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The Library Tower is a dark silhouette against the purple sky, shaped like a chess rook. Miss Robin’s apartments are at the top. I’ve seen them, of course. It’s a scrupulously neat space, plain and unadorned. She’s never cared for knick-knacks or sentimental things.
She does love art, however, and history, which has helped her play her role so well.
She’s thrown herself into her work here with a passion that only a true connoisseur could muster.
I expect to find her poring over papers and documents as usual. No one is as tenacious or as tireless as her. I’ve never seen her falter. Never seen her give up.
I pull open the metal-strapped door and enter the dim spiraling space, treading the slanted floor that always makes me feel slightly off balance, as if the library is a parallel dimension, part of another world.
I hear a soft, gasping sound, distant and muffled.
For a moment I’m confused, because while I know what it sounds like, I don’t think it can actually be true.
Already my feet are sprinting up the ramp and I’m looking around wildly, trying to find her.
She isn’t at her desk. I have to run all the way up to the topmost level, to the last and most distant table. Then I find her slumped over a pile of books, her head on her arms.
Her shoulders shake with near-silent sobs.
I sit down next to her, putting my arm around her.
She knows it’s me without even looking.
She turns toward me, letting me encircle her in my arms, letting me hug her, though I’m not supposed to.
“I can’t find it,” she sobs. “I’ve looked everywhere.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her cry.
It scares me.
She never breaks. She never gives up.
She’s the bedrock in my life. If that rock is splitting apart . ..
“If I can’t find it?—”
“You WILL find it,” I tell her, hugging her with all my might.
“If I can’t?—”
“You WILL. When have you ever failed to do something?”
She laughs, the tears still gleaming on her cheeks.
“There was one time.”
“Yeah, well there won’t be another. You won’t fail. You can’t.”
She lets out a long sigh, leaning heavily against me. She looks exhausted.
“It’s been so long. What if it’s all for nothing?”
I hold her by both shoulders so I can look her in the eye.
“Then we kill them all,” I say.
13
