The Library of Ever

by Zeno Alexander

  This second man carried a walking stick, just like the first, but other than that, they could not have looked more different. Rather than a purple puffy face, this man had smooth, fine features, and rather than being stuffed into an ill-fitting overcoat, his coat fit his slender frame perfectly. He beamed at Lenora with a most handsome, pleasant smile.

  “At last we meet, my dear little Lenora,” he said in what had to be the friendliest voice Lenora had ever heard. He fixed the first man with a scowl. “I must apologize for the actions of my associate here, as well as all of the others. Their hearts were in the right place, but they went about everything all wrong.”

  “Hmph,” the first man huffed, folding his arms across his chest.

  The second man turned his pleasant smile back to Lenora, but she did not return it.

  “What do you mean, their hearts were in the right place?” she asked. “They tried to strand me in time and space, and trap me on a globe, and stomp me flat!”

  “Yes, but they failed, didn’t they?” the second man replied. “You proved to be much too resourceful and courageous for such crude methods. So no harm done.”

  “Uh,” said Lenora, not sure how to respond. If you tried to harm someone and failed, it didn’t mean no harm had been done.

  “She’s a threat,” spat the first man. “I say we eat her now and get it over with.”

  Lenora didn’t like the sound of that. Could she enlist any patrons for help? She felt she should not look away from the men, not for an instant, but glancing out of the corner of her eye, she could see the patrons strangely hunched and shivering in their chairs, oddly oblivious to the strange conversation going on amid the otherwise perfect silence. No help there.

  The second man rolled his eyes. “No one is going to eat anyone. Lenora is an intelligent child. Once she understands how dangerous her actions have been, she’s certain to cooperate.”

  “Dangerous?” asked Lenora in surprise. “All I’ve done is help patrons at the library! What’s so dangerous about that?”

  “We’ve seen the perfect example just now,” the man replied. “In fact, we tried to stop you but couldn’t get here in time. It’s about the girl you gave that book to. It was a terrible, terrible thing to do, Lenora.”

  “It’s only a scientific history of the universe,” Lenora said. “What’s terrible about that?”

  The man sighed. “She is only a little girl, you see. A happy, contented little girl. But there are facts in that book that will … disturb her. Disrupt her. Cause her to feel fear, uncertainty, and doubt.”

  “Are the facts true?” Lenora asked.

  The second man was about to answer when the first interrupted harshly. “Who knows? Scientists are wrong all the time! Scientists once thought the Earth was flat, until Christopher Columbus proved them wrong.”

  “That’s not true at all,” said Lenora. She had read a book about this very topic while sitting under a tree one day. The lengthy report she’d written about it had pleased her teacher. “Philosophers and scientists have known since ancient times that the Earth is round. A Greek scholar named Eratosthenes even calculated the distance around it more than two thousand years ago. And if Columbus hadn’t ignored those measurements, he would have known he hadn’t landed in Asia.”

  The second man laughed. “I told you,” he said to the first. “Lenora is far too smart, and perceptive, and insightful”—here Lenora wondered whether the man thought showering her with praise would do anything but make her more suspicious—“for such foolishness. You can see why she makes such a dangerous librarian.”

  “I still don’t understand the dangerous part,” Lenora said. “The girl had questions. I helped her find answers. Maybe the answers will disturb her, but isn’t it better for her to know the truth?”

  The second man was continuing to smile his pleasant smile, but somehow Lenora felt it was just a little less pleasant than it had been before. “Even if you don’t care about the girl’s feelings—and with you being such a kind and charitable child, I find that surprising—you might consider the effect on the future. You see, that girl is going to read many more books after she finishes that one, and years from now, when she is grown, she is going to take the things she learned in those books and make new discoveries that will unsettle and disturb the entire world.”

  “Unsettle and disturb it how?” asked Lenora, feeling uncertain. For if—if—the man were telling the truth, it seemed that she was making a rather momentous decision.

