It’s here! The Crimson Pact anthology is now available in a variety of e-formats from several online purveyors, for a mere $5. My contribution is “Hidden Collection,” in which a brash and somewhat naive library science grad student uncovers various mysterious goings-on at a university research library.
The story was fun to write, and although a few of the surface details of the library (it’s exterior, mostly) were inspired by the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, its more esoteric features are, sadly, pure invention.
I kept the audio rights to the story, thinking I’d record it and post it here. Then I looked at it again and remembered that it’s NINE THOUSAND WORDS LONG. So instead, here’s part one of a teaser for it (I’ll post part two tomorrow):
Hidden Collection
by Sarah Kanning
Adler Research Library looked like a mausoleum. That was my first impression, based on its gleaming white limestone, Doric columns and narrow windows. It had been a state-of-the-art facility fifty years earlier, but time had moved on, and Adler had not.
On the first day of my internship, I stepped from the brightness outside to the windowless lobby, lit by recessed fixtures that cast faintly reddish pools of light on the marble floor. Silence pressed down on me once the outer door clicked closed, cutting off the August sounds of weed trimmers and mowers. The interior, full of carved wood paneling, bronze doorplates, and marble flooring, made me feel like I was in a time machine. No one would need to shush anyone here; the building’s daunting architecture and interior design alone could keep voices low and reverent.
Too bad I didn’t do reverent. It just made me feel rebellious, all the silence and dust. I wanted to unlock, to release, to free all that information, forever. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.
A few whispered words from the ancient receptionist sent me to the office of Dr. Lucille Trauber, head of special collections at Adler Library and my practicum supervisor for the next fifteen weeks.
My first impression of Dr. Trauber was that she matched the building. She looked the part of the old-school librarian: gold-tone eyeglasses, a short, permed hairstyle and a wool suit that Katharine Hepburn might have worn back in the forties. She was rake thin and maybe sixty years old.
The sleek new laptop with in its brushed black aluminum case sitting on her desk looked out of place among the piles of paper, folders, books, and junk that littered every horizontal surface in the office. The computer gave me hope that she had some clue about the digitization projects I’d be working on at Adler. After introductions and few pleasantries, she got right down to the business of dashing my hopes.
“We’re all ready for you to begin with the pioneer narratives,” Dr. Trauber said, peering at me through her gold-rimmed spectacles and employing a polite but bulldozing tone that I’m sure she’d honed on many previous interns. “There’s a workspace near the collection on the second floor, with power and a network connection, good lighting.” She beamed as though she were offering me Shangri-la, rather than the bare minimum of tolerable working conditions.
I smiled at her over the stacks of papers on her desk. I’d have to proceed carefully.
“Oh,” I said, keeping my expression bright and optimistic, but letting my tone carry a little hint of dismay. “I thought that since those are already cataloged and have pretty good finding aids, I would start with the backlog.”
The backlog is the dirty secret of every library like this one. Some administrator gets a great deal on a collection or three, a few unexpected (and unfunded) gifts in kind show up, and suddenly you are awash in stuff that might be valuable to scholars but has yet to make it into the catalog. Until it does it might as well not exist. Call me curious, but I thought I’d find some forgotten gems that I could probably work into a paper or two. The same could not be said for playing scanner jockey all semester.
“Those narratives are some of the more heavily used items in the collection,” Trauber said, keeping her voice pleasant, but bringing a little steel into the tone to match the iron gray of her hair and skirt. “The undergraduates love them. And they love digital access. It would be a good project for you, and one we’ve needed for a long time.”
“I’m sure there are a lot more interesting things here that haven’t even made it into the catalog yet,” I observed.
Trauber laughed. “There are a lot of boxes of junk, you mean.”
That was an odd thing for a head curator to say. Hadn’t she approved all those items? “Still, I’d like to poke around a bit. Perhaps in my free time?” I added, giving what I hoped was a winning smile. I had to keep it light; in this job market, a lukewarm reference from a practicum could sink my chances after graduation.
“We’ll see,” Trauber said, in a tone that clearly meant don’t bet on it. “If you get done with your assigned project by the end of the semester.” She ever so slightly emphasized the word assigned in case I failed to take her meaning.
Adler might not have been the greatest fit for me, but there were other perks. I’d found a cheap room to rent that was only a ten minute walk from the campus. I’d even met a guy during my first trip to the laundromat. His name was James. He was so cute, claiming he didn’t know how the machines worked so that I’d have to help him with the settings.
We shot pool together on the rippled green felt of the ancient table in the back to pass the time while our driers banged away, filling the place with steam. We swapped numbers and he said he’d love to get a beer sometime with me.
Even if I got stuck scanning endless pages of early nineteenth century pioneers’ journals for fifteen weeks, I could make this work.
I was thinking about James, the laundromat Lothario, as I left Adler at 5:15 p.m. on Friday of my first week. It was nice for late August, and the place had cleared out at 5 on the dot. As I walked out, a text popped up from James. How you doing? He’d sent it an hour ago. I’d been freezing all day in the building, so I hit Reply and plunked down on a whitewashed stone bench to thaw out a bit and think of something clever and charming to text back.
Hey yourself. Just got out. Week 1 over! I texted.
As I sat there and fumbled with my phone, the sky turned dark. I mean instantly, unnaturally, not the way storms can sometimes sneak up on you in the Midwest. This wasn’t a storm. It looked like the air above me had turned brownish black, like a gargantuan cloud of gnats or the worst air pollution ever. My guts churned as I looked at it. Something was wrong, something that filled me with dread. Then the darkness began to rush down toward me.
…