The Library of Ever

by Zeno Alexander

  The little boy nodded at this obvious truth.

  Lenora pointed to some comfortable reading chairs with shelves nearby. “Our books on mice are over there. You pick out a few for Mister Sparkles. I’ll be back soon.”

  And off she ran, out from Zoology and down the long staircase across from History of Science and down the hallway toward the diorama. (Actually, since no one was looking, she slid gloriously down the banister.)

  Now something happened that had nothing to do with the search for the lost kitten, and though it did not seem important at the time, it would occupy Lenora’s thoughts for a long time to come.

  Her mind was completely on the kitten, and so she did not look twice when she passed a sign that said KENDO DEMONSTRATION. She did not even turn her head at the loud clackings and smashings that came from the room beyond. But then she heard a girl’s high, sharp shout, a martial cry that seemed like it could shatter a brick wall. She simply had to see what was happening. She ground to a halt and whipped toward the sound.

  The girl who had made the shout was standing stock-still over a fallen opponent. The girl seemed several inches taller and several years older than Lenora. Not much more could be told about her, because she was encased in armor. Her face was hidden behind a metal mask, and her armor was composed of a complicated system of black padding that protected every inch of her body. She was barefoot, and in her black-gloved hands she gripped a long sword made from bamboo slats tied with leather. Her opponent, who was struggling to his feet, was dressed just like her, and around them a large audience sat on the floor at a very respectful distance.

  Lenora’s gaze slid to the sign. Below KENDO DEMONSTRATION were the words JAPANESE SWORD-FIGHTING MARTIAL ART.

  The girl’s fallen opponent removed his mask and climbed slowly to his feet as the audience broke into polite applause. But the armored girl did not move a muscle.

  Sword-fighting! Lenora thought this looked like the most exciting thing she had ever seen, and that was saying something. She wanted to go closer and learn more—but then she shook herself. The lost kitten! How could she have forgotten, even for an instant?

  Resolving to return to the kendo demonstration once Mister Sparkles had been found, Lenora tore her gaze away from the older girl and resumed her race to the diorama.

  She knew when she was getting close because of the crowds, reminding her of the hordes that had come to see the new globe. People young and old were streaming past. There were school groups with their teachers and old ladies dressed like pharaohs. The crowd got rather thick, and Lenora found herself having to push.

  Lenora thought there simply had to be a better way to get to the diorama. And there was. She spied a door in the wall marked LIBRARY STAFF ONLY. Beneath it was a lock that popped open easily when Lenora inserted her Tube key.

  She found herself in a dim, rather dusty hallway. Running the diorama seemed to be an elaborate operation, for there were workers dashing everywhere, arms full of robes and headdresses and costumes, and there were people applying makeup to costumed actors who, Lenora supposed, performed in the diorama. She spotted an archway through which poured a velvety, dark blue light. Next to it was a chalkboard that read DIORAMA—PERFORMERS ONLY. Lenora was not a performer, but this was a lost-kitten emergency, and she knew it was time to break the rules. So she marched straight up to the archway—

  “Wait!” a man called. Lenora turned. The man rushed over. His arms were full of makeup and costume supplies. “You can’t go in there! Performers only!”

  “This is a lost-kitten emergency,” Lenora explained.

  “Oh!” said the man gravely. “In that case, let me make you up in costume first. You can search for the kitten, and none of the spectators will be the wiser!”

  “Thank you,” said Lenora as the man ushered her to a nearby chair and looked her over appraisingly.

  “I think you would make an excellent cat,” he said after a few seconds. “It would be appropriate for the diorama, and who better to look for a lost kitten, eh?”

  “Indeed,” agreed Lenora, and the man went to work. He was very fast. She could feel him painting whiskers on her cheeks, and then he snatched something from a passing costume tray and attached it to her head, and Lenora could feel that they must be twitching ears. His hands flew around like birds, doing something around her eyes with makeup pencils and brushes, and when Lenora looked down she could see she had a furry body she didn’t have before, and when she shifted uncomfortably in her chair she realized a tail had been added as well. Really it all felt quite marvelous, and she had to fight back an urge to leap from the chair and begin exploring.

  “There!” cried the man, stepping back. “Some of my finest work, if I don’t mind saying so! Now go find that kitten!”

  “Yes!” cried Lenora, and she leapt from the chair. To her surprise she bounded several feet into the air and landed as lightly and easily as could be. Ahead of her were concrete steps, and she practically flew up them to the top, hardly noticing that she was doing it on all fours. There was an open door, and beyond it:

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Lenora Races Across the Sands

  Sand, red sand, on and on to a dark blue horizon.

  Above that was what appeared to be a perfect night sky, black as stone, twinkling with fiery stars next to a sliver of moon. Lenora supposed those must be lights in the ceiling. The library really had done a terrific job on the diorama.

  To her right, she could see the edge of the sand and then a velvet rope and, beyond that, crowds of people lining the library hallway, all of them pointing at various details and either gawking in awe or taking notes.

  To her left, Lenora saw nothing but ancient Egypt, stretching over the starlit sands. That dark blue horizon had to end in a wall, cleverly concealed by expert designers, but you wouldn’t know it from looking.

