Four Past Midnight

stopped dead.

3

It was much brighter in the main room than it had been on his first visit, but that was only one of the changes. The ladders which had stretched up to the dim reaches of the upper shelves were gone. There was no need of them, because the ceiling was now only eight or nine feet above the floor instead of thirty or forty. If you wanted to take a book from one of the higher shelves, all you needed was one of the stools which were scattered about. The magazines were placed in an inviting fan on a wide table by the circulation desk. The oak rack from which they had hung like the skins of dead animals was gone. So was the sign reading

RETURN ALL MAGAZINES TO THEIR PROPER PLACES!

The shelf of new novels was still there, but the 7-DAY RENTALS sign had been replaced with one which said READ A BEST-SELLER - JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT!

People - mostly young people - came and went, talking in low tones. Someone chuckled. It was an easy, unselfconscious sound.

Sam looked up at the ceiling, trying desperately to understand what in hell had happened here. The slanted skylights were gone. The upper reaches of the room had been hidden by a modem suspended ceiling. The old- fashioned hanging globes had been replaced by panelled fluorescent lighting set into the new ceiling.

A woman on her way up to the main desk with a handful of mystery novels followed Sam's gaze up to the ceiling, saw nothing unusual there, and looked curiously at Sam instead. One of the boys sitting at a long desk to the right of the magazine table nudged his fellows and pointed Sam out. Another tapped his temple and they all snickered.

Sam noticed neither the stares nor the snickers. He was unaware that he was simply standing in the entrance to the main reading room, gawking up at the ceiling with his mouth open. He was trying to get this major change straight in his mind.

Well, they've put in a suspended ceiling since you were here last. So what? It's probably more heatefficient.

Yes, but the Lortz woman never said anything about changes.

No, but why would she say anything to him? Sam was hardly a library regular, was he?

She should have been upset, though. She struck me as a rock-ribbed traditionalist. She wouldn't like this. Not at all.

That was true, but there was something else, something even more troubling. Putting in a suspended ceiling was a major renovation. Sam didn't see how it could have been accomplished in just a week. And what about the high shelves, and all the books which had been on them? Where had the shelves gone? Where had the books gone?

Other people were looking at Sam now; even one of the library assistants was staring at him from the other side of the circulation desk. Most of the lively, hushed chatter in the big room had stilled.

Sam rubbed his eyes - actually rubbed his eyes - and looked up at the suspended ceiling with its inset fluorescent squares again. It was still there.

I'm in the wrong library! he thought wildly. That's what it is!

His confused mind first jumped at this idea and then backed away again, like a kitten that has been tricked into pouncing on a shadow. Junction City was fairly large by central Iowa standards, with a population of thirty-five thousand or so, but it was ridiculous to think it could support two libraries. Besides, the location of the building and the configuration of the room were right ... it was just everything else that was wrong. Sam wondered for just a moment if he might be going insane, and then dismissed the thought. He looked around and noticed for the first time that everyone had stopped what they were doing. They were all looking at him. He felt a momentary, mad urge to say, 'Go back to what you were doing - I was just noticing that the whole library is different this week.' Instead, he sauntered over to the magazine table and picked up a copy of US News & World Report. He began leafing through it with a show of great interest, and watched out of the corners of his eyes as the people in the room went back to what they had been doing.

When he felt that he could move without attracting undue attention, Sam replaced the magazine on the table and sauntered toward the Children's Library. He felt a little like a spy crossing enemy territory. The sign over the door was exactly the same, gold letters on warm dark oak, but the poster was different. Little Red Riding Hood at the moment of her terrible realization had been replaced by Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They were wearing bathing trunks and diving into a swimming pool filled with books. The tag-line beneath read:

COME ON IN! THE READINGS FINE!

'What's going on here?' Sam muttered. His heart had begun to beat too fast; he could feel a fine sweat breaking out on his arms and back. If it had been just the poster, he could have assumed that La Lortz had been fired ... but it wasn't just the poster. It was everything.

He opened the door of the Children's Library and peeked inside. He saw the same agreeable small world with its low tables and chairs, the same bright-blue curtains, the same water fountain mounted on the wall. Only now the suspended ceiling in here matched the suspended ceiling in the main reading room, and all the posters had been changed. The screaming child in the black sedan

(Simple Simon - they call him Simple Simon they feel contempt for him I think that's very healthy, don't you)

was gone, and so was the Library Policeman with his trenchcoat and his strange star of many points. Sam drew back, turned around, and walked slowly to the main circulation desk. He felt as if his whole body had turned to glass.

Two library assistants - a college-age boy and girl - watched him approach. Sam was not too upset himself to see that they looked a trifle nervous.

Be careful. No ... be NORMAL. They already think you're halfway to being nuts.

He suddenly thought of Lukey and a horrible, destructive impulse tried to seize him. He could see himself opening his mouth and yelling at these two nervous young people, demanding at the top of his voice that they give him a few Slim Fucking Slim Jims, because that was chow, that was chow, that was chow-dedow.

He spoke in a calm, low voice instead.

'Perhaps you could help me. I need to speak to the librarian.'

'Gee, I'm sorry,' the girl said. 'Mr Price doesn't come in on Saturday nights.'

Sam glanced down at the desk. As on his previous trip to the library, there was a small name-plaque standing next to the microfilm recorder, but it no longer said

A. LORTZ.

Now it said

MR PRICE.

In his mind he heard Naomi say, Tall man? Thin? About fifty?

'No,' he said. 'Not Mr Price. Not Mr Peckham, either. The other one. Ardelia Lortz.'

The boy and girl exchanged a puzzled glace. 'No one named Ardelia Lord works here,' the boy said. 'You must be thinking of some other library.'

'Not Lord,' Sam told them. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. 'Lortz.'

'No,' the girl said. 'You really must be mistaken, sir.'

They were starting to look cautious again, and although Sam felt like insisting, telling them of course Ardelia Lortz worked here, he had met her only eight days ago, he made himself pull back. And in a way, it all made perfect sense, didn't it? It was perfect sense within a framework of utter lunacy, granted, but that didn't change the fact that the interior logic was intact. Like the posters, the sky-lights, and the magazine rack, Ardelia Lortz had simply ceased to exist.

Naomi spoke up again inside his head. Oh! Miss Lortz, was it? That must have been fun.