  “Billions will have their lives upended,” the second man said calmly. “They will learn of things both very large, strange attractors that exist beyond the reach of today’s telescopes, and things very small, powerful energies lurking beneath the capability of today’s microscopes to see. Things more unexpected than you can imagine. Questions will be raised that will shock the world. Many will be frightened by this knowledge and will seek to retreat from it. There will be conflict.”

  That didn’t sound good to Lenora at all. But at the time same, she felt that she was now on firmer ground. “I’m sorry there will be conflict and people will be frightened,” she replied. “But that has happened before. Galileo unsettled people when he told them the Earth moves around the sun, and he was punished for it, and the new knowledge was banned, for a time. But aren’t we glad we know the truth today?” She reflected on what an excellent book she had used for her report and resolved to see if she could find a copy in the library.

  Now the second man’s smile didn’t seem pleasant at all but actually rather frosty. “Perhaps I misjudged you, Lenora,” he said, and the frost was in his voice, too. “I thought you were wise enough to understand that children must be discouraged from asking questions that will make them curious and fretful. Perhaps I overestimated you. After all, you’re just a child yourself.”

  “Maybe,” said Lenora, with equal frost. “But I’m also a librarian. And I’m not going to hide the truth from anyone.”

  Now the second man’s smile—frosty or pleasant or otherwise—was completely gone. “I am going to give you one last chance, little girl,” he said. “One last chance before we turn back to the methods of my associate.” In a swift gesture, the second man opened his coat—and though it was only open for an instant, Lenora glimpsed a deep darkness beneath it, like the view she had seen of outer space, but without the stars—and removed a sheet of paper. “I have here a list of books. Dangerous books. Books that will disturb young minds. Books you must remove from the library.”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” said Lenora, crossing her arms on her chest. She could feel her heart pounding, but she kept herself steady.

  The second man frowned toward the first. “It seems you were right,” he said.

  The first man grinned vilely and held out his hand. The second man took it.

  Lenora recoiled as the two hands seemed to melt into each other, until there was just one long arm. But the arm was getting shorter, and then the two men were melting together like candles, and in moments there were not two men, but one man, twice the size of either, towering over Lenora with one huge bowler hat on his head.

  The giant grinned down at Lenora with a mouth full of sharp teeth.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lenora and the Light

  Lenora broke for the exit. The giant man was partially blocking her, but if she ran she might make it—but then she realized guiltily that she had been on the verge of abandoning her patrons. She snatched up the nearest weapon she could find—a ruler—and raced out from behind the Help Desk. “Library emergency!” she cried, running from table to table and smacking the ruler against the tabletops. “Everyone evacuate this section immediately!” The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight, for she could feel the giant man lurking behind her, creeping closer as she ran about the tables. One by one, startled patrons came to life, suddenly noticing the giant man with very sharp teeth, and one by one they dropped everything and ran from the room.

  As the last patron
exited, the room darkened. Lenora looked up. The skylight no longer showed the light of day but instead showed an inky night with no stars, as though a heavy curtain had closed across the sky. Lights throughout the section flickered and went out. Everything was cloaked in darkness. Lenora could no longer see the exit. In fact, she could hardly see anything at all, because the only light left seemed to be a faint glow.

  A glow that was somehow coming from Lenora herself.

  She heard a rumbling growl to her left. She turned to face it, and her glow revealed the giant.

  He was no longer a giant.

  He was a monstrous thing, forty feet high, composed of pure darkness, black eyes glittering. Shreds of his suit jacket flapped in tatters on each side, and within the tatters, within the darkness, Lenora could see images rushing past like broken bits of a movie—books piled up in flames, with people rushing to throw more books onto the fire, a hideous blaze with a horrid scent that stung Lenora’s nose, and then there were wooden ships hurling fire at a tower on the edge of the ocean, a tower surrounded by walls of rubble, and then a great city full of domes where men on horseback fired arrows at fleeing people as buildings behind them burned and burned.

