WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.519 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.640 Let's get into it. It was a drizzly Thursday in 3 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.480 mid April, rain pattering and the library stained glass skylights 4 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:16.879 with the steady persistence of someone gently wrapping to remind 5 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:19.480 you of the presence. My knees didn't much like the 6 00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:21.640 three flights up to the old letter Shire room anymore. 7 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:24.679 But I'd promised myself, even after retirement, I keep volunteering 8 00:00:24.719 --> 00:00:26.800 a few afternoons a week at the community library, a 9 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:28.320 place as much a part of my life as my 10 00:00:28.359 --> 00:00:31.760 own handwriting. I was shelving a cluster of hapazzod returns, 11 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:33.880 the cots, squeaking and prodesse down the fiction aisle when 12 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.240 my hand closed around a battered, cloth bound copy of 13 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:39.240 To Kill a Mockingbird. It had the familiar blue jacket, 14 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:41.640 gold title embossed crookedly from a print run long ago, 15 00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:43.920 and what I assumed would be the same slightly musty 16 00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:46.359 smell I remembered from every session of required reading I'd 17 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:51.079 led over three decades. Something though made me pause. Maybe 18 00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:53.640 the doggy had pages thrusting from odd angles, or a 19 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:56.640 slight unfamiliarity with the weight I always did have a 20 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:59.000 feeling for book weight, the way a loyal chef notices 21 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.679 a pan's slightly heavy in the hand. It was idle 22 00:01:01.719 --> 00:01:03.840 curiosity at first, an old friend in the hands of 23 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:06.480 a life on librarian. I flipped book open to the 24 00:01:06.519 --> 00:01:08.920 first few dog lithump pages, making sure there were no 25 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:13.879 rogue jamstain duscribbles. There near the middle, Atticus allw was 26 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:16.760 Atticus Finch, grave and gentle like a tree, was addressing 27 00:01:16.799 --> 00:01:19.120 not Tom Robinson's jury, but a dark haired woman with 28 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:21.480 a Scott, a surname I could not remember from any edition, 29 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:25.400 norr any lesson I'd ever prepared. She was apologizing for something, 30 00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:28.319 and said Anatticus, in a voice I had never read before, 31 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:31.640 told her, we are all children of superstition, missus MacAllister, 32 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:34.799 even when we were grown men's jackets. He folded a 33 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:37.400 letter and tucked it inside his vest, which as far 34 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:39.239 as I could remember, he never did in the text 35 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:42.599 I knew. The next chapter opened with Jemscat's brother preparing 36 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:44.959 for a family meeting that included three cousins had never 37 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.920 seen name Truman, Clarissa, and one cold fan. My pulse runed. 38 00:01:49.640 --> 00:01:53.120 I checked the copyright page happily U s Publisher class 39 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:56.239 at nineteen sixty stamp nothing indicating a recent reissue of 40 00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:59.719 some enterprising pastixe of a foreign edition. The catalog sticker 41 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:03.239 read Ficklee t K Hashtree, my own handwriting, penciled inside 42 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:06.840 from a reorganization about a decade past. No notes, no 43 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.800 abridged warning, not even an illustrator for children label. Brain 44 00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:14.680 fog the upper panes. The room felt thinner. Somehow I 45 00:02:14.719 --> 00:02:16.960 set the book atop my reshelving cart, headed under a 46 00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:19.439 recent thriller, trying to act as though nothing was amiss. 47 00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:22.479 Had I misremembered the original? Could there have been a 48 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:26.039 lost edition? While silent publisher's revision I'd never noticed before. 