  Speaking of looking, there was something astonishing about her vision: There was more of everything. She could see much farther to the left and the right than she normally could. She supposed it must be from what the makeup artist did with her eyes. She wanted to write it down in her notebook, but she had left it behind. And besides, when she looked down at her hands—which looked not like hands but more like paws now that the makeup artist was done with them—Lenora thought she could probably not hold a pencil right now anyway.

  She also realized at last that she was on all fours, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. It was so natural that she couldn’t imagine why she had ever tried to stand on two feet. That seemed so unbalanced and awkward—however did one keep from falling over? And the smells! They were coming from everywhere and calling for her attention. She bent her nose low to the sand and sniffed. Yes, rather faint, but she was sure it was another cat. And then she spied tracks—kitten paw prints—chasing away across the red desert.

  Lenora bolted, following the tracks, bounding on all fours at terrific speed. As she ran, she wondered how she could spy these prints so easily in such dark surroundings, but it wasn’t just those—it was everything. She could see almost as well in the semidarkness as she normally could during the day. The only trouble was that faraway things—like those three pyramids in the far, far distance—were very blurry. Lenora had never been nearsighted before, but she supposed this was what it was like.

  She hardly had time to wonder about it before her attention was snatched by a burst of motion at the edge of her vision—a mouse! She burned with desire to chase it—only to play, of course—but she had a job to do. Firmly, she fixed her attention on the kitten tracks and continued her dash through the desert night.

  “Mommy, look, a cat!” she heard a child cry, and she was very glad for the makeup. If she had been her normal self, it would have ruined the illusion.

  She galloped up one side of a towering dune, warm sand whisking away from beneath her paws. As she crested the dune she skidded to a halt, transfixed by the sight below her.

  It was the Temple of Bubastis. It had t
o be. She knew it in her heart of hearts. Also, there was a huge sign in front of it that said TEMPLE OF BUBASTIS. There was a high stone wall around the temple, and around the wall flowed two canals filled with dark water reflecting the twinkling lights above. The flowing waters ended at an entrance in front. Trees lined the banks of the canals. Sculptures were everywhere, mostly of cats, with the largest one being a huge statue of a woman with the head of a cat. The plaque beneath her read:

  And below that it read: TRANSLATION FROM HIEROGLYPHS: BAST—GODDESS OF CATS.

  To either side of the statue of Bast stood a fierce-looking man and woman—performers—holding sharp spears and looking protective. Beyond that was the edge of the diorama and a murmuring crowd taking pictures and pointing.

  Something moved, capturing Lenora’s attention instantly. The movement was at the very top of the red stone temple. She only saw it for a moment, but she knew what it was. She flew down the side of the dune to the entrance. The guards moved to block her way, then they noticed her badge (it was still affixed to her fur) and moved aside with smiles. Lenora nodded to them and ran inside the wall.

  There seemed to be no way into the temple itself. No doors, just soaring columns and alcoves in which there were more huge statues grinning or scowling or gazing thoughtfully at little, furry Lenora far below. Lenora eyed the sides of the temple. They were very, very steep, but not completely straight up.

  She got a running start.

  When she leapt onto the side of the temple, claws popped out from within her paws. She felt them strike the red stone and grip hard. She ran harder than she ever had in her life, digging in with those claws, up the steep incline, her tail waving to keep her in perfect balance. Just when she thought she might tip over and fall, she reached the roof.

  Cool winds blew gently past, bringing dry, sandy scents. The stars seemed quite close now, and when Lenora looked behind and down, the man and woman guarding the entrance looked tiny. Beyond them stretched the enormous crowd, its murmurs somehow still audible. (Why is my hearing so much better? she wondered.)

  Ahead of her, squatting on the very edge of the roof, sat the kitten, tail twitching.

  Lenora padded over and sat beside him. It would be a very long fall from here, she thought, and yet she felt not the slightest fear.

  “Hello,” she said to Mister Sparkles, or rather she meant to say. But what came out was “Mew!”

  The kitten looked at her and blinked slowly. Lenora felt she had never seen a friendlier gesture, and she blinked slowly back.

  “Mew mew mew!” said the kitten, which Lenora understood to mean “Look at them! Look at all my worshippers.”

  “Mew…,” said Lenora, with hesitation. She didn’t want to disappoint Mister Sparkles, but she had to suggest that the spectators were here for the diorama, not to worship cats (though at this moment that seemed a most logical thing to do).

  “Mewmewmew?” the kitten replied, and Lenora could see he was still disappointed, despite her efforts.

  “Mew!” said Lenora cheerily, asking the kitten if it wasn’t better to be loved than worshipped anyway, and didn’t the little boy in the blue sweater love and miss his kitten so much?

  Mister Sparkles pondered this, and Lenora could see that as he thought of the boy, his eyes brightened. “MEW!” he cried piercingly. “MEW!” And in those mews, Lenora could tell the kitten loved and missed the boy so terribly much, too.

  Together, she and the kitten ran. They scampered down the steep wall. They romped across the desert, batting playfully at each other. Soon they were at the edge of the diorama, where Mister Sparkles assured Lenora he would run straight to the boy in the blue sweater. The kitten and Lenora nuzzled their noses together before they parted.