  And through the streets just ahead of the archers raced a girl, a very tall, thin girl with a very sharp nose, her arms full of scrolls and her face full of terror.

  Lenora thrust the ruler before her like a sword. “GET OUT OF MY LIBRARY!” she roared.

  The thing rose over her and descended with a bellow, a whirlwind filled with screams. Lenora reared back to fight as the darkness enveloped her. She could no longer see anything, but she could hear shrieks filling her ears and she could feel hot tendrils snaking around her arm, and then—

  The tendrils were torn away. Suddenly, there was brilliant, shining light everywhere, and she was surrounded by gentle warmth that covered her like a blanket. Outside the blanket, she sensed furious blows raining down, but the blows could not penetrate the warmth and could not harm her. The stench of burning books faded as light returned and Lenora could see the library again.

  “Malachi!” Lenora cried.

  “Yes, Lenora,” replied the Chief Answerer, who had her arms around Lenora in a powerful embrace.

  Above them the shrieking darkness, furious with rage, folded in on itself until it was nothing more than a dot. The dot vanished with a pop. Daylight returned to the sky.

  Malachi released her and stood, staring hard at the spot where the darkness had vanished. The Chief Answerer was pale, and her hand was trembling ever so slightly, and for the first time Lenora realized that she herself was afraid, very afraid. Until just now, she’d been too busy to feel it.

  “What was that?” she asked, when she had managed to recover her senses.

  Malachi sagged onto the Help Desk, her shoulders slumped. Her hair had come loose from its bun and was down to her shoulders. The pencils in the bun were nowhere to be seen. She looked at Lenora with weary eyes. “Have you ever heard the term Forces of Darkness, Lenora?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” said Malachi, “it has been applied by many people to many things. But there is a true force of darkness, and that was it.”

  Lenora gazed at the spot where the darkness had vanished.

  And then she knew.

  “Knowledge Is a Light,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” replied Malachi. “Knowledge Is a Light, Lenora. Throughout history that light has at times burned very dimly, and nearly even gone out, while in other times it has blazed up gloriously. Beings like the one you just met—they seek to extinguish that light.”

  “But whyever would anyone want that?” asked Lenora.

  “The Forces of Darkness wish to control people, and it is ever knowledge that prevents them from doing so,” said Malachi. “They can only rule where there is ignorance, they can only create fear where the truth has been hidden, they can only gain power when the light has been snuffed out. Librarians are their greatest enemy, and we have fought them throughout time, and always will fight them as long as that light burns anywhere, no matter how weakly. When I was a young girl very much like yourself, I vowed to dedicate my life to fighting the Forces of Darkness wherever I might find them. And so I have.”

  “And so shall I!” declared Lenora.

  “It is a solemn vow, Lenora,” said Malachi, “and not one to be taken lightly. Few have what it takes to fight this battle. But I believe you can do it.”

  Malachi rose to her feet, and she and Lenora shook hands solemnly, Lenora on her tiptoes and the Chief Answerer bending down.

  “I know we’ll always win if you’re there,” said Lenora.

  “I’m afraid that will not be the case,” said Malachi gravely. “Sometimes we will win—as we did just now—and sometimes we will lose. I once fought them at a library in Alexandria and lost. And then again at a library in Baghdad, and I lost there, too.”

  Lenora remembered the tall, thin girl with her arms full of scrolls, running from the archers. “I think I saw you there.”

  “Yes,” said Malachi. “But never fear—there have been victories as well.”

  There was silence as both of them pondered the many battles ahead. And Lenora remembered how, when the darkness had come, she glowed.

  Finally, Lenora spoke. “Someday I want to be just like you.”

  Malachi smiled, a smile that was proud and perhaps sad, also. “If you put your mind to it, you will, Lenora. Someday. And congratulations,” she said, pointing a sharp finger at Lenora’s badge, “you are an assistant no longer.”

