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The next day I decided to dig deeper into the

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circulation records. The catalog system was patched together set of

234
00:11:29,919 --> 00:11:32,279
old software and newer ovolays, no true it T support

235
00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:34,879
for years. I used my off shift to comb through

236
00:11:34,879 --> 00:11:38,240
digital logs I wasn't strictly authorized to access. There were

237
00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:41,120
odd patterns I'd never notice a jump in retroactive vedits

238
00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:44,320
for the asterisk local history disasterisk section almost always after

239
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:47,080
closing with the most recent changes, listing thessess Wexlow as

240
00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:50,360
the editing staff on night she was reportedly outsick, her

241
00:11:50,399 --> 00:11:53,480
login still appeared. I requested the back blogs through the

242
00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:57,399
director's office, citing an inventory review. The response was pierced

243
00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:01,039
on wall, damaged beyond use during last powers urge. When

244
00:12:01,039 --> 00:12:03,879
I pushed in person, the director had gone immaculately groomed

245
00:12:03,879 --> 00:12:07,039
man whose expressions always seemed half calculated before landing, simply

246
00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:10,360
asked for what purpose exactly do you need those? I

247
00:12:10,519 --> 00:12:14,600
lied reference review for the next historical exhibit. He ushered

248
00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,519
me out of his office, hence clasped, Our history is

249
00:12:17,559 --> 00:12:20,440
not going anywhere. Focus on the present, he replied, dismissive.

250
00:12:20,519 --> 00:12:23,679
Is gaze lingering too long with the digital audit stimt

251
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:27,200
I tried a more human approach toward midnight. Evan sidled

252
00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:29,559
over to my station, close enough to smell the peppermint

253
00:12:29,559 --> 00:12:31,799
on his breath. He spoke out of the side of

254
00:12:31,799 --> 00:12:34,519
his mouth. I shouldn't be talking about this. I saw

255
00:12:34,559 --> 00:12:37,759
Wexley the night she vanished in local histories talking to someone.

256
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,759
I thought it was you, but he shook his head.

257
00:12:41,039 --> 00:12:43,159
The camera's yet. The feet are gone. Some one knewed

258
00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:44,720
them out of the system. But I saw her go

259
00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:48,120
back toward the record's cage. He trailed off, shoulders hunched.

260
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:51,320
Don't tell the director, I said that he's been watching.

261
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,840
I promised nothing. I started making a list of all

262
00:12:54,919 --> 00:12:58,000
patients recently steered to the local histories. Four out of

263
00:12:58,000 --> 00:12:59,879
five said they were either guided or observed from a

264
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:04,000
distance by someone matching missus Wexey's appearance, though shry on specifics.

265
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:07,360
One describe her voice as afar off, like you're underwater.

266
00:13:07,919 --> 00:13:11,679
Another insisted she recommended a shelf of coded books. Driven

267
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:14,080
by those reports, I checked each volume Wexo was said

268
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:17,679
to have handled. They all contained cryptic marginalia. Numbers unnotated

269
00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:19,799
in purple ink, dates ringed in red pencil or to

270
00:13:19,799 --> 00:13:23,559
clip include neatly inside the covers. Most pointed to county locations,

271
00:13:23,559 --> 00:13:26,519
the ferry landing, the court House basement, and abandoned box factory.

272
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:29,320
I found a slip with a truncated headline Judge wore

273
00:13:29,399 --> 00:13:32,120
cleared of misconduct, and another and dated it titled Library

274
00:13:32,159 --> 00:13:35,519
Receives anonymous bequest. Inside a first edition of the County

275
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:38,519
Highway at Liss, tucked halfway along Route three, was a key.

276
00:13:39,039 --> 00:13:41,600
It was old brass, tied in a faded embroidered handkerchief

277
00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:45,240
folded with it a coded slip of paper, no cipher,

278
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:48,360
just a row of numbers three nineteen seventy seven one

279
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:51,240
hundred twelve four sequence matching but call numbers but out

280
00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,759
of order. Margins on almost every reference tor to Trema's hand,

281
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:58,480
very unlike Wexler Receiven's crypt aquavald they don't see, followed

282
00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:01,840
by what looked like initials one g nalogy rogister shielded.

283
00:14:01,879 --> 00:14:04,799
Another oddity, a small envelope containing my croffiche label to

284
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:08,440
Cancil nineteen seventy seven press minutes. The film inside was

285
00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:10,480
fucked with a fine white powder, but in the light

286
00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:13,120
I could make out name several local officials, our directors

287
00:14:13,159 --> 00:14:17,159
among them. Scrawled at the bottom Wexler h so she'd

288
00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:19,960
known something, or thought she did. What had she become?

289
00:14:20,159 --> 00:14:22,519
Entingled in word must have gotten at that I was

290
00:14:22,559 --> 00:14:25,519
poking through for bin Conners. The next morning, my badge

291
00:14:25,559 --> 00:14:28,120
refused to open the staff entrance. When I brought it

292
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,840
up to Shelley, she shrugged with exaggerated innocence. Maybe just

293
00:14:31,919 --> 00:14:34,159
a software bug, or maybe you pissed some one off.

294
00:14:34,879 --> 00:14:37,840
Her tone held no humor. Within the day I received

295
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:40,120
a printed list of various undergo in inventory. Do not

296
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,559
access the entire archezile in the back record storage were

297
00:14:43,639 --> 00:14:46,600
cordoned off, and a note on my locker unsigned read

298
00:14:46,679 --> 00:14:49,639
simply please respect library boundaries and authorized she having will

299
00:14:49,639 --> 00:14:52,600
be reported. At that point, even my most ritual bund

300
00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:55,919
behaviors felt off kilder. The ever present drafts grew sharper.

301
00:14:56,519 --> 00:14:59,960
The staticy radio became a permanent source of hernees most worry.

302
00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:02,200
The director's office now glowed deep into the night, A

303
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:05,840
silhouette hunched against rain streak glass. One storm lashed afternoon.

304
00:15:05,919 --> 00:15:07,879
Later in a week, I came off patrol to find

305
00:15:07,879 --> 00:15:11,080
an envelope dressing on my open locker, no stamp nor

306
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:15,759
address inside foot copt catalog pages smudged with black mucker

307
00:15:15,840 --> 00:15:18,320
in places, entries about the local history section names would

308
00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:21,600
act at dates missing. One card drew my eye. It

309
00:15:21,679 --> 00:15:24,320
had been violently cross out, then overridden with sharp ink.

310
00:15:24,559 --> 00:15:28,320
Do not trust the director A single initial below h W.

311
00:15:29,159 --> 00:15:31,360
Shelley glanced at the envelope as I returned to my station,

312
00:15:31,519 --> 00:15:33,960
but said nothing. Before I could even try to puzzle

313
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:36,600
out the connection, Jeff remained inance appeared a scolash deep

314
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:39,519
into his face. He sapped across from my desk, voice

315
00:15:39,559 --> 00:15:42,440
lower than usual. You of stick to your eye as friend.

316
00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:45,440
Sometimes the stacks change, sometimes people do too. Don't go

317
00:15:45,559 --> 00:15:48,200
looking for wad is in yours. There was neither warmth

318
00:15:48,279 --> 00:15:51,919
nor threat, only a resign, almost fearful undertone. He left

319
00:15:51,960 --> 00:15:53,600
his rag on the edge of my car, dark all

320
00:15:53,679 --> 00:15:56,519
spearing the counter. My hands started to shake As I

321
00:15:56,559 --> 00:16:00,960
cattleogued the clues threaded through the various coated slips, numbers,

322
00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:04,720
and now redected catalog cars. I saw a pattern. Each

323
00:16:04,799 --> 00:16:07,960
blacked out entry corresponded with a spike in backdated system edits.

324
00:16:08,559 --> 00:16:11,559
Each was handled by some one muffin Wexler outside normal irs.

325
00:16:12,279 --> 00:16:14,240
Taking a key from the numbers and the coated slip,

326
00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:15,919
I tried the old brass key on every lock I

327
00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:19,399
could find. Only one accepted it, an ancient storage locker

328
00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:21,440
deep in the staff supply room, pressed close to and

329
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:23,600
out of order fuse box nobody had used since before

330
00:16:23,639 --> 00:16:27,440
I started, inside cobwebs and old boxes, mostly except for

331
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:29,919
a small batter journal, the green cover mark with imboss

332
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,240
county seat of rubber band, bailey holding it closed. Notes

333
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:36,840
filled every page in Wexler's slanted hand. She detailed patterns

334
00:16:36,879 --> 00:16:39,039
of unreality in the stack. How books were not only

335
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:42,759
moving but changing content, rewriting marginalia that hadn't existed hours before.

336
00:16:43,399 --> 00:16:46,879
There were field observations two thirteen a m c. A

337
00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:50,559
race shelf edit logs. Retroactive names were listed, all staff,

338
00:16:50,679 --> 00:16:54,080
a few local politicians, and worryingly, my own scribbled among them.

339
00:16:54,679 --> 00:16:58,279
There were warnings, so many missing, systematic erasures, not random.

