Four Past Midnight

CHAPTER 6

The Library (II)

1

Halfway to the Library, an idea suddenly struck him - it was so obvious he could hardly believe it hadn't occurred to him already. He had lost a couple of library books; he had since discovered they had been destroyed; he would have to pay for them.

And that was all.

It occurred to him that Ardelia Lortz had been more successful in getting him to think like a fourth-grader than he had realized. When a kid lost a book, it was the end of the world; powerless, he cringed beneath the shadow of bureaucracy and waited for the Library Policeman to show up. But there were no Library Police, and Sam, as an adult, knew that perfectly well. There were only town employees like Ms Lortz, who sometimes got overinflated ideas of their place in the scheme of things, and taxpayers like him, who sometimes forgot they were the dog which wagged the tail, and not the other way around.

I'm going to go in, I'm going to apologize, and then I'm going to ask her to send me a bill for the replacement copies, Sam thought. And that's all. That's the end.

It was so simple it was amazing.

Still feeling a little nervous and a little embarrassed (but much more in control of this teapot tempest), Sam parked across the street from the Library. The carriage lamps which flanked the main entrance were on, casting soft white radiance down the steps and across the building's granite facade. Evening lent the building a kindness and a welcoming air it had definitely been lacking on his first visit - or maybe it was just that spring was clearly on the rise now, something which had not been the case on the overcast March day when he had first met the resident dragon. The forbidding face of the stone robot was gone. It was just the public library again.

Sam started to get out of the car and then stopped. He had been granted one revelation; now he was suddenly afforded another.

The face of the woman in Dirty Dave's poster came back to him, the woman with the platter of fried chicken. The one Dave had called Sarah.

That woman had looked familiar to Sam, and all at once some obscure circuit fired off in his brain and he knew why.

It had been Naomi Higgins.

2

He passed two kids in JCHS jackets on the steps and caught the door before it could swing all the way closed. He stepped into the foyer. The first thing that struck him was the sound. The reading room beyond the marble steps was by no means rowdy, but neither was it the smooth pit of silence which had greeted Sam on Friday noon just over a week ago.

Well, but it's Saturday evening now, he thought. There are kids here, maybe studying for their midterm exams.

But would Ardelia Lortz condone such chatter, muted as it was? The answer seemed to be yes, judging from the sound, but it surely didn't seem in character.

The second thing had to do with that single mute adjuration which had been mounted on the easel.

SILENCE!

was gone. In its place was a picture of Thomas Jefferson. Below it was this quotation:

'I cannot live without books.'

- Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams)

June 10th, 1815

Sam studied this for a moment, thinking that it changed the whole flavor in one's mouth as one prepared to enter the library.

SILENCE!

induced feelings of trepidation and disquiet (what if one's belly was rumbling, for instance, or if one felt an attack of not necessarily silent flatulence might be imminent?).

'I cannot live without books,'

on the other hand, induced feelings of pleasure and anticipation - it made one feel as hungry men and women feel when the food is finally arriving.

Puzzling over how such a small thing could make such an essential difference, Sam entered the Library ... and stopped dead.

3

It was much brighter in the main room than it had been on his first visit, but that was only one of the changes. The ladders which had stretched up to the dim reaches of the upper shelves were gone. There was no need of them, because the ceiling was now only eight or nine feet above the floor instead of thirty or forty. If you wanted to take a book from one of the higher shelves, all you needed was one of the stools which were scattered about. The magazines were placed in an inviting fan on a wide table by the circulation desk. The oak rack from which they had hung like the skins of dead animals was gone. So was the sign reading

RETURN ALL MAGAZINES TO THEIR PROPER PLACES!

The shelf of new novels was still there, but the 7-DAY RENTALS sign had been replaced with one which said READ A BEST-SELLER - JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT!

People - mostly young people - came and went, talking in low tones. Someone chuckled. It was an easy, unselfconscious sound.

Sam looked up at the ceiling, trying desperately to understand what in hell had happened here. The slanted skylights were gone. The upper reaches of the room had been hidden by a modem suspended ceiling. The old-fashioned hanging globes had been replaced by panelled fluorescent lighting set into the new ceiling.

A woman on her way up to the main desk with a handful of mystery novels followed Sam's gaze up to the ceiling, saw nothing unusual there, and looked curiously at Sam instead. One of the boys sitting at a long desk to the right of the magazine table nudged his fellows and pointed Sam out. Another tapped his temple and they all snickered.

Sam noticed neither the stares nor the snickers. He was unaware that he was simply standing in the entrance to the main reading room, gawking up at the ceiling with his mouth open. He was trying to get this major change straight in his mind.

Well, they've put in a suspended ceiling since you were here last. So what? It's probably more heatefficient.

Yes, but the Lortz woman never said anything about changes.

