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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. I crept over Annelie in heavy sways,

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wrapping shat amber, street light and crumbling brick into a

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kind of wary hush. I set my shoulder against the

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weight of the library's main door. The latch stuck, same

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as always, and groaned when I finally managed to wrench

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it free. On the other side, the rotten to gate,

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pale and vast, fluxed and echoing beneath my sneakers. The

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echoes followed too loudly for place, men for whispers. But

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the library after dark was never as quiet as people

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liked to imagine. The old place was supposed to be

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in the first stages of a major of a whole

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municipal grand full restoration. All that, yet everything felt half waiting,

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half forgotten. My own presence was just another inconvenience, wedged

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into the budget. Night security, temporary until the locks were upgraded,

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and insurance paper what lapsed back into compliance. Not that

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I'd expected to find myself here, given my history. They

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say librarians always returned to their books in the end.

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Now Here are not to shelve or share but to

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stand guard in the dark. The above from the second

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story balustrade, desmotes fluttered under the sensor, a lazy fluorescence.

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I flipped them off, one bank at a time, grateful

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for the brief stutter of darkness. The reading tables, neat

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and empty, reached out their thin arms and rows. The

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scent of old paper faint mildy, and furniture polished, familiar.

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As Beth hung in the air. I checked my phone,

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lowered by start time, and slum my pouch of keys, notebook,

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and batted pocket flash like crosswise over my chest like

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a talisman. At the front desk, Habit nudged me to

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scan for anything left behind, a plastic cup, a forgotten summary, slip,

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a child's breer. Instead, it I found something stranger, A

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hardcover children's pertucked against the reserved terminals, buying a half

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hand's width of the laminated wood astres. The whispering alusters

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was the title, the letter's age, bleached silver against mud,

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brown cloth, patch tape holding the cornice. Not a book,

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I recognized from the current rotation. I thought, for a

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moment of all the times I chased missing books in

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my last life, my real library days and almost smiled.

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I picked it up and flapped the cover open. Several

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pages had been thumbed together, revealing a yellowed slip crinkled

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hand horn. I expected to see a name, maybe a scold,

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returned to lost and found instead, in blocky holding script,

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I read, don't trust the list, please help it before

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it's too late. The note was addressed and bly you are.

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My pulse ticked up. I checked the inside covers for

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a barcoed sticker. The one I found was decades old,

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with a number in a sequence I had never used,

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to nine digits with the prefix that started with the threeed.

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The rest of the sticker had bubbled and peeled away,

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exposing a faint stamp withdrawn in purple. I set the

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book upright, then, almost on impulse, sniffed the brittle paper,

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its meld of attic dust, fainted oranges, and something shopper

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old glue. Probably I skimmed the copyright page nineteen seventy seven.

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This copy looked older even than that. I checked the

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check at slip. The last daid MIY ten nineteen eighty

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two was stamped in red. No entries. After outside, a

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truck backfired bouncing sound along the foundation deeper beneath my feet.

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From somewhere in the sub floors, a muted thumping started,

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like a distant heart beat to measures for pipes, too

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slow for any small animal. The sound faded almost as

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quickly as it arrived. I tapped the note and book

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under my arm, trying to ignore the crawling sense of

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an needs, the sense something was watching, were waiting. It

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had taken me years to learn the feeling didn't mean

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danger always, but I wrote the disturbance, along with the

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odd sound from below, in my log book. Anyway, when

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I started the overnight job at Annelie Library, it felt

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almost like a dare. I'd convinced myself it was just

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a patche I can tell something better came up. But

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the truth was I missed libraries with a kind of

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hunger that surprised even me. Not just the books, but

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the rhythm, the rules, the sense that everything meant something

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if you just paid attention. That had been how it

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started for me, before boll care and good intentions, before

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carelessness and accusation wiped the shells clean. It had happened

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so quickly and misplaced file, a rumor about mismanaged records,

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and soon enough the whisper spread. I resigned before they

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could fire me, after I had walked up past the display.

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I'd built a wall's stories about second chances. Fittingly, I

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wasn't sure why the board here accepted me, but they did,

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provided that I stayed out of sight and worked in darkness.

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My love for books drew me back. Even in disgrace,

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I told myself I'd do any job to be close

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to the stacks again. Overnight security meant walking the old floors,

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relishing every step, listening to the deep throbe of silence

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between hard covers. Maybe I could make amends by holding

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the place together with low level vigilance. A strange penance,

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but it gave me something almost like hope. Still, the

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place wasn't what I remembered from the handful of visits

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I'd made in passing. The library was a mishmoshers central

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rotten that with marble floors, fifty zero paneling giving weight

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to glass block, and for mica edges. Two new modern

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wings shut of the waiting structural repairs. Some shells had

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been emptied for restoration, others on the upper floors remain

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crammed with untouched periodicals microfilm boxes, stacked and haphazard towers.

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The lower level, whispered about but rarely mentioned, has the

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archives and the notorious special collection's fault, supposedly built to

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withstand tornadoes and atomic blasts. Half the staff avoided the

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basement after dark, the ones who didn't quit early anyway. Nightly,

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I swept my assigned circuit lobby adult fiction, the falling

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children's area, now rarely visited reference desks, and then the

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basement holds the stream, which I like least. I checked

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to all locks by hand. Somewhere I convinced myself the

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anxiety of old guilt would wear fin and become simple routine.

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It hadn't yet those first weeks, little oddities started to

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lodge in memory like sawdust. One evening, the east reading

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room light flickered to full brightness and ire after closing,

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despite the shut down routine. Another night, I found a

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row of computer monitors blinking a curious error message, strings

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of zeros staff doors sometimes scraped open by millimeters between

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my rounds crews in the floor, betraying fresh movement. A

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spot behind the arch had smelled occasionally of woodsmuck, but

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no one could trace its source. The worst was the

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feeling in the dark corners, the persistent tickle of being

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waited on like a stage hand watching for a miss mark.

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If you let it, your mind built goes out of

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every creek. I took to writing everything down time anomally

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eat possible calls. It lent a sense of order, something

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I could understand with little to do. Between rounds, I

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strayed into places. Security staff went exactly encouraged to linger

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at the break groom bulletin board over on the twenty

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year old big Saale flyers, the ancient windows destop in

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the staff offers, still running the library's first digital catalog

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in a black and ambideous window. Sometimes I'd stick a

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thumb drive and control through the backlogs, looking for staff schedules,

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incident reports, old photographs, anything to make the IROs feel

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less formless. Most of the overnight staff had moved on

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during renovations, and no one really checked and accept the

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facilities manager who responded to my night email with two

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word replies and a kind of professional suspicion. His latest

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message read, simply stick the script. Whatever script that was.

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It changed depending on which wing was scheduled for his

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best disabatement, I started to piece together a private mental

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map of the place, entrances and exits, where the old

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wiring gave owl, which radiators not most in the deepest hours,

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I even mapped which staff came and went, as far

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as sign in sheets showed. New phases seemed to arrive,

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then were gone by the next week. Occasionally I found

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a forgotten ID badge under a desk or wedge, and

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a registered draw, some with employee numbers that matched others

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that never appeared in the directory. A sense of accumulating

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anomalies crept in. It was hard to shake the feeling

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that information had been delivered, erased, bend around invisible corners,

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and hidden in the fibers of the building's roudines. A

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week into the job, I started a double column note,

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with one side for nightly rounds, the other for anything

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that felt off. Open windows that should have been locked,

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otsolit tapped between shelving. Even a data polaroid of a

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party in the archives, captioned beneath the stacks now thirteen,

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nineteen seventy eight. Nearly everyone in a faded picture was

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a stranger to me, their name texts much unreadable by

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flush glare. Most odd of all. No matter how many

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times I tried to inventory the children's section, there was

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always one book missing. A missfell the shelf where I'd

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found asters the whispering owl lusters should have held biographers. Instead,

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there was nothing but dust and a fine, pale gouge

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in the wood, as if someone had dragged the book's

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spine back in for three years. After a few nights,

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the patents started making itself known. Nor maybe I was

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just primed to see meaning in the empty spaces on

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the batted staff check and computer, a middle list of

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clock ins and passwords that rarely changed. I noticed something

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that didn't fit. Step between the previous week's staff clockouts

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was a login for our Hlberd timestamp to twelve forty

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three am, three nights a go, with no clock cat

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line following. There wasn't a single Hulberd on any current staff,

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nor anyone who'd worked in the last several months that matched.

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The next entry jumped forward nearly twelve hours. Sharp as

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a cleaver, I scanned through ARCv rosters, comparing names and

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badged numbers. AH Halberd never appeared even on the old

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retirement sheets that sometimes listed clerks who died in service,

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Yet in the digital logs, that same user popped up

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again at odd interval sporadic, always late at night, and

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for years back. If the time stamps could be trusted stranger. Still,

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several staff numbers appeared for chickens, but were missing in

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every person al file I could find at one hundred

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twenty seven sixty nine or one hundred fifty five. Many

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were flagged as retired or inactive, but some look newly added.

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There were gaps, blackouts, blocks of time where logs simply ceased.

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A cold curiolsoity settled in my stomach. I returned to

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the lone Children's but con cracked it open again, checking

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the inn pepers, smoothing the fragile note with its now

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familiar plea for help. I skyured the catalog system for

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art in any form. Zero results, not even in our halberd,

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in the donor listings or old bend registrations. On a hunch,

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I searched for astors the whispering our lusters in the

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library's online catalog. The result came upgrade out a single entry,

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marked item lost nineteen eighty two. The database list died.

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No more details if anyone at the circulation death had

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seen this book, since they'd never said a word. Night

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after night I turned these details in my mind while

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making rounds. The stranger signal came from the basement. The

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next evening, taking side stairs down to the arcast check

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for leeks, I spotted something that had not been there

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during my previous circuit. The handrail kicked with a film

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of dust that never seemed to clear, sured a single

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fresh streak, as though someone had steadied themselves descending in

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the last hour. Reflexively, I checked all storage doors. None

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were forced. It felt less and less like I was alone,

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and certainty turned to resolve. The next night, clenching my

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flashlight and starring my nerves, I mapped my entire sweep

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of the older sections with meticulous care. In the self

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Furst basement, I sloshed for an inch of standing water,

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But that wasn't what caught my attention. It was the

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series of muddy shoe shaped and princes beginning at a

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fire exit. They didn't fit my shread over those of

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staff boots. I knew next to the door frame a

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chalk mark, small circular overlapping lines in a pattern I'd

209
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never seen caught the beam of My Life up in

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special collections. The cage seemed and touched the padlocks craped

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against my glove. I ease it back into place, handshaking

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as I turned to lock the check. I scanned the

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glass shelves. One slot, though from the bottom labeled Asterisk

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City Maps from nineteen fifty two. Asterisk was empty. The

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coal slip used to track which laborian handled Each ray

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book had been meticulously peeled out of its envelope and

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shredded back in the office a dug for security footage.

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There were four cameras per floor, most with blind spots

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wide enough to lose A grown adult. Files from the

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previous night archived and password protected studdard and jerked tom

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playback A two weelve a m. A ghostly figure, tall,

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bundled in a dark cook glided past the north stacks

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a s quinnd it, trying to make out their face,

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but the angle was wrong in the resolution law. They

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paused at the edge of the shot and seemed to

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unfold something, perhaps the missing books. Wide brown cover or chot.

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A sudden flicker, white hot stroke crossed the frame, and

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then the feet cut out For almost three full minutes.