340
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:02,120
They are editing us, not just books. Another page, library

341
00:17:02,159 --> 00:17:04,799
claims more than paper. Some records persist even when people

342
00:17:04,839 --> 00:17:07,599
forget direct to complicit others unwilling cycle Was that so

343
00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:10,960
only pattern survives? I read through a rising dread swept

344
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,119
prickling my back. Then at the very end, beneath the

345
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:16,839
binding miss Eswexlow's needs gripped one entry different from the

346
00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:19,599
cautious torn of the earl air pages. The penn had

347
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,279
jammed letters pressed deep. If you find this, you're next.

348
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,359
I paged to another coded book from the cash hands

349
00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:30,000
trembling under astros Stakhaus County Forgotten Railways ASTs kaefoun written

350
00:17:30,039 --> 00:17:33,519
in an unfamiliar hand, Astor's name, my own name, date

351
00:17:33,559 --> 00:17:36,799
to night's date, astorisk gun to a line beneath storage

352
00:17:36,799 --> 00:17:40,680
shelford acted begin anew, the libraries hush pressed in. I

353
00:17:40,799 --> 00:17:42,680
listened for the breathing of the stacks, but the air

354
00:17:42,759 --> 00:17:46,000
seemed empty for a moment anyway, the building itself felt

355
00:17:46,039 --> 00:17:48,799
as if it were waiting, and outside the rain hammered

356
00:17:48,799 --> 00:17:52,240
the windows, anxious, insistent trying to get in, and outside

357
00:17:52,359 --> 00:17:55,200
the rain hammered the winter's anxious, insistent trying to get in.

358
00:17:55,839 --> 00:17:57,880
I didn't know what to do, but sit there, listening

359
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:00,160
to its cadence, thumb tracing the grain of missus us

360
00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:02,039
Wexleas's bad a journal as if it offered a map.

361
00:18:02,799 --> 00:18:05,160
Every word I read, in halooping, careful cuss have felt

362
00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:07,839
like a wire tugged tight beneath my skin. I opened

363
00:18:07,839 --> 00:18:09,720
the journal to round them half way point, and found

364
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:12,440
a chartered ledger, dots and arrows drawn between the names

365
00:18:12,440 --> 00:18:14,920
I'd seen in a coated slipstaff, Trusties, the judge whose

366
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,440
mule haunted the stairwell, Some crossed out, as if erased

367
00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:20,000
half to the fact. My own name was penciled at

368
00:18:20,039 --> 00:18:22,279
the very edge where it next to you have impossible risk.

369
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:25,119
I paged toward the inn, where being thickened and the

370
00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:28,319
scripts slanted as if written in great haste. Margins crowded

371
00:18:28,359 --> 00:18:31,799
with tense annotations. Don't trust severin, is Shelley hiding something?

372
00:18:32,079 --> 00:18:35,240
Inventory eagles culling the next line. In midnight we set

373
00:18:35,279 --> 00:18:39,200
every Tuesday was boxed in twice behind the security glass.

374
00:18:39,319 --> 00:18:41,319
Even shape flickered into view as he passed through the

375
00:18:41,319 --> 00:18:44,440
aisle toward the staff lounge. The break room radio was

376
00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,480
still on the soft fissing between stations. I could just

377
00:18:47,559 --> 00:18:50,000
make out the old jingle of a local ad, then static,

378
00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:52,000
then a woman's voice reading what might have been an

379
00:18:52,039 --> 00:18:55,720
obituary from decades back. I stared at the receiver, noticed

380
00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:57,960
the knob had spun itself to a number that didn't exist,

381
00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:01,079
and quietly switched it off At the desk. The patron

382
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:02,920
lock bleaped as a new search pined in the aback

383
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:05,559
terminal in the local histories, I'll a search for obituary

384
00:19:05,599 --> 00:19:08,519
and judge Ward. I'd loved out that station earlier, or

385
00:19:08,559 --> 00:19:11,799
thought I had. When I circled around, the aisle was empty.

386
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:15,440
The asterisk Volume Roman two asterisk was back out, teetering

387
00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:18,160
as if someone had rifled through the pages. Its cover

388
00:19:18,319 --> 00:19:20,480
was darker now the spying, showing a faint impression where

389
00:19:20,519 --> 00:19:22,960
my tape at once rested. The sticker on the back

390
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:25,519
had been peeled and reaffixed, this time slightly off culter.

391
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:29,079
Something about the stack gave me pause, not just the

392
00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:31,319
misfelp book or the air that flickered with a scent

393
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,359
of rain and static, but the rescue of expectation. A

394
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:37,200
line in Wexlow's journal flashed to mind. Asterisk. It watches

395
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:40,279
the ones who noticed each cycle, it erases, but sometimes

396
00:19:40,319 --> 00:19:43,440
it carp is Vasterisk. Checking my badge, I found my

397
00:19:43,559 --> 00:19:45,279
name had been appended to the shift roster for the

398
00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:47,720
next night, though I hadn't volunteered and nobody had asked

399
00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:51,240
me to swap. I scrolled the lock. Miss sess Wexlew's

400
00:19:51,279 --> 00:19:53,400
name was labeled as inactive, and yet her badge appeared

401
00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:56,240
in a log and record just past two thirteen a m. Yesterday.

402
00:19:56,920 --> 00:19:59,200
Before I could process that, Shelley appeared at the end

403
00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:01,720
of the aisle on crossed face pinched tighter than usual.

404
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,279
Are you done poking around? Evan's got a headache, Jeff sis.

405
00:20:05,319 --> 00:20:07,799
There's another leak by the furnace, and the director wants

406
00:20:07,839 --> 00:20:10,440
everyone in the staff room in ten. I nodded, placed

407
00:20:10,519 --> 00:20:12,880
volume Room and two back onto its misaligned shelf, and

408
00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:16,319
closed Wexleas's journal in my jacket, Shelley washed my hands,

409
00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:18,920
not my eyes. The meeting in the staff lounge was

410
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:22,480
short and tense. Mister Severin paced behind the cheap folding table,

411
00:20:22,599 --> 00:20:26,279
arms folded. His voice was un commonly hard. There have

412
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:29,119
been too many incidents in the past week. Security protocols

413
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:30,759
are there for a reason. As of to night, all

414
00:20:30,839 --> 00:20:33,960
after Io's activity outside assigned inventory runs must be lobbed

415
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:38,200
and cleared. He looked at me pointedly. No freelance investigations

416
00:20:38,319 --> 00:20:40,720
if you see anything unusual, he routed to my office.

417
00:20:40,759 --> 00:20:44,960
We're not here to play archeologist. Shelley nodded stiffly. Evans

418
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:47,240
sat hunched as darting between the window and the floor.

419
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:52,119
Jeff avoided my glance entirely. Afterward, Evan lingered outside, biting

420
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:54,799
his thumb nail. He didn't speak, just nodded at the

421
00:20:54,799 --> 00:20:57,640
staff's schedule tacked to the wall. An extra shift for me,

422
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:00,920
one for Jeff. No mention of wexlet anywhere. Back at

423
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:03,200
my desk, I logged into a dummy terminal I'd set

424
00:21:03,279 --> 00:21:05,319
up for privacy and scanned the back of blogs again.

425
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:08,559
Most files had been wiped date stamp two thirteen a m.

426
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:11,839
Exactly a handful remained in a shadow copy I couldn't

427
00:21:11,839 --> 00:21:15,440
access directly. However, just before that, a new badge reader

428
00:21:15,519 --> 00:21:17,839
lock showed a successful entry for H. Wexley at the

429
00:21:17,839 --> 00:21:21,079
loading bays, something impossible since the lock is keyed, not electronic,

430
00:21:21,839 --> 00:21:24,960
and the indoor cameras supposedly fried. Show brief noise two

431
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,200
blurred shaped, one short, one much taller. Near the local

432
00:21:27,279 --> 00:21:30,480
history stack. I heard footsteps behind me, and solid the

433
00:21:30,519 --> 00:21:33,599
journal out of sight. The director's profile appeared reflected in

434
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,680
the monitor glass an instant before he spoke, You staying

435
00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:39,759
late to night? He said quietly. I nodded, blinking at

436
00:21:39,799 --> 00:21:42,119
my own reflection. I'm sure if he'd seen the book,

437
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:44,680
just keep the door was locked. There's nothing for you

438
00:21:44,759 --> 00:21:47,599
in the archouse to night. He turned, coat flapping, and

439
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:51,240
vanished back toward his office. His parting words echoed as

440
00:21:51,279 --> 00:21:54,039
if the room itself carried them. The radio clicked on

441
00:21:54,079 --> 00:21:56,160
again by itself a few minutes later, tuning not to

442
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:58,960
a station but to a forced, familiar, grainy female if

443
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:01,640
some records persisted, and when memory fails in the archive's

444
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:05,119
true for Pete's, then pure static. I switched it off

445
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:08,519
and checked my email. Nothing safer and old unopened note

446
00:22:08,519 --> 00:22:11,960
from Missess Wexa weeks earlier flagged urgent. I opened it,

447
00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:16,240
hands sweaty subject. If you notice, they'll all joking aside.

