Vanja went into her own room, closed the door, and sat down at her desk. She took the thing that had been a pencil out of her pocket and studied it. It still had the same approximate shape she’d managed to impose on it earlier. The whitish surface was cool and a little rough. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. “Spoon,” she whispered. “Spoon, spoon, spoon, spoon, spoon.”
A tiny shudder went through the material. Her marking pen lay next to the typewriter. She uncorked it and wrote SPOON. The tip of her pen punched through the surface in a couple of spots; it felt a lot like sticking a fork in a mushroom. Vanja leaned forward over the table. She closed her eyes and tried to make herself do that thing with her mind, that shameful thing, to truly imagine that a thing was something other than it was. “Spoon,” she breathed. “Spoon, spoon, spoon, spoon, spoon-spoon-spoon-spoon-spoon-spoon—”
She was close enough to hear the wet noise of the substance shifting, and she opened her eyes. One of the ends had flattened into a concave disc. It looked like a spoon, sort of. She took a deep breath and tried again.
After an hour and a half, she had managed to create something that actually looked like a real spoon, albeit transparent, rough, and a little dented. The effort had made her head feel empty. Still, she had found the way that seemed to work best: to use speech, writing, and thought to describe in detail something that didn’t exist, to make it come into existence. At first it had made her nauseous, but then the pit of her stomach had begun to tingle.
Vanja resisted the temptation to try to create something bigger. She wrapped the spoon in a sock and stuffed it into the pocket of her anorak. It was late. She got undressed, went into Nina’s room, and crawled into bed. Nina wrapped an arm around her. She would just lie here until Nina was deep asleep, then go to meet Evgen.
She fell asleep instantly.
THIRDAY
Vanja woke with a start to the breaking of the ice. How long had Evgen waited for her? Was he angry? Had he gone without her? There was no way for her to check until after work.
Nina was frying root vegetables in the kitchen. Her eyes were swollen but she was dressed and had made an attempt to untangle her curls. Vanja wrapped her arms around her and rested her cheek against her back, listening to the air rushing in and out of her lungs.
“Slept okay?” Nina’s voice vibrated against her cheek.
“Fine. And you?”
“Great. Hey, would you check if Ulla wants breakfast?”
Vanja frowned. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“I thought you knew.”
Vanja let go of Nina. “Not since… not for days.”
“Why haven’t we…”
They started for the stairs as one.
There was no reply when Nina knocked on Ulla’s door. She pushed the handle down, but the door wouldn’t budge. She ran up to her own room to get the spare key. Vanja put her ear to the door, but couldn’t hear anything on the other side. When Nina finally found the spare key and got the door open, they were met by silence. Nina went inside and shrunk back from something before Vanja had time to see what it was. She backed into the door on the right.
Now that Nina wasn’t blocking the view, Vanja could see into the room straight ahead, Ulla’s room. The door was wide open. In the light falling in through the window, the substance flowing out of the room shimmered yellow. Nina let out a breath that sounded more like a groan, turned around, and opened the door behind her. Then she crossed the corridor on stiff legs and opened the door to the left. After looking inside, she turned to the first room and leaned over to see inside. She turned back to Vanja. Her face had taken on a greenish hue.
“Ulla isn’t here. I’ll go get cleaners.” She pushed past Vanja and ran down the stairs three steps at a time.
Vanja stayed in the doorway. The mess before her no longer inspired the same terror. She walked over to it, crouched down, and gingerly put a hand on its gelatinous surface. It was warm, body temperature, and buzzed under her hand, twitching almost. She rose and craned her neck to look inside the room. Ulla wasn’t there. Neither was the furniture. But on top of a quivering, transparent mound rested a box she recognized. The last time she’d seen it was in Evgen’s hands, in old Amatka. The outer and inner lids had been removed. The box was still brimming with papers—the letters, the logs that told the true story of Amatka’s past. Ulla must have shadowed Vanja and Evgen to old Amatka and taken them.
The other rooms were empty. Vanja returned to the corridor and for a moment considered wading into the mess and grabbing as many papers as she could. If she took her boots off, she might be able to do it. She was unlacing one of them when she caught the sound of Nina coming back up the stairs. Vanja hastily retreated to the hallway.
“They’re on their way,” Nina said from the landing. “They’re coming. Shut the door.”
She bent over, panting, her hands on her knees. She didn’t seem to notice Vanja’s unlaced boot.
“Ulla isn’t there,” Vanja said, pointlessly.
Nina nodded. “Nope. We’ll have to report her missing.”
“I will,” Vanja replied.
She pulled her anorak on and left. The papers would have to stay where they were. There was no way she could sneak them past Nina.
Outside, an acrid stink filled the air. A pillar of grayish-black smoke rose toward the sky to the north. There were residential houses in northern Amatka, plant houses. And the library. The closer Vanja came to the pillar of smoke, the more citizens hurried down the street, all heading north.
When Vanja finally arrived, there was no doubt about it: the library was on fire. There were no flames, just thick black smoke billowing out through the broken windows. Part of the crowd had gathered around an old man leaning on a walker. He was holding forth in a deep and penetrating voice.
“…fetched the librarian,” he said as Vanja came closer. “I saw the whole thing. He came running out of the library and then it was on fire. And he lay down in the street and coughed. And laughed! He was laughing! Then the rescue workers came and took him. I told them what I’d seen. He started the fire himself, I’m telling you.”
His audience was mumbling to one another. “What happened?” someone at the back asked. “The librarian set it on fire!” someone else replied.
The old man started over. “I saw the whole thing,” he intoned. “It’s all ablaze. Nothing left in there.”
“Did he say anything?” Vanja asked.
“What?” The man turned his head.
“Did he say anything,” Vanja repeated.
“Oh, yes, but it was just nonsense,” the man said. “He said, ‘We’ll all be free.’”
Vanja turned around and forced herself to walk to the office at a normal pace. She breathed in, counted to three, breathed out, counted to three, breathed in. It didn’t help much.
The reception was crowded. Several couriers were heading out; at the reception desk, Anders was deep in intense conversation with what looked like two high-ranking administrators. One of them followed him in behind the counter and into the archive.
“What’s going on?” Vanja asked the administrator who had stayed at the counter and was drumming his fingers against the gray surface.
The administrator studied Vanja. “What’s your security level?”