A Meeting of Minds
Heaven only knows where the stories are going to stop…
"Clara Hartley!"
Clara started violently at the sound of her name, looking around her in bewilderment, Flynn doing the same, completely clueless.
"Clara Hartley, get your English ass in here!"
"I think they're talking to you," Flynn said, making the obvious even more obvious, wincing at the sheer volume of the voice.
"You – you wait here," Clara said hastily, sensing a spanner named Charlene in the works, "don't go anywhere until I come back."
Flynn nodded, Clara nodding back, before nervously approaching the interview room, not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of facing Charlene again. She entered an imposing entrance hall that looked like the bastard offspring of Versailles and the set of an Adam Ant music video, only to see Charlene sitting behind a seventeenth century French walnut four column refectory table, her hands folded in front of her, overplucked eyebrows raised questioningly in Clara's direction.
"Hello," Clara said, approaching Charlene like she would a wild animal, "I - I think there's been an error" -
- "Clara Hartley is a seventeen year old schoolgirl," Charlene snapped, glancing down at the sheave of parchment on the table, "yet here you stand before me at the height of your womanhood. What's the story, sweetheart?"
But before Clara could frame a suitable answer, the doors suddenly slammed shut behind her, a breeze shooting through the room, rippling the red velvet curtains and Clara's hair. The chair set out for her span to the other side of the room, finding its final place in front of a wood-panelled wall, the sheave of parchment disappearing in a puff of smoke, making Charlene start violently.
"What the devil..." Charlene breathed, before hastily smoothing down her hair, and surveying Clara over steepled fingers. "Well, it looks like the Library has chosen," she said, looking insulted at the idea, "you're our new Librarian, Clara Hartley."
"I'm not the Librarian," Clara said, wringing her hands, "I mean, I am a Librarian, or I was, but I'm not the Librarian."
"We only have one Librarian at a time," Charlene said, standing up, "and now that happens to be you."
"You don't understand," Clara snapped, struggling to keep calm, "the Librarian is out there!" She jabbed a manicured finger in the direction of the doors, making Charlene roll her eyes at Clara's histrionics.
"The Librarian is standing right in front of me," Charlene snapped back, snatching up her handbag, "now hop to it, kid - it's been a long day and we have a lot of work to do."
"I want to speak to Judson," Clara demanded, clutching at straws, startling Charlene, "he'll understand even if you don't."
"Will I?" Judson said, walking through a wall.
Heart beating like a bongo drum, Clara just stood there, staring at him, before suddenly launching herself into his arms, throwing her own around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck.
"You know a simple hello would have sufficed," Judson said gently, detaching himself with some difficulty, "I'm not above the humble greeting."
"I'm not the Librarian," Clara said in a rush, her eyes wild, "Flynn Carsen is the Librarian" -
- "I know," Judson said, startling her this time, "but the Library seems to have chosen you."
"It's not time yet!" Clara yelled up at the ceiling. "You're too early! Ten years early to be precise!"
"You sure you're not the Librarian?" Charlene said, raising her eyebrows again, remembering how every Librarian she'd ever encountered had developed the bad habit of hollering at walls and ceilings, addressing flat surfaces as if they were foes.
"Look, I know why the Library wants me," Clara said, rounding on Judson, "that it will spend the next ten years trying to track me down. My seventeen year old self is out there somewhere right at this minute, my father murdered by my mother, my whole life a lie, the Library sending me a letter I will never receive. But all that is a story for another time" -
- "The Library hears but it doesn't listen," Judson said tiredly, "so your words are wasted" -
- "Oh really?" Clara snapped, before marching over to the double doors, ready to fling them open and admit Flynn entrance, only find they were locked shut. "Bloody hell!" she screeched, rattling the ornate doorhandles like maracas. "Let me out!" she screamed, making Judson wince, Charlene's eyebrows now climbing up her forehead.
"Clara?" Flynn exclaimed from the other side of the doors. "What the hell is going on!?"
"I can't get out!" Clara cried, completely losing her head. "They won't let me go!"
"Don't worry, I'll save you!" Flynn bellowed, completely losing his own head, unable to save a codfish never mind Clara. As he rushed the doors, they suddenly flew open, an invisible force shoving Clara aside, Flynn falling over his feet, spectacularly performing a face-plant.
"This acrobat is meant to be the Librarian?" Charlene scoffed. "God help us."
Flynn sat in the middle of the room, his leg ticcing, clutching his folder for dear life. He had taken so long to sit down, his backside hovering like a helium balloon, that Charlene had suggested taking a siesta while they waited, making him suddenly take a seat. Clara was by the window, Judson having faded into the ether during the fracas. Charlene was now seated behind the table again, glancing nervously around her, not sure what was going to happen next. But Clara surprisingly seemed to have the Library on a leash, so Charlene dared to open the interview with an insult, narrowing her eyes at Flynn as she spoke.
"Corduroy went out with the Bay City Rollers, buddy," she said, gesturing to his suit, "so I can see you won't be saving the world with your sense of style, that's for sure."
"Don't you mean plaid?" Flynn said nervously, reluctantly remembering the Bay City Rollers from his mother's record collection, their tartan turn-out hard to forget in a hurry.
"Don't start getting smart with me, sonny boy," Charlene retorted, "I don't know what the hell is going on, but your broad says you're the Librarian, so show us shucks what you got."
"I'm the what?" Flynn said incredulously, glancing at Clara, who was hopping from one foot to the other in frustration.
"Show me!"
Flynn cleared his throat, trying to hide his shaking hands behind his back, only to drop his folder. "Uh," he began, abandoning all efforts to retrieve it to study Charlene instead, nearly going cross-eyed with the effort, "you have mononucleosis, your marriage broke up two months ago, you broke your nose when you were four and you live with three cats. Is that what you had in mind?"
Charlene just stared at him, shellshocked.
"Swollen parajugular lymph nodes," Flynn said, indicating his neck and eyes, "distended eyelids are clearly mono. It takes about three months for an indentation on the ring finger to completely disappear – yours is approximately two thirds gone and your plastic surgeon gave you a terminus paralateral scar, which is usually given only to children under the age of six, plus I can clearly see three distinctive types of cat hair, a white Himalayan, a tortoiseshell and an orange-striped tabby."
Clara exhaled sharply, not realising she had been holding her breath.
"I didn't break my nose until I was five," Charlene said stiffly, only to jump as Judson's voice echoed around the entrance hall.
"What is more important than knowledge?" Judson intoned mystically, making Clara roll her eyes.
Flynn turned wildly on the spot, trying to locate the source of the voice, having a Wizard of Oz moment. "The things that make life worth living," he said nervously, glancing at Clara as he spoke, "can't be thought here," he tapped the side of his head, remembering his mother's voice, giving his own one strength, "and must be felt... here?" He placed his hand over his heart almost hopefully, making Charlene's lips curl downwards.
Judson walked through the wall again, applauding Flynn's answer, making Flynn nearly fall down in shock, Charlene standing up, glancing up at the ceiling almost nervously, expecting it to fall down. The chair span across the room again, Flynn leaping back like a scalded cat, a playful tug of wind pulling on Clara's hair, making her whisper 'thank you' to the empty air, knowing that the Library had listened this time.