WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.360 I never thought much about the strange donations left in 2 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:09.519 the library, at least not after the first couple of 3 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:11.880 months on the job. He get used to the rhythms. 4 00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:14.759 Some mornings begin with the anonymous boxes of nearly news, rulers, 5 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:18.440 of forgotten envelopes, of recipe card sound which between gardening encyclopedias, 6 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.839 Sometimes even a clutch of baby socks were battered reading 7 00:00:20.879 --> 00:00:24.079 glasses slipped behind the returns. The idea that all of it, 8 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:26.519 every extra thing, could say something about the town or us. 9 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:28.719 A staff was a gentle background hum, never the main 10 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:33.759 melody until one unusual Thursday. It was. It was late afternoon, 11 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:35.880 with the long golden bars of light thrown across the 12 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:38.799 carpet between the stacks, those quiet minutes just after story hour, 13 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.280 when families filter out, and the only sounds at a 14 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:43.679 creak of all foreboards and the intermittent tap of keys 15 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:46.000 at the big desk by the front window. I was 16 00:00:46.039 --> 00:00:48.799 reshelving a trolley of returns, pausing here and there to 17 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:50.960 rehouse a book, making a mental note of the odd 18 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.280 order in which people, mostly children, managed to scatter picture 19 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:56.439 books among adult biographies. That was when my handstold on 20 00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:58.679 a book that didn't belong anywhere, at least not along 21 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:01.840 the staff recommends general fiction stretch of shelf where someone 22 00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:04.840 had jammed it in within ceremonious pressure. It was heavy 23 00:01:05.560 --> 00:01:08.879 leather band, robust, spined and adorned by title or gold leaf, 24 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:11.799 just a rough, deep maroon, as if once handled by 25 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:14.879 hands that preferred not to mark things for others. It 26 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:16.840 was too wide for the shelf, its thickness bowing the 27 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:20.760 adjacent paperbacks. It didn't so much announce itself as simply exist, 28 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:23.560 with a presence that demanded a pause. I have did it, 29 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:25.400 dwan I fum pressed to the coal cover, no call 30 00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:28.480 number sticker, no library barco, not even a publisher's and 31 00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:31.680 sickness scraped into the bottom. Thin papers were marbled and 32 00:01:31.719 --> 00:01:35.280 faintly fox But the real surprise was inside. There. Written 33 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:37.359 in a stately and frosty hand on thick rough paper 34 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.519 were lines describing moments, mundane ones from only the day before. 35 00:01:41.159 --> 00:01:43.319 Here was an account of the book club ladies arguing 36 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:46.000 with remarkable accuracy over the correct brand as god as 37 00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:49.200 short Bread. Here was a shy, giggling seven year old 38 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:51.480 weaving through the aisles to crouch under a reading table. 39 00:01:51.719 --> 00:01:54.159 Perfectly courted, as she denied, having dropped great juice on 40 00:01:54.159 --> 00:01:57.599 the carpet. I quietly whispered conversation between mister Darcy and 41 00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:00.000 Missess Taylor, but whether to order chocolatechip or at Mills 42 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:02.159 Cookies for the staff meeting that was in there too. 43 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:04.640 The dialog rendered with a dispassionate precision that was neither 44 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:08.360 mocking nor approving. Just there, I looked, blinked, read, and 45 00:02:08.439 --> 00:02:10.639 re read. If it was a joke, it was too 46 00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:14.000 dry and reason to make any sense. No member of staff, 47 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:16.159 as far as I could imagine, would have taken the 48 00:02:16.159 --> 00:02:18.159 trouble to describe precisely what any of us had done 49 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:20.840 or said with such gentle clarity. I ran my finger 50 00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:23.439 along the page's margin. The ink we smooth, unblowed by 51 00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:27.479 any recent touch. I went backwards two pages three last 52 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:30.520 week even the description of the sudden rain. Sam's purple 53 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:32.879 umbrella left propping open the back door while he wrangled 54 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:34.879 the forgotten leg of bucket away from the little ones. 55 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.639 I closed the books sharply. Its presence on the trolley, 56 00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:41.719 jammed in among the featherweight novels and script pnthologies, seemed 57 00:02:41.719 --> 00:02:45.120 curiously nonchalant, and yet not quite plausible. If someone had 58 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:46.840 planted it, they'd have had to be everywhere at once 59 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:51.039 taking notes. No one noticed than taking and why who documented? 