No, but why would she say anything to him? Sam was hardly a library regular, was he?

She should have been upset, though. She struck me as a rock-ribbed traditionalist. She wouldn't like this. Not at all.

That was true, but there was something else, something even more troubling. Putting in a suspended ceiling was a major renovation. Sam didn't see how it could have been accomplished in just a week. And what about the high shelves, and all the books which had been on them? Where had the shelves gone? Where had the books gone?

Other people were looking at Sam now; even one of the library assistants was staring at him from the other side of the circulation desk. Most of the lively, hushed chatter in the big room had stilled.

Sam rubbed his eyes - actually rubbed his eyes - and looked up at the suspended ceiling with its inset fluorescent squares again. It was still there.

I'm in the wrong library! he thought wildly. That's what it is!

His confused mind first jumped at this idea and then backed away again, like a kitten that has been tricked into pouncing on a shadow. Junction City was fairly large by central Iowa standards, with a population of thirty-five thousand or so, but it was ridiculous to think it could support two libraries. Besides, the location of the building and the configuration of the room were right ... it was just everything else that was wrong. Sam wondered for just a moment if he might be going insane, and then dismissed the thought. He looked around and noticed for the first time that everyone had stopped what they were doing. They were all looking at him. He felt a momentary, mad urge to say, 'Go back to what you were doing - I was just noticing that the whole library is different this week.' Instead, he sauntered over to the magazine table and picked up a copy of US News & World Report. He began leafing through it with a show of great interest, and watched out of the corners of his eyes as the people in the room went back to what they had been doing.

When he felt that he could move without attracting undue attention, Sam replaced the magazine on the table and sauntered toward the Children's Library. He felt a little like a spy crossing enemy territory. The sign over the door was exactly the same, gold letters on warm dark oak, but the poster was different. Little Red Riding Hood at the moment of her terrible realization had been replaced by Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They were wearing bathing trunks and diving into a swimming pool filled with books. The tag-line beneath read:

COME ON IN! THE READINGS FINE!

'What's going on here?' Sam muttered. His heart had begun to beat too fast; he could feel a fine sweat breaking out on his arms and back. If it had been just the poster, he could have assumed that La Lortz had been fired ... but it wasn't just the poster. It was everything.

He opened the door of the Children's Library and peeked inside. He saw the same agreeable small world with its low tables and chairs, the same bright-blue curtains, the same water fountain mounted on the wall. Only now the suspended ceiling in here matched the suspended ceiling in the main reading room, and all the posters had been changed. The screaming child in the black sedan

(Simple Simon - they call him Simple Simon they feel contempt for him I think that's very healthy, don't you)

was gone, and so was the Library Policeman with his trenchcoat and his strange star of many points. Sam drew back, turned around, and walked slowly to the main circulation desk. He felt as if his whole body had turned to glass.

Two library assistants - a college-age boy and girl - watched him approach. Sam was not too upset himself to see that they looked a trifle nervous.

Be careful. No ... be NORMAL. They already think you're halfway to being nuts.

He suddenly thought of Lukey and a horrible, destructive impulse tried to seize him. He could see himself opening his mouth and yelling at these two nervous young people, demanding at the top of his voice that they give him a few Slim Fucking Slim Jims, because that was chow, that was chow, that was chow-dedow.

He spoke in a calm, low voice instead.

'Perhaps you could help me. I need to speak to the librarian.'

'Gee, I'm sorry,' the girl said. 'Mr Price doesn't come in on Saturday nights.'

Sam glanced down at the desk. As on his previous trip to the library, there was a small name-plaque standing next to the microfilm recorder, but it no longer said

A. LORTZ.

Now it said

MR PRICE.

In his mind he heard Naomi say, Tall man? Thin? About fifty?

'No,' he said. 'Not Mr Price. Not Mr Peckham, either. The other one. Ardelia Lortz.'

The boy and girl exchanged a puzzled glace. 'No one named Ardelia Lord works here,' the boy said. 'You must be thinking of some other library.'

'Not Lord,' Sam told them. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. 'Lortz.'

'No,' the girl said. 'You really must be mistaken, sir.'

They were starting to look cautious again, and although Sam felt like insisting, telling them of course Ardelia Lortz worked here, he had met her only eight days ago, he made himself pull back. And in a way, it all made perfect sense, didn't it? It was perfect sense within a framework of utter lunacy, granted, but that didn't change the fact that the interior logic was intact. Like the posters, the sky-lights, and the magazine rack, Ardelia Lortz had simply ceased to exist.

Naomi spoke up again inside his head. Oh! Miss Lortz, was it? That must have been fun.

'Naomi recognized the name,' he muttered.

Now the library assistants were looking at him with identical expressions of consternation.

'Pardon me,' Sam said, and tried a smile. It felt crooked on his face. I'm having one of those days.'