49 00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:29.000 I wrapt my brain for memories of past readings spoken 50 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.800 aloud in class rooms, lent out for summer assignments, even 51 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.000 the well worn copy on my own bookshelf at home. 52 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:36.639 But I would have remembered a Missus mac Allister, and 53 00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:39.680 certainly Claris and fan. Book in hand, I tucked a 54 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:42.080 car behind a rolling display near the staff office, smoothing 55 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:45.080 the cover like a conspirator in my My heart wasn't pounding, 56 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:47.960 but curiosity, that lovely and patient old dog was at 57 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.719 my heels, nudging me toward questions I could not yet name. 58 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:53.400 The library always seemed to breathe better in this sort 59 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:55.759 of weather. A diffused housewhoven with the quiet scuttle of 60 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:59.159 shoes on marble jacket zippers muttered sell phone etiquette. I 61 00:02:59.159 --> 00:03:02.080 found myself slipping easily into my routines, pleasant small talk, 62 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:06.080 seasoning the rest of my shift. Jaimie, our university page darred. 63 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:09.120 It passed with an m node of graphic novels nearly scattering, 64 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:13.360 a pile of language dictionaries, a mass Hathaway. My old assistant, 65 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:15.439 though in truth she ran this library as much as 66 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:18.639 anyone ever did, was already reorganizing the spring read's display 67 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:22.039 by color, lips pursed and concentration behind alished tortoiseshell glasses. 68 00:03:22.719 --> 00:03:25.039 This library had always felt twice as big as its footprint, 69 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:28.520 stone as old as memory, A grand entrance presided over 70 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.400 by stone, bronze busts, and doors that sometimes stuck in 71 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:33.400 the heat or in the wet, but only for certain people. 72 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:37.080 Each room held its own climate. The ground floor, with 73 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:40.000 its stately circulation desk and community notice board, was bright 74 00:03:40.039 --> 00:03:42.759 with potted fronds. Upstairs, where I worked. Air was quiet, 75 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:44.479 our close, with the scent of old glue and decades 76 00:03:44.479 --> 00:03:47.680 of shoffing feet. If you looked, though, you'd noticed oddities 77 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:51.360 beyond the usual library chaos, the way acquisitions slips would 78 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:54.520 sometimes list from verified donation, or a set of encyclopedias 79 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:57.800 would bear stamps from different ears. Old timers would drop 80 00:03:57.840 --> 00:03:59.960 off boxes of books from their attict editions. We are 81 00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:02.879 already owned, but with unfamiliar cover art or odd prefaces 82 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:05.639 by authors long since dead. We joked about it in 83 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:08.280 the Library of Ghosts, Jamie would say, but nothing ever 84 00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:11.719 truly felt out of order. A city this old collect's stories, 85 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:15.479 and so does its library. All afternoon, my thoughts flickered 86 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:18.560 back to The Mockingbird. I half wondered if I'd imagine it, 87 00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.000 but the book remained exactly where I left it, lurking 88 00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:24.120 under a jack reach of paperback. Once, as I was 89 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.560 guiding a small group of third graders passed the chapter book, 90 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.399 Ale miss Esbriggs, one of our friendliest book club organizers, 91 00:04:29.399 --> 00:04:32.480 beckoned me over her arms full of little women. Though 92 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:35.759 you absolute wonder thank you, thank you, she beamed. I'd 93 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:37.720 never read it through before now, and what a beautiful 94 00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:40.560 ending Beth's wedding. Nearly had meant hear such a relief 95 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:43.399 after everything else. I must have looked like I had 96 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:44.920 been bopped on the head with a copy of Moby 97 00:04:44.959 --> 00:04:49.439 Dick Best Wedding. I repeated, careful not to sound patronizing 98 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.959 my recollection. Surely everyone's was of Beth's death, quiet and 99 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:56.680 heart wrenching, not a walk down the aisle. Misses Briggs grinned, 100 00:04:56.720 --> 00:05:00.120 hugging the book to her chest. I know, right, the 101 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:02.480 perfect choice for the book club. I'll recommend that addition 102 00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:05.399 