60 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:53.240 For example, my own short live attempt to banglitt a 61 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:55.479 glue from kraft over after the Great clean up Fiesco. 62 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:58.479 The feeling was not fear nor even true knees, just 63 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:00.879 a small pulse of something like fastening nation fretted through 64 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:02.759 with the faintest sense that I picked up a story 65 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.280 that for once did not belong to anyone but us. 66 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:07.879 I set it behind the check and computer for later, 67 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:11.280 and resolved to ask the others tomorrow. Most days working 68 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:13.680 here feels like recounting a favorite memory. Everything is a 69 00:03:13.719 --> 00:03:16.719 little faded around the edges build on routines and rituals. 70 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:19.639 I'm not from Braylac originally, though I've been at the 71 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:22.520 public library long enough now that Missess Taylor has stopped 72 00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:25.280 calling me a new hand in front of patrons. That's 73 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:28.560 high praise. Here there's a roster of regular's, tiny children 74 00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:31.240 who have turned into gandi home according teens, mothers with 75 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:33.840 pockets full of tissues or tyrees who spend are now 76 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:35.879 during the crosswood and then half hour telling us how 77 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:38.560 it was better print of five years ago. The pleasures 78 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:40.840 and mald frustrations are all stitched together by our staff. 79 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:43.439 Missess Taylor is both the sun and the moon and 80 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:46.360 these ruins. Her silver hair always immaculate, her memory sharp 81 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:49.680 as the edges on laminative reading passes. She is fiercely 82 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.680 devoted to the library's thousand small traditions, and her office 83 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:56.479 smells permanently of lavender and tea. Ellie runs the arficical program, 84 00:03:56.639 --> 00:03:58.879 her laugh ringing out over the stacks. She's a kinetic one, 85 00:03:58.919 --> 00:04:02.199 always coaxing reluctantly kids into building pyramids from paperback mysteries 86 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:06.159 or organizing impromptu puppet shows with borrowed socks. Sam Our 87 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:09.520 teenage volunteer, worships the digital catalog and has on more 88 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:12.120 than one occasion kept the aging computers running by what 89 00:04:12.199 --> 00:04:16.279 he calls gentle encouragement. Lastly, mister Dorsey retired from the 90 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:18.759 middle school decade to go lives most days behind the 91 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:22.639 walnut reference desk, courting poetry nobody's read for generations, furiously 92 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:26.079 annotating the never ending stack of local history pamphlets. Our 93 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:29.160 building is laid brick and glass, Modernism grafted gracefully on 94 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.600 to an old meeting house, where the foundation stones are 95 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.879 so broad and thick they seemed better suited for defending 96 00:04:33.879 --> 00:04:37.319 a castle than sheltering bookworms. Their spaces were boards creek 97 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:40.040 in morning passages were sunlight slants just right to make 98 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:43.600 ghosts out of desmotes. The card catalog steinds as a relic, 99 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.120 carefully dusted, though rarely used nod at so much as 100 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.920 migrated online, save for the town's oldest pageons who treated 101 00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:51.560 as a confessional of sorts. The staff room is a 102 00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:53.879 cramped den of chip mugs and shifting piles of biscuits 103 00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:56.680 bought and by grateful parts, sended permanently with cinnamon, and 104 00:04:56.720 --> 00:04:59.839 all printedtona most mysteries here? Or mold who barred the 105 00:04:59.839 --> 00:05:01.800 ac alice in Wonderland pop up and failed to sign 106 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:04.600 it out? Where did the box of lost property sung 107 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:10.879 glasses go? I relished these the process of ordering, sorting, labeling, curating, baking, tidying, 108 00:05:10.959 --> 00:05:13.600 and laughing our way through a day. Staff meetings are 109 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:16.800 equal parts business, personal confession, and the occasional debate about 110 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:19.240 whether our Ghosts of Greylock Pamvet should be reprinted with 111 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:23.000 spooker fonts. But a book that knows things. A book 112 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:25.319 that appears out of nowhere, describing this week in such 113 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:28.639 clear detail. That's a different sort of problem. There's a 114 00:05:28.759 --> 00:05:31.199 kind of self assurance that comes from assuming you understand 115 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.639 every corner of your workplace. Still, at lunch the next day, 116 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.639 my curiosity about the leather bound book had grown, not lessened. 