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Facility logs showed a pause bike in that window, Voltage

230
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readings off by just enough to trigger the backup generator,

231
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but not enough to allow the fire panel. No alarm sounded,

232
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nothing in the lock, but recorded anything out of place

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except my own scribbled uncertainty. I hesitated, then compose a

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carefull email to the facilities manitor. I described the missing map,

235
00:11:24,360 --> 00:11:26,759
the odd lock ins, the chalk marks, and finally the

236
00:11:26,799 --> 00:11:30,840
log arrows. The reply arrived an hour later. Nothing stolen,

237
00:11:31,039 --> 00:11:33,279
only records in error. Stick to break in checks if

238
00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:35,960
the lights go out. Coal building services do not enter

239
00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:39,879
restricted ocave rooms, CISI admin. The command may my skin crawl,

240
00:11:39,919 --> 00:11:41,720
but I tooke it a face valley on the surface

241
00:11:41,799 --> 00:11:44,799
at least that night, near the rare book's room, I

242
00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:48,159
decided to bug the security routine. I hidden shadowed nook

243
00:11:48,159 --> 00:11:50,679
behind a brass ber cart, breathing a shallowly as possible

244
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:54,919
for a full forty minutes. Nothing happened. Then, from deeper

245
00:11:54,919 --> 00:11:57,720
in the walls, a faint, rivery thumping echoed surprisingly regular,

246
00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:00,720
stopping only when I moved. I wait, then heard a

247
00:12:00,759 --> 00:12:04,320
metallic screel, just barely audible. Chasing The sound led me

248
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:06,879
unexpectedly to the staff break room. The vent cover near

249
00:12:06,879 --> 00:12:10,000
the baseboard rattling every few seconds. When I got close,

250
00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:13,240
it stopped. I crouched and surprised myself by finding a

251
00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:15,399
strip of electrical tape pasted to the under side of

252
00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:17,799
the staff table. It took me a moment to work

253
00:12:17,799 --> 00:12:20,120
it free. A small battered key, its metal tag to

254
00:12:20,159 --> 00:12:22,559
beat you with a scrap of Basian Dick's guard My

255
00:12:22,679 --> 00:12:25,360
pulse hammered. I pressed the key between my fingers and

256
00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:28,080
checked the rest of the room. Everything seemed in order,

257
00:12:28,159 --> 00:12:30,120
except for a half crumpled page at the bottom of

258
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:32,799
the arcas trash bin. Most of it was a routine

259
00:12:32,799 --> 00:12:35,159
withdrow shee foot alawn. The margin was a scold note

260
00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:38,200
the old list lake chet beneath the blackwall shelf. No

261
00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:40,639
one called out, but I felt a clarity settling over me.

262
00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:42,879
Some one was using the lists the logs to send

263
00:12:42,919 --> 00:12:45,720
warnings or to cover up something deeper than a missing map.

264
00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:48,240
Armed with the tag and the story in my veins,

265
00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:50,480
I could not help myself. I followed the bread crumbs

266
00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:53,279
as though I had always been meant to trailing the clues.

267
00:12:53,399 --> 00:12:54,960
I worked my way to the low sub basement of

268
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:58,519
corridor I had always found curiously mismatched. One door brushed

269
00:12:58,519 --> 00:13:00,559
aluminum with a battered lock that never quite lined up

270
00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:02,799
with the striker plate limbed at the end marked custodial

271
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:06,879
authorized axis. Only nobody ever mentioned a B two storage.

272
00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:09,879
I pressed the new key to the lock. It fit,

273
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:12,279
though it took effort to this. The bolt climbed stubbornly

274
00:13:12,279 --> 00:13:14,840
before yielding with a faint gron. The air beyond the

275
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:18,480
threshold was viciously called redolent of old ware, concrete sirrel

276
00:13:18,559 --> 00:13:21,720
like dust, and crumbling glue. The corridor was barely wider

277
00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:23,919
than my shoulders, pat tight with shells on each wall,

278
00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:26,759
coroning under the weight of binders clearly untouched for decades.

279
00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,879
Each binder was labeled in sharp dry pen special access restricted.

280
00:13:31,399 --> 00:13:34,679
Many had entire pages blotted out black eyelighter over thin type.

281
00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:38,600
Over half referenced only a subasemen operations and vaulted storage.

282
00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:41,639
The phrase of subbistmen repeated, often, usually ringed with a

283
00:13:41,679 --> 00:13:44,559
red x I thumnd the page at random names, some

284
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:47,840
half remembered from old staff photos, others completely unfamiliar, were

285
00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:50,840
paired with coats, most ending in dasiro or dash five.

286
00:13:51,399 --> 00:13:53,519
My own breath sounded too loud in the close hallway.

287
00:13:54,159 --> 00:13:56,279
It was clear now or in the note the staff

288
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:59,600
idea that made no sense. The missing books alverd comes

289
00:13:59,639 --> 00:14:02,799
pointing relentlessly down towards something not registered in any public

290
00:14:02,879 --> 00:14:06,639
building plan. I followed the instructions from the trasspin, not fiercely,

291
00:14:06,639 --> 00:14:09,879
all at every CeNSE, crackling. The black or shelf, as

292
00:14:09,879 --> 00:14:12,080
it turned out, was tucked into a reco's lock over

293
00:14:12,159 --> 00:14:14,720
the very far end, half buried in supply boxes and

294
00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:18,000
bundled newsprint. I almost missed the trap bow beneath, ringed

295
00:14:18,039 --> 00:14:20,440
by brass inlid flush with chip tile, the hinges painted

296
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:23,240
over decades ago. I said the beaty key into the

297
00:14:23,240 --> 00:14:26,440
lock and twisted. It gave slightly, but the heavy lid

298
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:28,759
refused to budge further. Rousted shut by age and neglect,

299
00:14:29,399 --> 00:14:31,960
I pressed my ear to the join. Nothing only the

300
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,879
syrupy subterranean silence of a deeply buried chamber. That stillness

301
00:14:35,919 --> 00:14:39,360
was shadowed when scuffing footstop scratched overhead. I ducked behind

302
00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:41,200
a column just a shadow across through the weak spill

303
00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:45,080
of the emergency stair alight muffled voices two maybe three.

304
00:14:45,519 --> 00:14:47,559
I rest a glance. Two men in Gray city as

305
00:14:47,559 --> 00:14:50,519
she coveralls with hard hats and orange vests, muttering about

306
00:14:50,559 --> 00:14:54,120
duck runs and the old vent maps. Their flashlights panned lazily,

307
00:14:54,279 --> 00:14:56,159
never once aimed down the Tai corridor, where I was

308
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:58,519
pressed tight as a nail. One of them was the

309
00:14:58,519 --> 00:15:01,240
facility's manager. The other looked familiar, but I could not

310
00:15:01,279 --> 00:15:04,440
place his face. They disappear into another room, but I

311
00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:06,840
heard one say, clear and cold, if anything turns up

312
00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:09,000
down here to night, don't sign out until it's gone.

313
00:15:09,399 --> 00:15:11,960
My heart thuttered and my knees ache from crouching, But

314
00:15:12,039 --> 00:15:14,600
the truth rud to me deeper. This wasn't just about

315
00:15:14,639 --> 00:15:18,679
missing materials. It was ongoing active. The search was stopped,

316
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:21,519
only moving in ways no official would ever admit. I

317
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:25,440
retreated carefully, waiting five whole minutes, ears prickling, breath shallow

318
00:15:25,919 --> 00:15:28,519
in the whole. I thumbed the now iconic items, the strange,

319
00:15:28,639 --> 00:15:30,559
but her children's book, a plea for help. I could

320
00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:33,080
not ignore the chill iron of Vibituki, the only proof

321
00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:35,440
I had that whatever ancient wound the library hid, it

322
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:38,679
was not merely closed or caulterized, but still bleeding, I

323
00:15:38,759 --> 00:15:41,519
wave fear against study. If I left now, I could

324
00:15:41,519 --> 00:15:43,480
pretend I had only seen the dust and shadows, and

325
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:45,960
could let the buildings swallow its secrets for another generation.

326
00:15:46,519 --> 00:15:49,559
But I could not make myself walk out alone, Pressed

327
00:15:49,559 --> 00:15:51,080
between the past and a door that dared me to

328
00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:53,120
test its memory, and knew the listed light, but not

329
00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:56,039
to me alone. Turning my collar up against the chill,

330
00:15:56,159 --> 00:15:58,480
I understood whatever lived here had been protected to hidden

331
00:15:58,519 --> 00:16:01,000
by design. If I was going to find the truth,

332
00:16:01,080 --> 00:16:03,799
it meant ascending further past what was recorded, where the

333
00:16:03,799 --> 00:16:06,120
official stories had run out and the shadows had written

334
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:09,120
their own. So there I was standing at the threshold

335
00:16:09,159 --> 00:16:11,360
of what felt like the library's spinal cord, a tunnel

336
00:16:11,360 --> 00:16:14,080
of brittlebinders and stale a recycled air, my hand gritty

337
00:16:14,080 --> 00:16:16,279
from gripping the key. A single light bulcuming somewhere back

338
00:16:16,279 --> 00:16:19,480
at the far end. A scato of shoe princedust disturbed

339
00:16:19,519 --> 00:16:21,720
not enough to be recent, criscross the paint flake floor

340
00:16:21,720 --> 00:16:25,240
in half moons, my eyes adjusted, picking out details that

341
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,279
earlier would have seemed dull, the careful predigital labeling on

342
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:31,039
the shelves, chemulonimbus clusters of mildy around the edges of

343
00:16:31,039 --> 00:16:32,799
the vent, piping some loose thread of heat. For it

344
00:16:32,879 --> 00:16:35,240
was suggesting someone may be the city workers had recently

345
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:38,799
passed close by. The sensation didn't leave me watch, not

346
00:16:38,919 --> 00:16:40,799
by cameras, but by walls and the grain of rot

347
00:16:40,799 --> 00:16:43,159
soft wood. I tucked the b BE two key into

348
00:16:43,159 --> 00:16:45,759
my fist, not trusting my jacket pocket, and stepped as

349
00:16:45,759 --> 00:16:47,840
softly as I could back up the corridor, back to

350
00:16:47,879 --> 00:16:51,600
the ouchavel alcove and its enigmatic sill trap door. I crouched,

351
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:53,919
scanning the edges for further clues, and brushed away a

352
00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:57,120
few dozen brutal flakes of paint and dust. Fitted just

353
00:16:57,159 --> 00:16:59,799
beneath the trap door's frame was a coin American worn

354
00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:02,159
to near invisibility. The face was scratched into a smooth

355
00:17:02,159 --> 00:17:05,920
abstractable no liberty, no date. My heart tapped roughly against

356
00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:08,440
the inside of my roofs. Some one had left it

357
00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:10,880
there as a marker or a warning. I set it

358
00:17:10,920 --> 00:17:14,160
on my knuckle and pocketed it. Maybe it would mean something. Later,

359
00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:18,759
voices echoed again overhead, this time closer to panic. Boots studded.

360
00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,599
A portable radio crackled. I pressed myself into the alcove's shadow,

361
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:25,359
holding my breath wandering absurdly. If I'd be able to

362
00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:27,359
pass as a forgotten piece of shoving, if someone turned

363
00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:30,640
their light into my corner. A beam sliced the corridor, briefly,

364
00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:32,960
stuttering over brown metal rack and the batter toe of

365
00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:35,799
my right shoe. I sewed the children's but quietly into

366
00:17:35,799 --> 00:17:38,160
my shirt, the corners biting into my skin, and waded.

