“Just curious,” I say, again searching for 3F. Still Mr. Lighton. Then Ms. Jane Olinger. I pause, but I know from reading the walls that it was more than ten years ago, and besides, the girl was too young to be living alone. I reshelve the book and pull the next one down.
Ms. Olinger again.
Before that, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Locke. Still not far enough.
Before that, Vacant.
Is this how normal people learn the past?
Next, a Mr. Kenneth Shaw.
And then I find what I’m looking for. The wall of black, the dead space between most of the memories and the murder. I run my finger down the column.
Vacant.
Vacant.
Vacant.
Not just one set, either. There are whole books of Vacant. Ms. Angelli watches me too intently, but I keep pulling the books down until I reach the last blue book, the one that starts with the conversion: 1950 – 54.
The 1954 book is marked Vacant, but when I reach the divider marked 1953, I stop.
3F is missing.
The entire floor is missing.
The entire year is missing.
In its place is a stack of blank paper. I turn back through 1952 and 1951. Both are blank. There’s no record of the murdered girl. There’s no record of anyone. Three entire years are just…missing. The inaugural year, 1950, is there, but there’s no name written under 3F. What did Lyndsey say? There was nothing on record. Suspiciously nothing.
I drop the blue book open on the table, nearly upsetting Ms. Angelli’s tea.
“You look a touch pale, Mackenzie. What is it?”
“There are pages missing.”
She frowns. “The books are old. Perhaps something fell out.…”
“No,” I snap. “The years are deliberately blank.”
Apartment 3F sat vacant for nearly two decades after the mysterious missing chunk of time. The murder. It had to have happened in those years.
“Surely,” she says, more to herself than to me, “they must be archived somewhere.”
“Yeah, I—” And it hits me. “You’re right. You’re totally right.” Whoever did this tampered with evidence in the Outer, but they can’t tamper with it in the Archive. I’m already out of the leather chair. “Thanks for your help,” I say, scooping up the directory and returning it to its shelf.
Ms. Angelli’s eyebrows inch up. “Well, I didn’t really do—”
“You did. You’re brilliant. Thanks. Good night!” I’m at the door, then through it, into the Coronado’s lobby, and pulling the key from my neck and the ring from my finger before I even reach the door set into the stairs.
“What brings you to the Archive, Miss Bishop?”
It’s Lisa at the desk. She looks up, pen hovering over a series of ledgers set side by side behind the QUIET PLEASE sign, which I’m pretty sure is her contribution. Her black bob frames her face, and her eyes are keen but kind—two different shades—behind a pair of green horn-rimmed glasses. Lisa is a Librarian, of course, but unlike Roland, or Patrick, or most of the others, for that matter, she really looks the part (aside from the fact that one of her eyes is glass, a token from her days as Crew).
I fiddle with the key around my wrist.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I lie, even though it’s not that late. It’s my default response here, the way people always answer How are you? with Good or Great or Fine, even when they’re not. “Those look nice,” I say, gesturing to her nails. They’re bright gold.
“You think so?” she asks, admiring them. “Found the polish in the closets. Roland’s idea. He says they’re all the rage right now.”
I’m not surprised. In addition to his public addiction to trashy magazines, Roland has a private addiction to stealing glances at newly added Histories. “He would know.”
Her smile thins. “What can I do for you tonight, Miss Bishop?” she asks, two-toned eyes leveled on me.
I hesitate. I could tell Lisa what I’m looking for, of course, but I’ve already used up my quota of Lisa-issued rule-bending coupons this month, what with the visits to Ben’s shelf. And I don’t have any bartering chips, no tokens from the Outer that she might like. I’m comfortable with Lisa, but if I ask her and she says no, I’ll never make it past the desk.
“Is Roland around?” I ask casually. Lisa’s gaze lingers, but then she goes back to writing in the ledgers.
“Ninth wing, third hall, fifth room. Last time I checked.”
I smile and round the desk to the doors.
“Repeat it,” orders Lisa.
I roll my eyes, but parrot, “Nine, three, five.”
“Don’t get lost,” she warns.
My steps slow as I cross into the atrium. The stained glass is dark, as if the sky beyond—if there were a sky—had slipped to night. But still the Archive is bright, well-lit despite the lack of lights. Walking through is like wading into a pool of water. Cool, crisp, beautiful water. It slows you and holds you and washes over you. It is dazzling. Wood and stone and colored glass and calm. I force myself to look down at the dark wood floor, and find my way out of the atrium, repeating the numbers nine three five, nine three five, nine three five. It is too easy to go astray.
The Archive is a patchwork, pieces added and altered over the years, and the bit of hall I wander down is made of paler wood, the ceilings still high but the placards on the front of the shelves worn. I reach the fifth room, and the style shifts again, with marble floors and a lower ceiling. Every space is different, and yet in all of them, that steady quiet reigns.
Roland is standing in front of an open drawer, his back to me and his fingertips pressed gently into a man’s shoulder.
When I enter the room, his hands shift from the History to its drawer, sliding it closed with one fluid, silent motion. He turns my way, and for a moment his eyes are so…sad. But then he blinks and recovers.
“Miss Bishop.”
“’Evening, Roland.”
There’s a table and a pair of chairs in the center of the room, but he doesn’t invite me to sit. He seems distracted.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Of course.” An automatic reply. “What brings you here?”
“I need a favor.” His brows knit. “Not Ben. I promise.”
He looks around the space, then leads me into the hall beyond, where the walls are free of shelves.
“Go on…” he says slowly.
“Something horrible happened in my room. A murder.”
A brow arches. “How do you know?”
“Because I read it.”
“You shouldn’t be reading things unnecessarily, Miss Bishop. The point of that gift is not to indulge in—”
“I know, I know. The perils of curiosity. But don’t pretend you’re immune to it.”
His mouth quirks.
“Look, isn’t there any way you can…” I cast my arm wide across the room, gesturing at the walls of bodies, of lives.
“Any way I can what?”
“Do a search? Look for residents of the Coronado. Her death would have been in March. Sometime between 1951 and 1953. If I can find the girl here in the Archive, then we can read her and find out who she was, and who he was—”
“Why? Just to slake your interest? That’s hardly the purpose of these files—”
“Then what is?” I snap. “We’re supposed to protect the past. Well, someone is trying to erase it. Years are missing from the Coronado’s records. Years in which a girl was murdered. The boy who killed her left. He ran. I need to find out what happened. I need to know if he got away, and I can’t—”
“So that’s what this is about,” he says under his breath.
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t just about understanding a murder. It’s about Ben.”