The Museum of Literary Souls

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository is no longer in Glossom. At the beginning of this century the town was discovered by developers, and the land beside the library was earmarked for houses and a modern shopping mall. Questions started to be asked about the peculiar old building at the end of the laneway, and so it was that one evening a vast fleet of anonymous trucks arrived driven by anonymous men, and in the space of a single night the entire contents of Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository — books, characters, and all — were spirited away and resettled in a new home in a little village not far from the sea but far indeed from cities and, indeed, trains. The librarian, now very old and not a little stooped, liked to walk on the beach in the evenings accompanied by a small terrier dog and, if the weather was good, a beautiful, pale woman with long, dark hair.

One night, just as summer was fading into autumn, there was a knock on the door of Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository, and the librarian opened it to find a young woman standing on the doorstep. She had in her hand a copy of Vanity Fair.

“Excuse me,” she said, “I know this may sound a little odd, but I’m absolutely convinced that I just saw a man who looked like Robinson Crusoe collecting seashells on the beach, and I think he returned with them to this” — she looked at the small brass plate to her right — “library.”

Mr. Berger opened the door wide to admit her.

“Please come in,” he said. “It may sound equally odd, but I think I’ve been expecting you…”