Future Lovecraft

THE LIBRARY TWINS AND THE NEKROBEES By Martha Hubbard

ALL AROUND THEIR hiding place, towering stacks of books careened upwards, their tops vanishing into murky darkness. Iris and Thyme Carter were on a late-night stakeout in the National Library of France because something was disturbing their books after hours, making them whimper and cry like hurt children. During the day, automatic lights flashed on if any moving object larger than a butterfly intercepted the infrared sensors. At night, these were switched off to save money, which meant that any creature entering these cathedrals of dust and paper then had to navigate in the dark. This was no problem for the ‘library twins’, as one of their genetic abnormalities was ultra-keen night vision; darkness was their friend. Now, at almost 23:00, the twins were hiding in a section reserved for French and Italian fiction.

One of Iris’s sometimes-disturbing genetic gifts was the ability to hear the voices of inanimate objects. Chairs, plants, street lamps, and bridges had, at one time or another, spoken directly to her. The pitiful moaning of tortured books had been disturbing Iris’ dreams for days. When the painful cries of her precious charges finally made sleep impossible, she insisted that Thyme join her in uncovering what was distressing them.

Iris was slumped on the floor, her back against a shelf of Italian mysteries, a first edition of Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin on her lap. Wearing disposable, white, cotton gloves, she was turning the brittle pages one by one, trying to discern any changes in the text as she remembered it. Lately, some of her favourite novels had begun to seem strangely…different.

By the end of the 21st century, most reading material was read on electronic devices, when it wasn’t injected directly into the neurological pathways via learning tubes. Real books, of cloth and paper, were the cherished artefacts of a vanished era. To preserve these, librarians had gathered most of them into a scant handful of libraries in the Western world. The BNFP (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris) held works from Continental Europe: France, Italy, the Low Countries, Greece, and Germany. Harvard held American and Canadian literature, and technical and early medical texts. Berkeley—Micronesia and Australia, Maori and Aboriginal; The British Library—British and Russian—a bow to Karl Marx; the National Library of San Paolo—South American, Mexican and Spanish. There were smaller collections in Helsinki for Nordic works and Budapest for Central European. Reprieved from destruction at the last possible moment, these were considered the foundation blocks of Western thought.

Human hands were not normally allowed near any of the books protected in these specialised archives. Scholars who had been able to demonstrate a need to consult the originals used hermetically-sealed, climate-and-light-controlled boxes. Inside these, internal robotic fingers turned the pages, when instructed via touch pad. It wasn’t like holding a real book in your hands, but it was better than having the pages disintegrate from careless handling.

Curator of this section, Iris was one of the few allowed to touch these books. While they waited for intruders, she methodically reread the pages of her children for anomalies. Possessing photographic recall, she remembered by ‘seeing’ things—pages of books for example—in her mind-viewer, and could instantly detect any textural alterations. As the minutes ticked towards midnight, she was wondering if it had all been a bad dream. “Great Goddess, how did we get here?” she whispered to her sister.

Good question. As the famous frog once said, “It’s not easy being green.” While not green in appearance, the twins had grown up profoundly committed to the repair and protection of the environment.

By the middle of the 21st century, any thinking person, by then a declining species, understood that the pernicious effects of extensive agribusiness farming was transforming the residents of wealthy countries into slow-moving, cancer-ridden, dull-minded robots. The proliferation of foodstuffs assembled from refined corn syrup had created a sub-class of citizenry no longer able to discriminate healthy food from toxic. Soya derivatives mixed with reconfigured corn syrup, flavoured by e-numbers, were mashed and extruded into an endless variety of products. Diets consisting of little more than sugar, cellulose and food colouring made consumers sluggish and unhealthy. Sugar-induced torpor meant that, as people moved less and less, bones became dangerously brittle. Physical education programs in schools had long been abandoned because even the youngest children could not run or jump or risk the fractures that ensued from the smallest of accidents.

Early on, some people had developed Multiple Chemical Sensibilities (MCS)—in other words, they had become allergic to almost everything in their surroundings. Forced by their illnesses to escape the dangers presented by polluted water, air, soil, and food, many had retreated to guarded rural enclaves, as far from the centres of toxicity as possible, where they produced their own food, tried to live more sensible lives, and campaigned for more sensible farming and food production practices. America had become that dreaded hydra—a two-tierd society: one part, physically and mentally active and healthy; the other, physically incapable, diabetes-ridden and mentally incompetent.

Others, recognising the dangers before irreversible damage had been done to their biosystems, voluntarily removed themselves from the locations of greatest pollution.