448
00:22:16,279 --> 00:22:17,920
If you come across the old histories in the wrong

449
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,160
place once too often, let me know, but don't poke

450
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:25,359
too loudly. I'll explain the rest in person. No signature.

451
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:28,960
I shot the computer. The air in the breakroom was calamy,

452
00:22:29,079 --> 00:22:32,200
and a draft ran along the base boats. I was shivering,

453
00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:35,279
but not cold, I told myself. I was being paranoid.

454
00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:37,799
That the strange patterns could be chance, a digital hiccup

455
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:40,599
or ghosts stores spun up by anxious staff during winter's dock.

456
00:22:41,319 --> 00:22:43,319
But there was a consistency to the clues and order

457
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:46,400
beneath the chaos. Jeff dropped by after his rounds, not

458
00:22:46,559 --> 00:22:49,480
quite looking at me, Director says, I need to check

459
00:22:49,519 --> 00:22:52,240
the boiler levels again. What about the key borrowed yesterday?

460
00:22:52,839 --> 00:22:57,000
His voice was low, almost bored. I lied, didn't find it.

461
00:22:57,279 --> 00:23:00,519
Maybe Wexler had. At last, he grunted, eyes, moving to

462
00:23:00,559 --> 00:23:02,960
the batter journal still half concealed beneath the log book.

463
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,680
She always left things where they shouldn't be, patterns preserved themselves.

464
00:23:06,759 --> 00:23:08,480
She used to say, just drop the key at my

465
00:23:08,559 --> 00:23:10,880
cart if you find it. A little later, as the

466
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,759
final stalms bats lead against the frosted glass, I decided

467
00:23:13,799 --> 00:23:17,359
to test the numbers from Wexler's Slip three nineteen seventy seven,

468
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,720
one hundred twelve for easing them. I counted back through

469
00:23:20,759 --> 00:23:24,240
local histories, then shifted up one shelf. With a trembling finger.

470
00:23:24,319 --> 00:23:26,200
I pressed the backs of the books in that sequence.

471
00:23:26,839 --> 00:23:30,640
Copy of astersk Stuckhouse Directory nineteen seventy seven, asters kim Loose,

472
00:23:30,799 --> 00:23:32,799
revealing an old slip of photo paper in the gap

473
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:36,039
behind it. The photo showed three men in suits and glasses,

474
00:23:36,279 --> 00:23:39,039
taken beside the old wrecker's vault, some four decades Earler.

475
00:23:39,759 --> 00:23:42,079
On the reverse, they kept the minutes outside the system.

476
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:44,759
I pocketed it and heard a sound behind me, nearly

477
00:23:44,799 --> 00:23:48,200
a whisper of movement, then a steady, stilted footstep, turning

478
00:23:48,319 --> 00:23:50,319
a glimpse the edge of a ponytail, the smooth blue

479
00:23:50,319 --> 00:23:53,319
of Missus Wexley's old cardigan vanishing around the corner, heading

480
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:56,680
toward the basement stairs. I hurried after, but saw nothing

481
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:58,920
but my own reflection in the stowell window, the mural's

482
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:01,920
eyes blinking back at me and pained to shadows. That night,

483
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,960
the wind outside screened and rattled the doors. I made

484
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,599
my rounds, closing doors and double checking latches, but every

485
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:10,480
time I passed local histories, the book was back, beckoning

486
00:24:10,519 --> 00:24:13,640
with the certainty of a clock striking dire. Eventually I

487
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,079
left it and touched, feeling a peculiar piece. Like defiance

488
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,279
was a game I was dectined to lose. In the

489
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,799
early hours, I hovered by the reference desk, thumming Wexslay's journal,

490
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,079
cross referencing the coded enterers I did not trust. The

491
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:27,720
director came up in several places, often at page brakes

492
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,480
or at the end of columns of names. I turned

493
00:24:30,519 --> 00:24:33,680
on the catalog computer and searched for older records. Each

494
00:24:33,759 --> 00:24:37,079
time system permissions denied me, But once as subdirector appeared

495
00:24:37,079 --> 00:24:40,319
for a half instant labeled assist him reducted STAPH, I

496
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,160
managed only to screen shot it before my access was revoked.

497
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:47,039
My phone vibrated in anonymous text. There watching you loggined

498
00:24:47,759 --> 00:24:51,119
no number no identifying info. It was close to four

499
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,960
when I decided I couldn't stay in place. I slipped

500
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,000
the journal into my jacket and checked the staff room

501
00:24:56,039 --> 00:24:58,240
for signs of life. Even sleeping Shelley out called in

502
00:24:58,319 --> 00:25:01,240
her chair, Jeff absent, probably the boiler or watching the

503
00:25:01,279 --> 00:25:04,559
storm from the basement. The director's office was dark, but

504
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,559
his car lingered in the lot, the exhaust steaming in

505
00:25:06,599 --> 00:25:10,000
the sleet, unable to rest a breeze through the south stacks.

506
00:25:10,039 --> 00:25:13,400
Once more, as I passed local histories, their pressure changed,

507
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:16,319
the deep static silence of space pressed in this time

508
00:25:16,559 --> 00:25:20,119
Astoris Volume Romanto Asterisk was not alone. Two more books,

509
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,799
Asteris Stakas County Rituals and Rowdy's Asterisk in asteriscor all

510
00:25:23,799 --> 00:25:26,640
accounts of the bridge Flodastriusk stood adjacent, both marked by

511
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,119
the same strangeland in his spine sticker within each prutect

512
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,759
notations in pencil, map numbers to vault locations and unrecorded donors.

513
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,000
My key Wexler's brassed relic chaef in my jacket pocket,

514
00:25:37,039 --> 00:25:40,519
tugging attention towards the sub basement and the building's blueprint there,

515
00:25:41,039 --> 00:25:43,400
long since condemned after a leak ye's back laid, a

516
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,000
record's fault sealed since the nineteen eighties. One of Wexler's

517
00:25:47,079 --> 00:25:50,160
later notes, Tuesday Rossetta pattern traces to the vault directed

518
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,240
the only one with the back key avoid being seen

519
00:25:52,279 --> 00:25:55,839
on stairs after midnight. It was Thursday morning. If the

520
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:58,440
journal was right, another asset would come late next Tuesday,

521
00:25:58,559 --> 00:26:01,279
just a few days away. My office mail box yawned

522
00:26:01,319 --> 00:26:03,400
with new unsigned notes the next day, each more in

523
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,480
a solely direct records are not deleted, only transferred. The

524
00:26:06,559 --> 00:26:09,440
more you know, the less you remain. Another note, scribbled

525
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,720
in an unfamiliar hand, ask Jeff why the boiler room

526
00:26:11,759 --> 00:26:14,440
has a phone line wrapped around it a rag of

527
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,079
blue cardigan yarn. When staff filtered in for the mid

528
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,599
day meeting, no one looked fully awake. Shelley greeted me

529
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:24,039
without warmth, but didn't mention the prior Knight's anomalies. When

530
00:26:24,079 --> 00:26:26,799
I brought up the odd circulation times, she simply shrubbed

531
00:26:26,839 --> 00:26:30,279
ayes deadened by exhaustion. Some things want to be found,

532
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,400
she murmured. Not everything that checked in gets checked out.

533
00:26:34,079 --> 00:26:36,640
That afternoon, I tried the boiler room under pretense of

534
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:40,319
tracking down an inventory list behind an ancient filing cabinet,

535
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,640
A wall phone, disconnected and covered in dust, yet attached

536
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,079
to its base a post it yellowed by age, reading

537
00:26:46,319 --> 00:26:49,440
call for UDACTA two thirteen NAM. Only it was perhaps

538
00:26:49,559 --> 00:26:53,000
the final clue or another trap. I called at two

539
00:26:53,079 --> 00:26:55,279
thirteen a m. The line sputter of a static and

540
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:57,839
dead air. A faint shudder ran up the court, as

541
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,480
if some one breathed close to the other end. Then

542
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,200
nothing but the echo of my own breathing. I hung

543
00:27:03,319 --> 00:27:05,039
up before any one caught me, and slid the twisted

544
00:27:05,079 --> 00:27:08,519
posted into my pocket near Summrise. Jeff addressed me quietly

545
00:27:08,599 --> 00:27:11,240
as he restocked the maintenance car. If you want to

546
00:27:11,319 --> 00:27:13,759
know what happened to Wexler, ask yourself why some files

547
00:27:13,839 --> 00:27:16,119
never made it to the county archive, he said, avoiding

548
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,640
my eyes. Not every one gets erased, but some get rewritten.

549
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,240
Some just work here forever. Shulley, just behind him, watched us.

550
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:25,960
I used to think the records were boring, she said,

551
00:27:26,039 --> 00:27:29,559
too mildly. But every archive visits, ghosts don't become one.