117 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:39.920 In the break room, with the whirr of the little 118 00:05:39.959 --> 00:05:41.759 fan flattening a stack of memos, and the cut of 119 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:45.560 teaspoon against mark, I decided to raise the matter. Massess 120 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:48.240 Taylor was assembling the biscuit tray with patriarchal care. Sam 121 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:50.399 balanced a comic book on his knees whilst carolling through 122 00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:52.879 a cataloging app. I missed, Darcy leaned, and quietly tod 123 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:56.160 dice at the morning paper's headlines. ALI wrestling with the 124 00:05:56.199 --> 00:05:58.560 after school schedule plansd up when I set the book 125 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:00.519 on the table between a pile of returning cards and 126 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:04.759 a still warm coffee cake. This has belonged somewhere, I ventured, 127 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:07.639 sliding it forward. There was a brief silence enough for 128 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:11.120 me to see everyone's gaze. Land Missess Taylor's expression was 129 00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:14.480 particularly resolute. She pursed her lips, then nodded, as if 130 00:06:14.519 --> 00:06:18.519 confirming something all mislaid. Of course, dear, that's the poetry collection, 131 00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:20.720 isn't it shelved by the window. I check it last 132 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:23.759 Thursday to horror Dickinson even some odd little translations. I 133 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:25.680 suppose it does look a little plain on the outside, 134 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.920 but it's been hours for years. Mister Dorsey, squinting in 135 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:32.639 a gentle half light, disagree before anyone else could respond. No, 136 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:35.279 that's not the poetry volume. That's the Graylock history, the 137 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:37.199 whole origin story that one. I used it for the 138 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:40.079 children's scavenger hunt in May. Absolutely packed with old stories 139 00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:42.920 about the stone foundations out back, the lost parsonage, and 140 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.120 the fire of twenty one. No one ever checks it out, 141 00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:47.639 but I find it comforting, like knowing which grace done 142 00:06:47.639 --> 00:06:50.279 to lean on during a windy funeral. Sam looked up, 143 00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:53.959 rolling his eyes a fraction. No way, he said, almost amused. 144 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:56.759 I found it in the garden and donations last month 145 00:06:56.759 --> 00:06:58.480 had detailed to mate her tips and a section on 146 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:01.279 warding off five moths super word. Since it was sitting 147 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:04.040 right between the IT manual and some doggiar Nancy Drew's, 148 00:07:04.079 --> 00:07:06.519 I wanted to catalog it, but couldn't figure out the genre. 149 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:09.879 Ellie grinned, I'm pretty sure it's the one i'd use 150 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:12.079 for story, how sometimes, the one with all the little 151 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:14.720 animal fables. It's always open to the fox and the violinist. 152 00:07:14.800 --> 00:07:16.959 I've lost count of how often the kids ask for it. 153 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:20.680 Four memories, four attributions, all delivered with an easy certainty. 154 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:23.759 I looked down at the book Gloister's family, Chris still 155 00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:26.680 faint under an expiring cleaning white stain. But did any 156 00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:29.000 of you read its latest entry? I flipped to a 157 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:33.000 random page, expecting their faces to shift. Instead, Missess Tiller 158 00:07:33.079 --> 00:07:35.920 merely smiled and sipped her tea. It's a lovely collection, 159 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:38.600 don't you find it reassuring to keep family histories together? 160 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:40.319 You know what's there, even if you haven't read it 161 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:42.759 in a while. Mister Dorsey scanned the room with the 162 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:46.240 sage patients. Every library has won, the book everyone talks 163 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:49.199 about but never checks out. The spine that survives renovations. 164 00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:54.000 He tapped the table almost fondly. Sam, distracted again by 165 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.319 his phone, said, I guess you can move it anywhere 166 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:59.360 and people would notice eventually or not. Ellie had gone 167 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:02.519 back to her lists. Humming a tune. She was already elsewhere. 168 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:05.839 I waited for someone to express a prise, alarm, anything, 169 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.879 But the book, so quietly and accountable in my own hands, 170 00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:11.959 seemed to slip seamlessly into their different memories as nothing unusual. 