367
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:41,720
One of the men younger voice brittle, mutter, you just

368
00:17:41,759 --> 00:17:44,960
see the door stick be too, The older replied, nothing

369
00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:47,720
in there worth the dust lead it. Their footsteps, slow

370
00:17:47,759 --> 00:17:50,680
and discouraged, trailed up the stairs in quick succession. I

371
00:17:50,759 --> 00:17:53,480
risked a count to twenty. When nothing else stirred, I

372
00:17:53,519 --> 00:17:56,759
uncoiled the chingly, my life prickling with half numbness. No

373
00:17:57,039 --> 00:18:00,240
arm sounded, no sign that anyone had expected me there

374
00:18:00,279 --> 00:18:03,359
at all. Yet, as I straightened, one detail state with me,

375
00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:05,680
the older worker, the one with the clipped coal voice

376
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:07,640
he'd called the space, beat you out loud, as if

377
00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:10,400
it were as plain as storage or archives. The phrase

378
00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,000
door stick was another language, one passed down three years

379
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:15,920
of late night shifts. I followed their voices as far

380
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:18,279
as I dared back up a twisting service hall, pass

381
00:18:18,359 --> 00:18:20,200
the nest of cable runs and what must have once

382
00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:22,440
been a break area, now stat with brittle city hall

383
00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:24,680
newsletters and the six sweet room of machine oil and

384
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:28,839
stale pastry. I kept my flashlight low. The risk became evident.

385
00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:31,880
Permission had never actually been granted for these wanderings, and

386
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,119
it was purely the inerte of the crumbling bureaucracy that

387
00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:36,880
let me move as widely as I did. Most security

388
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,000
people would have missed these anomalies, kept their head down,

389
00:18:39,119 --> 00:18:41,720
the mind on their own clock out time. But there,

390
00:18:41,759 --> 00:18:43,240
at the far edge of the old break room, on

391
00:18:43,279 --> 00:18:45,519
an outdated cork board, I noticed a pin stack of

392
00:18:45,519 --> 00:18:49,240
overdue maintenance lips. The top reed in red pencil ventury

393
00:18:49,279 --> 00:18:51,920
a acxis denied until further notice, report only to be

394
00:18:52,039 --> 00:18:55,319
cast in facilities that was not the manager's name registered

395
00:18:55,319 --> 00:18:57,960
in the email chains. I took out my note book,

396
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,920
wrote the initials B Coss, and copy down the phone

397
00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:03,000
numbers scrolled at the top, though I had no intention

398
00:19:03,079 --> 00:19:06,640
of dialing it from any traceable device. Retracing steps, I

399
00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:08,480
felt for the pressure and the four heading back to

400
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:11,680
the children section, hoping to recalibrate, maybe fine sense in

401
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:15,039
the daylight order of millistas, but everything to night scene

402
00:19:15,079 --> 00:19:17,920
slanted off balance. It wasn't just the fact that the

403
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:20,440
whispering owl was there again on the desk when I returned,

404
00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:22,519
as though I'd never hid in it at all. It

405
00:19:22,599 --> 00:19:24,720
was the fact the checkout's slipped no longer match now

406
00:19:24,799 --> 00:19:26,960
cap with three lines, the last one day to a

407
00:19:27,039 --> 00:19:29,480
Matehn nineteen eighty two, but the one above that struck

408
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:32,759
Thor and blue Birer returned six slush eleven slash seventy

409
00:19:32,799 --> 00:19:35,480
seven art Halbert. I ran my thumb over the paper,

410
00:19:35,759 --> 00:19:37,720
feeling not just the ink but a faint depression in

411
00:19:37,759 --> 00:19:40,240
the slip the after image of names were written and erased.

412
00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:43,079
There was a low pock of thunder outside, blunt and

413
00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:45,359
humid in the night's residual heat, shaking dust from the

414
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:48,680
window sills. In defiance, I returned the book to the

415
00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:50,759
exact spot I'd found. It was between the lost shelf

416
00:19:50,799 --> 00:19:52,799
and desk co a closed, but the note press between

417
00:19:52,799 --> 00:19:55,440
the first pages like a terrible seed. I took a

418
00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:58,039
polar rod with my phone. The flash too harsh, bleaching

419
00:19:58,039 --> 00:20:00,640
out half the details. I em eild the image to

420
00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:02,640
myself and for good measure to the address listed on

421
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,680
the city's main facilities page. ANOM alert at Annalley Garve.

422
00:20:06,319 --> 00:20:09,079
No reply ping back in the next hour. Maybe it

423
00:20:09,119 --> 00:20:12,599
was a dead link, maybe someone else was watching. My

424
00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:15,759
second circuit of the stacks was slower. If anything, the

425
00:20:15,799 --> 00:20:18,200
library seemed to breathe as I walked, as though anticipating

426
00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:20,920
every step. I checked the finger prints smudge glass of

427
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,599
the Special Collection's cage, and this time sow caught for

428
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:25,200
just a frame in the flask light spill. A low

429
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,160
hand print reversed, small, maybe a child's, maybe just a

430
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:32,480
careless indentation for years passed, but it was pawned down,

431
00:20:32,559 --> 00:20:35,680
pressed with a purpose, not the shape carelessness made. I

432
00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,319
allowed myself a whispered curse, then checked a case padlock.

433
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:42,079
It was closed, but not dead. Bolted. With a firm twist,

434
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:45,279
I locked it, hands shaking again. It felt increasingly as

435
00:20:45,319 --> 00:20:48,240
if I were walking a perimeter, always shifting, rules rewritten

436
00:20:48,319 --> 00:20:51,240
as I advanced. By three seventeen a m I was

437
00:20:51,279 --> 00:20:53,920
back at the basement corridor, compelled pass all reason toward

438
00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:56,400
the trap door. I reasoned, if the be tu key

439
00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:58,759
fit the first lock made me another tool would persuade

440
00:20:58,759 --> 00:21:01,640
the rest. I I ducked into the staff maintenance cause

441
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:03,920
it by the back stair, and selected with the gambler's

442
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:05,799
prigmatism about her cheet a bar and a tub of

443
00:21:05,799 --> 00:21:09,240
graphite lubricant. Kneeling at the threshold, I woke the graphite

444
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:10,799
into the lock, sweat cold in the back of my

445
00:21:10,839 --> 00:21:13,599
hands despite the weight of the airless hall. A metallic

446
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:16,599
shriek teeth inside the mechanism finally shifting under my efforts,

447
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:19,240
and the lock gave by a slender margin. I let

448
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,200
out half a breath, nerves crackling. The hinge produced a

449
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:24,920
shivering echo, old iron singing to itself as I levered

450
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:28,000
the trap door in jepwoot, but it refused to yield further.

451
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:32,000
Another quick examination revealed a second bold, cleverly masked by

452
00:21:32,039 --> 00:21:34,400
years of a crude dust no lock, merely a sly

453
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:38,079
daring myself, I jabbed the cheeter bar at the catch, harder,

454
00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:40,240
then harder still, until it loosened, giving way. With the

455
00:21:40,279 --> 00:21:43,000
glassy pop. The edge of the trap door lifted, and

456
00:21:43,079 --> 00:21:44,880
I nearly lost my grip as the smell got me

457
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,759
something stale and metaland faintly The after taste of frozen,

458
00:21:48,039 --> 00:21:51,799
like an X ray room, long abandoned movement, a voice,

459
00:21:51,839 --> 00:21:54,359
a child's light and sibilant, or perhaps the scrape of

460
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:56,480
wind funnel through decades of neglects trickled up from the

461
00:21:56,559 --> 00:22:00,799
dark below. Liszt help help, I froze. Had I heard

462
00:22:00,839 --> 00:22:02,839
it in my head? Was it the pulse of my

463
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:06,160
own blood? Syllables hidden in the rhythm. I paused, breath

464
00:22:06,279 --> 00:22:11,200
like knives. Nothing followed, no serge, no footsteps, only the

465
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:13,039
throb of my own fear, confirmed by the beating of

466
00:22:13,039 --> 00:22:16,000
my pulse in slow increments. I lowered the trap door,

467
00:22:16,039 --> 00:22:19,079
trying not to slamish at Thereby, on the black wall

468
00:22:19,079 --> 00:22:21,319
shelf six from the right, just as the note suggested,

469
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,480
I found something else, A small latch, nearly invisible, worked

470
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,480
into the under side. Flicking it, I discovered a slender

471
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,279
glass tube captain wax, which contained a tightly rolled slip

472
00:22:30,279 --> 00:22:33,359
of onion skin paper. I fished it out, hands trembling.

473
00:22:34,079 --> 00:22:35,920
I carried it back to the staff room, and then

474
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:39,279
scrawled in the table, smoothing the creases. The script was minute,

475
00:22:39,279 --> 00:22:41,839
a spidery hand, but distinct and deliberate. To those who

476
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:44,039
find this. If you read the list you are in.

477
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:46,079
It entries a promise. Exit is only a room that

478
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,559
missus Blackwell said the door would hold, but nothing holds

479
00:22:48,559 --> 00:22:50,680
for ever. If you find the book, return it to

480
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:53,000
the vault. If you find me, I was a halberd

481
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:57,160
please help. That was all a name or write O warning.

482
00:22:57,799 --> 00:22:59,799
I sank onto the vinyl chair, aware again that my

483
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:02,960
own own hands were visibly shaking the decision. The impulse

484
00:23:03,079 --> 00:23:05,680
really came quick. I thunded the bee too key, over

485
00:23:05,759 --> 00:23:08,039
and over, feeling for any detail I might have missed.

486
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,200
Eventually I slaid the key onto my own fob, hanging

487
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:12,920
it between my work badge and the loop pass I

488
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:14,920
had kept from my lost city job, as though making

489
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,279
it official. Whatever was hiding, whatever entry meant it already

490
00:23:18,279 --> 00:23:22,359
included me. Was soon moored. Later in the staff restroom,

491
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,440
A splash water on my face and caught my reflection

492
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,359
in the security mirror. I looked older than I remembered,

493
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,039
more tired, but my eyes were sharp and unwilling. On

494
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:31,880
the way out, then after thought sent me back to

495
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,039
the faded party, polaroid and the staff room corpor this

496
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,480
time with my phone there ready. I suomed in there

497
00:23:37,559 --> 00:23:39,880
at the table's edge stood some one a half head taller,

498
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:41,599
the most hand and shoulder of a woman with the

499
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,440
department pen labeled simply are. It wasn't a face I

500
00:23:44,519 --> 00:23:46,960
recognized even in the grain of age, but the shape

501
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:48,359
of the hand and the tilt of the head match

502
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:50,319
may hunch some one who had left their mark below,

503
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,039
or perhaps had never left it all For once, I

504
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:56,240
rode a long email to my supervisor of subject unexplained activity,

505
00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:00,000
Immediate attention needed. Found children's materials misfiled, an omalous staffed

506
00:24:00,079 --> 00:24:03,279
check ins, evidence of building breach safety concern have discovered

507
00:24:03,319 --> 00:24:06,279
vulnerabilities in old subbasement access points urgent. Can we discuss

508
00:24:06,319 --> 00:24:09,680
emergency protocols or historical incent reports to clarified request access

509
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,960
to historic staff directories and involve inventory. Also, please confirm

510
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,839
if anyone is authorized to audit maintenance logs outside schedule

511
00:24:15,839 --> 00:24:19,480
for invasions. I attached him Mitch's door key polaroid, the

512
00:24:19,519 --> 00:24:22,839
handprints mirrored on the cage glass scent, then deleted the

513
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:25,039
draft from my sent folder. An old habit I couldn't

514
00:24:25,079 --> 00:24:28,599
quite kill the reply cane twenty six minutes later, timestamped

515
00:24:28,599 --> 00:24:31,119
four eight a m where viewed investigation will proceed at

516
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:33,880
admin level only. No further action required regard in sab

517
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:37,000
basement focus on visible security, report unusual behavior, but do

518
00:24:37,079 --> 00:24:40,599
not pursue catalog and consistencies all other inquiries close. My

519
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,440
skin prickled, I locked my phone away in my locker

520
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:45,319
and retreated to the front desk, the place where, for

521
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,039
a precious half iro each morning daylight filtered and through

522
00:24:48,079 --> 00:24:51,240
the ancient bubble glass windows. I took the batted al book,

523
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:53,680
the halbowed letter in its file and set them precisely

524
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,319
where they'd been left every night before. As the city

525
00:24:56,319 --> 00:24:59,720
creaked into wakefulness, it considered clocking out, feigning sleep and indifference.