552
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,000
By Friday, patron circulation had shifted almost entirely to request

553
00:27:33,039 --> 00:27:35,920
for obscure County histories always roted through my shift, always

554
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,400
requiring hands on retrieval from the stacks. The books began

555
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:41,640
to feel heavier each time I carried them, as if

556
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,799
gravity itself was leaning harder on their covers. The new

557
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,079
direct memo arrived at noon, effective immediately. No access to

558
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,000
archives or sub basement after ires orkeys must be returned

559
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,319
to the main office. See me if you have inventory concerns.

560
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,599
I knew I had to hide Wexer's key. I slipped

561
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:58,559
it beneath the lining of my bag, wind in her

562
00:27:58,599 --> 00:28:01,480
embroidered handkerchief, and left only a cheap copy on my keying.

563
00:28:02,079 --> 00:28:04,680
My last action before clocking out was to copyl filestand

564
00:28:04,759 --> 00:28:08,039
codes staffless Waxflow's general pages on to a thumb drive

565
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,839
stassed in an envelope labeled ditch w Trust. I dressed

566
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:13,720
it to an old library patron, who I hoped would

567
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,559
recognize the clues if I disappeared. As I passed the

568
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,759
mural on the archives stairwell, I paused a new face.

569
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,920
Mine unmistakably now appeared from behind a painted stack, mouth

570
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,599
twisted and muted warning. I pressed my fingers to the

571
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,519
rough brick pulse racing and felt a sudden chill wick

572
00:28:28,559 --> 00:28:30,400
up my arm, like the trail of a whispered secret.

573
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,400
When the automatic light shut off, I stowed for a moment,

574
00:28:33,559 --> 00:28:35,960
letting the dock close around me, listening not just to

575
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:37,799
the HVAC or the settling of all books, but to

576
00:28:37,799 --> 00:28:39,599
the faintest rush of paper in the walls, like a

577
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,079
thousand and seen hands for shelving memories. I realized, then,

578
00:28:43,319 --> 00:28:46,000
with ache, glancing down my back, that Stackhouse County Library

579
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:47,559
was not just a building or a job, or a

580
00:28:47,599 --> 00:28:50,279
safe place for the broken to heal. It was a system,

581
00:28:50,319 --> 00:28:52,599
a living record keeper that, in its hunger to preserve,

582
00:28:52,799 --> 00:28:55,200
sometimes wrote over the living as easily as a cataloged

583
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:57,720
the dead. And that night, held between the pressure of

584
00:28:57,759 --> 00:28:59,799
all its consolved secrets, I felt the terrible weight of

585
00:28:59,799 --> 00:29:02,759
being next in line in a current section. Part one

586
00:29:02,799 --> 00:29:05,799
continues per outline to next narrative. Bet if I slept

587
00:29:05,839 --> 00:29:08,279
at all that Friday morning, the rest was brittle and shallow.

588
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,039
Every time I blinked, I saw my own name scribbled

589
00:29:11,079 --> 00:29:13,440
in Wexer's urgent hand, the odd smear of red pencil

590
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,920
across her journal's page. Sunlight, what little the overcastk I

591
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,440
allowed burke against my curtains, aggravating a headache born not

592
00:29:19,559 --> 00:29:22,519
of exhaustion but of no stretch thin. My phone buzzed

593
00:29:22,519 --> 00:29:25,680
three times, one shift reminder from assistant Bart, one unreadable

594
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,400
system alert, and one text from a number I didn't recognize,

595
00:29:28,519 --> 00:29:30,559
just an empty gray bubble and a single time stamp

596
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:34,319
two thirteen ahem. Showing didn't help. Coffee took on a

597
00:29:34,359 --> 00:29:37,559
taste of burnt dust. I kept my back close thumb

598
00:29:37,599 --> 00:29:39,640
for the shape of the hidden brass key between packets

599
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,640
of aspirin and the battered green journal. The objects felt

600
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:44,559
heavier now, as if they carried more than hope. May

601
00:29:44,599 --> 00:29:48,039
be risk, may be evidence, maybe something I couldn't yet name.

602
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:50,839
I knew the snow was coming fast, kicked thick against

603
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,759
the southeast side windows of my apartment. I checked the

604
00:29:53,839 --> 00:29:57,319
library's remote schedule. The director's memo had taken effect, sub

605
00:29:57,359 --> 00:30:00,319
basement locked down, badge restrictions in place, and a new

606
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,400
line in the staff segment. My naymarked for a special

607
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:04,759
project shift stotting at eight p m. Stacked to run

608
00:30:04,799 --> 00:30:07,799
straight through until the morning. No point in calling off

609
00:30:08,559 --> 00:30:11,200
if I refused, I imagined they'd of some one else's catalog.

610
00:30:11,319 --> 00:30:14,119
What I had already begun to uncover. And even if

611
00:30:14,119 --> 00:30:16,640
I walked away, what if everything had seen? The shuffled book,

612
00:30:16,759 --> 00:30:19,440
the arrayse of veillance, the chilling and otation simply vanished

613
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,720
without a trace. The next night, so I went. By

614
00:30:22,799 --> 00:30:25,079
seven thirty. I'd made my way through empty streets, the

615
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,079
library looming larger than usual, each high window flickering faint

616
00:30:28,119 --> 00:30:31,200
gold behind streaks of blown ice. Jeff's fan idled in

617
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,839
the lot with only one other car, the director's plucked anne.

618
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,599
I zipped my coat to my chin, braced myself against

619
00:30:36,599 --> 00:30:38,920
the coal, and trusted of pasalted walk to the back entrance.

620
00:30:39,599 --> 00:30:42,279
The carve reader took three tries before the locks snapped open.

621
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,319
As I pushed inside, the familiar charge of the stacks

622
00:30:45,319 --> 00:30:47,440
air met me a distant cull and tinged with a

623
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,519
bite of old paper and something staler beneath the entry

624
00:30:50,599 --> 00:30:52,759
light was dead and a nearby bulb flickered to be

625
00:30:52,839 --> 00:30:55,960
replaced according to tip note, creating an intermittent strake against

626
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,279
the coat hooks in the wall. The main floor was

627
00:30:58,319 --> 00:30:59,759
silent but for a faint rat to come from the

628
00:30:59,799 --> 00:31:03,039
front desk. Gradier Shelley glanced up as I passed her,

629
00:31:03,079 --> 00:31:06,559
face unreadable, hands buried in the returns. Ben Avon hunched

630
00:31:06,559 --> 00:31:10,039
over the reserved terminal, barely acknowledging me. He looked as

631
00:31:10,039 --> 00:31:12,599
if he hadn't slept, shadows dug deep beneath his eyes.

632
00:31:13,279 --> 00:31:16,119
I cocked in and checked my locker. No new envelopes,

633
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,119
just the battered corners of miss Eswicksle's journal tucked between

634
00:31:19,119 --> 00:31:22,039
conissary pens. I slid it into my bag in her

635
00:31:22,119 --> 00:31:25,000
toward the staff lounge. No one spoke on my way.

636
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,480
Even Jeff, usually quick with a two fingered salute, simply

637
00:31:28,519 --> 00:31:31,240
shifted to sight his cart and disappeared down the maintenance hallway.

638
00:31:31,839 --> 00:31:34,440
In the break room, the stale quiet pervaded, punctuated only

639
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:37,160
by the slow ticking of the wall clock. Shelley joined

640
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,039
me there a minute later, dropped her mug on the

641
00:31:39,079 --> 00:31:41,799
counter and fixed her gaze somewhere over my shoulder. He

642
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,000
looked into the subassement. Yet, she asked, voice low, and no,

643
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,079
that's off limits now, according to Severin, I replied, miming noudulants.

644
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,359
Isn't that wearer as signed to night? She said, voice

645
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:56,119
flat as day old coffee. A blink surprised says who.

646
00:31:56,839 --> 00:31:58,880
She turned the staff roster on her phone and pushed

647
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,400
it across the table. The director added it at six,

648
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,160
supposed to due record review for Tuesday's rosette means you'll

649
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,799
be alone done there unless you ask for help. I've

650
00:32:06,799 --> 00:32:09,799
felt my mouth get dry. He mentioned what I'm supposed

651
00:32:09,839 --> 00:32:13,319
to be looking for. Shelley shook her head. If you're smart,

652
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,079
you won't. Inventory's just an excuse. He wants to see

653
00:32:16,119 --> 00:32:18,640
if you break. How words hovered like frost in the

654
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,599
still air. I ignored the shiver running down my back

655
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,279
and drank what was left in my coffee. A little later,

656
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,359
as I checked the badge locks in the main terminal,

657
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,440
I caught the flicker of the director silhouette behind the

658
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,519
frosted office glass. He nodded faintly when our eyes met,

659
00:32:31,599 --> 00:32:34,680
then closed the blinds. I made my rounds before descending,

660
00:32:34,799 --> 00:32:38,240
careful to log every stop, a's request of children's reference periodicals,

661
00:32:38,319 --> 00:32:41,880
local histories, every shelf, every aisle, all and order only

662
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:44,240
the familiar odd angle of aster's volume room and two

663
00:32:44,279 --> 00:32:47,720
asteriskin its by now expected place. I touched the spine

664
00:32:47,759 --> 00:32:49,799
and felt the static up my fingers. The book slid

665
00:32:49,839 --> 00:32:52,160
easily unto my palm. The stick is so sweet with glue,

666
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,200
as if freshly replaced from the stairwell. The murals pain

667
00:32:55,279 --> 00:32:58,000
to faces were complete. Blowd at the edges, my own,

668
00:32:58,079 --> 00:33:00,720
not quite accurate, not quite recent, watched from some sun

669
00:33:00,759 --> 00:33:03,720
bleach varied as fixed forward, like a reflection of anxious resolve,

670
00:33:04,319 --> 00:33:07,079
oppressed onward. At the door to the sub basement, the

671
00:33:07,119 --> 00:33:10,480
baj reda flash red, then white, but the brasqu key

672
00:33:10,559 --> 00:33:13,279
waxlight had left me. Glided in with a simple, forgiving click.