171 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:14.560 One lunchtime finish, I took the but back to my 172 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:17.759 little destination, propped it open, and fingered forward a few leafs. 173 00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:21.519 There on a fresh, creamy page was to disnippet a 174 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:23.720 velvet slice of the coffee kick placed at the exact 175 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:26.160 corner of the stuffed table, and overheld Patron's joke about 176 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:29.079 being overd you on everything except taxes, even Missess Taylor's 177 00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:32.799 perfectly rehearsed sigh. But the failing photocopia no indication that 178 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:34.600 I any of us have written it. And yet there 179 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:37.480 it was, written as if by careful but invisible guest. 180 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:40.519 For a moment I simply watched the words breathe against 181 00:08:40.519 --> 00:08:44.279 the paper. I was no closer to understanding. Only one 182 00:08:44.320 --> 00:08:47.120 thing was certain. Now someone or something was recording our 183 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:49.200 days with an attention to both detail and beauty. I 184 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:52.200 hadn't known as possible. No one else found it strange 185 00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:56.639 that sensation standing slightly outside everyone else's version of reality 186 00:08:56.679 --> 00:08:58.960 as a kind of gravity pulls you in, forces you 187 00:08:59.039 --> 00:09:02.080 to act, to test, to try the universes seems so 188 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.679 I did. I started with what I hoped would be 189 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:07.360 a scientific approach, or at least a careful librarian's version 190 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:10.519 of science. My first tool was my own small note book, 191 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:13.000 the pages already mostly filled with procurement lists and book 192 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:15.679 repair locks. I reserved a clean sheet for a new 193 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:19.799 experiment morning, jot down precisely what I saw or heard, mentally, 194 00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:23.360 time stamp each observation. Did the book echo? Then? Did 195 00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:25.840 it record things I'd missed or details I would later 196 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:29.440 remember differently? First I wrote Elley Blue Scarfs, Bill black 197 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:32.039 Tea at nine forty one, a m A pause, A 198 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:34.679 treatise on biscuit crumbs, a patron's request for that book 199 00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:38.039 with the dancing Fox. Then I flipped the mysterious book open. 200 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:41.159 The same scene rendered a shade more elegantly but subtly different. 201 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:43.200 Telly Scoff described as heal what it was in fact 202 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:45.639 in Nati Cobalt and the foxtail swapped for an allusion 203 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:47.799 to violin his fable, which I did not recall anyone 204 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:50.679 mentioning that day on a whim, I tried repeating the 205 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:53.519 experiment with our new security footage system, which we rarely 206 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:56.799 used for anything beyond locating misplaced keys. I watched the 207 00:09:56.799 --> 00:09:59.679 morning unfoldful of us shuffling about, chatting, shoving. Yet at 208 00:09:59.679 --> 00:10:02.000 no point did anyone approach the intic area where I'd 209 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.200 placed the book. No camera Showdren had seen handwriting or 210 00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:10.240 even flipping pages. It simply sat inward looking and unchanged. Next, 211 00:10:10.279 --> 00:10:12.639 I combed the staff journals, all spiral bound note buts 212 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:15.440 passed along since the nineties, half archived atop the reference 213 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:17.919 rotained shelf filled with less than snatches of the day. 214 00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:21.519 There were accounts of notable donations, once an entire wardrobe, 215 00:10:21.559 --> 00:10:24.240 wordth of hats, the shelve bibles, an outbreak of glue 216 00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:27.720 related chaos. Yet nothing spoke of a leather bound volume 217 00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:30.960 that wrote or rerote itself, though in the margins there 218 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:34.399 were scattered references to oddly detailed donation or mysterious children's book. 219 00:10:34.440 --> 00:10:37.120 Vanished again. I began to wonder whether the book had 220 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:40.519 always been here, slipping in and out simply another unremarked strangeness. 221 00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:44.039 I checked entries from previous days. Sometimes the book was 222 00:10:44.039 --> 00:10:47.039 nearly blank. Other times it overflowed with dense prose poems 223 00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:49.759 about the library's old birch outside the northern window, or 224 00:10:49.799 --> 00:10:53.440 exacting records of small private moments. One nearly instance, the 225 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:56.480 book described tomorrow's forthcoming school class visit, and it did 226 00:10:56.519 --> 00:10:58.720 so perfectly in future tents, then in a past tent 227 00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:01.080 when I checked again after the class had been and gone, 228 00:11:01.279 --> 00:11:05.399 matching every detail of the eventual event. The contradictions accumulated. 