  For the badge now read:

  LENORA

  FOURTH APPRENTICE LIBRARIAN

  OFFICIAL COURT LIBRARIAN OF THE KINGDOM OF STARPOINT SEVENTEEN

  HONORARY QUEEN OF THE PENGUINS

  MOOSE PIONEER

  MEMBER IN GOOD STANDING OF THE FORCES OF TRUTH AND LIGHT, WHO HAS FACED THE FORCES OF LIES AND DARKNESS AND PREVAILED

  Lenora could not help but beam proudly.

  “I must warn you,” Malachi continued, “while it is very good to solve problems yourself, you should also not be afraid to ask for help if you need it.”

  Lenora flushed. “I should have told you about the people in bowler hats.”

  “Yes. Remember, Lenora, you are not alone in this fight, even if it will feel like that sometimes. You have allies, and you can rely on them to help you with the battles you are not yet ready to fight. Now, if I might ask a favor: Can you help out in Zoology? It’s just next door. A pocket shark and a bonsai tree have a bet to settle.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lenora Leaps into Action

  In the Zoology section, the pocket shark swam eager circles in its little tank while the bonsai tree looked on from its clay pot with breathless anticipation, or what passed for breathless anticipation, from something that neither looked nor breathed, exactly. Neither creature was much bigger than Lenora’s outstretched hand, but they were both full of personality.

  “Sharks,” said Lenora, pointing to an open page in a book, “have been around for four hundred twenty million years. A very impressive number, I have to say.”

  The shark splashed its water proudly.

  “Sorry,” said Lenora to the bonsai. “But it says here”—she pointed to another large book open before her—“that Wattieza, the first tree, lived three hundred eighty-five million years ago.” The bonsai wilted with disappointment. “Sharks are definitely older than trees.”

  The shark leapt from its tank, waving its fins in delight as the crestfallen bonsai’s branches drooped.

  “No one likes a sore winner!” Lenora admonished the shark, who wasn’t listening. She sighed deeply, hoping the shark and the bonsai would both someday learn to take their losses and victories with more grace.

  “Next!” Lenora called. She heard sniffling and tears. She looked around but didn’t see anyone. Then she peered over the edge of the Help Desk. There she saw a very small boy in a very blue sweater with very sad tears stre
aming down his cheeks. “Oh my!” said Lenora, quite concerned. “How may I help you?”

  The little boy looked up tearily. “I lost my kitten,” he sniffed. “I had him in my arms and then he jumped out and ran away and his name is Mister Sparkles and—”

  “Slow down, dear,” said Lenora. “Whyever did you bring a kitten to the library?”

  “He likes books about mice and I was gonna let him pick out his favorite and maybe some books about fish, too, and—”

  “All right,” interrupted Lenora. “A lost kitten is a serious matter, and we must begin the search right away. Never fear, however. We shall venture forth boldly and find Mister Sparkles.”

  Lenora took the boy by the hand. Encouraged by Lenora’s confidence, he stopped crying. Together they searched up and down among the stacks. They looked high and low, then low and high, in front of and behind every shelf. They crawled underneath tables.

  There was no sign whatsoever of Mister Sparkles, or any other stray kittens for that matter.

  “Tuna,” said Lenora.

  “What?” sniffed the boy. He was ready to resume crying.

  “If only we had tuna, we could lure him with the smell…” Lenora was thinking hard. Mister Sparkles seemed to have left the Zoology section, and from there he could have gone anywhere. Where would Mister Sparkles, or any cat really, go if they could go anywhere in the library?

  She stood abruptly, nearly bonking her head on the table they’d been under. “Bubastis!” she announced.

  “Bubastis!” cried the boy. “Of course! What’s Bubastis?”

  “An ancient Egyptian city,” Lenora declared, “devoted to the worship of Bast, the goddess of cats. A whole city for worshipping cats, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” marveled the little boy, his tears gone dry.

  “The library has a diorama of Bubastis not far away,” said Lenora. “And I bet anything Mister Sparkles spotted it and absolutely had to go have a look. Wouldn’t you, if you were a cat?”