to everyone. After she left, I found myself turning the 103 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:09.000 unfamiliar copy over in my hands. The publisher information matched 104 00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:11.399 our standard for Prince. The inside pages bore the faded 105 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:13.879 stab of our children's annex, and yet there it was 106 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.439 an entire final chapter, Beth in Elai's dress. The March 107 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:19.800 family gathered in full, Joe giving a delightfully speech of 108 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:23.519 fine toast. It wasn't the original, It wasn't even one 109 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:27.279 of the bodleized children's editions before the library was built. 110 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:29.480 Before I'd show of my first book, no published version 111 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:33.319 ever ended this way, but here it was. I asked Jamie, 112 00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:35.560 who was shelving board books near by. If she remembered 113 00:05:35.600 --> 00:05:40.279 Little Women's ending, James quinted, considering, I thought Beth died, 114 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:42.680 or maybe not always tisn't there a movie where she 115 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.759 gets better? Maybe the publisher made a happy ending. Sometimes 116 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:49.079 they do that, you know. I pressed a point. We 117 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:52.319 found another copy. It plainly ended with Beth's step had 118 00:05:52.319 --> 00:05:56.000 seen Joe beside her, same old heartbreak. Miss Sess Bragg's 119 00:05:56.040 --> 00:05:58.519 volume still had Beth walking arm in arm on the lawn, 120 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:01.800 the rest of the family alive and well. Mister Dugado, 121 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:04.519 who taught American literature before retiring here, happened to be 122 00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:07.839 reading tea as Ellet by the reference desk. I showed 123 00:06:07.879 --> 00:06:10.800 him both versions. He flapped the pages with the skeptical 124 00:06:10.839 --> 00:06:13.000 briskness of a man accustomed to sorting myth from fact. 125 00:06:13.759 --> 00:06:17.120 Publishers used to butcher books all the time, bodorized, localized, 126 00:06:17.160 --> 00:06:19.720 senitized for sensibilities not in common. But I don't recall 127 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:21.680 hearing about a wedding ending. Are you sure these are 128 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:25.240 both from the same publisher. I made him check. He frowned, 129 00:06:25.319 --> 00:06:27.560 admitting he'd never heard of any edition quite like this. 130 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:30.800 That night, as closing hour approached, I ducked into the 131 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:32.959 dim backnoe by the east Ax and began assembling my 132 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.079 own comparison. I lined up as many classic titles as 133 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:39.040 possible on the central table. The Great Gatsby, Charlottes Wipe, 134 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:42.040 several detectives, and of course every edition of To Kill 135 00:06:42.079 --> 00:06:43.839 a Mockingbird and Little Woman I could lay hands on 136 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.279 without triggering suspicion from the staff, who preferred the book's 137 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:49.160 returned to circulation on time. For the next Door. I 138 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:52.439 felt like a botanist surveying Rahea, the smatched flowers. The 139 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:54.839 Great Gatsby, the Navy one with Gold tremended, not with 140 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:57.480 next born back ceaselessly into the pass, but a quietly 141 00:06:57.519 --> 00:07:02.199 optimistic speech at Gasby's graveside daisy attendants, Charlotte's message to 142 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:04.360 Wilbur and the Bonlough shifted from some pick to a 143 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:07.439 good friend. A Sherlock Homes story one I'd read about 144 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:09.959 a hundred times, had less trade, not homes announced in 145 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:12.560 the murder, and made mention of Scotland yard inspector who 146 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:16.079 simply didn't exist in the canon. Furious, I checked Barcode's 147 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:18.920 publication listings. My own catalog notes none with a whiff 148 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:22.040 of prank or forgery. The acquisition locks were all in order, 149 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:24.519 right down to the sticker, with my own handwriting a 150 00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:27.160 little flourish I'd used for years on donated fiction, now 151 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.639 pasted inside a volume of characters and endings I could 152 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:33.399 not have cataloged. Patrons wanted