Iris and Thyme’s parents had been among the first wave to recognise these growing environmental hazards. When Mama Carter learned she was carrying twins, she insisted they move to an island off the coast of Maine to gestate their babies. There, with other like-minded families, the community grew its own vegetables, raised sheep and chickens, and fished. Mama had been determined that her children’s minds and bodies would not be compromised by the toxicity of American supermarket offerings. As with so many well-laid plans, there had been a glitch. The elder Carters and their community had not anticipated the changes wrought in the seas by agricultural run-off.

When the twins were born, they seemed perfect: healthy bodies, smiling faces, prodigious lungs, which they demonstrated when annoyed or hungry. However, as they grew, they began to display some unusual abilities. For one thing, they could talk to each other without words across vast distances. They could also change their shapes and, in the form of any winged creature, could fly. A call of distress from Thyme would produce Iris leading a swarm of threatening birds in seconds.

They had other skills, as well. Iris could see events in the past, and project herself and her sister into them, while Thyme seemed able to project into the future. Papa Carter had been so concerned about the twins getting lost, injured, or trapped in other time periods that he made them promise to not use these powers—at all—until they were older and, hopefully, wiser. They loved their Papa, so they promised. Safe on their beloved island, the twins grew up convinced of the need to respect and protect their world. The environment responded by making them tall, beautiful and clever. “If only they weren’t twins and could have had individual styles, their lives would have been perfect,” they said but only to each other.

Time passed. Outside their secluded enclave, awareness of the need for healthier food and respect for the environment had increased in some places, so it became safe to leave Maine. Besides, the twins needed more of an education than their isolated haven could provide. Iris chose to study at USC Berkeley, while Thyme remained on the East Coast and went to Harvard. When both elected to study Library Science, no one was surprised. During their years on the island, books, real paper books—not electronic tablets—had been their dearest companions.

While they were studying on opposing coasts, their parents, worn out by coping with an earth in turmoil, elected to take BDL (Bodily Life Cessation). The twins were alone. When both were offered positions at the BNFP, they accepted. What a lark, they thought. They were 24 years old and had never left the States.

Relocation to France was blinding—a full-on blast. As so often in her past, Paris in the late decades of the 21st century had become a mecca for the world’s wannabe creatives and misfits. Not that these incomers were incapable—far from it. The variety of physical presentations and unusual abilities that had made them outcasts in societies composed mainly of sugar-munching trolls, made them ideally suited for life in 21st century Paris. These genetic newbies, who were too active, too lively, too noisy—too alive to be comfortable neighbours back home, found a warm welcome on the rues and boulevards of Paris.

Paris has always attracted a diverse collection of colourful immigrants. In the 20th century, refugees from France’s colonial past, from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, from Viet Nam and Cambodia, had transformed certain arrondissements of the often-stuffy city into vibrant bazaars. Now, again, the streets teemed with a visual, aural and olfactory cacophony of colours, styles, foods, and music. Not since the 1920’s had Parisian cafés vibrated with such a glittering array of gorgeous people and lively discussions. Her throbbing heart was the seedy, graffiti-decorated rue Belleville—far from the staid bourgeoisie of the riverbanks. Within a week, Iris and Thyme had an apartment on a high floor overlooking the parc, its creaky, wrought-iron-curlicue cage lift operated by state-of-the art computers. They dove into their new life, ugly ducklings transforming into swans as they fell.

Work-wise, it was perfect. The library most called the “TGB” (Très Grand Bibliothèque), Mitterrand’s monument to his ego, was also in the east of Paris, so required only one line change on the Metro. These were much less crowded than in the past, as so many people, unable to deal with stairs and walking long distances, worked from home. Mitterrand’s Very Big Library had tottered along into the future, its concrete towers chipped and mouldering, without losing its cachet amongst scholars, or any of its over twenty million volumes. This became their second home, its books their raison d’être.

Midnight found them sharing a sandwich. “Maybe we should give up,” said Thyme. “If I don’t get at least a little sleep, I’ll be comatose during Monsieur le Directeur’s scintillating presentation tomorrow.”

“That’s okay,” said Iris. “You go home and catch up on your beauty sleep. I’ll stand guard here.”

“No way. Whatever this is, we’re facing it together.”

“That’s the sister I know and love.” Iris beamed her most radiant smile.

“You stay here. I’m going to take a quick flit around.”