229 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:08.399 When I invited Sam to read aloud a random passage, 230 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:11.039 say page describing a spelled cup of milk by the printers. 231 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:13.320 He nodded and said, oh, this must be from when 232 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:16.159 the toddlers invaded the magazine rack last week. When I 233 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:18.639 asked Ellie, she thought it referred to last year's autumn festival, 234 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:22.159 when hot apple cider went everywhere. Each memory attached itself 235 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.240 to the butt entries as if it were a personal charm, 236 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:27.840 pulling out different recollections from each reader. Here, the contradictions 237 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:31.600 felt playful, not threatening. Some passages described things that couldn't 238 00:11:31.639 --> 00:11:34.120 have happened, a pet fox slinking through the children's section, 239 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:36.440 a sudden lightning strike that left the book ark scented 240 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:38.919 of ozen tales no one remembered, but every one seemed 241 00:11:38.919 --> 00:11:41.879 to have accept when prompted. Yet I could never catch 242 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:44.600 the book in the act of writing itself. I grew bolder. 243 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:47.559 One afternoon, I said the book behind the front desk drawer, 244 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:50.559 out of public view. Later that evening following, after I 245 00:11:50.679 --> 00:11:52.759 was tidying, it was right back on the general fiction 246 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:55.759 shelf in its now familiar to tight spot. No one 247 00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:57.679 claimed to have seen it, touched it, or moved it. 248 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:01.159 I took photos Lord times wrote remind us to myself 249 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:02.879 on sticky notes, try to catch it, try to pin 250 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:05.440 it down. But the more determined I grew, the more 251 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:08.799 the phenomenon slipped away. New entries sometimes appeared as a 252 00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:11.559 penned in my own handwriting, though I was certain, painfully certain, 253 00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:14.879 I'd never written those words. Sometimes the book lay blank 254 00:12:14.919 --> 00:12:18.240 for hours, then full pages at a stretch. Sometimes what 255 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:20.559 was written seemed to echo the small, unspoken thoughts I 256 00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:23.039 had as I wandered through my morning shelving. When I 257 00:12:23.039 --> 00:12:26.320 asked the libraries Alldess Patron's growing, sweet Missus Foster among them, 258 00:12:26.360 --> 00:12:28.960 they'd shake their heads fondly and say, that book, it's 259 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.840 always there. Not my favorite, but it's reliable, Dear, like 260 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:35.039 a mirror someone else polishes for you. The oddest among them, 261 00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:37.799 mister Kershaw insisted the book had once saved his marriage 262 00:12:37.799 --> 00:12:41.440 by remembering only the pleasant bits. Each answer, each test 263 00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:44.279 only deep in my confusion, but also my sense of privilege. 264 00:12:44.799 --> 00:12:47.559 No other puzzle I'd encountered in Gray Laca presented itself 265 00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:50.840 with such persistently gentle contradiction. It forced me to question 266 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:52.960 the basic rules. Was the book according the shape of 267 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:57.240 reality influencing it, reflecting people's desires? Why did every one's 268 00:12:57.240 --> 00:13:00.759 truth bend interest upon contact with its pages? And moreover, 269 00:13:00.960 --> 00:13:03.399 how many of my own memories, not just of recent days, 270 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:05.320 but of my entire time in his library might be 271 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:07.399 colored written, or were written by the simple fact that 272 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:09.799 I believed they had always been. I tried not to 273 00:13:09.799 --> 00:13:12.759 think so much as to do. Each new experiment yielded 274 00:13:12.799 --> 00:13:16.360 less predictability. One day, the pages blied with details about 275 00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:18.840 a found umbrella I never seen another time with the 276 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:21.120 poem the book claimed I'd written and left scattered behind 277 00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:23.799 the check and computer. Every effort to confine the book 278 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:26.399 to fat or witness only seemed to multiply its contradictions, 279 00:13:27.039 --> 00:13:29.879 A new realization began to flicker. It wasn't the events themselves, 280 00:13:29.879 --> 00:13:32.840 but the recollection, the making, the asterisk telling asterisk that mattered. 281 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:36.440 But how far did it reach? Was it simply reflecting 282 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:40.840 memory or actually creating shared reality? A new contradiction asserted itself. 