673
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,839
The doors one open, kneasing with a sigh, beyond a

674
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,839
concrete staircase, descending into fluorescent dimness, the effic with the

675
00:33:19,839 --> 00:33:23,279
smell of mildeer and old paint, faintly achered. I paused

676
00:33:23,319 --> 00:33:26,400
at the threshold. It was too quiet, even for after irs.

677
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,839
The only noise was the mumble of pipes and my

678
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,680
own pulse in my ears. And underneath that, I thought

679
00:33:31,759 --> 00:33:33,839
I heard the faint, insistent shuffling of papers, like the

680
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,160
echo of someone rifling stacks deep under ground. I drew

681
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,559
the key from my pocket, fingered it for reassurance, then

682
00:33:39,599 --> 00:33:42,759
began the descent. The first steps down blow familiar and not.

683
00:33:43,599 --> 00:33:46,119
Each fluorescent bulb flickered overhead in an even rhythm. Every

684
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,680
patch of exposed concrete told a different story in water

685
00:33:48,759 --> 00:33:52,039
stains and ecluded cheap prints. As the stairwell flattened and

686
00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:54,279
the cold deepened, I passed the closed off door marked

687
00:33:54,279 --> 00:33:58,119
wrecket's fault, restricted to no entry asbestos. Its paint was correcked,

688
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,599
the warning sign peeling in long thin strokeps. My lamplight tossed,

689
00:34:01,599 --> 00:34:05,119
shifting shadows behind me. The lock had two slots, bad

690
00:34:05,279 --> 00:34:08,599
and physical. I tried to key again. It slid into

691
00:34:08,639 --> 00:34:11,039
the lowest loot, and after an unnatural resistance, turned with

692
00:34:11,119 --> 00:34:15,119
a metallic grunt. The locking bar released. The door creaked

693
00:34:15,159 --> 00:34:18,599
but yielded. Inside the air was much colder, dense enough

694
00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:22,079
free shallow breath to hang in space. The light overhead flickered,

695
00:34:22,199 --> 00:34:25,239
then stadded into a feeble blue tome. Steel shells lined

696
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,800
the wall's wall to wall rose and rose deep. Cardboard

697
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,480
box had bulked along the bottom, file binders stacked high.

698
00:34:31,559 --> 00:34:34,159
The must of wet paper inescapable. At the center of

699
00:34:34,199 --> 00:34:36,880
the near walk ourvit, a single ancient computer bage monet

700
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,280
occurred and faded, the green text of the cattalog log

701
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,719
impulsing on its screen, waiting for an input. I hesitated

702
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,599
at the threshold before stepping over. If there was ever

703
00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:47,639
a place to hide or erase a record for good,

704
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,000
it was here, I called out softly, half expecting an ecker.

705
00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:53,559
Nothing save for the hum of the old machine and

706
00:34:53,599 --> 00:34:56,760
the sussers of distant order and unseen pipes. I made

707
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,239
for the computer first, but tickling on the linoleum tile,

708
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:02,639
the login prompt weighted staff I d I tapped Wexel's

709
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,440
numbers from a slip in her journal. The system pause,

710
00:35:05,599 --> 00:35:08,800
then linked to the directory are Cavil Incidents, Personnel, Memonantine

711
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:13,000
seventy six present a list clicked open named half familiar,

712
00:35:13,079 --> 00:35:15,719
half distorted by iron keystrucks, paraded by in green type

713
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,719
binder stass. Beneath the monitor held zerox lists, some pages

714
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,679
crossed out, others unnotated in Wexeler's besides school teacher script.

715
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,679
Some enters a batch from the late eighties, one or

716
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,199
two from my own decade, were ringed in pencil access

717
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,599
ends data shift watch for patent. I started pulling boxes,

718
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,440
first at random, then by the codes best matching Weckelo's

719
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:39,119
journal annotations. Each was full of old circulation slips, personnel, rosters,

720
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,239
crumbling minutes from trusty meetings in a thick layer of dust.

721
00:35:43,039 --> 00:35:45,760
Some documents marked for internal use of all signatures that

722
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:48,719
matched those from the odd photographs I'd collected. There were

723
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,599
crossed out lines, revised dates, entrants were written in more

724
00:35:51,679 --> 00:35:54,880
modern hand. It became clear these files told stories not

725
00:35:55,079 --> 00:35:58,159
just of library functions, but of favors, threats, ribes, a

726
00:35:58,199 --> 00:36:02,079
web of local influence stretching back deckades. The ledgers meticulously

727
00:36:02,159 --> 00:36:05,039
cataloged every small corruption. Books written out as a loss,

728
00:36:05,079 --> 00:36:07,760
but resold to ray dealers, special membership cards issued to

729
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,960
families with cloud at the court house, and the study

730
00:36:10,039 --> 00:36:13,800
taly clockwork, regular over raised employee enters. Some names copped

731
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,320
up again, as if freshly added after a disappearance, only

732
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,519
with different job titles or misspelled surnames. At the base

733
00:36:19,559 --> 00:36:22,239
of one box I found a folder labeled assets non

734
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:26,519
Employee h W, inside a faded photograph of missus Wexler,

735
00:36:26,599 --> 00:36:29,280
looking much younger, standing in the local history's aisle with

736
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:32,840
three non script men. Her smile was strained, her posture defensive.

737
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,679
The last sheet was a timeline. The columns for each

738
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,639
Tuesday mark for checkmarks at random intervals. The line were set.

739
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,960
The margin ode in faint pencil, midnight persistence index of

740
00:36:43,039 --> 00:36:46,840
counteracted sister reboots to last and corrupted state. At that moment,

741
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,000
the lights started, then brightened again. Behind me, the door

742
00:36:50,079 --> 00:36:53,840
jettered footsteps. I coorded two sets, moving with unhurried certainty.

743
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,320
The director's tall figure appeared first, framed by the staircase

744
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:01,119
behind the bars, Jeff close behind his bulk, filling the frame,

745
00:37:01,159 --> 00:37:03,719
hands locked round a shop rag. I drew in a

746
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:07,119
shaky breath and straightened the computer's monitor flash lines of

747
00:37:07,159 --> 00:37:10,119
scrolling green text. Then, as I watched, catalog engines began

748
00:37:10,199 --> 00:37:14,440
to overwrite themselves. Wexler h active slash and active slasher

749
00:37:14,599 --> 00:37:17,320
acted my name on record, Slash not on record a

750
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,719
prior experience, no slash. Yes, I press Prince Green, but

751
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:25,000
the keyboard spit sparks. The director spoke first. We prefer

752
00:37:25,159 --> 00:37:27,480
not to come down here. You've caused us some trouble tonight,

753
00:37:27,679 --> 00:37:31,119
he said, measured and severe. Some cycles run smoother when

754
00:37:31,159 --> 00:37:33,920
people know not to dig. Jeff watched with a mixture

755
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,920
of fear and pity. You shouldn't have tried the vault man,

756
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,039
he said quietly. Nobody lasts when they start asking real questions.

757
00:37:41,639 --> 00:37:43,920
I square my shoulders, kept my hand on missus Wix

758
00:37:44,079 --> 00:37:47,880
was bad a journal. You erased her, The director exhaled.

759
00:37:48,559 --> 00:37:51,400
Nobody's erased. That's the whole point. No matter what stored,

760
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,960
the record stays. Maybe is a shuffled recollection. Maybe is

761
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,559
a misplaced book. That's not us. It's the process. Stackhouse

762
00:37:56,559 --> 00:37:59,760
protects itself. Wexler wanted the pattern to stop repeating. I

763
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,320
said she left the evidence. I held up the battered

764
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,599
ledger and her coated slips. You tried to write her out,

765
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:11,280
but copies remain, he shrugged. Every library is a memory palace.

766
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,320
Eventually the clutter becomes dangerous for the staff, for de Tan,

767
00:38:14,639 --> 00:38:18,280
for every one relying uncomfortable stories. He took a step closer.

