Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows

'Are we going the same way?' asked Pau, heading for his bicycle.

'No, I'm staying here tonight.'

'Is that a good idea?' he asked. 'They might come back.'

'Exactly,' she replied.

Pau shook his head.

'Go ahead and play the hero, if you want. But I've really got to get some sleep,' he said, sounding apologetic. 'Will you be okay on your own?'

Katherina nodded in reply.

When she woke the next morning, it was dark all around her, and it took several minutes for her to figure out where she was. The boards over the windows of Libri di Luca kept out the morning light. The folding camp bed under her creaked at the slightest move, but that hadn't stopped her from sleeping. She recalled wrestling with the bed the night before, but she didn't remember taking off her shoes or climbing in.

The sound of traffic outside penetrated the darkness, and she lay listening to it for a while before she untangled herself from the blanket and sat up. After putting on her shoes and woollen sweater, she went over to switch on the light in the ceiling lamp.

The shop was a sorry sight. The missing piece of carpet was like an open wound, and the barricaded windows and bed made the room look like an improvised hiding place for antiquities during a bombing raid rather than a bookshop.

She unlocked the door and went outside. Not a cloud in the sky, but the shop was still in the shadows of the other buildings, so it was bitterly cold. For the first time since spring she could see her own breath, and for a moment she jumped about on the pavement in front of the shop to stay warm. It was past eleven, and Libri di Luca should have opened two hours ago, but the pitiful state of the facade had no doubt kept any potential customers far away.

Katherina left the door ajar and began cleaning up inside. The books that were normally displayed on tables just inside the entrance had been tossed on the floor further back in the shop, so she started by setting up a table where she could put them. Unable to sort them by author or title, she indiscriminately piled them into stacks.

She spent the rest of the day cleaning and waiting for customers, with a lunch break at a nearby pizzeria. Only two braved the barricades to have a look inside, but it was clear to see that the devastation bothered them, and they left the shop without buying anything.

Jon turned up late in the day. He had dark circles under his eyes and it didn't look as if he had shaved. His clothes, on the other hand, were impeccable, up until he took off his tie and opened the top button of his blue shirt.

'Hard day?' asked Katherina after they exchanged greetings and Jon plopped down in the leather chair, heaving a big sigh.

'I suppose you could call it that,' he said and closed his eyes. 'What about here? Any problems?'

Katherina gave him a summary of her day, which took less than a minute.

'All right,' said Jon, opening his eyes. 'We have to see about having the windows replaced. I'll try to get hold of a glass company tomorrow.'

'Have you heard from Kortmann?' asked Katherina.

'He rang just as I was leaving. There's a meeting in…' He glanced at his watch. 'Half an hour.'

'Here?'

'No, some place in Шsterbro. A library,' replied Jon, adding with a smile: 'Where else?'

The library was on Dag Hammarskjцlds Allй across from the American Embassy. Big picture windows faced the street, and passers-by could freely look in at the rows of shelves holding books and boxes of comics. Even from outside they could see that there were still quite a few people in the library, despite the fact that the official business hours would end in ten minutes.

Katherina followed Jon inside through a five-metre-long foyer to the actual front doors. It had been a long time since she was last inside a library. Her powers made it a taxing experience. Even though she was good at blocking out all the input, she could still sense a roaring background noise that refused to go away. The books gave her no joy. The bindings were often merely glued, and the quality of the covers was standardized and impersonal.

Right inside the doors was a counter where a lone female librarian was helping the last borrowers. She was about fifty with long blonde hair and a pair of round glasses that were too big for her narrow, pale face. Katherina thought she looked familiar, and when their eyes met, the librarian broke out in a smile and gave her a brief nod. They continued on past the counter to the stacks.

To the right of the counter was the periodicals department, a glass enclosure where newspapers and magazines were displayed along the walls. In the middle of the glass enclosure were chairs and tables where readers could leaf through the daily papers or selected periodicals.

'Kortmann,' whispered Jon, staring at a man who was sitting at one of the tables with his back turned to them. Upon closer inspection, Katherina discovered that the man was sitting in a wheelchair.

'What now?' she whispered back.

'I think it starts after the library closes,' said Jon in a low voice. 'Let's split up.'

Katherina nodded and began moving slowly past the room with the periodicals and towards the children's section. Jon headed in the opposite direction. It had grown dark outside, and the reflection from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling made the big picture windows look like surfaces of opaque black glass. Katherina had a feeling that someone was watching her from outside in the dark as she strolled past the boxes of comic books. She passed the time by leafing through a few of the comics while out of the corner of her eye she observed the other library patrons. In the fiction section a man in his forties stood with his nose in a thick book -The Name of the Rose, judging by the small snippets she was receiving. Katherina cautiously focused her powers on him and had a clear sense that he was also just killing time. When she turned her head to study him, he immediately looked up and she thought she caught a spark of recognition in his eyes. He quickly lowered his gaze, put the book back and continued along the shelves.

In this way Katherina reconnoitred the library and found several more people strolling about among the books with a purpose other than borrowing reading material. In addition to the man in his forties, there was a couple in their thirties immersed in a discreet conversation at the end of one of the corridors in the stacks, a teenage girl in the comic book area and an Asian-looking man wandering around in the non-fiction section. All of them were directing their attention at something other than what they were reading, and they kept sending searching glances at everyone else.

At closing time the librarian walked around to announce the last call for checking out books. None of the individuals Katherina had noticed responded, but the last library patrons who had actually come to borrow books headed for the check-out counter. Slowly Katherina made her way back to the periodicals room, and she noted that the other remaining people did the same.

Jon was already inside the glass enclosure. He was moving along the far wall, apparently very interested in magazines about fishing. Katherina suppressed the temptation to find out what he was really thinking about.

The librarian had let the last borrower out and locked the front door.

'Now we can get started,' she declared loudly and turned off the lights in the rooms facing the street.

The rest of the participants gradually emerged from the rows of stacks and the reading areas. They nodded to each other with small smiles of acknowledgement and headed for the glass enclosure. One by one they sat down at the tables in the middle, and conversations quickly started up about all sorts of things. The librarian was the last to arrive, but just as she was about to close the door, they heard a loud banging at the front entrance.