526
00:24:59,759 --> 00:25:02,920
There some one else inherit the burden. Instead, I made

527
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,079
a list of real list, not the list whispered about

528
00:25:05,079 --> 00:25:07,400
an old anxious scrolls, but a column of what was

529
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:09,640
known and what was left to find none. A whispering

530
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,480
owl moved capacity to appear, slash disappear. Ah Halbert a

531
00:25:13,519 --> 00:25:17,119
ghost in assistant last trace nineteen eighty two Archive corridor

532
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,559
Betoo had secondary egress and a vault unknown to current

533
00:25:19,559 --> 00:25:23,880
administration map from nineteen fifty two, missing at least one

534
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:28,039
employee currently and on the cover upper by carson facilities. Unknown,

535
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,839
what's behind or under the trap door, why the logs

536
00:25:30,839 --> 00:25:34,759
are changed, what or whom they're protecting? Identities in the

537
00:25:34,759 --> 00:25:37,599
staff photo full link to present staff. They'll list what

538
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,519
it catalogs, how one leaves it. I thought about what

539
00:25:40,559 --> 00:25:42,920
are had written. If you read the list, you're in it.

540
00:25:43,519 --> 00:25:46,000
I wondered how many other names had been silently added

541
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,680
and erased over the decades. I rove a robe of

542
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,640
glided down the children's owl, carrying stack of and processed returns,

543
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,799
squealing softly as it misatturned and clipped the biographical shelf.

544
00:25:55,279 --> 00:25:58,359
I felt a sore amusement. Even the machinery didn't know

545
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,480
its place here s Chiff's end. I walked slowly through

546
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,000
the lobby, keys jostling at my belt, the faint headache

547
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,240
of too long vigilance settling behind my eyes. The morning

548
00:26:07,279 --> 00:26:11,079
clik arrived, young, distracted, face pale above a windbreaker. I

549
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,160
resisted the urge to warn him to pass the hall

550
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,000
mess off. Instead, I offered a curt nod and left

551
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,640
without another word. The cities had carried the scent of

552
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,440
rain and a promise of new construction. I waited at

553
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:23,559
the corner for the bus, uncertain whether to return or

554
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,279
let the mysteries steep them without me. But in the

555
00:26:26,319 --> 00:26:28,319
lint trap of my jacket pocket, the coin from the

556
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:30,880
trap dooor winked against my knuckle, refusing to be discarded.

557
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:33,640
The book was the only thing that always came back,

558
00:26:34,279 --> 00:26:36,799
and near there, apparently was I. My fingers worked the

559
00:26:36,799 --> 00:26:39,039
coin over and over as I rode the city bus home,

560
00:26:39,079 --> 00:26:41,119
the metal warming and cooling again in my palm, an

561
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:43,240
anchor of sorts in the morning chirin of commuters and

562
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,799
groaning hydraulics. Every turn in the cities grew pressed together,

563
00:26:46,839 --> 00:26:48,920
the hush of stacks, the rattle of pipes, a fac

564
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:50,960
and a photograph whose name might once have weighed more

565
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,960
than mine. Out the street window, the pale eye municipal

566
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,480
towers hunched over the library roof, glinting in a way

567
00:26:56,519 --> 00:26:59,480
that reminded me of the trap door's tarnished latch. I

568
00:26:59,519 --> 00:27:02,000
traced the law lies between things, unwilling to lose the thread.

569
00:27:02,559 --> 00:27:04,559
When I got to my apartment, the conds still pressed

570
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:07,759
between my fingers, I found myself unable to sleep. My

571
00:27:07,839 --> 00:27:10,559
mind circled the day before like a restless beast. The

572
00:27:10,599 --> 00:27:12,960
objects had pocketed of the B two key the Brettel slip.

573
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:14,640
A print out of my list sat found out on

574
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,240
my kitchen table, precisely where I'd left them, no matter

575
00:27:17,279 --> 00:27:19,680
how many times I glanced up expecting to see them. Bone.

576
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,599
After coffee and two half arted calls to job notices,

577
00:27:22,599 --> 00:27:25,000
I had no intention of pursuing, opened my laptop and

578
00:27:25,039 --> 00:27:28,319
returned to the only engine I still trusted research. The

579
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,519
city's public arcats were famously and complete digitalized, with gaps

580
00:27:31,559 --> 00:27:34,720
like marth eatoncloth, but with enough patience some interest yielded

581
00:27:34,759 --> 00:27:37,960
more than their keepers intended. I scrolled through City Council

582
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,960
minutes old blueprints, faded PD effortly is barely visible to

583
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,000
the eye. One entry snaiaged sub Basement Modification's architect report

584
00:27:45,079 --> 00:27:48,839
from nineteen fifty nine reference programmer and program B. The

585
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,480
document scanned margin held several penciled editions, cross reference later

586
00:27:52,559 --> 00:27:55,640
by city inspectors. I know line twice was a phrase

587
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,079
all new access record under custodial storage B two block

588
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:01,920
that would not quite fit with the public plan, but

589
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,319
promise more below. The following night, exhaustion hugging me like

590
00:28:05,319 --> 00:28:08,599
a wet coat at Wilpartaut arrived early on shift. I

591
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:12,319
reached the staff corridors before anyone else. The morning clerk Benny,

592
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,680
finally named in my head, soft fist, lingered at the

593
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,720
book drop patch, rubbing sleep from his eyes. I was

594
00:28:17,759 --> 00:28:19,720
half way passed him when he called out, hey, you

595
00:28:19,759 --> 00:28:21,720
ever seed this one, and held up a battered index

596
00:28:21,839 --> 00:28:25,359
cart the sought circulation used to label lost items. Across

597
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:27,839
as front. Someone had written where reviled to see restricted

598
00:28:27,839 --> 00:28:31,839
lock are at the bottom blackwell. I scoled my voice,

599
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,359
where did you find that? He shrugged. Laundry room floor

600
00:28:36,519 --> 00:28:39,119
must have stuck to my shoe, he smiled, not knowing

601
00:28:39,119 --> 00:28:42,359
how brittle my reply became. I'll handle it, card in hand.

602
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,880
As slipped into the narrow hallway by the janitor's closet,

603
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:47,480
my breath shallow, not quite sure why, the familiar corners

604
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,920
seemed stretched now, like rooms seen only at midnight. I

605
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,359
pressed the carp with my other close key, corner trinity

606
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,359
growing heavier in my pocket. My rooms that evening were crisp,

607
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,559
briskeno delaying, no hestant loitering, no hope that anything would

608
00:28:59,559 --> 00:29:02,160
write itself off when left alone. The echoes of measured

609
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,920
footsteps rang differently, a little off, almost answering my own wod.

610
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,319
Each passed by the children's desk, I checked the books,

611
00:29:08,319 --> 00:29:11,039
still in place, the slip pressed within, not yet snatched

612
00:29:11,079 --> 00:29:14,119
back by unseen hands. At one thirty seven a m.

613
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,160
As I returned to the ground floor reading room, I

614
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:18,559
caught a flicker motion at the corner of vision, a

615
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:23,160
shape fleeting crouched by the microfilm cabinets. My flashlight danced

616
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,799
over file drawers, catching only the ripple of dust motes

617
00:29:25,839 --> 00:29:29,440
disturbed in the air. I advanced every instinct, prickling fitsteff

618
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,400
soft as I could manage, pin tight against the old wood.

619
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:34,839
I breathed in the air, sharp, now punctuated by something

620
00:29:34,839 --> 00:29:39,680
electric ascent, almost a cyinge plastic anyone here I called

621
00:29:39,799 --> 00:29:43,920
soft but clear. The silence swelled, something brushed against the

622
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,000
fog cabinet, the sye of movement. Nothing more I found

623
00:29:47,039 --> 00:29:49,279
instead of a person, a glove periwinkle blue, the cheeb

624
00:29:49,319 --> 00:29:52,279
late ex kind hospital staff used inside the faint and

625
00:29:52,319 --> 00:29:55,359
print of ink, a reverse stamp property of sc nineteen

626
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,119
seventy nine. I scanned the initials, thinking of the special collections,

627
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,000
thinking of staff, God and quit. Was someone else combing

628
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:04,079
through the old archevs, hunting the same trails as me.

629
00:30:04,599 --> 00:30:07,279
I slid the glove into a fresh evidence bag, pocketed it,

630
00:30:07,319 --> 00:30:09,880
and made another note to myself. By the time the

631
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,279
eyes curved toward dawn, no other trespasser had made themselves visible,

632
00:30:13,319 --> 00:30:16,319
but the rooms felt watched, measure breast pacing mine. I

633
00:30:16,359 --> 00:30:19,079
returned to the children's section, knelt by the lowest shelf,

634
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,759
and ran my hand inside the back panel, feeling for scenes,

635
00:30:21,839 --> 00:30:24,880
gaps or catches, a desperate hope for hidden things. My

636
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,240
fingers found only dust in the splinter of olt wood.

637
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:30,920
I straightened, stretching not stiff shoulders, and caught sight of

638
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,400
myself reflected in the glass by the puppet theater gaunt hay,

639
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,559
pressed loot by old sweat, as hollowed by worry. Still,

640
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,000
I nodded at myself confirmation and battle flag. As I

641
00:30:40,039 --> 00:30:42,480
replicated my clothing sweep. I looked one last time at

642
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,519
the batted slip Benny had given me. Something new shimmered

643
00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:47,720
in the cut beneath the harsh fluorescence and indentation, the

644
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,759
ghost of old graphite. Entryless Complete six slash eighty two

645
00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:55,440
Halbert S. C. Blackhaw names that wouldn't quit names now tied,

646
00:30:55,519 --> 00:30:58,000
and shop grapha shadow to every corridor, in every closed

647
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,519
fault and aney library. I press the cart to my

648
00:31:00,599 --> 00:31:03,039
chest briefly, fiercely, before locking it away with my other

649
00:31:03,079 --> 00:31:06,079
tokens in the drawer, under a stack of unread inventory sheets.

650
00:31:06,519 --> 00:31:09,079
Whatever way to blow the black wall shelf, whatever business

651
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,039
tide are. When dawn came that day, it felt like

652
00:31:12,079 --> 00:31:14,839
an intrusion. I barely registered the new light as I

653
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,720
gathered my jacket, badge and a transfigured sense of a

654
00:31:17,759 --> 00:31:20,680
knee that now stuck to me unstintingly. I walked home

655
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:22,599
through the shadowy hush of a city not quite awaken,

656
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,799
undertow of tension, clinging to my clothes, to my mind,

657
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,240
I slept fitfully, if at all, my thoughts circling the

658
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,799
index card Benny had handed over the glove, the photo

659
00:31:30,799 --> 00:31:33,880
of the string of NaN's Halbert s c blackhaw. They

660
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:35,960
move in and out of each other like dancers joined

661
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,759
by waltz. No one else could hear. Some time in

662
00:31:38,799 --> 00:31:41,039
the late afternoon, with some light crowling low over my

663
00:31:41,119 --> 00:31:44,680
kitchen table, a brew coffee, but my hands, when ignored, absent,

664
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:46,960
while my eyes reeled three years of news clippings on

665
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,240
my battled laptop. Annelee Library's public history was mostly dollar's

666
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,200
milk dedications, reading drives, a photo in the city newsletter

667
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,400
when the mayor's kid donated a set of encyclopedias in

668
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,480
nineteen seventy one, but now with their every year from

669
00:32:00,519 --> 00:32:03,279
nineteen fifty six through the late nineteen eighties, I searched

670
00:32:03,319 --> 00:32:06,440
for anything that might mention subbasemen, blackwell a containment, or

671
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,839
even just unexplained city expenditures. Most reports offered only thin pickings,

672
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,920
but old newspapers had their quirks. A sentence dropped carelessly

673
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,400
in a council meeting summary as sidebar about bond drills

674
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:18,440
when the library claimed to be a designated shelter but

675
00:32:18,559 --> 00:32:21,880
never used for its intended purpose. Then a sliver of

676
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,319
gold bird in a nineteen sixty one feature work on

677
00:32:24,359 --> 00:32:27,720
Anneley Library's secondary storage to be expedited due to civil needs.