768
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,079
I'm offering you a choice. Return what you took, let

769
00:38:21,159 --> 00:38:23,840
us for store, order, forget the soul, take the early pension,

770
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:26,480
your assiverance, a letter of recommendation if you want, or

771
00:38:26,559 --> 00:38:28,840
keep digging, and the cycle will restart with you caught

772
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:31,840
in it. He paused, gesturing to Jeff, who inserted a

773
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:34,159
key of his own intel breaker across the room. The

774
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,880
overheads flickered down to brown out voltage. The computer monitors

775
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:42,440
glow shifted that taxwarping into new, unreadable forms. I steadied myself.

776
00:38:43,199 --> 00:38:46,199
Wexler left warnings for a reason, the annotations, the journal,

777
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:48,719
even the subversive badges. She wanted some one else to see.

778
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,639
He nodded, a fraction of a smile on his lips.

779
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:54,400
She did, and she's still here in a way, in

780
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:56,039
the same way you will be if you don't let go.

781
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:58,840
For an awful moment, the boundaries of the room began

782
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,880
to flicker. The boxes around me buzzed, as if alive,

783
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,760
paper edges trembling, The computer spat out gobbled characters, screen

784
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,440
shifting to images, a loop of surveillance footage. I recognize

785
00:39:08,599 --> 00:39:11,360
the local histori's ale, the stuff, break room, the sub basement,

786
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:17,599
repeating in erratic order, people appearing and vanishing. Wexler's face, Mine, Jeefs,

787
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,719
even Shelley, and Evan, looping through cycles, sometimes distorted as

788
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,639
if badly scanned. The director's eyes met mine. Whatever you

789
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:28,159
do next, remember the library was built to hold all

790
00:39:28,159 --> 00:39:30,519
the things the town should never forget. Sometimes the only

791
00:39:30,599 --> 00:39:32,639
way forward is by forgetting the right things. You can't

792
00:39:32,679 --> 00:39:35,199
beat the pattern, you can only step outside it. He

793
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,800
held out his hand for the ledger. I stared down

794
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,800
at the ledger on Wexler's journal. In the margins, A

795
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:42,480
line blinked at me, in and as fresh as if

796
00:39:42,519 --> 00:39:45,800
written moments before. Some books, remember everything, Never leave without

797
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,559
the ledger were set at your own risk. Jeff reached

798
00:39:48,559 --> 00:39:50,960
into the break a box and pulled a switch. The

799
00:39:51,079 --> 00:39:54,440
lights dropped fully to emergency level. Outside. I heard the

800
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,079
distant rattle of pipes, but also the unmistakable e co

801
00:39:57,199 --> 00:39:59,960
of voices in the stacks, some old, some young, mosteak

802
00:40:00,159 --> 00:40:04,559
and clipped roarer tones, snippets of catalog numbers, old staff jokes,

803
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,039
warnings like the ones that had haunted my own nights.

804
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:10,639
I gripped the ledger tighter, swallowing hart. I wouldn't let

805
00:40:10,679 --> 00:40:12,800
you erase her, I said, whether to the director or

806
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,559
to the catalog memory of the library itself. I couldn't say,

807
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:20,519
bore myself. The computer flickered for a moment. The names

808
00:40:20,559 --> 00:40:24,719
on the screen realigned. Wexler h record retrieve my name

809
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,920
maxis granted. The director watched, poised a look of resigned anticipation,

810
00:40:29,039 --> 00:40:32,119
tightening his jaw. That instant, as shadows slid along the

811
00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:36,480
far wall, thin spectral, utterly familiar. Miss s Wexley's outline

812
00:40:36,559 --> 00:40:38,559
features washing in and out of definition like a war

813
00:40:38,639 --> 00:40:42,400
newsprint photo. She moved as if sorting invisible volumes, finger

814
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:45,880
tips trailing the binders. Her head jerked, eyes meeting mine,

815
00:40:46,159 --> 00:40:49,760
full of quiet, desperate urgency. She seemed for a heartbeat

816
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:54,440
to mouth something. Screen behind her fluttered, don't stop, chiff

817
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,159
the ledger. A coldness lanced my spine, less fear than

818
00:40:57,199 --> 00:41:00,320
an imperative. My fingers found a loose bold on the ledges,

819
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,559
heavy backing as I slid it clear. One page fluttered

820
00:41:03,559 --> 00:41:07,079
out dust billoway on its surface, a sharp, simple pattern

821
00:41:07,679 --> 00:41:10,679
call numbers arrayed with arrows, initials, and scented an entry

822
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:14,039
mark for set over eyed manual. The urgency in Wexler's

823
00:41:14,079 --> 00:41:17,800
ghostly eyes pulled me forward. The director and Jeff shifted uncertain,

824
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,159
the latter muttering don't touch that. Ignoring them, I slotted

825
00:41:21,199 --> 00:41:23,639
the exposed shot into the open mouth of the catalog machine,

826
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:27,239
where the microfichureyd blinked green. For a second. Nothing moved.

827
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,639
Then a surge sickly sweet, smelling like ourc lidos and

828
00:41:30,679 --> 00:41:33,960
ripple through the cables. The old computer screen exploded with

829
00:41:34,039 --> 00:41:37,639
fresh tacts, names, dates, events, and scrolling too quickly to comprehend.

830
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,000
Stale air rushed as the shelf shuddered, voices shoppening in

831
00:41:41,039 --> 00:41:44,280
the background. For a brief, impossible instant, I felt something

832
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,920
heavy and furious pushing back through my consciousness, a title weave,

833
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:50,079
a forgotten truth, and eraised phases. The figure of Wexler

834
00:41:50,119 --> 00:41:53,519
blinked solid, then gone, then solid again. She pointed just

835
00:41:53,599 --> 00:41:55,400
once to the ledger and to me, then vanished as

836
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:57,880
the director lunged forward to wrench the cattle log tray shot.

837
00:41:58,639 --> 00:42:01,400
The collision stunned me. Jeff caught my arm as the

838
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:03,880
computer sparked, filling the vault with the metallic scent of

839
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,400
burning circuitry shells groan swinging out of a liman behind.

840
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,440
As tumbled, I staggered sideways, clutching the ledger at the

841
00:42:10,519 --> 00:42:14,119
journal and my bag, ducking the director's grip. Jef's voice

842
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,880
was hoarse. You have to go, don't let them follow

843
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,199
you under missing the computers grinned, shorted, dying, spat one

844
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:24,280
final line of text, externalization complete, I stumbled back through

845
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:26,920
the open vall, up the stairwell, keys in bloodless hands,

846
00:42:27,559 --> 00:42:29,840
the final shift had begun. No reset, not yet, but

847
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,880
the count on taking inside the walls. On the main floor,

848
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:36,159
the lights pulsed. The break room radio shriek, then chirked off.

849
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,079
Shelly stood in the staff corridor, trembling over a bat

850
00:42:39,199 --> 00:42:41,760
of walkie as locked on mine. What did you do,

851
00:42:42,039 --> 00:42:45,360
she whispered. I retrieved a ledger. It's over for now.

852
00:42:46,079 --> 00:42:49,599
My own voice felt oddly distant. The endless, humming quiet

853
00:42:49,599 --> 00:42:51,519
of the library grew loud with the shuffles and mottos

854
00:42:51,519 --> 00:42:54,119
of patrons. I could not see the mural on the stair,

855
00:42:54,159 --> 00:42:57,119
peeled and flaked colors changing under the new light. I

856
00:42:57,199 --> 00:42:59,280
sank down at the main desk, hiding the ledge beneath

857
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,079
old supply man, and waited unshow what would happen? But

858
00:43:02,199 --> 00:43:04,360
somehow sot in the old pattern had been broken, at

859
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,360
least for to night. Jeff covered for me, making rounds

860
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,000
with stiff asolve. Evan reappeared from somewhere, haunted but present,

861
00:43:11,079 --> 00:43:15,800
asking no questions. The director's office remained shuttered. An hour passed,

862
00:43:16,519 --> 00:43:18,559
the clock rolled well past the window for a roset.

863
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:22,159
The libraries hum leveled out, interrupted only by the street

864
00:43:22,159 --> 00:43:25,920
plow's passage. Outside. Patrons came and went, sometimes flickering at

865
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,440
the age of vision, indistinct to smoke, but none spoke

866
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:30,599
to me. I checked the local history's aisle and found

867
00:43:30,639 --> 00:43:33,239
Aster's folly romaned, two asterisks, still slightly out of place,

868
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,199
but a moving as if waiting for a new command.

869
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,760
At dawn, I took my things, Stovexler's ledger and sealed

870
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,119
envelope and placed it deep within the genealogy of all

871
00:43:41,119 --> 00:43:44,320
behind her dundant file's one hiding place among thousands. If

872
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:46,880
I vanished, I hoped some one might find it. I

873
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,360
slipped out the side exit, walking into the brittle blue

874
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:51,519
of day. I was trailing over the frost blood glass.

875
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:55,039
One last look backwards along the wall, and I saw her.

