Ceremonies

'That old man left this lying on the windowsill,' she told Mrs Schumann, who'd been going through the offerings on the magazine racks for a group of patently uninterested children. Carol held up the book. 'It's a wonder the binding isn't cracked, with workmanship like this. I'd better return it downstairs. Someone may be looking for it.'

'I suppose so,' the older woman said dubiously. For the first time, she looked put out. 'You haven't done a heck of a lot of work here today. Who was he, anyway?'

'A friend of my father's.' The he was curiously comforting, as if speaking it aloud made it true. 'He brought it up here by accident.'

Mrs Schumann blinked in slow comprehension, ignoring two small boys who were pawing through a rack of Crickets and Ranger Rick as Carol hurried from the room.

She examined the book as she headed for the staircase. It appeared to be a collection of stories by someone named Machen; she had never heard the name before and was not even sure how to pronounce it. She wondered how her new acquaintance – Rosie, how perfectly fitting the name seemed! – had managed to walk off with it. Had he thought it might pertain to his research? Perhaps they're fairy tales, she thought, and flipped through the book to see. It fell open at a story called 'The White People.' Someone – she hoped it hadn't been Rosie himself – had scribbled a few penciled notes at the top of the page. Skimming the opening paragraphs, an earnest, rather abstract discussion of Sin, she gave up and snapped the book shut. This was no fairy tale.

The first floor was just as she had left it, crowded with figures pale and immobile as statues and as silent as the storeroom of a museum. Carol sneaked a glance at the clock above the front desk; she had a watch at home, a long-ago Christmas present, but it was broken and she'd never had enough money to have it repaired. Till now, she reminded herself.

It was nearly five fifteen, with still an hour and a half to go before Miss Elms flicked the light switch and announced closing time. For a minute or two there'd be no reaction except irritated sighs. Then one by one the statues would return to life. Among the grad students there'd be a faster riffling of pages; sleepers would lift their heads and shake off the hours of dream. Gathering up books and jackets, they'd shuffle grumbling and blinking toward the front desk.

A young fellow with glasses, Rosie had said. Sitting by the bulletin board. Carol looked around, and immediately recognized the one he'd meant: he was a frequent visitor to the library, a plump, distracted-looking young man with sandy hair cut squarishly short. He wore a faded plaid sports shirt open at the neck, its sleeves rolled up over thick, freckled arms. A blue seersucker jacket clearly in need of pressing was draped over the back of his chair, and a red cloth book bag, empty now, lay crumpled at his elbow on the table. He was squinting into an oversize volume, a directory of some kind from the reference section; a yellow pad beside it was covered with hasty-looking notes.

Approaching him, she cleared her throat. Up and down the aisle heads turned to watch her. 'Excuse me,' she whispered.

He looked up with annoyance, but on seeing Carol his expression softened. Perhaps he recognized her too.

She held out the yellow book. 'I think this may be yours.'

'Mine?' He peered uncertainly at the book, then nodded. 'Oh, yes,' he said, reaching for it. 'Great.' He kept his voice low. 'Where'd you find it?' As he took the book from her, his eyes gave the tiniest flicker, and for an instant she felt his gaze drop to her breasts. It seemed almost a formality; she'd even known priests to do it.

'Someone brought it upstairs by mistake.'

He smiled bitterly. 'Yeah, and I'll bet I know who it was. That weird old guy I ran into today, over in the stacks.'

She laughed. Once more heads turned. 'You mean Rosie. He's very nice, really. He's working on a book.' And I'm helping him, she wanted to add.

'Well, he's damned near kept me from working on mine. I was hoping to get through this by the end of the day' – he tapped the Machen volume- 'and now I'm not going to have time. Am I allowed to check it out?'

'Not this one,' she whispered, even before she'd glanced at the call numbers to make sure. 'Special collection. It can't leave the library.’

He scowled. 'I was afraid of that. Maybe I can Xerox some things in it before I leave.' He pushed back his chair. Carol saw herself about to be dismissed.

'Wait,' she said impulsively, 'I'll do it.' The only alternative was to go back upstairs with the children and their mothers and the slowly growing wrath of Mrs Schumann. 'I have access to the copy room,' she explained. 'And I think the machine's free now.' She hadn't heard it working, at any rate.

'Hey, that's really nice of you,' he said. 'Thanks a lot.' He opened the book to the front and ran his finger down the list of contents. 'Let's see… I'll probably just need 'The Great God Pan' and 'The Inmost Light.' ' He peered speculatively at the tides. 'And maybe the one that old man was going on about – 'The White People.' ' He handed her the book, then searched through his wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. 'I don't know what it'll come to. You can bring me change.'

Everybody's giving me money today, thought Carol as she followed the line of shelves past the administrative offices and toward the windowless little copy room in the rear. My luck must be changing. Taped to the dark wooden door, beneath a sign that said No Admittance – Staff Only, hung a sheet of paper reading See Mrs Tait at front desk for copy vouchers. Inside, the air smelled of sweat and machine oil; a portable fan on a table in the corner did little to alleviate the heat. Mrs Tait's aide, a furtive, narrow-shouldered old man who seemed as suited to the room as a hermit to his cave, was bent over one of the two silent machines, its immense glass-and-metal top lifted open like the hood of a stalled automobile.

'Oh, no,' said Carol. 'Is it broken again?' The second copier, she knew, had been out of commission for months; replacement parts seemed to be permanently 'on order.'

The man had looked up as she came in but was now bent back to the machine, tentatively prying at something with a screwdriver. He reminded Carol of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, about to be swallowed up in an oven. 'She was fine until an hour ago,' he muttered, 'but when I came back from my break-' He strained, grimaced; something came away inside with a clank of metal. 'Well, she's on the fritz now, all right.' Standing, he wiped his hands and regarded her suspiciously. 'You catch anybody coming in here while I was gone?'

'No one I saw.' Sighing, she filled out a mimeographed voucher and left the book atop a pile of others to be copied, paper markers dangling from them like prize ribbons.

'It's not your lucky day,' she told the young man at the table, handing him back his money. 'Both machines are broken down. Those copies of yours won't be ready till Monday at the earliest.'

He cursed softly. 'Oh, great! I'm leaving town Sunday morning, and I won't be back till the end of summer.'

'Well, if you like,' she whispered, as to a disconsolate child, 'I could copy what you need and mail it to you with an invoice.'

He looked up with surprise. 'Really?'

'Sure. We do it for people all the time. After all, it's what you're paying for. You ought to get something for your money.'

He eyed her appreciatively, as if, despite what she'd just told him, she had offered to do him a personal favor. 'Yes,' he said, his voice low, 'that would be terrific. But you know, I'm not technically a subscriber. I'm here on an academic discount. Does that matter?'

'That's all right. Just tell me where you want it sent.'

He folded the pad back to a fresh page. 'It's an RFD out in Jersey,' he said, writing it down. 'I don't know the zip. It's such a weird little out-of-the-way place I'm not even sure they have one.'

She felt a touch of envy. She'd be right here next week; he'd be off in the country. 'Sounds nice to get away to.'

'Yes, it's like going to an earlier century, completely cut off from the world. I can't believe I'll be out there this time Sunday.' He smiled as he tore off the page and handed it to her. 'I'll probably get culture shock when I come back.'

RFD I, Box 63, she read. Gilead, New Jersey. She handed it back to him. 'You forgot to Write your name.'

He laughed, then looked sheepishly as several nearby readers peered angrily up from their books. 'Jeremy,'