678
00:32:27,759 --> 00:32:30,400
In a grainy phootograph, three city engineers preside a near

679
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,640
a huge great stamped Federal defense one. A woman with

680
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,920
sharp cheap bones wore pin marks jas see. I compared

681
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,480
it to the staff photo from the Potipolar Road to

682
00:32:39,519 --> 00:32:41,599
Telled of Virchen. It could have been Blackwell herself, though

683
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,319
the print was that before I could be sure that evening,

684
00:32:44,319 --> 00:32:46,400
on my way in for chef, my gate was brisker.

685
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,519
My sense of resolved less oppose more function of accumulated

686
00:32:49,559 --> 00:32:52,880
dread ringglayzed the sidewalk, the cities light glittered, shop and

687
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,319
hostel in the puddles. I was at the first one

688
00:32:55,319 --> 00:32:58,400
through the doors. A line of contractors was checking out

689
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,359
tools from the front desk. Two men carted in boxes

690
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,279
labeled planning and cothes. There a laughter echoing thinny at

691
00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:07,279
the marble stairwell. I kept well clear until the night

692
00:33:07,279 --> 00:33:10,440
crew had dwindled. No one spoke to me at my

693
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,000
assigned time. I collected my keys and double checked the pouch,

694
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,799
the bitiu key, a coin, the index card, the glove,

695
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,119
and now print out of the nineteen sixty one article.

696
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,839
I lobden and out of the staff computer, looking for

697
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,519
new signs for reassuring myself. Sometimes routines are there to

698
00:33:24,559 --> 00:33:27,640
anchor sometimes to warn. At my first sweep, I did

699
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,000
not go immediately to the beastment. Instead, I mapped mentally

700
00:33:31,079 --> 00:33:33,839
and on paper every place where last night's disturbances had occurred.

701
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:36,519
The chalk symbol the finger smash bookshelf. For the glass tube.

702
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:38,920
I built a lattice out of the staff locks, the

703
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,160
old event rosters. The vanished nineteen fifty two map A

704
00:33:42,279 --> 00:33:45,240
shape was emerging behind the libraries, so sawt one of corridors.

705
00:33:45,279 --> 00:33:49,680
Sub corridors concealed air gresses and unlisted doors, Nearly all

706
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,440
of them converged at the point called BETU. I made

707
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,400
a second, even more careful circuit of the building, comparing

708
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:57,680
emergency panels and h ac rates to odd notes I

709
00:33:57,759 --> 00:34:01,039
copied from staff minutes here and there, small scenes betrayed

710
00:34:01,039 --> 00:34:04,720
attempted patch jobs in the ultra quiet special collections. The

711
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,720
faint bozo static barely perceptible seat beneath the flooring appeared

712
00:34:07,759 --> 00:34:11,119
to old wiring. Spot Checks of the perumtive turned up

713
00:34:11,119 --> 00:34:13,880
no other living soul. Even the overnight cleaning bought program

714
00:34:14,079 --> 00:34:16,960
I realized was scheduled to avoid the southernmost hallway between

715
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,960
two zero and four zero am. At one nineteen am,

716
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,800
I passed the black shelf. The traploor, as ever, looked

717
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:24,960
inert and terminally rusted, but in the glare of my

718
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,239
flask light, the dust ringed out A recent disturbance a

719
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,880
half moonarch near the hinch, someone steadying themselves there within irs.

720
00:34:31,519 --> 00:34:34,360
I knelt, impressed, my ear low for a scant instant,

721
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,159
A chill vibrooding was persifted through, not a voice, but

722
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,800
the suggestion of one, like sentences remembered from dreams. The

723
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:43,800
exit is only a rumor. I forced myself to breathe,

724
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:48,800
to focus inventory, not imagination. At home earlier charting arcavil

725
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,239
logs and city permits, I have marked three addresses, all

726
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,119
staff directories, cross referenced by what little was still legible

727
00:34:55,119 --> 00:34:59,039
to home addresses. Most when nedfunct, buildings demolished, lots converted.

728
00:34:59,639 --> 00:35:03,079
Yet Halbert had been listed for several years. An apartment

729
00:35:03,159 --> 00:35:05,800
block only two streets away from the library. I made

730
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,000
a private note, Should I walk by to morrow in

731
00:35:08,039 --> 00:35:10,280
broad daylight? Should I go knock and ask about a name?

732
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,400
RaSE from nearly every record. The thought was both comfort

733
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:16,480
and threat Instead to night. I finished my round and

734
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,440
steeled myself for what i'd none was coming since I

735
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,599
first found the key. I returned to Beachyu, pausing only

736
00:35:21,639 --> 00:35:23,880
to check the side corridor. Though event three eight note

737
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:26,719
was gone from the bulletin board, removed or deliberately concealed

738
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,800
by someone with a stake and keeping things quiet. Once more,

739
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:31,639
A crouched at the block hole shelf, eyeing the trap

740
00:35:31,679 --> 00:35:34,719
door under the pretense of her routine inspection. I held

741
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,159
my batterity to barready slipped the falk key into the lock,

742
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,480
and tapped the graph autel on the stockge, this time

743
00:35:40,639 --> 00:35:42,920
with force. It shifted more full with the last attempt.

744
00:35:43,519 --> 00:35:46,159
The hush of air from below was sharp, mineral, A

745
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:49,039
rushed determination, numb, hard edge propelled me. I wedged the

746
00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:51,199
door open, scraped with a noise that made my skin

747
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,400
call metallicovstone. The dark inside the gap seemed almost viscous.

748
00:35:56,079 --> 00:35:59,000
I clicked on my flashlight. The beam fell away against

749
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,280
an old wood lad of b altered into a concrete shaft.

750
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,119
The walls were slick, the rungs flicking but intact. I

751
00:36:05,159 --> 00:36:08,440
tested one gingerly, then too, and began to descend. The

752
00:36:08,519 --> 00:36:10,719
crawl space was narrower than I liked. The air pressed

753
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,840
heavy against my chest, laced with a blend of damp,

754
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,320
broad and exhaust only sixty year old basements possess at

755
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:18,679
the bottom. After maybe twelve steps, I emerged into a

756
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:22,280
low chamber that defied my every expectation. Concrete block walls,

757
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,800
slate tiled floor, and along one side a motley row

758
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,159
of steel cabinets marked central scripts classified, the labels crackled

759
00:36:28,159 --> 00:36:31,679
in yellow with age. Old office chair stood in semaphore circles,

760
00:36:31,679 --> 00:36:35,039
a handful of typewriters, and the stained brown covers. Beyond

761
00:36:35,079 --> 00:36:36,719
all this, just to the right of a dim red

762
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:39,800
bulb stirred a single metal strong box. The top edge

763
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,199
gleamed faintly till under the dust. But before I could approach,

764
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:45,480
I registered a more immediate threat of shivering echo of

765
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:47,800
footsteps from the opposite side of the subbasement, the thint

766
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,400
scrape of shoes over dial. I stepped behind a pillar, slowing, breathing,

767
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:55,280
clutching my flasklight tight from the corridor. Voices drifted low

768
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:59,840
and careful. One was gravelly accidented with bureaucratic exhaustion. Another

769
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:03,000
shop female altered a voice that vibrated with bad panic.

770
00:37:03,639 --> 00:37:06,119
I can't let it out, No, not again, cousin, you

771
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:09,159
know what's down here. We can't just leave it, replied

772
00:37:09,159 --> 00:37:13,239
the first the protocol. A third voice broke in, steadier,

773
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,840
almost eerily calm. The last time its surface. People vanished

774
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,159
this time it must be finished. I gathered myself, peered

775
00:37:20,159 --> 00:37:23,679
around the pillar. Four figgas in city labeled windbricks clustered

776
00:37:23,679 --> 00:37:26,480
near the strom Bucks. Two at a vaguely recognized from

777
00:37:26,519 --> 00:37:28,639
late night facility foto I d but the other two

778
00:37:28,679 --> 00:37:31,360
were strangers except one. It was bearing even bent with age,

779
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:35,079
carried weightiful, lost authority. Beside her white hair crop tight

780
00:37:35,119 --> 00:37:37,239
stood a woman whose profile sent an electric jolt of

781
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,039
memory through me. The face from the old party photo

782
00:37:40,159 --> 00:37:42,920
hang on a colleague's shoulder. I whispered her name into

783
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,519
my sleeve. Blackwell closer behind the safety of my pillar,

784
00:37:46,639 --> 00:37:50,119
I listened. One of the city men was speaking ters Hanns,

785
00:37:50,159 --> 00:37:53,519
trembling if the note's back. Someone started the chain again, lusaid,

786
00:37:53,519 --> 00:37:56,679
if it broke, surface block called. The older woman replied,

787
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,440
voice almost tender. The list isn't what you think. It

788
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,280
doesn't just keep track. It chooses entry means you're part

789
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,480
of the keeping exits a risk. A heavy silence landed

790
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,039
among the group. Then, in other voice, wheezing and unfamiliar,

791
00:38:09,079 --> 00:38:11,079
Halbert tried to end it. The book wouldn't let them

792
00:38:11,079 --> 00:38:13,280
gnaw the rest. Council said, the shelf could hold, but

793
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,119
it's always the circulation that works the roof. Some one

794
00:38:16,199 --> 00:38:20,079
moved toward the strong box, hand wavering. So what's protocol?

795
00:38:20,159 --> 00:38:23,519
Then do we burn out? Breech Receeal Carson, the only

796
00:38:23,599 --> 00:38:26,519
name I distinctly heard among the faceless bureaucrats, replied, we

797
00:38:26,599 --> 00:38:28,800
can't destroy it. City liability if it gets out in

798
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:30,480
the wild. This place, as the cork and the bottle

799
00:38:30,519 --> 00:38:34,239
always was, My mind went burning, racing the book asterisk

800
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,880
for whispering al l asterisk, whatever relic in the strong box,

801
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:40,360
the names threaded through disappearing records. I thought of the warning,

802
00:38:40,559 --> 00:38:42,880
if you read the list, you are in it. Head

803
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,199
across some arkane rubkein by following these clues. The group

804
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:49,119
gestured and bickoed, tempest close to shattering in the thin

805
00:38:49,199 --> 00:38:51,679
reach of the flash like cones. The strong Books's combination

806
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:54,920
lock was being tried with hestant fingers. Someone near the

807
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,000
back tap furiously at an old security tablet. With the

808
00:38:58,079 --> 00:39:01,280
last twist, the lot popped. The boxes lit stuck. It

809
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,039
took two of them to wrench a loose air wheezed

810
00:39:04,039 --> 00:39:07,119
out to smell like fireworks left up for years from

811
00:39:07,119 --> 00:39:09,840
the depths. Black hole reached with trembling hands and removed

812
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:13,400
the book. Old, yes, but older than even the library's

813
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,039
curated treasures. It's leather cover bore no title. Stamped into

814
00:39:17,079 --> 00:39:20,760
the high barely perceptible, were leaping script initials. It's spine

815
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,199
quivered in the lamp light, colors shifting like spilled oil.