By down-shifting until she was as weightless as a hummingbird, Thyme could fly. Darting from shelf to shelf, up and down lightless rows of books, she was virtually invisible. Speeding round a corner, she had to backpedal her wings furiously to keep from colliding with a lighted flying object. Ducking into a space between two books of differing heights, she exclaimed, “What the…blathers is that?”

The glimmering purple thing buzzed and growled as it explored the shelves. It seemed unaware of her. Stopping near the end of the row she had just exited, it turned and hung, briefly motionless, before emitting a piercing, saw-like whistle. Out of the gloom behind, a phalanx of glowing, flying creatures appeared, moving up the rows and fanning out in groups, violet lights flickering on and off inside their rotund bodies. Clearly, they were looking for something—a book, perhaps. I’ll be damned, thought Thyme. They’re bees—sentient, purple, light-producing bees.

As soon as the last of the platoon had passed her, their buzzing communication mode and regimented behaviour marking them as soldiers on a reconnaissance mission, Thyme headed back to Iris as quickly and soundlessly as her tiny wings could take her. “Iris, Iris, wake up. We’re being invaded by bees.”

“Huh! Killer bees?…I wasn’t asleep.”

“I don’t know about the ‘killer part’, but they’re purple, smart, and they’re looking for something.”

“Our books! They’re after our books. Merde! Those…those….” Iris couldn’t think of an expletive harsh enough. “Thyme, we have to stop them.”

“Shh…quiet! You’re right, but let’s think about this before we rush in like Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral.”

“No rushing, there—it was a standoff, one gunman against another.”

“That’s just what we could be facing—a standoff between a regiment of killer bees and two defenceless young women,” said Thyme.

“With special powers—don’t forget our special powers.”

“They have special powers, too. Have you ever looked at that book they keep locked up in M. le Directeur’s safe?”

“The one we’re not supposed to know is there…the Necronomicon?”

“That one. I think they have something to do with it. I have the feeling these flying terrorists are Nekrobees.”

“If that’s the case, we could be in way over our heads.” Iris flopped onto the floor, her head in her hands.

“When has that ever stopped us? Come on. We’ll think of something. “

The sisters put their heads together, to communicate telepathically. Wanting to make surprise one of their weapons, they decided to follow a single bee, in order to determine what the group was up to. Downsizing to the dimensions of baby dragonflies, they zoomed to the top of the stacks, so they could hover over the entire collection. From there, they watched the bees moving through the stacks. They seemed to be reading the book titles on the spines. “I didn’t think bees could read French,” whispered Iris.

“We’ve already agreed that these aren’t ordinary bees.”

“No, they’re not…but…ah…look there, that lazy one…it’s falling behind the others.”

No matter how well-drilled an army, even of rampaging sentient bees, there’s always at least one who can’t or won’t keep up. Iris and Thyme had found a slacker.

Taking advantage of their diminished size, they flitted and darted behind the lone, lazy bee as it fell farther and farther behind the main group, stopping every few shelves for several seconds before moving on. “What a lazy plodder. It isn’t helping its fellows at all,” said Thyme.

“I think it’s looking for a place to sleep until the pack comes back.”

“You could be right. Look at that.”

The slow, and really, rather-size-challenged nekrobee had slipped between two books, its violet glow dimming to a memory. “What do we do now?” asked Iris.

“I’m not sure. I think we’ve got company. Look behind you.”

“They look angry. Do they look angry to you?”

Five flashing purple bees had appeared behind them. Another group materialised around a corner, while a third cluster zoomed down from the top of a row. As the twins attempted a tactical retreat toward the front of the stacks, still another group appeared, cutting them off. They were surrounded.

“Yes, Iris. They look angry to me.”

“Damnit, we’ve been ambushed….”

“Led into a trap…”

“…by our own carelessness.”

“Now what do we do?”

That question was answered by the bees. Buzzing, they circled the girls, who had retaken normal size in hopes of improving the odds. Not a chance. The bees darted in, stingers first, trying for an arm or a cheek. To avoid them, Iris and Thyme waved books pulled from the shelves. It was hopeless. Any attempt to deviate or escape was countered by a cloud of angry, purple insects. Inexorably, the bees manoeuvred the girls deeper into the darkness. After five minutes, the twins had run out of stacks, books and ideas. All the while, in the far back, an eye, set into an opaque black circle, watched the melee.

“Iris, that wasn’t here the last time I checked.”

“It’s here now, sister, and we’re about to go through it.”

Unblinking, it had followed their frantic attempts to escape. Once they were flat against it, the eye swirled open. Surrounded by irritated buzzing, the girls exploded through the sable pupil into a lightless cavern.