283 00:13:40.840 --> 00:13:43.759 One gray count afternoon, I was shelving in the corner 284 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:46.759 behind the large print Mysteries Out of Habit. I flipped 285 00:13:46.759 --> 00:13:49.399 a few pages backwards in the book, tracing older entries, 286 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:51.879 and found not just this week, nor at last, but 287 00:13:51.960 --> 00:13:54.519 stories that seek backward of vivid memories from years, then 288 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:58.039 decades ago. The gleeful staff party in the nineteen seventies, 289 00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:00.519 endless trees of exilet sand which is fated for the 290 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:04.039 recycling bin, a blizzard in February nineteen forty five that 291 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:06.840 locked and staff and children overnight for a candle at sleepover. 292 00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:09.200 The book described faces and games I'd never heard of, 293 00:14:09.799 --> 00:14:12.399 tales lived in its pages, written in past Henson with 294 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:16.480 a familiar of stylized attention to detail. Investigating further, I 295 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.600 checked a library, archias and a scrap of newsletters, even 296 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:21.840 a few of mister Dorsey's old diaries preserved in the 297 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:24.799 local author's cabinet. There was no mention, none of any 298 00:14:24.840 --> 00:14:27.960 overnight blizzard party, nor of the December ghost story contest 299 00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:30.360 the book described as an annual highlight for nearly fifty years. 300 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:33.639 Yet when I brought these stories up in staff meeting, 301 00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:37.840 Missus Taylor's as gleamed with recognition. I remember this. No, yes, 302 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:41.200 she said, nodding with pleasure. It's been years, but my 303 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:44.000 mother sometimes spoke of packing sleeping bags for the library, 304 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:45.840 just in case. I suppose we must have done it 305 00:14:45.879 --> 00:14:49.200 at least once. Mister Dorsey chinding with more certainty. The 306 00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:52.639 old building survived all sorts of chaos, fires, floods, even 307 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:54.960 a bad infestation. After that Rue for pairin fifty three. 308 00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:57.320 I remember the story contest, even one once with a 309 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:00.039 poem about the Birch's ghost. All the while I I 310 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:03.360 felt a disorienting lurch. The evidence was papered in Old 311 00:15:03.399 --> 00:15:06.480 Flier's personal journals. Even the town's own history pamphlet gave 312 00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:09.960 no indication that these moments had occurred. Yet in real time, 313 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.399 the staff's recollection seemed to shape shift and response to 314 00:15:12.440 --> 00:15:15.679 whatever emerged on the page. Each new Old's entry summoned 315 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:19.000 the matching vivid memory and someone who moments before remembered 316 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.679 nothing of the sort. I couldn't let it rest that night. 317 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:24.879 In the quiet after closing, I sat at my desk, 318 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:28.080 feeling half detective, half trespasor in my own mind. I 319 00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:30.559 took out my notepechant, forcing my hand to stay steady, 320 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.399 composed a short, mundane passage on a loose slip of paper. 321 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:35.679 In the spring of nineteen ninety eight, a library cat 322 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:38.279 delivered five kittens in the reference room filing cabinet staff 323 00:15:38.360 --> 00:15:41.879 named the Malice Elliot, Dewey, Bronte, and Biscuit. I left 324 00:15:41.879 --> 00:15:43.919 the note tucked into the mysterious book, open to a 325 00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:46.519 blank section, and closed up for the night. When I 326 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:48.919 returned in the morning, the book had absorbed the passage, 327 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:51.240 polished it, reworked it, spun an elaborate short essay on 328 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:54.000 the jaws, the minor chaos of kittens tumbling over the paperwork. 329 00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:57.440 The name spelled out a neat historical order. I felt 330 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:00.120 a twinge of anticipation, almost guilt, as I mentioned the 331 00:16:00.159 --> 00:16:05.639 episode casually during lunch. Missus Taylor answered first, no hesitation. Oh, 332 00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:08.399 my tiny Alice used to nap in the return magazines 333 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:10.960 been nigh nearly forgotten. Whatever became of her? Did she 334 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.279 go home with mcafry's, Mister Dorsey's as brightened biscuit was 335 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:17.240 mine for a while, A short hour with the white 336 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.799 blaze of fairy skittish. Can't believe it more than twenty 337 00:16:19.840 --> 00:16:21.960 five years since those little devils ran right over the 338 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:25.399 staffroom sofas. Later, Ellie produced a memory of rushing and 339 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:27.440 late to find a pile of soft gray kittens rolled 340 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:30.759 in a nest of overdue notice envelopes. There was unanimous 341 00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:33.320 agreement that this event had occurred. He had a check 342 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:36.720 through photographs, newsletters, and the old Lost and Found NOBEO 343 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:39.519 yielded nothing, no mention of cats, kittens, or even the 344 00:16:39.600 --> 00:16:43.399 