passed, some offering nervous smiles 153 00:07:33.399 --> 00:07:35.639 at my clutter table, while others leaned in to ask 154 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:38.720 if there was a book sale. I engaged, as naturally 155 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:42.279 as possible. A teenage regular, Sarah told me my mom 156 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:44.720 read The Outsiders to me, but everyone gets expelled in 157 00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:49.360 the and Bright, not just Ponyboy. I blinked, No, only 158 00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:52.600 pony Bay was suspended, not expelled, but their addition laid 159 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:55.439 it all out plain as day, expulsion for all. I 160 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:57.879 pushed the book into the growing stack of anomalies, half 161 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:00.879 expecting the words to shift under my eyes. One must 162 00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:03.800 have gotten around, because a mess Hathaway appeared two minutes later, 163 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:07.680 hands folded. Gaye Steady getting ready for a comparative literature 164 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:10.279 workshop or we harold, she teased, but there was a 165 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:13.839 carefulness in her tone. I need your help, Norah, I whispered, 166 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.120 gesturing her over every copy he is wrong or right, 167 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:20.360 But in ways they never were endings intag characters lines 168 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.040 on them. She's quoted by the table flipping through Gatsby 169 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:25.800 her brow furro, but she betrayed nothing more than her 170 00:08:25.879 --> 00:08:29.240 usual sphinx like composure. He might be overdoing it, Harold. 171 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:32.840 Publishers make mistakes, new printings, international editions. You know that. 172 00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:35.440 But these are cataloged as our copas. I wrote half 173 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.000 these tags even that little women. Look at this final chapter. 174 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:41.919 I thrust it forward. She skimmed, went very still, and 175 00:08:41.960 --> 00:08:44.799 then quietly. You've certainly picked a strange day to get philosophical. 176 00:08:44.840 --> 00:08:47.320 Perhaps sleep on it. If you still think something's amiss, 177 00:08:47.360 --> 00:08:50.080 bring it up to morrow and we'll look deeper. Jamie, 178 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:52.399 overhearing us, chimed in, are you two playing spout the 179 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:54.000 fake book? Do we get to invent all? Turn it 180 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:56.519 endings to? Like what if? Charlotte wrote delicious pig, and 181 00:08:56.559 --> 00:09:00.399 Wilburby came Bacon. I tried to smile. Mister datl god 182 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:02.600 of catching the edge of our conversation, claimed to recall 183 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:05.080 different plot details from his own memories, but dismissed it 184 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.159 with a joke about faulty memory and too many late 185 00:09:07.240 --> 00:09:10.080 night publications. Yet the more I checked, the more I 186 00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:12.519 found the threats of certainty in reveling under my hands. 187 00:09:13.159 --> 00:09:16.919 With every comparison, every unique, conflicting physical copy and pitching recollection, 188 00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:18.960 I felt like my brain was being gently tupped farther 189 00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:21.919 from land. It wasn't memory alone that failed, It was 190 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:24.279 the stubborn physical certainty we used to anchor the truth 191 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:27.679 of a book. The library, once so familiar, now felt 192 00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:30.039 as unsteady as a raft caught in an unpredictable current. 193 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:33.679 I retreated to the staff room, notebook, open jarring dent 194 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:37.000 titles and line discrepancies. None of the anomalies I found 195 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:39.360 appeared in our digital listings or the online previews. I 196 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:42.000 pulled up on the bat at staff computer, the digital 197 00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:45.159 Mockingbird match the edition I remembered, and no Scottish Missus MacAllister, 198 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.080 no extra Finch cousins, every line just as carved in 199 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:51.120 memory as ever before leaving. I pulled my old quosition 200 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:53.480 ledger from a filing cabinet. Behind the reference disc of 201 00:09:53.519 --> 00:09:56.159 batter blue book crowned with years of notes and catalogings, 202 00:09:56.840 --> 00:09:59.080 I found the mocking Ver tagging entered by me two 203 00:09:59.159 --> 