Where the Veil is Thin

The library opened at nine, but Sophie Huang arrived at seven-thirty every morning because the books needed time to settle. That was what her grandmother had said, anyway, and Sophie had stopped trying to argue with the dead about library policy somewhere around year two of running the place by herself.

The fog this morning was thick enough to blur the tree line into a grey wash and darken the library's brick facade. Sophie's boots left prints on the wet stone steps, and the brass door handle was cold enough to feel through her gloves.

Books remembered being read, Pó Po had said. They needed quiet time to forget before they were ready again. Sophie had stopped believing that around age twelve, when she'd figured out her grandmother said a lot of things that sounded wise but didn't hold up to scrutiny. Books were paper and ink and binding glue. They didn't remember anything. Sophie had held that position for about four years.

She'd started believing again at sixteen, when she touched a copy of Jane Eyre and three generations of heartbreak slammed into her chest.

The problem with psychometry was that it made you believe in nonsense.

The Willowmere Public Library was a Victorian building that had been updated exactly once, in 1987, when someone installed fluorescent lights and immediately regretted it. Sophie had replaced them with warm LEDs two years ago, and the building had stopped groaning at her every time she flipped the switch.

She pushed the door open. The first thing she noticed was the smell of old paper and binding glue. The radiators were already ticking metallic underneath, and the wood floors creaked in their usual spots as she crossed to the alarm panel. Sophie had learned the building's sounds like you learn the sounds of someone you live with.

It was 7:45 when she disabled the alarm (which hadn't worked since 2019 but still beeped reassuringly) and walked the perimeter. This was her routine, muscle memory by now. She checked the windows, then the back exit, then the rare books room. The rare books room had its own lock because tourists kept trying to steal first editions that weren't even valuable, just old. The tourists hadn't learned the difference yet, and Sophie wasn't going to be the one to teach them.

She made her way to the circulation desk, dropped her bag on the chair, and started the ancient computer that took exactly four minutes and thirty-seven seconds to boot. She made tea in that time.

Her grandmother's teacup sat in the same spot it had occupied for thirty years. It was porcelain painted with chrysanthemums, brought from Hong Kong before Sophie was born. Sophie had never moved it. On mornings like this, when fog pressed against the arched windows and the radiators ticked, the library felt smaller and closer. Sometimes she could almost see her grandmother standing there with steam coming off the cup and disapproval working underneath it.

You're thirty years old, little one. When are you going to give me great-grandchildren?

Sophie pushed the voice away. Pó Po had been dead for three years. The questions had died with her, unanswered.

In Willowmere, Sophie was the quiet librarian who kept to herself. In Pó Po's world, Sophie was the dutiful granddaughter who would eventually marry a nice man and continue the family line.

Outside, the fog had started to thin. Through the tall windows, the maples along Main Street were going gold and rust against the dark firs beyond. A raven sat on the war memorial in the town square, watching traffic that wasn't there yet.

By eight-fifteen, she was shelving returns in the fiction section. A cozy mystery had come back with a coffee ring on the cover. A romance novel had been dropped in the bath. Someone had returned a book on gardening with actual dirt between the pages. Sophie set it aside without writing the patron a note. Pick your battles.

She paused at the romance section because a cover had caught her eye. It showed two women, one dark-haired and fierce, the other blonde and laughing. They were leaning toward each other a half-inch before a kiss. Sophie had read this one twice. She'd hidden it under her mattress at seventeen even though no one in the house would have come looking.

She picked up the next book in her cart, and the tingle hit before she registered her hands were bare.

The vision came in soft. A woman in her sixties was sitting in an armchair that smelled of lavender, reading this exact book. The tears streaming down her face were the cathartic kind. She turned a page and whispered finally, and Sophie understood the book had given her something she needed.

Then it was over. Sophie was standing in the fiction section with a mass market paperback in her hands.

She pulled her cotton gloves from her back pocket and put them on. They muffled the worst of it, like a conversation through a wall.

The psychometry was a curse. It was also the alibi she had been using for eighteen years. Touch the wrong book, the wrong sleeve, the wrong stranger, and the world dropped you into a stranger's memory until it was finished with you. Keeping your hands to yourself was prudent.

Sophie had gotten very good at prudent.