Behind them, the eye clanged shut. Far ahead, violet lights glowed in the darkness. The bees pushed them towards it. “They really like this colour,” mouthed Iris.

“When we get out of here, I’ll never look at a lilac bush in same way again.”

“If we get out.”

They were moving down a tunnel with smooth, slippery sides. Deeper in, it was lit by flashing bees nailed at intervals to the ceiling.

“I wonder how often they change the bulbs,” said Thyme.

“Don’t joke. Those poor things.”

“Those ‘poor things’ may be herding us to our deaths.”

Ten metres ahead, the tunnel widened into a chamber, its walls covered in markings that looked like writing, but indecipherable. A short, man-like creature, dwarfed by four angular stick insects, waited in the centre.

“Iris.” Thyme poked her sister. “Check out the vertically-challenged dude with the basketball-player bodyguard?”

“My, my, he is short. Looks like a jack-o’-lantern plopped on top of a pumpkin.”

“His mother must have had a mega case of carotene poisoning when she was carrying him.”

“I don’t fancy the look of his bodyguard, either. Green stick insect is not this season’s best fashion choice.”

Mr Pumpkin Man strutted up to the twins. “You two have caused me a very great amount of difficulty. That wasn’t nice.”

“What funny noises it makes,” Thyme said. “They sound like they’re being generated by a machine.”

“No talking,” he barked. “When I want to hear your voices, I’ll tell you. Now, be quiet and follow me.”

“Why should we do that?” Thyme demanded.

“Because, if you don’t, I shall have one of my very tall and very hungry friends crunch off your sister’s arm.”

“You and what army?” Iris shifted from human form into a small, stinging creature. “They’ll have to catch me first.” She swooped in and landing a dart, right on the creature’s shiny, orange head.

“Ouch! Get her! Don’t kill her!” Pumpkin Man screamed. “IT wants them alive.”

The tallest of the Praying-Mantis creatures waved a raptorial leg at Iris, its mandible clicking commands. She darted away, but was soon cornered. With all four trying to grab her, she wouldn’t hold out for long.

“Leave my sister alone!” Thyme, shifting as she screamed, swooped at the Mantis Leader’s eye. It roared and thrashed in pain, all four pairs of legs flailing, lopping off feelers and bits of other mantises. Iris tried to escape the melee and flew straight into a wall of nekrobees. Ominous, saw-like buzzing broadcast how angry they were. Once again, they herded the twins, pushing them deeper into the cavern until the girls teetered on the edge of a cliff. Behind them gaped a long drop into nothingness. “Are you ready, sister?” said Iris.

“Ready when you are.” They jumped.

Endless hours, or seconds, passed. It was impossible to tell. All perception of time had vanished. The bottom, when it arrived, did so without warning. They landed—Splot!—in a puddle of sticky, foul-smelling, purple goo.

“I’m really beginning to hate this colour,” said Iris.

“Me, too. What’s that stink?”

Iris leaned closer to the puddle and sniffed. “It’s from the Dragon Arum (Dracunculus vulgaris), I think. Euch! Disgusting! The things I do for you.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Probably. I don’t know. Never touched one before.”

“Then I think we should get out of here as fast as possible. Damn!”

“Now what?”

“I’m stuck. Can you lift your arm?”

Iris jerked her arm upward; rubbery strings wrapped around her forearm pulled it back.

“Damn!”

Taking a deep breath, she bent over suddenly and pulled a knife out of her boot. Bouncing back up, she slashed at the tentacles holding her arm. The puddle creature writhed and hissed, releasing her. As it backed away growling, she moved to cut her sister free.

“That’s better,” said Thyme, rubbing her arm. “That was gross.”

“You two are becoming very tiresome. First, you blind my avatar’s guards and now, you’ve frightened my poor little dragon flower.”

The twins swivelled around to discover an enormous, squishy-looking thing with waving tentacles and beady, purple eyes.

“What the…who or what are you?” Thyme demanded.

“More purple,” muttered Iris.

“Many people have called me by many names; all were wrong and all were right.”

“First, it tries to kill us, complains when we protect ourselves, and now answers our questions with stupid riddles.” Thyme detested inconsistencies.

“If you must possess something as trivial as a name before answering my questions, ‘The Elder God’ will do as well as any.”

“Thank you. I’m relieved we have that settled,” said Iris.

“Now, will you have the courtesy to answer me? Whatever are you doing here? Why have you invaded my home?” While the creature was saying this, oily tentacles had extruded from hand-like appendages and were slithering across their faces, caressing their hair and examining their ear-cavities.