00:10:02.320 years ago from a routine reordering, no note about any 204 00:10:02.399 --> 00:10:05.720 unusual edition, no unfamiliar introduction, nothing to suggest to one 205 00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:09.120 off printing oroddity. Even the Little Woman with BET's Wedding, 206 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:11.720 the copy had our nineteen eighty six label inserted. When 207 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:14.720 the children's annex was shuffled up stairs, the sticker was 208 00:10:14.759 --> 00:10:16.960 inisputably my own, the same arching leap in the ahe 209 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:20.320 of Harold. The next morning, unable to leave the puzzle alone, 210 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:22.879 I waited until the library softer opening hour, when only 211 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:25.759 a handful of regulars filtered through, I made my way 212 00:10:25.799 --> 00:10:28.720 to Amiss Hathaway's office. The door jar, her hand poise 213 00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:31.960 over a stack of baddia and reports. She didn't greet me. 214 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:34.759 I placed both copies of Little Woman Waiting and Death 215 00:10:34.799 --> 00:10:37.399 Bit beside her teacup, along with my note book, several 216 00:10:37.399 --> 00:10:39.960 borrowed Acquisisan's slips, and of faded copy of The Great 217 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:43.440 Gatsby with the alternate ending. I can't explain it, nor, 218 00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:47.360 I said, voiced lower than intended. I'm not misremembering, and 219 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:50.039 neither are you. These are physically different books. What's more, 220 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:52.879 our acquisition records mind say, we've had these for decades, 221 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:55.440 but I'd swear we never did not in these versions. 222 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:59.039 She reached for her glasses, giving me a long, unreadable appraisal. 223 00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:01.440 For a moment, I thought she'd laugh me out of 224 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:03.720 the room, but she only picked up each volume and 225 00:11:03.799 --> 00:11:06.000 turn her finger, tracing the tattle than the print info 226 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:09.120 of then the old sticker hold. I've noticed oddities here 227 00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:12.440 over the years, she said, softly, Page numbers that don't 228 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:15.200 match my notes from college. The odd translation attrotted up 229 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:18.559 to publishing mistakes or old cataloging lips. Libraries collect things. 230 00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:21.720 Sometimes we don't want to know how her muff worked 231 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:25.080 in awrye set half smile, but you're right, this is more. 232 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:28.200 Launch hour came, and the third grader streamed out their 233 00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:31.279 excited voices, echoing in the stairwells. I tried to bury 234 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:34.759 myself in a known label repairs, cataloging new donations, comforting 235 00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:37.399 the anxious with a welfing copy of Elephant Anne Piggy, 236 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:41.120 But I kept circling back to those books. Perhaps I'd 237 00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:43.519 have gone slightly mad, but for the dozen interruptions of 238 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:46.039 a librarian's life. A phone call from apparent looking for 239 00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:48.799 that mystery dog book, The Thump of a Fall Encyclopedia 240 00:11:48.840 --> 00:11:50.759 from the top shelf the brief, but spirited a bit 241 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:52.759 over whether the new romant shelf belonged next to the 242 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:56.240 mystery section. Jaimie, ever curious, caught me in the act 243 00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:59.679 of leafing through more duplicate titles that afternoon. So you're 244 00:11:59.679 --> 00:12:02.039 actually doing it a great library audit, mine if I help, 245 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:04.840 he giggled, spreading out a batch of Hannet coppers alongside me. 246 00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:08.360 He selected one at random, carelessly reading aloud, and after 247 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:11.679 the duel, Hannah tosses the poisoned coppicide and lives banished forever. 248 00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:15.559 At woe, isn't that grim? I stared, But no, Hammett 249 00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:18.480 dies stabbed and poisoned. That's the point he never escapes, heazen. 