876
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,119
I thought, I did, Missess weax o'er her reflections, weeping

877
00:43:59,159 --> 00:44:01,559
the steps, her hair pinned ups mild crooked, her cardigan

878
00:44:01,599 --> 00:44:05,000
impossibly blue. She met my eyes, nodded gently and with

879
00:44:05,119 --> 00:44:08,360
perfect calm, heft at astorisk, local histories of Stackhouse, County,

880
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,119
volume room and two asterisk in her thin arms, placing

881
00:44:11,159 --> 00:44:13,239
it in the artist ale where it did not belong

882
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,320
and never quite wood. She turned then, voice high and

883
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,199
sure not quite hers some books remember everything in the glass.

884
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,719
I was alone in holding an unane volume, its cover

885
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,800
shining blank in the strengthening morning light. That was enough

886
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:27,559
for me to finally turn away and let the doors

887
00:44:27,639 --> 00:44:30,880
larch settle close behind me. The door's latch settled close

888
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,079
behind me. I made it home as the sun en

889
00:44:33,079 --> 00:44:35,679
stop beneath an anemic winter sky, trailing an ache behind

890
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:37,280
my eyes, and the weight in my chest so dense

891
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:39,719
at her to breathe. Every step from the library to

892
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:42,079
my car felt like crossing at the threshoulder second time.

893
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:44,559
Each f fill echoed in my head, winding tight at

894
00:44:44,599 --> 00:44:46,239
the knowledge of what I now carried, on what it

895
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,440
would cost to keep inside. The apartment was frigid, the

896
00:44:49,519 --> 00:44:51,559
radiator slow to wake, my ex yst fade of muck.

897
00:44:51,559 --> 00:44:54,320
Station at the sink as always, sun caught the binding

898
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,119
of messss Wexlas's journal and the manilla envelope stuffed deep

899
00:44:57,159 --> 00:45:00,000
in my satchel. I locked my door, snapped every book,

900
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:02,559
and sat at the kitchen table, ledger half out crossed

901
00:45:02,559 --> 00:45:04,599
the dirt, and that Peculi Sirore must still clan to

902
00:45:04,679 --> 00:45:08,239
his cover. At first, I tried to catalog it, labeling folders,

903
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:12,480
snapping photos, patten stayed back names and loops, arrows dyeing

904
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:16,239
the fates of staff, select pagrons, old city councilors. Pages

905
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:17,960
of the ledger that had seemed to nerve before now

906
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,960
seemed stranger, shifting when I glanced away, lines stretching or

907
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:24,039
shortening of their own accord. At one point, what I

908
00:45:24,079 --> 00:45:25,719
thought was a pencil sketch of the mule and the

909
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,360
accaster was shoppened into my own face, not static, but

910
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,159
caught as if mid shaupaies wide mouth frozen around the

911
00:45:31,199 --> 00:45:34,559
word I could not recall speaking my hands. Finally, steady

912
00:45:34,679 --> 00:45:36,800
folded the batter journal away and sealed the envelope with

913
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,719
a strip of office tape and a trembling pen. Deliberately

914
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:41,920
addressed it to the one patron misss Wexloud used to

915
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,000
trust with out of IRE's research, old Missus danvers Oregulus

916
00:45:45,079 --> 00:45:47,840
and Sicato administration, known for her stubborn memory and her

917
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:50,880
shah bay for anything amissing the genealogy records. I left

918
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,440
my return address blank, then stashed it in a library

919
00:45:53,519 --> 00:45:55,760
return spain, third from the bottom, somewhere only she or

920
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,679
I would ever think to look. Sleep wouldn't come, not

921
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,599
in a few hours before I needed to return. Instead,

922
00:46:01,679 --> 00:46:03,519
I sat at the table, the sharp edge of last

923
00:46:03,559 --> 00:46:05,840
night cutting into the dullness of a new morning. I

924
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,679
wrote down everything I remembered, each word, each flicker of

925
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,400
movement in the vault, each phrase exchanged with severin and gff,

926
00:46:11,519 --> 00:46:14,360
and especially the final ghostly appearance of WEXL beneath the

927
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,280
emergency lights. I wrote until my hand cramped in the

928
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,119
gray daylight had turned as Dolla's paper soup. Calls and

929
00:46:20,199 --> 00:46:23,199
emails from the director went unanswered. Shall you send a

930
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,880
single text? You alive? And followed it with nothing further.

931
00:46:26,519 --> 00:46:28,679
When I drodged my phone one last time before leaving,

932
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,159
there was just a single in read message Some books

933
00:46:31,199 --> 00:46:34,079
don't forget. I deleted it, but the words seethed as

934
00:46:34,079 --> 00:46:36,639
if burned into the display. By the time I rapped

935
00:46:36,639 --> 00:46:39,599
for my next assigned shift, the snow had slowed, the

936
00:46:39,679 --> 00:46:42,519
city's plaus had left a new boarder between parking Lotton Street,

937
00:46:42,559 --> 00:46:44,639
a mid winter wall. I forced myself over, with numb

938
00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:47,199
feet and all the care of some one negotiating a minefield.

939
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,320
Inside the lobby, things felt less changed than I feared.

940
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,239
The fluorescent bulbs hum low as ever sticky. He came

941
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:55,400
off the radiators, and the cost of ice had formed

942
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:58,119
on the outer doors, making them stick slightly. At the

943
00:46:58,199 --> 00:47:01,679
returns counter, Miss Stamvers herself stood sorting through papers with

944
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:04,360
her usual brisk economy, and not as scarf fastened tightly

945
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:06,960
at her chin. She saw me, tipped her chin up

946
00:47:07,039 --> 00:47:10,039
and said, simply, he dropped something. She slid the manill

947
00:47:10,159 --> 00:47:12,519
envelope across the marble top. Not so much a question

948
00:47:12,599 --> 00:47:15,880
as ada keep it, I whispered, unable to conceal the

949
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,480
tremmer in my voice. She nodded, once, adjusted her glasses,

950
00:47:19,679 --> 00:47:22,719
and tucked the envelope firmly beneath a pile of genealogical charts.

951
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,480
This is a fine place for those that remember, she said,

952
00:47:25,559 --> 00:47:28,000
too softly for any one but me to hear, but

953
00:47:28,159 --> 00:47:31,679
not for everyone. Evan drifted by, giving me a sideline glance,

954
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,199
no longer tired as before, but weary as a float

955
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,159
for shifts in a storm. Shully, stationed at the desk,

956
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:39,599
seen pinned to her chair by invisible wires, she barely

957
00:47:39,679 --> 00:47:42,440
looked in my direction. The director's door was opened. The

958
00:47:42,519 --> 00:47:44,880
office beyond sterile and undisturbed, but he was nowhere to

959
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:47,920
be seen. The local history stuck gleaned in the artficial light,

960
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,719
the spined mediculously outlined, except for one a heavy volume

961
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,679
Astro's volume room, and two asters again cocked to the left,

962
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:55,159
as if waiting to be pulled by a hand. With

963
00:47:55,199 --> 00:47:58,880
the finished business, I held back, refusing to touch it,

964
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,280
and moved on with my round slocking everything by the book.

965
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,960
My badge didn't glitch once it opened, every door on

966
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,920
the first scan, every archave in inventory room, as though

967
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:11,000
nothing had ever interrupted its permissions. The radio in the

968
00:48:11,039 --> 00:48:13,920
break room was finally silent. The mural on the archeve

969
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:16,679
Stowell had repaired itself, My face gone, every pair of

970
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:20,119
painted eyes gazing forward. Yet in small ways the pattern

971
00:48:20,119 --> 00:48:24,320
asserted itself. Patrons appeared out of nowhere, requesting rarely circulated

972
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,159
books from the last decade. Each time the slip I

973
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:29,039
handed them bore the faint impression of a name not

974
00:48:29,119 --> 00:48:32,360
in the system, sometimes mine, sometimes Wexler's. On occasion, one

975
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:34,199
there flickered and vanished a sin as the bright blue

976
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,320
checket scannerhead it on. My lunch, I sat outside in

977
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,239
the concrete steps, breathing the icy air in deliberate lungfalls.

978
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:44,559
Jeff appeared without warning. He didn't sit. He found the

979
00:48:44,599 --> 00:48:47,559
brim pattern, didn't you, he asked, watching his breath fog

980
00:48:47,639 --> 00:48:50,519
in the late afternoon. I didn't answer, and he nodded,

981
00:48:50,519 --> 00:48:53,519
as if this was what he expected. Some of us

982
00:48:53,559 --> 00:48:56,599
tried before. Wexler, back before she was head librarian, used

983
00:48:56,599 --> 00:48:58,800
to keep an entire drawer of evidence. Every so often

984
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:00,840
she'd mentioned the ledger, say it was more important than

985
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,000
any living staff inventory. Day always spiited the numbers. He

986
00:49:04,039 --> 00:49:06,719
shuffled his feet, the solve from his boots, craping softly.

987
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,480
He you want to las, don't poke at the system again.

988
00:49:09,599 --> 00:49:13,719
Let sleeping records lie inside. The intercom sounded a low, alien, chy,

989
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,880
other than the familiar tone. A new message have been delivered.

990
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,199
All staff to assemble immediately in the reference room. I

991
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,039
trudged him behind Jeff and Shelley the ethic with weary silence.