“Argh! What in the name of bastard kittens do you think you are doing?” Thyme barked.

“I’m trying to discover your weaknesses—your price. Everyone has one.”

“And you think that rubbing slime and squid spit in our hair will make us reveal it?”

“Do you know a better way?” The mouth part of the monster smirked.

“Stop that!” Iris pushed an intrusive tentacle away from the corner of her eye socket.

“Yes. Why don’t you just ask us what our price is?”

“What an intriguing idea. No one has ever suggested that before.” The monster leaned back, appearing to be deep in thought. “All right, what is it that you care about more than all else in this life?”

“Books!” they shouted in unison.

“Ouch! Not so loud, if you please.” Several tentacles clutched the places on its head where—in a humanoid—ears would be, and grimaced.

“Books, book, books!” they screamed again.

“Books on paper, whole books, old books, new books, books between cardboard covers…” shouted Thyme.

“With leather bindings,” added Iris. “Unexpurgated, uncut, undoctored, unelectronic—real books!”

“Books for children—that they can hold.”

“And young adults and students.”

“All right, I get the point. So, tell me how I can use that to get you to leave my pets, my sweet little nekrobees, alone.”

“’Sweet little nekrobees,’” Thyme mimicked the Elder. “About as sweet as a tarantula crossed with a rattlesnake.”

“You don’t like my little pets?” it asked, as one settled on its frontal area. A tentacle reached down and caressed the bee before popping it into a mouth. Crunch and it was gone. The Elder belched a stench of rotting violets.

“Euw! Don’t you ever brush your teeth?” Iris complained.

“My, you are a silly girl. Answer my question, please. How can I persuade you to stop persecuting my bees?”

“Keep the damnable, flying vermin out of our library,” said Thyme.

“Oh, but I can’t do that. They have work to do there—important work.”

“What’s that, then?” said Thyme.

“And what kind of work causes my books to cry and scream?” demanded Iris.

“Surgery is always painful—is it not?”

“Surgery! What kind of surgery?” They cried, this time in unison.

“When something is diseased or broken or wrong, it should be cut out, like a cancer. Don’t you agree?”

“There are no cancers in my books, only ideas,” said Iris.

“Ah, my dear Iris, I’m sure you would agree that ideas can sometimes be dangerous, that wrong ideas can spread like disease until they infect entire civilisations.”

The creature’s beaming, oily smile made Thyme want to smash her fist right into the middle of that blubbery gob.

Iris thought about The Elder’s words before she answered. “I believe, if people read enough, are educated enough—think about hard things enough, they can protect themselves against dangerous ideas.”

“My darling Iris, you are so idealistic. “

“I’m not your darling.”

“And who gets to decide which ideas are good and which are dangerous?” Thyme demanded.

“In this case, I do.”

“Wait! No…I get it.” A shining yellow globe lit up above Iris’ head. “That’s what those horrid bees are doing. They’re changing texts—to suit…YOU!”

“What a clever child you are.”

“That’s monstrous.”

“Why bother? Nobody reads these books—nobody but us, anyway. The rest of the world gets its ideas from electronic libraries.” Thyme, muttered.

“That’s right. And where do you think electronic libraries get their texts from?”

“Huh?”

“Your books, and those in the other central depositories, are the foundation texts for all the world’s electronic media.”

“So, if you change our copy, you change all the rest.”

“What smart little girlies you are.”

Growling and hissing, Thyme was temporarily beyond speech, so Iris took up the cudgel.

“Let me see if I understand you correctly: You’re not re-writing history….”

“That’s so passé. Nobody believes what’s in history books, anymore.”

“Because monsters like you have re-written them so often.”

“I’ll ignore that, but yes, history books have become irrelevant. Facts don’t influence individual actions—except for soldiers, anyway.”

“And you think novels do?”

“Certainly. The world’s great books form the underlying paradigms of all human behaviour.”

“At least we agree on something. What’s wrong with our books the way they are?”

“Oh, Iris, are you really so naïve? Your books are so nice…so moral. They have nothing to teach us about how to live in a modern world.”

“You’re saying that if Madame Bovary hadn’t been so guilt-ridden, she wouldn’t have ended up riding around the French countryside with her lover’s head on her lap?”

“Exactly. Had she been more pragmatic, she’d have lived a long and happy life.”

“Next, you’ll say Anna Karenina shouldn’t have thrown herself in front of that train.”