  Wearily, Lenora went to have her makeup removed. She wasn’t used to running everywhere on all fours and was getting a little sore. When she was back in normal clothes, she returned to the dim, rather dusty hallway. She had to hurry back to Zoology, which she’d left unattended. Just as she reached for the door, she felt a humming on her badge:

  LENORA

  THIRD 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

  LOST KITTEN PATROL

  She admired her badge but also felt bashful about the long list of titles. It was beginning to seem too much like bragging. Perhaps she would ask Malachi for a badge more like the Chief Answerer’s, with words that were simple but summed up everything, something like—

  She did not finish the thought, for a trapdoor opened beneath her feet, and she fell through the floor.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lenora Falls into a Trap

  Lenora fell in total darkness, wishing desperately that she had her agile cat body back as the wind whistled past her face. She didn’t have time to think much else before she landed on a pile of something soft.

  She had never been in such perfect, inky darkness before. She sat up and felt around herself to see what she had landed on. It felt like a bunch of pillows. Her hand found something small and rectangular. She picked it up, and it rattled in her hands. Turning it over, she realized it was a box, and the middle section could be slid open. She felt inside and discovered it was a box of matches.

  She struck one.

  She was indeed sitting on a pile of pillows. Beside the pile was a lantern, and beside that was a piece of paper. She looked at the lantern, thinking that she had never used one before, when the heat from the match flame began to burn her fingers. She blew it out and all was darkness once again. She crawled toward the lantern until she could feel it with her hand, then lit another match. This time she looked at the paper. On it was written: Lenora—unscrew lid and light wick.

  So all this was meant for her. This was somewhat alarming. Was it a trap? But she reasoned that if anyone—for example, someone in a bowler hat—were trying to harm her, there wouldn’t have been any pillows. So she lit another match, unscrewed the lantern’s lid, and touched flame to wick.

  Now there was considerably more light. She put the lantern’s lid back on and stood, taking the light up by its handle, to have a look around.

  She was standing in an old, musty stone vault. It looked a bit like a reading room from the library. But here, everything was covered in thick dust, and the bookshelves casting flickering shadows in the lamplight were all utterly barren. There was a Help Desk, but it was unoccupied. The only interruption in the heavy dust was a set of footprints, from bare feet. They entered the vault from an archway at one end, circled the pillows a few times, then left the way they had come. Besides this barefoot person, it seemed no one else had been in this part of the library for a long, long time.

  It was quite obvious to Lenora that the footprints belonged to whoever had left her a safe landing spot and equipment to see by, and so must be a friend. Lacking anything better to do, she stepped off the pillows and followed the trail, her lantern casting weird shadows and her shoes kicking up puffs of dust. Her footsteps, echoing around the walls, were the only sound to be heard.

  Past the archway, she entered a dusty, deserted hallway. On either side were open doorways. It seemed that these ought to lead into different sections of the library, and indeed, they had signs above their doors. But the signs were blank, and inside the rooms, the shelves were empty.

  Lenora noticed it was getting darker and looked at her lantern. The wick was lower than it had been before. But there was a lever on the side of the lantern, and turning it raised the wick. Everything was brighter now, but she could not help but wonder how much wick and fuel she had. She did not want to be trapped in this place in complete darkness.

  She looked for the footprint trail and realized it was gone. She turned around and could not see it. How was that possible? The
hallway was nothing but a straight line. But somehow, the footprints had vanished.

  There was nothing to do but hurry forward.

  Section after section passed by, none of them with names. Then Lenora stopped. She’d come to the first doorway with words chiseled above it: MINOAN LITERATURE.

  Despite her desire to escape, Lenora couldn’t help herself. She peeped inside.

  These shelves were not empty but filled with row after row of clay tablets. She walked along, peering at them. They were covered in writing that she could not decipher.

  You are not the only one, Lenora, said a quiet voice near her shoulder. No one can read them.

  Normally when one thinks one is alone in a dark, possibly underground vault, one is startled out of their wits when a voice suddenly speaks out of nowhere. But this voice, a girl’s, was so soft and friendly and had such a charming accent (which Lenora could not place) that Lenora was instantly at ease. At ease, despite the fact that when Lenora turned around, no one was there.

  “Hello?” said Lenora breathlessly.

  Hello, said the unseen girl. She seemed to be speaking from right next to Lenora.

  “Are you a ghost?” asked Lenora with excitement. She’d never believed in ghosts, but how lovely if they did exist, after all!

  No, came the reply, and there was sadness in the word. I’m not a ghost. I’m a memory.

  “Whose memory are you?” asked Lenora. A reasonable question.

  No one’s. I’m a lost memory. Lost, like the words on these tablets, which were made on the isle of Crete thousands of years ago.

  “But can’t they be translated?” said Lenora. “Egyptian writing is thousands of years old, but we can translate that.”

  This is a language called Linear A. And it has never been translated, and may never be. We know little about the Minoans, who once had a great civilization, because of this.

  Lost languages. Lenora had never thought about this. “I suppose many old languages must have been lost.”