816
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,000
The woman's fingers burst the pages, and I saw the

817
00:39:26,039 --> 00:39:28,800
text warp, lines that wavered, illustrations that seemed to cull

818
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,039
at the margins. Even as black Hall whispered down to

819
00:39:32,079 --> 00:39:35,280
her warning was too late. One of the men, thin bespectacled,

820
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,840
wearing a La pelpin from the city's Coats division, snatched

821
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,159
the book and began thumbing through. At first, he reads silently,

822
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:45,480
lips forming strange words, then abruptly, voice croaking over itself,

823
00:39:45,559 --> 00:39:47,679
he muttered, the list. If I just finished the list,

824
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,639
final enters, it says it right here. Black Hall tried

825
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:53,159
to yank the book from him, shudding, now, you fool,

826
00:39:53,199 --> 00:39:56,639
don't read it aloud. That's how he stumbled back, stammering,

827
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,480
voice and raveling. I can see the names, so many

828
00:39:59,519 --> 00:40:03,480
are how Albert s c Blockwellby Carson l ted. The

829
00:40:03,559 --> 00:40:05,599
more he spoke, the more urgent his tone, as if

830
00:40:05,599 --> 00:40:08,679
deciphering something only he could see. His hands fumbled as

831
00:40:08,679 --> 00:40:11,760
he slammed the book close, knuckles white. It took three

832
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,639
of the group, panic irrupting now to restrain him. The

833
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,119
man shrieked, If I felt the last name, it all stops.

834
00:40:17,159 --> 00:40:19,519
The chain finished the lists, or it starts over and over,

835
00:40:19,679 --> 00:40:23,119
and a black hole, breathing ragged, grabbed the strong box.

836
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:26,079
Her eyes caught the lomp light. They were wild, desperate,

837
00:40:26,199 --> 00:40:28,800
full of something like horror. We need to reseal it

838
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:32,079
or destroy. No, that never worked before. Remember the warehouse fire,

839
00:40:32,199 --> 00:40:35,079
the first breach the permissions drawn up, the groups in

840
00:40:35,119 --> 00:40:39,519
fighting reached cacophony. Someone's flashlight tumbled, rolling with a hollow clan.

841
00:40:40,199 --> 00:40:42,519
In that confusion, I bolted from my cover, aiming for

842
00:40:42,559 --> 00:40:46,199
the far wall, hoping to fade to shadow's edge. But midstep,

843
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,199
Carson's voice were plus out, stop, who are you? Their

844
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,599
flashlights dead or now? Hit me square. For a bare moment,

845
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,639
all sound ceased. I held up my hands, no threat,

846
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,760
no script, but the trude scrape raw. I work upstairs

847
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,239
over night, tempt security. I have no idea what you want,

848
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:02,960
but I know what you're hiding. I want to help

849
00:41:03,039 --> 00:41:05,639
or just understand. Who is our Halbard? What does the

850
00:41:05,679 --> 00:41:09,480
list keep a beat past? Blackhall's eyes bored and to

851
00:41:09,519 --> 00:41:11,920
me from the edge of exhaustion. If you're in here,

852
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,719
you're a part of this. Now that book. She pointed

853
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:16,679
a quaking finger at the object on the table. It's

854
00:41:16,679 --> 00:41:18,840
not catalog, not meant to be read. It's a vector,

855
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,880
a story that eats its keepers. Carson barked. We have

856
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:25,880
to contain protocol, isolation. Cealing would draw all names past circulation.

857
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,679
That's how the chain was broken before the bespectacled councilman splottered.

858
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,559
But there's a way out, it says, so a last

859
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,880
entry Blackwall advanced on him. Nobody who's tried to finish

860
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,320
the list of her leaves right the exits rumor that's

861
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,239
the price. The story survives in fragments, like a virus,

862
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:45,079
book list, vault, shelf note. They began to argue, turning

863
00:41:45,079 --> 00:41:47,840
on each other, wondering whether to rebury or berno, simply

864
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,599
walk away and let the chamber consume and starve. I

865
00:41:50,639 --> 00:41:52,880
thought of the warnings of books that refused to be lost,

866
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,079
of ledgers that eat generations. A new sound derailed the

867
00:41:56,079 --> 00:41:59,639
confrontation and alarm, distant at first, then rising shrill pervasive,

868
00:41:59,679 --> 00:42:02,199
the old five panel screechy. As the faulty system responded

869
00:42:02,199 --> 00:42:05,320
to the disturbance, red strobe lights began to pulse against

870
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,559
the damp walls, casting the scene in staccado. The bespectacle

871
00:42:08,599 --> 00:42:12,360
man broke away, clutching the book cheer's chest. No protocol

872
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,480
says if he finished the listed He turned, fleeing toward

873
00:42:15,519 --> 00:42:18,800
the far passage, knocking over a cart, babbling, it doesn't finish,

874
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,719
It comes back every time, every single The remaining official scattered,

875
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,039
Black Hall, shouting after the man cast and calling for

876
00:42:25,119 --> 00:42:27,559
him to stop, another making for the emergency phone by

877
00:42:27,599 --> 00:42:30,719
the hatch. In the chaos, I locked between two battered

878
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,440
metal cabinets, my mind working ro adrenaline and fear into

879
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,199
a plan. I saw the man's hand wrenches side door.

880
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,760
Alarm sirens wobbled as he vanished up the stairwell, the

881
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,760
dangerous book flapping in his grip. Blackwall gave Chase the

882
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,639
rest sealed after her. I found myself alone but for

883
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,360
the strom Bucks, its lining scattered with crumbling forms, sindic

884
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,199
slipped fragments of names, brittle onion skin paper that bore

885
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,440
in a dozen hands, please for help and warnings to

886
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,880
stay away. I rifled through hand's numb, collecting what I could.

887
00:42:56,519 --> 00:42:59,840
One document bore halberd in a herd, smeared, scripped it.

888
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,000
I made the list. I kept each name. They told

889
00:43:03,039 --> 00:43:04,719
me this would keep us safe. But every time the

890
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,119
book is reopened, more names appear. I only wanted the

891
00:43:07,199 --> 00:43:10,559
children's shell silent again, forgive the line broke off fink

892
00:43:10,599 --> 00:43:13,760
trailing into a wild living scroll. Another slip, this one

893
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:19,320
non city latter had read. Council proves restriction. If itemal reappears, contain, isolate,

894
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:23,119
transfer all responsible staff, and destroy associated list after sealing.

895
00:43:23,159 --> 00:43:26,519
If protocol fails, informed bacal l. None of it made

896
00:43:26,559 --> 00:43:29,039
sense except in the language of fear breaers and experts,

897
00:43:29,079 --> 00:43:32,000
making walls of paperwork to box in something fundamentally unspeakable,

898
00:43:32,079 --> 00:43:34,880
and failing, each generation, passing the burden on thening the

899
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,559
truth to rumour. Sirens wailed a new overhead, A mechanical

900
00:43:38,559 --> 00:43:42,559
clank signaled the sprinklow system's activation. Water hissed, arrangent pipes

901
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,840
raining down in patch called reubens, and then mercifully smoke

902
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:48,159
began to billow from the hallway, false smoke that triggered

903
00:43:48,159 --> 00:43:50,199
the intrusion system, but I did not wait to see

904
00:43:50,199 --> 00:43:51,880
who or what would return. Now that the alarm had

905
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:55,440
called city response, I gathered a clutch of slips nose

906
00:43:55,679 --> 00:43:58,159
and the small dense tube of glass with Halbert's handwriting.

907
00:43:58,639 --> 00:44:00,920
With care but not much grace, I slid across the

908
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,519
wet tile toward the ladder, hand shaky knees knock into

909
00:44:03,559 --> 00:44:06,280
rungs as I climbed back to the shelf above trap

910
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,840
was swan shut behind me with a ponderous thud. The

911
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,280
book the other one astrous the whisper now lusters. I

912
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,360
couldn't find where I'd first hidden it, nor in the

913
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:15,800
disordered shelves, but I had no time to search for it.

914
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,559
Now it would reappear, I was certain it always did. Smoking.

915
00:44:20,639 --> 00:44:22,760
The shriek of fire alarms covered my tracks as I

916
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,719
scrambled up through the worn of wreck of rooms and

917
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,400
out into the prudormed groy Even as I slid past

918
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,880
the children's section, the lights foockered and died. I saw

919
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:32,880
movement in the reflection of the puppet theater, A two

920
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:35,599
tall silouette coat trailing arms clutching a book to its

921
00:44:35,639 --> 00:44:38,559
chest from the last home. Before the exit. I looked

922
00:44:38,559 --> 00:44:40,880
over my shoulder, certain that if I lingered, I would

923
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:44,079
see ah Halberd or black hole or corsin, but only shadows, replied.

924
00:44:44,679 --> 00:44:48,199
I left the library by side door, footsteps slipping on siliclinoleum.

925
00:44:48,519 --> 00:44:51,320
For the next three days I slept at Oddire's anxiety

926
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:53,920
worn into my skin like die. I did not answer

927
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:57,239
when the supervise a cult. Instead, I composed and then

928
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:59,880
recomposed an anonymous dossiate. Every piece of evidence I could

929
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:02,599
man uster, photos of the door, a coin, the index slips,

930
00:45:02,679 --> 00:45:04,760
the notes pulled from the strom books, my catalog of

931
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,800
logan anomalies, attached with a brief cover letter, There's something

932
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,159
wrong in Themley Library. Look for the names start in

933
00:45:10,159 --> 00:45:12,559
the vault under beatty. Do not trust the official lists.

934
00:45:13,159 --> 00:45:16,199
I sent it to three city reporters, one city archievist,

935
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,840
and a former councilwoman roumored to be collecting stories about

936
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,480
the old municipal coal cases. The only acknowledgment I received

937
00:45:22,519 --> 00:45:25,599
was a message received form letter Think Comfort. But two

938
00:45:25,679 --> 00:45:28,599
days later the news broke. Renovations at Anneli Library were

939
00:45:28,639 --> 00:45:32,400
abuptly and indefinitely suspended contractors. Some at any rate were

940
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:36,639
paid off, others quietly reassigned City Council's emergency agen deduct

941
00:45:36,679 --> 00:45:40,039
library review near the bottom, just above public safety fence repairs.

942
00:45:40,599 --> 00:45:42,800
Walking past the library that week, I saw apply would

943
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,559
go up over the lower level windows. Contract as none

944
00:45:45,559 --> 00:45:47,280
of whom wore the lineyard badges had come to no

945
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,639
tipped over glass doors, and what had once been a

946
00:45:49,639 --> 00:45:52,079
rear alley for deliverers was sealed with steel panels. Sir

947
00:45:52,119 --> 00:45:55,880
heavy the elerked warsaplus. Nobody explained the sudden shift. The

948
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,599
local news called it asbestos reevaluation and unexpected subfloor issues,

949
00:46:00,199 --> 00:46:01,639
but I knew the truth for what it was a

950
00:46:01,679 --> 00:46:04,639
pattern of hasty containment, an old story repeating itself, just

951
00:46:04,679 --> 00:46:07,880
tidier for the next generation. My own departure was swift.

952
00:46:08,559 --> 00:46:11,119
I've hacked the things I needed, left a resignation notice

953
00:46:11,119 --> 00:46:13,239
in the payil portal, and deleted all traces of my

954
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,280
login ide except when a ghost signature are left behind

955
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,440
in the staff checking system. More habit than message. I

956
00:46:19,519 --> 00:46:21,400
left the city with a battered suit case and as

957
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:23,679
many notes as were fit in the shoe books. Destination

958
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:26,360
chosen on a whim. The rest are mailed by slow

959
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:28,679
posts to my own chain pee o box, just in case.

960
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,639
In the months that followed, I lay low, drifting between gigs.