992
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,320
The room was a rain of huddled bodies, faces closed,

993
00:49:26,519 --> 00:49:28,679
eyes fixed in the director, who stood at the center,

994
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:31,480
framed by patchy sunlight in the sharp lines of book steps.

995
00:49:32,039 --> 00:49:35,639
He offered no preamble. We are experiencing a period of transition.

996
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,440
He in tone, hands clasped, voice firm. To ensure the

997
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,440
continuity and security of our records. Select access will be

998
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,079
granted only to those of full tenure and demonstrated reliability.

999
00:49:45,159 --> 00:49:47,840
We expect absolute respect for boundaries. As of now, only

1000
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:52,119
designated staff may into the sub basement, inventory rooms, and knarchoves.

1001
00:49:52,199 --> 00:49:54,599
All anomalies are to be reported directly to my office,

1002
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:57,559
no exceptions. He didn't look at me, but his words

1003
00:49:57,639 --> 00:50:00,800
radiated in every direction. There was an air finality to it,

1004
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:02,880
as if a border had been drawn across the living

1005
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:05,199
and the records, and to step across again would be

1006
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:08,480
to disappear, no longer erased precisely, but existing only on

1007
00:50:08,559 --> 00:50:11,320
a shelf deep out of reach. When he dismissed us,

1008
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,400
everyone filed out. Shelley caught me by the door, her

1009
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,280
voice so low and nearly vanished. You did it, didn't

1010
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,440
You have got inside? Found her? Found enough, I said

1011
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,519
the admission, closing the space between us. She fished in

1012
00:50:23,559 --> 00:50:25,800
her pocket, passing me a tiny scrap of blue yarn.

1013
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:28,360
If the cycle we sets, it'll be on a Tuesday.

1014
00:50:28,559 --> 00:50:30,679
Hide anything you want kept safe by then. After that,

1015
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,519
can't promise you'll remember what do you know I pocketed

1016
00:50:33,559 --> 00:50:36,360
the yawn, the physical fread catching in my palm as

1017
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,679
my shift went on. Nothing over it happened. The director's

1018
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:43,480
office remained closed. Jeff patrolled the boiler room, jingling keys.

1019
00:50:44,199 --> 00:50:46,960
Evans slouched through his rounds, not even pretending to scan

1020
00:50:47,079 --> 00:50:50,920
the returns. Most staff kept to themselves, but in the

1021
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,639
quiet and name between moments. As dusk faded and Bob's flickered,

1022
00:50:53,639 --> 00:50:56,320
as subtle shifts crept in, the patron locked times down

1023
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,280
to visit her whose pitcher kept fading in and out.

1024
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,559
Missus Wexler badge long active force recorded as unrecognized profile

1025
00:51:03,079 --> 00:51:07,119
books began appearing with fresh notations in WHI sliff camp tanned, archivists, persists,

1026
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:10,360
patten interrupted. A gap remains the verification or all only

1027
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:12,840
By the next inventory day, a pale copy of the

1028
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:15,519
ledger had migrated to the genealogy vault, a facsimile as

1029
00:51:15,599 --> 00:51:18,000
real as the one eyed hidden inside it a brief

1030
00:51:18,039 --> 00:51:22,519
final notation lastrost denied. Next attempt unknown observer persists record

1031
00:51:22,599 --> 00:51:26,000
is not closed. The radio, though silent one's foot put

1032
00:51:26,039 --> 00:51:28,239
back to life with the same faint static then faded

1033
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:31,239
as I entered the staff lange at midnight, every computer

1034
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:33,920
ran the patch cycle, hanging for a moment longer than usual,

1035
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:38,840
catalog entries blinking access, temporary history incomplete. Only Shelley greeted

1036
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:42,079
me during the overnight. Two patrons one oral history is

1037
00:51:42,159 --> 00:51:44,280
checked out? Ye going to handle those? Or should I

1038
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:47,239
A nodded feeling how thin the membrane had become between

1039
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:49,920
memory and recoat, between the story as lived and is written.

1040
00:51:50,519 --> 00:51:53,480
Sometimes crossing the local history's aisle, I'd catch a glimpse

1041
00:51:53,519 --> 00:51:55,800
of a familiar blue cardigan slipping just passed the end cup,

1042
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:58,079
never fast enough to catch, never so clear that I

1043
00:51:58,119 --> 00:52:00,920
trusted what I saw. When I left that morning, the

1044
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:03,760
street was still hushed, sun trembling over an ambroken surface

1045
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,000
of snow. The libraries glass glinted fiercely, and for the

1046
00:52:07,039 --> 00:52:09,480
first time in weeks, my reflection behind the window looked

1047
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:13,159
only like me again, morning rumpled, pale, besolid. Days pass

1048
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:17,519
then weeks. The pattern did not fully return. The anomalies

1049
00:52:17,559 --> 00:52:20,559
became settler and misplaced. Card a log overwritten and replaced

1050
00:52:20,599 --> 00:52:23,559
in minutes. The uncanny sense that sometimes booth winkedon and

1051
00:52:23,679 --> 00:52:26,239
out of being only when you stared too closely. Yet

1052
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:30,119
staff stopped disappearing. Katon spoke of seeing odd figures less frequently,

1053
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,840
and waxed. This name faded from the inventory schedules entirely.

1054
00:52:33,559 --> 00:52:36,079
I kept the ledger hidden, reviewing it only alone, its

1055
00:52:36,159 --> 00:52:39,000
lost annotation of quite beacon observer pricists, reminding me that

1056
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,639
as long as it existed, the past was, at least

1057
00:52:41,679 --> 00:52:46,000
for now unfinished. One afternoon, late rain, running black lines

1058
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,480
down the library windows, I found myself standing in the

1059
00:52:48,519 --> 00:52:52,119
local Histories aisle again, Astor's volume room and two asterisks

1060
00:52:52,119 --> 00:52:54,760
sat straight and proper on its shelf, no longer rescue.

1061
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,960
Its call number label was fixed rate, no edge is curling.

1062
00:52:58,559 --> 00:53:00,679
I dared to open it. The pages fell blanket first,

1063
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,239
then resolved into feign inscriptions, my name, the day, and

1064
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:07,480
underneath archivist trusted ledger retained. I closed the book gently

1065
00:53:07,559 --> 00:53:10,239
and returned it to its place, shells humming with invisible memory.

1066
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,360
Some books, I thought, do you remember everything? Everything? And

1067
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:16,800
everyone who dares read closely enough? Yet other times, as

1068
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:19,519
I filed circulation cards or check in new shipment, I'd

1069
00:53:19,559 --> 00:53:23,000
meet Shelley's gaze across the desk. Still here, She'd ask

1070
00:53:23,199 --> 00:53:25,559
the same edge of fear and affection coloring her words.

1071
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:29,039
Still here, I answered, and meant it. There were no

1072
00:53:29,159 --> 00:53:32,639
more invitations to this abasement. No more director's memos, etched

1073
00:53:32,679 --> 00:53:35,440
with threat and absence at each weekly were st I

1074
00:53:35,519 --> 00:53:37,960
updated my notes, double sealed the ledger, and waited for

1075
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,199
the chill that never quite returned. Perhaps the pattern shifted.

1076
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:44,639
Perhaps for a time the library allowed its living records

1077
00:53:44,639 --> 00:53:46,559
to hold the balance instead of swallowing them into the

1078
00:53:46,599 --> 00:53:51,519
gap between stacks. But I watched, I wrote, I persisted.

1079
00:53:52,199 --> 00:53:54,360
I left the library at dawn one morning, A faint

1080
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,480
fog culling in the pucking lot. The sky clean is

1081
00:53:56,559 --> 00:54:00,400
new paper outside. Missess Daymver's hunts butt and bell sweats

1082
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:02,880
awed off the steps, her blue scarf wound tight. She

1083
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,599
looked up, offered an enigmatic smile, then nodded toward the

1084
00:54:05,639 --> 00:54:08,440
distant shimmer of the local History's aisle, visible through the doors.

1085
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,760
Lawn memory in this place, she murmured. I only nodded,

1086
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:15,519
letting the words thread through me, comforting and un settling

1087
00:54:15,599 --> 00:54:18,880
all at once. As I reached Makah, the faintest reflection

1088
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,000
in the library's glass caught my eye. A figure blue

1089
00:54:21,039 --> 00:54:24,039
caught again, gentle pasture, shoving a thick, battered volume on

1090
00:54:24,039 --> 00:54:27,280
the highest steck. She glanced up, meeting my gaze with

1091
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:30,519
eyes full of calm, warning, and quite knowledge. She whispered,

1092
00:54:30,679 --> 00:54:32,760
or seemed to, as the wind carried her shape away.

1093
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,199
Some books remember everything. I turned that line, already fading

1094
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,320
in my hands. The battered ledger felt heavy but steady.

1095
00:54:40,079 --> 00:54:42,639
Somewhere I knew another page had turned. History copied in you,

1096
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:46,400
the staccas anomaly, written forward for another dawn. And that

1097
00:54:46,599 --> 00:54:48,960
is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will

1098
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:49,880
see you in the next one.