โPlease. You have to be careful.โ
๎ขe woman had arrived seemingly from nowhere. Smartly dressed, with short grey hair and a turtle-green polo neck jumper. About sixty, if Nora had to pin it down.
โWho are you?โ
But before she had ๏ฌnished the question, she realised she already knew the answer.
โIโm the librarian,โ the woman said, coyly. โ๎ขat is who.โ
Her face was one of kind but stern wisdom. She had the same neat cropped grey hair sheโd always had, with a face that looked precisely as it always did in Noraโs mind.
For there, right in front of her, was her old school librarian. โMrs Elm.โ
Mrs Elm smiled, thinly. โPerhaps.โ
Nora remembered those rainy a๎ernoons, playing chess.
She remembered the day her father died, when Mrs Elm gently broke the news to her in the library. Her father had died suddenly of a heart attack while on the rugby ๏ฌeld of the boysโ boarding school where he taught. She was numb for about half an hour, and had stared blankly at the un๏ฌnished game of chess.ย ๎ขe reality was simply too big to absorb at ๏ฌrst, but then it had hit her hard and sideways, taking her o๏ฌย the track sheโd known. She had hugged Mrs Elm so close, crying into her polo neck until her face was raw from the fusion of tears and acrylic.
Mrs Elm had held her, stroking and smoothing the back of her head like a baby, not o๏ฌering platitudes or false comforts or anything other than
concern. She remembered Mrs Elmโs voice telling her at the time: โ๎ขings will get better, Nora. Itโs going to be all right.โ
It was over an hour before Noraโs mother came to pick her up, her brother stoned and numb in the backseat. And Nora had sat in the front next to her mute, trembling mother, saying that she loved her, but hearing nothing back.
โWhat is this place? Where am I?โ
Mrs Elm smiled a very formal kind of smile. โA library, of course.โ
โItโs not the school library. And thereโs no exit. Am I dead? Is this the a๎erlife?โ
โNot exactly,โ said Mrs Elm. โI donโt understand.โ
โ๎ขen let me explain.โ