250 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.519 Jamie rolled his eyes a different edit. Teachers are always 251 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:24.960 telling us about original versions. Maybe this is a fun 252 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:27.840 one for kits. He moved on to a shell of paperbacks, 253 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:29.960 but not before he spotted a faint green smudge on 254 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:32.799 the next helmet's cover. A sticker faded almost invisible with 255 00:12:32.840 --> 00:12:35.399 our original catalog year and my first set of initials 256 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:37.679 from when I start at full time, as if I 257 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:40.200 had marked it, not knowing what oddity I was admitting 258 00:12:40.200 --> 00:12:43.240 to the shelves that evening, with the library closed and 259 00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:45.759 the smell of rain and old paper settling over the halls, 260 00:12:45.879 --> 00:12:48.440 I made a decision. I would check as many stacks 261 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:51.159 as possible, as methodically as my tired knees would allow, 262 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:54.840 and note every edition, every contradiction, every physical clue. I 263 00:12:54.879 --> 00:12:57.120 wanted not just to prove to myself that this library 264 00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:00.200 contained differently printed, differently remember versions of the same book, 265 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:03.320 but to understand why. So began a week of cataloging 266 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:07.120 the impossible. I started as small as I could, walking 267 00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:09.960 the grand floor fiction aisles and morning silence. I pulled 268 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:12.240 first one, then two than half a dozen editions of 269 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:15.600 the same title Great Expectations, with them without pet Marrying 270 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:18.840 Stella two, Moby Dick's One Wore Star but leaves with 271 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:21.480 the last Lifeboat one where he is lost seen on deck. 272 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:25.120 I made a spreadsheet in my ledger title barcode, catalog, year, 273 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:30.120 publisher endings, notable characters, contradictory scenes. I noted dust covers, 274 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:33.840 per in font, even illustrations. Some differences were trivial cover 275 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:38.000 arts walk between you as the UK editions. Others were glaring. 276 00:13:38.080 --> 00:13:41.360 A copy of Wuthering Heights where Heathcliff never dies, simply disappears. 277 00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:44.759 Anne of Green Gables were returned by irregular included a 278 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:47.159 visit from anand that no other edition seemed to mention. 279 00:13:47.799 --> 00:13:51.480 I questioned everyone I trusted quietly. Mess Hathaway, after our 280 00:13:51.519 --> 00:13:54.519 first discussion, became more an accomplice than a sceptic. She 281 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:57.440 stopped brushing off the anomalies and began joining and showing me, 282 00:13:57.639 --> 00:14:00.360 for instance, a churcher Island that ended with long John 283 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:05.000 Silver's unexpected pardon that she remained strangely calm. Jamie, on 284 00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:07.240 the other hand, thought he'd found a gold mine for 285 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:10.759 library programming. We could run spot the odd ending quizzes, 286 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:14.159 he suggested, or invite the high schoolers to write knee ones. 287 00:14:14.279 --> 00:14:16.480 Maybe each book is different for each shell, for each reader. 288 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:20.080 I found myself oddly hardened by his cheerful reverence, even 289 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:23.080 if he missed the death of contradiction. Mister Dogardo took 290 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:25.639 a more academic stance. He found a hammett with Herry 291 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:28.159 she Show's monolog at the end replaced and scoffed. Some 292 00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:30.919 student printings were notorious for butchering the texts, but this 293 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:34.960 one's properly types it original, fond, and all he'd grown pale. However, 294 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:38.279 turning the last pages a second and third time, patrons 295 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:42.120 themselves were unreliable witnesses. When prompted, some ore cold endings 296 00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:45.039 that matched the alternate coppies, while others, often as certain 297 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:48.799 as I felt, described entirely different resolutions. An older woman 298 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:51.600 insisted she'd always remembered Charlotte's Web as ending with Charlotte 299 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:53.960 coming back in the next spring. When I pressed her 300 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.240 to look at two different volumes, her answer was simply, 301 00:14:56.440 --> 00:15:00.879 maybe I read an Australian edition. Dear catalog, entries, digital records, 302 