961
00:46:33,079 --> 00:46:35,559
My own reputation, shredded and ill served by an old

962
00:46:35,599 --> 00:46:38,559
town's memory, was no less battered, for the events of

963
00:46:38,599 --> 00:46:40,960
the library trailed me like shaken dust on old shoes.

964
00:46:41,599 --> 00:46:43,880
I found myself awake at three zero, a m ever

965
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:47,639
inherited instinct warning me off new routine. I compulsively counted

966
00:46:47,639 --> 00:46:50,440
doors and windows in every new place I stayed. Yet

967
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,440
it was silence that followed me, hardest silence and a

968
00:46:53,519 --> 00:46:56,079
dread Brettel like ice. Whenever I glimpsed the curve of

969
00:46:56,079 --> 00:46:58,480
a dome anywhere, or the glint of brass hardware that

970
00:46:58,519 --> 00:47:02,119
recalled the library's trap door, I thought sometimes that I'd

971
00:47:02,159 --> 00:47:04,840
hear Blackhaw's voice, or gussily echo of Helber's an even

972
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,360
script whispering from just around the corner. Six months passed

973
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:10,880
in this half shadow. I moved once more to a

974
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,280
smaller city, smaller rooms, smaller libraries, to shelter in. I

975
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,360
stopped checking headlines for Anneline News, forced myself not to

976
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,440
look for robituaries, retirement notices or staff transfer lists. I

977
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,719
tried to convince myself the story was closed until in

978
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,920
late autumn a package arrived at my door. Their return

979
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:30,719
address was playing the library's old zip code, nothing more.

980
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,119
The postage stamp was curling. Tucked inside the Battle of

981
00:47:34,119 --> 00:47:36,719
Manilla envelope, wrapped in brown paper, was an object that

982
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:38,840
dried the blood in my veins the moment I recognized it,

983
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,719
A hard covered children's book, as tape worn corners familiar

984
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:46,159
as breath Astoris, the whispering owl asterisk. The book was

985
00:47:46,159 --> 00:47:49,159
heavier than I remembered, walked by water or by something deeper.

986
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,559
Inside the front cover, pressed out against the ancient, boring slip,

987
00:47:52,639 --> 00:47:56,199
my hands found an new note. The handwriting so like Halber's,

988
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:58,599
so liked. The message left months before, trembled along the

989
00:47:58,679 --> 00:48:01,800
upper margin. It's if not finished, the book always comes back.

990
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:05,239
Don't trust the lists. The page smelled of attic, distant fear.

991
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:08,119
I turned it over and found, beneath the brittle end

992
00:48:08,159 --> 00:48:10,440
peeper a slip of city ladder head, torn small, thin

993
00:48:10,519 --> 00:48:13,400
enough to be seen through on it. The names still there,

994
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:16,199
mine among them now are cold freshening at the end

995
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:18,239
of the list, a small dash trailing off instead of

996
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,239
a period. I placed the book in a drawer. I

997
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:25,320
moved to another apartment, kept the curtains drawn. Still, some nights,

998
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:27,840
lying in the silence, I would hear it, a gentle skitter,

999
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,119
the pulseive paper shuffle by unseen hands. No matter how

1000
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,719
quiet a cat the sensation would grow an animal certainty

1001
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,800
that somewhere barely out of sight, something was returning, reading

1002
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,960
itself quietly back into the world. No matter at the doors,

1003
00:48:40,079 --> 00:48:42,239
the locks, the lists, or the vaults, the story was

1004
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,920
always looking to be finished. All was waiting, and by

1005
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:47,960
the time you heard it, you were already part of it.

1006
00:48:48,119 --> 00:48:50,519
Just one more name, quietly cataloged in a volume that

1007
00:48:50,559 --> 00:48:53,840
would never quite let itself be shelved. Sometimes at dusk,

1008
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:55,599
the air would dicken with a hush that made me

1009
00:48:55,639 --> 00:48:57,360
pause hard in might row, as if waiting for the

1010
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:59,760
scrape of a child's chair. Over all anoleum, but in

1011
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,360
an a new apartment miles from Manneley Streets. All was

1012
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:05,559
thin walls and the distant drone of city buses. Even so,

1013
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:08,039
every so often I'd hear the sound fluttering, gentle, a

1014
00:49:08,119 --> 00:49:10,360
flick of pages somewhere behind plaster board, or leaking up

1015
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,960
from the floorboards. I started finding things moved around the room,

1016
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:16,199
a coffee mark sid in inch sidewards, a spare key,

1017
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,840
knock from a dish. They were small, mundane gestures, but

1018
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,159
each time the book weighed heavier in its drawer, vibrant

1019
00:49:22,199 --> 00:49:24,679
even through the density of old wood. I thought of

1020
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,480
mailing it away, burning it, burying it deep as the

1021
00:49:27,519 --> 00:49:29,920
old strong books. But every plan seemed to shrink beside

1022
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,679
the simple fact of its return. One evening, with the

1023
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:34,880
northern wind rattling the windows, I set the book out

1024
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,039
on the kitchen table and sat staring at its cover.

1025
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:40,480
I made tea, poured half without noticing the steam curling

1026
00:49:40,519 --> 00:49:44,519
up and slow, insistent spirals. It felt like a mutelyjgmental guest.

1027
00:49:45,159 --> 00:49:47,519
At length, I flipped it open, the note, the new

1028
00:49:47,519 --> 00:49:51,320
one trembling and urgentry main tuct inside its ink was splotched,

1029
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:53,199
as if some one's rest had trembled. At the close.

1030
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:55,719
I took a deep breath in at this time let

1031
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,679
myself read the list of names fully, Blackwell, Halberd, Corson,

1032
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:00,519
and all the way at the bottom. Mind the block

1033
00:50:00,559 --> 00:50:02,679
printed letter just faint linear than the rest, as if

1034
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:04,840
the page itself had absorbed my story. The moment I

1035
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,519
touched the book, my hand trembled as I closed the

1036
00:50:07,559 --> 00:50:10,159
volume with a soft clap. The lamp stuttered as I

1037
00:50:10,199 --> 00:50:13,599
did so, filament catching for a heartbeat. I waited, expecting

1038
00:50:13,599 --> 00:50:15,840
a chill, was some distant knock from the old library's

1039
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:18,960
pipes come to haunt me here? But the silence hell waiting.

1040
00:50:19,519 --> 00:50:22,400
The logic of the library, I realized, wasn't merely about

1041
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,440
containment or banishment. It was about story, A story that

1042
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,960
sustained its half on attention. Sixies burden, the book that

1043
00:50:29,079 --> 00:50:31,280
lists the hiding of names, all whether to keep the

1044
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,880
cycle unbroken, to make sure someone was always watching, always responsible,

1045
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:36,559
and able to look away for fear the story might

1046
00:50:36,599 --> 00:50:39,119
spill outward. So I did the only thing I felt

1047
00:50:39,119 --> 00:50:41,679
true and called my own name aloud to the empty room.

1048
00:50:42,039 --> 00:50:44,800
My voice, hoarse from disieuse, surprised me with its steadiness.

1049
00:50:45,559 --> 00:50:48,360
You have me, I said, you have my name, What

1050
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,360
do you want? The only answer was a breeze shivering

1051
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:53,360
in the window seams, a thin ripple running through my

1052
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:56,079
stack of unpaid bills. I left the lamp on and

1053
00:50:56,119 --> 00:50:58,679
walked into the small bedroom before colla my bare feet.

1054
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,880
I stood by the aware how easily this could evolve

1055
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:04,719
into madness, talking to gohists and old paper, explaining away

1056
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:07,920
the impossible as insamnia strick. The sleep did not find me.

1057
00:51:08,039 --> 00:51:10,760
That night, through the thin wall, I listened to someone

1058
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,360
playing in old radio, the volume ebbing and rising oddly.

1059
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:16,599
At one moment, when the station static twisted, I caught

1060
00:51:16,639 --> 00:51:18,840
what sounded like a recitation of names, like a roll call,

1061
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,760
terribly familiar. I pressed my ear to the wall. It halted,

1062
00:51:23,119 --> 00:51:25,800
replaced by the gentle shuffle of newsprint. The host reading library.

1063
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:27,960
I was for a town I'd never heard of. My

1064
00:51:28,039 --> 00:51:30,920
skin crawled. I could not quite convince myself that I

1065
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:35,440
had misheard. I tried distractions. I met grocery lists, called

1066
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,199
my sister after midnight, just to hear her laughter. I

1067
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:40,960
filled out job applications for night clerk, for copy editor,

1068
00:51:41,039 --> 00:51:44,480
for bus schedule of sliding into anonymity. But the weight remained,

1069
00:51:44,519 --> 00:51:46,199
the book in the drawer at the slip with my name,

1070
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:47,880
the echo of the trap doors hinge every time a

1071
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,960
cabinis squeaked open in the building's hall. After a week,

1072
00:51:51,119 --> 00:51:53,920
fatigue carved me out my hands shook as I reached

1073
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:56,599
for the kettle. One wet morning, heavy with the scent

1074
00:51:56,679 --> 00:51:59,320
of distant snow, I found myself at the local branch library,

1075
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,400
a squat red gremment built on a triangle lot. Its

1076
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,000
shelves were plain to smell, nothing like Annelie's old corridor,

1077
00:52:05,079 --> 00:52:07,320
but even so, I stopped in the children's section and

1078
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:11,440
ran my fingers along the spines. Each book felt warm, safe, ordinary.

1079
00:52:12,079 --> 00:52:13,960
I was about to step away when an elderly man

1080
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,719
in a warren green cardigan, a staff lyingard around his neck,

1081
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:19,760
wheeled in a cart of returns. He stacked books in

1082
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:22,480
tidy rows, then glanced up and gave me a careful smile,

1083
00:52:23,199 --> 00:52:25,920
looking for anything in particular. His tone was soft to

1084
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:28,760
crook in the brow, gentle stewardship in his voice. I

1085
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:31,159
shook my head, then heard myself asking do you keep

1086
00:52:31,199 --> 00:52:33,440
a list of lost books once you can' quite account for?

1087
00:52:34,039 --> 00:52:37,599
He considered me misfouled more often than not. Sometimes, though

1088
00:52:37,639 --> 00:52:40,760
they do go missing, nothing fantcy kids pocket them most likely.

1089
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:43,679
He set a slim hard back on the shelf, then pause,

1090
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:45,920
his fingers resting on the book as he met my eyes.

1091
00:52:46,639 --> 00:52:49,239
But sometimes the same ones do come back years later,

1092
00:52:49,519 --> 00:52:52,280
no one claiming them old habits, I think are his

1093
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,920
gaze shop and almost playful, something in the stories that

1094
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:57,840
wants to be found again. I tried to weigh his meaning,

1095
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:00,760
searching for a glimmer of recognition, and inside Joe a test.

1096
00:53:01,559 --> 00:53:04,440
Was it only common sense? Or did o though librarians

1097
00:53:04,519 --> 00:53:07,280
keep their own ghostless doors bray shut against stores too

1098
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:11,159
unruly to shelve. Anais interrupted the nervous Shatto school children,

1099
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,519
the plain and convenience of the day. He gave me

1100
00:53:13,559 --> 00:53:15,840
a nod and trundled away, and I felt the strangest

1101
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:19,079
pang of envy for his simplicity. Was I looking for validation,

1102
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:21,880
for permission to breathe more easily? Or for some one

1103
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,440
else already entangled by the library shadow? Back at my apartment,

1104
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,639
toilette gathered, pressing against the window. I sat at the

1105
00:53:28,679 --> 00:53:31,320
kitchen table, the copy of Astris the Whispering Our Lastus

1106
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,639
between my hands. I examined the book more closely, this time,

1107
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,079
hunting for change, any sign it wanted to reveal something new.