'Yes,' the boy said.

'You bet,' the girl said.

They think I'm crazy, Sam thought, and do you know what? I don't blame them a bit.

'Was there anything else?' the boy asked.

Sam opened his mouth to say no - after which he would beat a hasty retreat -and then changed his mind. He was in for a penny; he might as well go in for a pound.

'How long has Mr Price been the head librarian?'

The two assistants exchanged another glance. The girl shrugged. 'Since we've been here,' she said, 'but that's not very long, Mr - ?'

'Peebles,' Sam said, offering his hand. 'Sam Peebles. I'm sorry. My manners seem to have flown away with the rest of my mind.'

They both relaxed a little - it was an indefinable thing, but it was there, and it helped Sam do the same. Upset or not, he had managed to hold onto at least some of his not inconsiderable ability to put people at ease. A real-estate-and-insurance salesman who couldn't do that was a fellow who ought to be looking for a new line of work.

'I'm Cynthia Berrigan,' she said, giving his hand a tentative shake. 'This is Tom Stanford.'

'Pleased to meet you,' Tom Stanford said. He didn't look entirely sure of this, but he also gave Sam's hand a quick shake.

'Pardon me?' the woman with the mystery novels asked. 'Could someone help me, please? I'll be late for my bridge game.'

'I'll do it,' Tom told Cynthia, and walked down the desk to check out the woman's books.

She said, 'Tom and I go to Chapelton junior College, Mr Peebles. This is a work-study job. I've been here three semesters now - Mr Price hired me last spring. Tom came during the summer.'

'Mr Price is the only full-time employee?'

'Uh-huh.' She had lovely brown eyes and now he could see a touch of concern in them. 'Is something wrong?'

'I don't know.' Sam looked up again. He couldn't help it. 'Has this suspended ceiling been here since you came to work?'

She followed his glance. 'Well,' she said, 'I didn't know that was what it's called, but yes, it's been this way since I've been here.'

'I had an idea there were skylights, you see.'

Cynthia smiled. 'Well, sure. I mean, you can see them from the outside, if you go around to the side of the building. And, of course, you can see them from the stacks, but they're boarded over. The sky-lights, I mean - not the stacks. I think they've been that way for years.'

For years.

'And you've never heard of Ardelia Lortz.'

She shook her head. 'Uh-uh. Sorry.'

'What about the Library Police?' Sam asked impulsively.

She laughed. 'Only from my old aunt. She used to tell me the Library Police would get me if I didn't bring my books back on time. But that was back in Providence, Rhode Island, when I was a little girl. A long time ago.'

Sure, Sam thought. Maybe as long as ten, twelve years ago. Back when dinosaurs walked the earth.

'Well,' he said, 'thanks for the information. I didn't mean to freak you out.'

'You didn't.'

'I think I did, a little. I was just confused for a second.'

'Who is this Ardelia Lortz?' Tom Stanford asked, coming back. 'That name rings a bell, but I'll be darned if I know why.'

'That's just it. I don't really know,' Sam said.

'Well, we're closed tomorrow, but Mr Price will be in Monday afternoon and Monday evening,' he said. 'Maybe he can tell you what you want to know.'

Sam nodded. 'I think I'll come and see him. Meantime, thanks again.'

'We're here to help if we can,' Tom said. 'I only wish we could have helped you more, Mr Peebles.'

'Me too,' Sam said.

4

He was okay until he got back to the car, and then, as he was unlocking the driver's-side door, all the muscles in his belly and legs seemed to drop dead. He had to support himself with a hand on the roof of his car to keep from falling down while he swung the door open. He did not really get in; he simply collapsed behind the wheel and then sat there, breathing hard and wondering with some alarm if he was going to faint.

What's going on here? I feel like a character in Rod Serling's old show.

'Submitted for your examination, one Samuel Peebles, ex-resident of Junction City, now selling real estate and whole life in ... the Twilight Zone.'

Yes, that was what it was like. Only watching people cope with inexplicable happenings on TV was sort of fun. Sam was discovering that the inexplicable lost a lot of its charm when you were the one who had to struggle with it.

He looked across the street at the Library, where people came and went beneath the soft glow of the carriage lamps. The old lady with the mystery novels was headed off down the street, presumably bound for her bridge game. A couple of girls were coming down the steps, talking and laughing together, books held to their blooming chests. Everything looked perfectly normal ... and of course it was. The abnormal Library had been the one he had entered a week ago. The only reason the oddities hadn't struck him more forcibly, he supposed, was because his mind had been on that damned speech of his.

Don't think about it, he instructed himself, although he was afraid that this was going to be one of those times when his mind simply wouldn't take instruction. Do a Scarlett O'Hara and think about it tomorrow. Once the sun is up, all this will make a lot more sense.

He put the car in gear and thought about it all the way home.