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:04.440 acquisition logs. None of them helped. Archod Catalog was long 303 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:08.679 since retired, but the database was clear as always each title, publisher, copyright, 304 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:12.159 catalog year. But the physical books, through thick, weighty objects 305 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:15.159 told their own are reduced to be varied stories. A 306 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:17.559 week into my audit, I finally found something that made 307 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:20.120 my breath catch. A sticker aged and flaking, marked with 308 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:23.279 my own age W initials paste inside a Charlotte's Web 309 00:15:23.320 --> 00:15:25.960 with the alternate ending. I had catalog that copy in 310 00:15:26.039 --> 00:15:29.279 nineteen ninety three, during a scotching summer. I remembered mostly 311 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:31.679 for its broken air conditioning and constant circulation of a 312 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:35.000 Harry Potter books. I remembered sweating at the staff table. 313 00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:38.200 Yet I never remembered ordering or receiving an edition of 314 00:15:38.279 --> 00:15:41.559 Charlotte's Weather that ended like this. By then, what had 315 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:43.799 begun as gentle confusion was ballooning into a full en 316 00:15:43.879 --> 00:15:46.159 challenge to everything I had trusted about my own memory 317 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:49.679 and about literature itself. If books, the most permanent of stories, 318 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:53.080 could change under my hands, what else could alter? And more? 319 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:56.279 How could a community of librarians, bookovers and skeptics have 320 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:59.240 missed this happening so openly? Surely I couldn't be the 321 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.519 first to notice. Desperate for something solid to grab onto, 322 00:16:02.639 --> 00:16:05.039 I turned to digital wreckers for comparisoness will its screen 323 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:08.360 approach old meats knew at the reference desk, I called 324 00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:12.720 a project. Gutenberg'scans University pressed previews the official publisher archives 325 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:16.480 for every mocking Bird Dan Gatsby. The online digitized versions 326 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:20.720 matched the canonical editions I'd always talked, unremembered. No alternate endings, 327 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:25.200 no missing characters, nothing strange. Only our library's physical copies, 328 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.000 scattered among shells, cataloged for decades, bore the marks of 329 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:31.799 these impossible variations. I flagged a mess halfway down. The 330 00:16:31.879 --> 00:16:34.879 next quiet afternoon, she followed me to the reading room, 331 00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:37.519 where it set a table with six alternate Coppies passages 332 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:40.120 printed out from the digital versions, and two copies of 333 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:43.200 Little Women Wedding and Burymen. I can't find a single 334 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:46.919 online source reporting a Best's Wedding version, I said, almost apologetic. 335 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:49.320 But it's right here in our hands. I checked the 336 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.399 publisher's database too. These version shouldn't exist, not like this, 337 00:16:52.679 --> 00:16:56.240 and yet in this building they do, Nor a Hathaway side. 338 00:16:56.720 --> 00:16:59.200 For the first time in fifteen years, she seemed unsure. 339 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:01.919 He thumbed through my bindo of notes, the columns, the 340 00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:04.920 color coded highlights, my increasing the unsteady comfort with the 341 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:08.799 library's reality I've noticed before, she said so quietly, I 342 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:11.960 could barely hear her. As a junior page over thirty 343 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:14.319 years ago, sometimes i'd shiel a volume with a different 344 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:17.160 dedication or a paragraph I didn't remember. I thought maybe 345 00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:19.200 I was recalling the wrong translation, or we'd got a 346 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:21.799 misprinted buck lot in the seventies if I never cataloged it, 347 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:24.480 not formally. But lately, yes, I think there's a pattern. 348 00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:27.079 Something about this place. Some days, I swear book is 349 00:17:27.119 --> 00:17:30.480 swapped out from under me. She straightened, tucking the loudgitary chest. 