cabinet being jammed a coal. Exhilarating realization Umfeld in me 345 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:46.759 the book was not simply reactive. Its entries, old or new, 346 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:50.360 began to create our overwrite staff memories. The boundary between 347 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:52.720 observation and creation, between what had been and what could 348 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:57.360 be imagined was blurring. My own recollections became suspect. Did 349 00:16:57.360 --> 00:16:59.960 I remember the lost kittens or had the story retroactive 350 00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:03.320 woven its tendrils into my memories as well? I forced 351 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:05.880 myself over the next day to make private reminders. Note 352 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:07.799 on my phone, jodd it in my day planner. Do 353 00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:10.119 you not believe in kittens? Do not reference in conversation? 354 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:13.200 Check evidence. Yet the book's new entry began to feel 355 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:16.079 as plausible as anything I had actually lived, especially when 356 00:17:16.119 --> 00:17:18.720 surrendered by staff so certain of its truth. Could it 357 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:20.720 be could any one's sense of the pass their own 358 00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:23.319 memories be shipped by something as simple as a sentence 359 00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:25.759 on the page, Not just the one who read it, 360 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:27.519 but any one close enough to be swept up in 361 00:17:27.559 --> 00:17:31.160 its wake. The idea was, by turnstizzing and oddly hopeful. 362 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:33.839 Every story we tell is a little different from the next. 363 00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:36.119 Maybe the book only made visible but was already quietly 364 00:17:36.119 --> 00:17:39.279 at work. But another sharper question crept in, How far 365 00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:42.160 did this power extend? Could it be that simply by 366 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:44.440 writing I was composing not just the memory but the 367 00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:47.079 very fabric of daily life, my own and everyone else's. 368 00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:50.759 Truven by new, unsteady determination, I broad in my pursuit 369 00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:54.200 for understanding. If Grillac had always possessed such a phenomenon, 370 00:17:54.279 --> 00:17:58.359 surely someone else, locals historians knew of similar puzzles. I 371 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:01.240 started circulating gentle inquiries to our older patrons under the 372 00:18:01.279 --> 00:18:03.960 guise of oral history interviews, put through old issues of 373 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:06.039 the Greylock Case, and made a point of chatting with 374 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:08.519 anyone from the historical society who passed through for their 375 00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:11.880 monthly tea. Among them, doctor Marjorie Ford emerged as a 376 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:15.759 curiosity herself, a petite, sharply observant woman with a fondness 377 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:18.079 of blue scarves and fountain pens. She had arrived in 378 00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:21.960 Greylock to finish research on the region's shifting traditions, folklore, architecture, 379 00:18:22.039 --> 00:18:25.200 communal memory. When she heard my awkward summary, have you 380 00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:27.799 ever encountered a book or an object? Thus seems to 381 00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:30.240 remember things for a community, her eyes lit up, and 382 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:32.000 she offered a cup of green tea with the energy 383 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:33.680 of someone who had longed for an excuse to share 384 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:37.000 her favorite secrets. Of course, you have a mirror spot, 385 00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:40.200 she said, as though describing a simple rainfall. Most old 386 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.519 New Inland hands have one, if you ask enough people. 387 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:45.400 It's a place, an object, even a story, communal persistent, 388 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:48.200 quietly odd, where the world is briefly double remembered or 389 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:52.319 written twice. I press further, heart fruming with anticipation. Doctor 390 00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:54.240 Foret told me of legends window panes in the old 391 00:18:54.279 --> 00:18:56.720 meeting houses that reflected not just faces but their shape 392 00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:58.880 of the next argument, journals and farm house attics that 393 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:01.920 wrote the next morning's true a milson that one touch 394 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:04.319 insisted on assuring you the best and worst day you'd 395 00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:06.960 ever had. There. In all the tales, the pattern was 396 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:09.319 the same, spots or objects that inscribed not just what 397 00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:12.759 had happened, but what asterisk should asterisk be remembered? I 398 00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:15.240 describe our book its blank spine, its slower crewl of 399 00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:20.039 impossible stories at shifting entries. Doctor Ford nodded, I'd wager, 400 00:19:20.200 --> 00:19:22.839 she said, that's tied to your buildings bones. Most libraries 401 00:19:22.839 --> 00:19:25.000