1108
00:53:37,679 --> 00:53:39,800
Under the dust jacket, I found a thread bare patch

1109
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,679
where perhaps a label had been torn away. Running my

1110
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,119
nail over the edge, A seam lifted slightly, and with

1111
00:53:45,159 --> 00:53:47,679
a decisive tug, a folded slip fell out, flatter and

1112
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:51,199
older than the others. A near miraculous survivor, I unfolded it,

1113
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:54,320
heart pounding. The ink was faded almost to invisibility, but

1114
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,880
in the hard light words emerged to be kept record

1115
00:53:57,880 --> 00:53:59,920
of all terraces to risk. Let the last care to

1116
00:54:00,159 --> 00:54:01,559
his name be the verse in the next. If you

1117
00:54:01,599 --> 00:54:03,599
inherit tell no one but those who have also seen

1118
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:07,320
versions multiply, lis expand there is always another shelf. A

1119
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:10,159
signature at the bottom, just three loopy initials S, C, B.

1120
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,360
So the story had always been recursive, filling the empty

1121
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:16,719
spaces left behind. Each failed attempt to bury it only

1122
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:18,679
forced a new care to go, another set of hands,

1123
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:22,199
another attempt at silence. Overwhelmed, I pressed the slip to

1124
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:24,320
my forehead, trying to imagine what would happen if I

1125
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:26,679
simply gave in, Let the story sweep outward, warned, no

1126
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,360
one left. The name at the bottom acclaimed, would the

1127
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,639
cycle collapse? Or would something far worse bleed up? Through

1128
00:54:32,679 --> 00:54:35,960
a hundred new books? Drifting shelf to shelf, I stared

1129
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,280
at the batter cover of asters who whispering al lastrous

1130
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:41,119
convod of Halberd's desperate plea of black holes, stricken eyes

1131
00:54:41,159 --> 00:54:44,000
in the subbasement of Cosson's clipped warnings of the forgotten

1132
00:54:44,039 --> 00:54:47,199
city workers, coded language, the compulsive thoroughness of all who

1133
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:49,840
had come before me. They'd each believe they could keep

1134
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:51,880
the truth safe, keep the story locked in the vault

1135
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,719
with the rest of the restricted debris, but stores clow

1136
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:57,119
their way out. I stood and opened the front door,

1137
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,679
breathing a brisk night air. I held the book at

1138
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,119
arms length, poised to fling it into the yard, but

1139
00:55:02,159 --> 00:55:05,079
found myself unable. I pressed the cover to my chest,

1140
00:55:05,119 --> 00:55:08,440
breath shuddering. The memory of the trap board, the subasement stink,

1141
00:55:08,519 --> 00:55:10,280
the shift of that other ancient book in the Strom

1142
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:14,000
Book's name, shifting, catholog mutating rose up. I saw for

1143
00:55:14,079 --> 00:55:16,599
a flash the battered hands of the council when clutching

1144
00:55:16,599 --> 00:55:18,920
something unnamable, his force fraying as he tried to finish

1145
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:22,719
the list. Every attempt at refusal was a continuation. A

1146
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:25,320
cough from the stair will startled me. It was only

1147
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:29,039
Missess Loring, the upstairs neighbor, with her shopping bags. She

1148
00:55:29,119 --> 00:55:32,440
gave me a when smile reading late, She said, forced

1149
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:36,639
gravely something like that. I replied, forcing a semblance of calm.

1150
00:55:37,159 --> 00:55:40,079
She hesitated at her bower, then, in a backward glance, said,

1151
00:55:40,199 --> 00:55:42,599
my father used to say stories, find the teller, keep

1152
00:55:42,639 --> 00:55:45,440
yours close, and don't read after midnight. She disappeared with

1153
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:48,039
the clack of her door. I shut my own softly.

1154
00:55:48,679 --> 00:55:51,719
The book burning in my hands seemed to tremble with possibility,

1155
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:55,280
the compulsion built by degrees like thirst, mounting slowly to

1156
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:58,559
a desperate and ignorable need. I sat at the table,

1157
00:55:58,599 --> 00:56:00,840
took out the battered slip and read aloud the warning,

1158
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,320
testing the words in the hush of the night. Don't

1159
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:06,119
tryst the list, Please help before it's too late. The

1160
00:56:06,159 --> 00:56:09,320
air in the room shifted. The lamp flickered, once, fled,

1161
00:56:09,360 --> 00:56:12,119
then faded for a second. It seemed as if the

1162
00:56:12,119 --> 00:56:14,400
stack of unpaid bills in the far counterstowed a single

1163
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:18,719
envelope fluttering over the linoleum. It was enough. I rose

1164
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:21,440
found the envelope that had moved and scanned the handwriting.

1165
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,239
It was my own scroll. Too quickly a grocery list

1166
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:26,519
begun and never finished, with my first initial and last

1167
00:56:26,559 --> 00:56:29,199
name at the top, that echo of that recursive return.

1168
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:32,360
I joined the story circle without end. I looked back

1169
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:38,159
at the book, nearly breathless. What was it hungry for continuity, secrecy,

1170
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:42,119
my defeat, or did it simply urge another caretaker, desperate

1171
00:56:42,119 --> 00:56:44,400
for relief, to reach for help when they too realized

1172
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:47,119
the list could not be finished nor safely erased. There

1173
00:56:47,159 --> 00:56:49,239
was a single blank line on the oldest boiling slip,

1174
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,639
the one with all the names, just beneath my own.

1175
00:56:52,199 --> 00:56:54,679
I considered writing in another name, any one, a librarian,

1176
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:58,320
a neighborer, a faceless city official. I imagined the ribble as

1177
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,679
the pattern continued, spooling out to draw in. The urge faded,

1178
00:57:01,679 --> 00:57:03,639
almost as quickly as it had come, replaced by an

1179
00:57:03,679 --> 00:57:06,960
ake of responsibility. Instead, I wrote a letter, not an

1180
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,920
inheritance of dread, but a confession. I addressed it to

1181
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:13,320
the city's main branch, attention to future staff records. I

1182
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:16,199
described the book as journey what I'd witnessed in the abasement,

1183
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:19,039
and ended with an apology. If you find this, let

1184
00:57:19,039 --> 00:57:20,840
the story end with me, for still it so tightly

1185
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:23,480
that not even memory can ship it free. I bundled

1186
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,559
the book letter slips every fray bit of evidence, careful

1187
00:57:26,559 --> 00:57:28,400
not to leave out the old coin, and wrapped them

1188
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:29,920
into When I found buried at the bottom of a

1189
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:32,800
kitchen drawer, I left the package on my postman's shell

1190
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,920
for anonymous return, Knowing with a certainty, rooted and helplessness

1191
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:38,440
that the library's address was still memorized in my bones.

1192
00:57:39,079 --> 00:57:41,880
I did not leave a return address. The next days

1193
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,360
were thick with waiting. I felt for the packag's weight

1194
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:46,480
missing from my life, and watched the mail books with

1195
00:57:46,519 --> 00:57:49,679
the kind of grim anticipation. No package returned, not yet,

1196
00:57:50,119 --> 00:57:53,320
only junk fires and half hearted bills. Still the hush

1197
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:56,239
hovered at the edges of consciousness. I kept a journal

1198
00:57:56,239 --> 00:57:59,320
by my bed, jotting any strange sound, any accidental shift

1199
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:01,679
in routine, trying to capture the story before it followed

1200
00:58:01,679 --> 00:58:04,800
me out. I stopped visiting the Little Neighborhood library, afraid

1201
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:06,519
to see the book waiting for me there, or worse,

1202
00:58:06,639 --> 00:58:08,840
a name, my name on a list already pinned to

1203
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:11,599
the staff board. The letter the book felt like a

1204
00:58:11,639 --> 00:58:14,440
confessions and ahead of her disaster. But at night, as

1205
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:16,599
I tried to rest, I woke down familiar foots sets

1206
00:58:16,639 --> 00:58:18,679
in the hallway, the flutter of pages against the silence,

1207
00:58:18,719 --> 00:58:22,199
no sleep could breach. Sometimes, on the edge of waking,

1208
00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:24,559
I seemed to hear a child's voice, as if reading

1209
00:58:24,599 --> 00:58:27,159
to itself. Some were just beneath the floor. On the

1210
00:58:27,159 --> 00:58:29,719
third night, when the wind drove hard against the building,

1211
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,000
I heard someone knock at the door. Three sharp raps, impatient,

1212
00:58:33,039 --> 00:58:36,199
then nothing. When I checked, the hall was empty. At

1213
00:58:36,199 --> 00:58:38,199
my feet. Slipped under the frame was a plain slip

1214
00:58:38,199 --> 00:58:41,400
of card in tiny script. It read, It's not finished.

1215
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:44,280
The book always comes back. Don't trust the lists. I

1216
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:46,960
crushed it in my palm, fighting anger and sadness. Both

1217
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,679
the door's need for attention for a new Tello was insatiable.

1218
00:58:51,159 --> 00:58:52,719
I did not sleep for the rest of the night.

1219
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:55,639
I waited in my chair until dawn, sweat chilling on

1220
00:58:55,679 --> 00:58:57,719
my back, the familiar pane of helples in his settling

1221
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:01,000
in once more. When morning came, all knights slanting across

1222
00:59:01,039 --> 00:59:03,320
the kitchen table are resolved not to cower, not to

1223
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,559
flee from any library, not to let FURBI the only

1224
00:59:05,599 --> 00:59:08,440
outcome I wrote along message to Benny, the clerk from

1225
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:11,199
Anna laid tracing his last known contact, private email. I'd

1226
00:59:11,199 --> 00:59:14,239
scribbled hastily. Before leaving. I told him to be careful,

1227
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:16,079
to watch for the children's books, to ask about the

1228
00:59:16,079 --> 00:59:18,599
old names. I signed off with a plea, You're not

1229
00:59:18,639 --> 00:59:21,000
alone in this. If you find assers, the whispering Alaster

1230
00:59:21,119 --> 00:59:23,400
is comong the shelves, don't read the slip, don't try

1231
00:59:23,400 --> 00:59:27,119
to finish the list. Weeks past, the package I'd sent

1232
00:59:27,199 --> 00:59:30,760
did not return. No reporter called, no city official knot.

1233
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:33,920
The story for now seen sealed tighter than before, but

1234
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:37,000
the unees never left. I woke the new city's streets,

1235
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:39,920
watching the faces of commuteros for the suspicion, the glint

1236
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,159
of someone who knew, someone who had seen the same things.

1237
00:59:42,159 --> 00:59:45,679
In the hush before morning, sometimes late at night, as

1238
00:59:45,679 --> 00:59:47,840
had lets trace the ceiling and shadows drifted over the

1239
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:50,519
kitchen tile, I'd hear the unmistakable hiss of paper sliding

1240
00:59:50,519 --> 00:59:53,920
against itself, a book somewhere being opened, just out of sight,

1241
00:59:54,159 --> 00:59:57,119
just out of mind, biding time. There'd be no final entry,

1242
00:59:57,239 --> 01:00:01,599
no true clover. The story weaned on and tighter. I

1243
01:00:01,719 --> 01:00:03,400
was only the most recent line in a ledger that

1244
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:06,199
never balanced. If you find this, no, the list is

1245
01:00:06,239 --> 01:00:09,239
not finished. The book always finds its way back, one

1246
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:12,760
page at a time. Don't trust the list, don't trust

1247
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:15,840
the silence. And if one day you hear the soft

1248
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,440
flutter of turning pages in the dark, remember some one

1249
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:21,440
else has already written your name down. Some stores can

1250
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:25,360
only be kept, not ended, and that is the end.

1251
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:27,639
Thank you for listening, and I will see you in

1252
01:00:27,679 --> 01:00:36,280
the next one.