350 00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:33.640 You realize what this means, Harold. It's not just about 351 00:17:33.799 --> 00:17:36.720 editions or memory. Something about this building, These shelves as 352 00:17:36.759 --> 00:17:39.720 producing and biting these versions more than fluchs, patrons webs. 353 00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:42.240 I found myself rubbing the groove in my thumb where 354 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:45.559 I always held a date stamp. But why here? Why us? 355 00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:47.960 How far does it go? I couldn't tell now if 356 00:17:47.960 --> 00:17:51.160 my tone was one of all or exhaustion. Nora's face softened. 357 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:53.960 We might never know, but we can document it. For now. 358 00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:56.200 Let's just accept in this library the books are not 359 00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:58.640 always what they seem, and neither are the stories we remember. 360 00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:01.559 Maybe we're the keeper's Harald. That night I pisced the 361 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:04.400 quiet halls after close, my flashlight, jittering in the darkness. 362 00:18:05.079 --> 00:18:07.240 If the building itself was special, if it had always 363 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:10.359 quietly even this confluence, Who, I wondered, had first noticed? 364 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:14.519 Surely not me, nor even nor Hathaway. Some one, some 365 00:18:14.680 --> 00:18:18.240 time must have cataloged the impossible, drawn by a half 366 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:21.440 remembered rumor of forgotten basement corridors. I went looking for answers, 367 00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:24.599 not just in paper, but in stone and Stairwell. There, 368 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:26.880 behind a loose plaqu in the slant floor basement, just 369 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:29.200 past the bockhouse staff only a door, I found a 370 00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:32.759 short marble hallway. I nodged a wobbly stack marker, ready 371 00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:34.799 to upright it then call the evening a loss, But 372 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.240 instead it swe aside with a soft clunk, revealing a 373 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:40.359 narrow downwards stowell I'd never seen, even after all these years. 374 00:18:41.039 --> 00:18:44.400 My heart stuttered, not with fear but wild anticipation. I 375 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:48.119 fumbled from my faam light and descended the stone steps calves, 376 00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:50.599 slick with time light, to a cool echoing annex room 377 00:18:50.599 --> 00:18:53.200 lined which el's shells upon shelves, stacked for to ceiling 378 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:55.920 with new identical coppice of familiar titles, each labeled with 379 00:18:55.960 --> 00:18:58.200 the code I'd only glimpsed once before, and faded into 380 00:18:58.279 --> 00:19:01.680 old accession ledgers obidic at twenty four moby Dick v. 381 00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:05.480 Sixty two, all over twist Hitien, Frankenstein kiseeven each rowe 382 00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:08.519 precisely organized each light in plot or structure, marked in 383 00:19:08.519 --> 00:19:11.519 a neat spidery hand on small index cards pressed inside 384 00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:14.599 each cover flap. The codes meant nothing to me at first, 385 00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:18.319 nor did the subtle notations. All ending H eighteen, reverse 386 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:21.200 or cousin appears were rooved in B thirty one. A 387 00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:23.440 battered desk at the fall wall held fou drawers brimming 388 00:19:23.480 --> 00:19:27.640 with folders, each crowned with detailed comparison's hypotheses digrans, a 389 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:30.960 timeline half finished with stretches of red thread connecting volumes 390 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:34.960 across decades. Some folders were yellowed to brown, others CRISPINU, 391 00:19:35.480 --> 00:19:37.599 all written in the careful hand of a true obsessive 392 00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:41.079 I forgot to kneel. I simply sat on the tile, 393 00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:43.759 breathing in dust in electricity, and set my notebook beside 394 00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:47.640 the largest open folder. This was no abandoned oddity. This 395 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:51.160 was a system, a laboratory of literary confluence, as someone 396 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:54.319 had been tracking every change, every versionary anomaly for longer 397 00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:57.720 than my tenure. Combined, names meant nothing now, only codes 398 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:00.920 shifting centuries, notes attached to character and chapters that had 399 00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:03.759 never been or have possibly always been. I let my 400 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:05.720 finger rest on the cool wooden edge of the last shelf. 401 00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:07.519