The Grimm Legacy

When I got to the library on Tuesday, Anjali was sitting behind the circulation desk. She sent me upstairs to find Ms. Callender on Stack 6, where the librarians—all except Dr. Rust—had their offices.

Ms. Callender showed me the time clock, a boxy machine mounted on the wall next to a rack of cards with names on them. I found my card and stuck it in the clock’s jaw. The machine chomped down violently, stamping it with the time.

“I’m going to start you off on 2, which is textiles—Textiles and Garb,” said Ms. Callender, punching the elevator button. “Stack 2 was always one of my favorites back when I was a page. If you feel the urge to try things on, well, I won’t tell. I never could resist when I was your age. Just stick to cotton, linen, and wool—they’re pretty sturdy—and make sure you pick the right sizes so you don’t rip anything.” She winked at me.

We went out through a fire door into a long, dim room, like Stack 9, only much more gloomy. “Why’s it so dark here?” I asked.

“We keep the textiles below ground level because of the light. Daylight is terrible for most fibers. It can make them fade or even fall apart. There are desk lamps, though, if you want to read. And the ladies’ room on this floor has a full-length mirror.”

The aisles between the cabinets stretched out into darkness. I heard footsteps echoing a long way off. “It’s spooky,” I said.

Ms. Callender smiled, making her round cheeks bunch up into apples. “You think so?” she said. “Most of the pages find Stack 1 the spookiest. Now, the first thing to remember: always wash your hands and wear gloves. The oils and acids on your skin can damage the cloth.” There was a sink near the dumbwaiters, along with a supply cabinet full of cotton gloves, padded hangers, tissue paper, and cardboard boxes stamped Archival.

“I don’t get it,” I said, washing my hands. “This is a circulating library, right? So people are checking out the clothing and wearing it. That’s got to be worse for it than me touching it with my hands.”

“Yes, you’re right. Technically, almost all of our holdings circulate,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean people can just do what they like with whatever they borrow—they have to return it in the same condition they received it in or they pay degradation fines. And the most valuable objects require a deposit.”

“How much do you have to pay if you get finger acid on something?”

“It depends what you’re handling. Not much if it’s just a T-shirt, more if it’s something like Lincoln’s hat or Marie Antoinette’s wig. With the important holdings, we have so many restrictions that nobody really borrows them but museums, and they certainly don’t wear them. We have an actuary on staff to figure it all out.”

“Marie Antoinette’s wig! Can I see that?”

“Sure.” Ms. Callender touched a button and a dim light illuminated one of the aisles. We walked down it to a door marked *V, which she unlocked. “This is the Stack 2 Valuables Room— *V for Valuables,” she said. The room was crammed with labeled cabinets. She unlocked one and showed me rows of wigs on what looked like china heads. There were blond ones and black ones, wigs with intricate braids and simple buns, long curly wigs like the ones judges wear on British TV shows.

“I won’t take it out, but that one’s the queen’s,” said Ms. Callender, pointing to a white wig. It was tall and rather plain.

“Wow! Was she wearing it when she had her head cut off?” I asked. I looked for bloodstains but didn’t see any.

“No, no,” said Ms. Callender. “Ugh! No, that’s just one of her simpler weekday wigs. She gave it to a lady in waiting, who escaped the revolution disguised as a wig maker and made it to England, where she married a fur trader from Vermont. One of their descendants donated it in the 1960s. He got a tax write-off.”

“That’s amazing! Where’s Lincoln’s hat—can I see that too?”

“Maybe another time. Ask me again when we’re not busy, okay, honey? Now let me show you how to run a call slip.”

Ms. Callender locked up the *V Room carefully and we went back out to the Stack 2 staging area, where the sink and elevators were. A guy about my age was inspecting a call slip under one of the desk lamps.

“Hello, Aaron,” said Ms. Callender. “This is Elizabeth. I’m showing her how to run slips. Mind if we take that?”

“Not at all,” he said, handing her the paper. She spread it on the desk.

It read:

“For your purposes, the most important part is the call number,” said Ms. Callender. “It tells you where to find the object. We use a modified Dewey decimal system to organize the collection, like a conventional book library. The objects are grouped by subject. The first segment of the call number, the prefix—II T&G in this case—identifies the stack and collection: Stack 2, Textiles and Garb. After the prefix comes the Dewey decimal number.”

“So where’s II T&G 391.440944 L46?”

“You can check the wall map. Fifth row east. This way.” I followed her down another dim aisle between cabinets labeled with call numbers.

When we reached the right row, Ms. Callender stopped and twisted a dial on the wall, like a kitchen timer. A light came on in the aisle. “The lights are on timers to save energy,” said Ms. Callender. “That way you don’t have to worry if you forget to turn them off behind you.”

She opened the cabinet door and pulled a small umbrella out of a cubbyhole. “Always double-check to make sure you have the right object,” she said, opening the umbrella gently. She inspected the handle and read a cardboard tag. “This is it.” We headed back toward the desks.

Ms. Callender marked the call slip with her initials and sent the umbrella up to the Main Examination Room in the medium-size dumbwaiter. “That’s the basic idea,” she said. “For today, you can shadow Aaron—he’ll tell you what to do. And let me know if you run into any trouble.”

Aaron was reading a book at one of the desks. “So you’re the new girl,” he said, looking up.

“I’m Elizabeth Rew,” I said.

“Aaron Rosendorn.”

“How long have you worked here?” I asked.

“Two years.”

“You must like it, then,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What’s your favorite thing about it? Do you have a favorite collection?”

“What do you mean?” His eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know—there are different collections here, right? The textiles on this stack and the china upstairs. Or I heard someone say something about the Grimm Collection, whatever that is. Do you have a favorite?”

He frowned. The light from the reading lamp threw shadows on his high cheekbones and around his nose, giving him an arrogant expression—or maybe that was just how he looked. “Why do you want to know?” he asked. He sounded either stuck up or paranoid.

“No reason—I was just making conversation. Is it a big secret or something?”

“No, not really,” he said. “This is one of the world’s great repositories. It’s an honor to work here.” He looked at me for a few seconds like he was sizing me up. “How did you get the job?”

Was he implying I didn’t deserve it? “My social studies teacher, Mr. Mauskopf. He used to work here himself when he was our age. He knows Dr. Rust and Ms. Callender.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“Fisher.”

“Oh, with Marc Merritt.” Now he sounded even more suspicious and disapproving. What was wrong with this guy? Everyone else here seemed so friendly.

“Yes, Marc’s in my class,” I said.

“How nice for you,” said Aaron. What an unpleasant person, I thought.

A pneum came rattling through the pipes and thumped into the basket. Aaron pulled out the slip and handed