“Stupid, stupid, stupid…a sorry waste of human resources.”

“You think that, by changing the plots of great novels, you can influence how people behave? That’s nonsense—nobody cares about literature these days.”

“Not necessarily. Even if very few have read a particular book, everyone knows the basics. The ideas in them permeate our global consciousness.”

“You think altering the core ideas in our books will change human behaviour? said Thyme. “It won’t work. Nobody but people like us reads, anymore. The general population won’t be exposed to your changes,” said Iris.

“That’s because your books,” the Elder sneered, “are so removed from real life. But if I and my bees bring these into line with current realities…Do you have any idea how many people think popular media—novels, TV, films…ARE the truth? Remember the flap back in the ‘oughties caused by Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code?”

“Yuck! Unfortunately.” Iris looked as if she had bitten into something rotten and very bad-tasting.

Thyme said, “You want to Dan-Brownify our classical heritage?”

“Please.” The creature looked affronted. “Nothing so egregious as that. I like to think I’m a better writer.”

“Irrelevant. We can’t allow you to pervert our books.”

“How do you plan to stop me?” the monster sneered. The effrontery of these two simple young women delighted him.

“We’ll burn the Necronomicon—all the copies, in all the depositories. How many copies exist? Five?” asked Thyme.

“Six,” prompted Iris.

“You can’t…you wouldn’t do that,” it said, horrified.

“We can and we will, if you don’t leave our books alone.”

“I…I will have to consider that….” The Elder retracted all its tentacles and humanoid features. The twins were facing a massive, featureless, stone obelisk.

“What’s to think about? You leave our books alone or your book is a goner!” Thyme shouted.

“Dead, splat…ash,” added Iris.

An eye and a speaking tube appeared. “I could kill you, or keep you here—turn you into ice statues.”

“You could, but you won’t,” said Iris.

“Why is that, pray tell? Please enlighten me.”

“Because our colleagues know we were looking for the source of the books’ distress. If we don’t return, they will initiate a meticulous search of the stacks.” Iris was lying baldly, hoping the monster wouldn’t guess.

“They’d find your eye into our world,” added Thyme, smiling.

“Humphf!” grunted the Elder. “We seem to have reached something of an impasse.”

“I would say so.”

“Let me see if I understand this correctly: If I don’t stop altering the books in your library, you will destroy the foundation document of my world, left for safe-keeping—and in good faith—in your TGB.”

“That sums it up,” said Thyme. “And all the other copies.”

“If I promise to leave your books alone and return you safely to your blasted library, you promise to leave my books alone?”

“Done,” said both.

“ Do you promise never to come to my world again?”

“Definitely! I’d offer to shake on it, but I might vomit all over you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” The Elder produced a high-pitched humming sound that continued for several seconds, bringing a phalanx of gangly mantis creatures at a gallop. “See that these two are delivered intact back to the portal from which they entered.’”

High, fluting voices responded. “Yes, Your Evilness! Nothing will happen to these ugly creatures while we clean them out of our home.”

“Good. Now get them out of here.”

The Mantis Guard, forming a tight square around Iris and Thyme, marched forward. There was no escape and nothing to be done but move with them. After about ten metres, the ground under their feet disappeared. They were flying upwards though what seemed to be a giant wormhole. As on the downward journey, time ceased to register until they were propelled through a membrane in the tunnel. Pop!—and they were back in the library.

“Ow, that was weird,” said Iris. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

“What time is it?”

Thyme looked at her watch, which had started working again, “It reads 22:00 hours. Can that be right? We’re back before we left?”

“Let’s go to the front desk and check.”

As the twins walked through the tunnels of stacks towards the reception area, a soft, melodious humming began. “Iris, what’s that?”

“I think the books are thanking us.”

“Oh, how lovely.”

In the cavernous, marble reception area, everything looked just as it always did. The brass clock above the main desk read 22:15. “Look at that,” “said Thyme. “It felt like we’d been gone for hundreds of years.”

“But it was less than nothing…minus an hour. Weird.”

“Seems so. I don’t care right now. Let’s go home.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Didn’t change them, though—did I?”

The twins went through the routines for securing the building; recalibrating and turning on the sensors, checking that all peripheral doors were closed and locked; setting the alarms; and, finally, locking the main entrance doors with their bronze bas-reliefs. Someone else could open them tomorrow. They were going to call in sick. They’d earned it.

Just as the heavy doors were clicking shut—way, way back at the end of the oldest, dustiest stack—a black eye opened and closed; a tiny violet light winked on and then out.