CHAPTER ONE
Lenora Returns
Lenora was bruised and battered.
She slumped against the wall of the dojo in her uniform and mask, feeling utterly beaten. Everything ached. Everyone else at the kendo dojo was much older, taller, and stronger than Lenora, not to mention much more experienced in the Japanese martial art of sword-fighting. Battling them was hopeless. And she could tell they were taking it easy on her, too, which only made her get angrier and fight harder.
Even getting into the class had been a struggle. “I’m sorry,” the sensei, a very nice old man, had said when she’d first showed up. “But we don’t have enough interested children to start a children’s class.”
I don’t want a children’s class, Lenora almost snarled, then stopped herself. The teacher meant well, after all. “I need to study kendo, sensei,” she told him, bowing. “I need to become a master, because—” She hesitated. She couldn’t tell him the true reason. He would never believe her, any more than her parents had.
“I got a job at the library!” she’d announced to her parents with excitement after her return from her first adventures at the otherworldly library that spanned all of space and time.
“I told you, Lenora,” her father had said. “Libraries don’t hire eleven-year-olds.”
“But it’s true,” she said. “And there were spaceships, and I shrank to the size of an ant, and…” She stopped. Her parents were staring at her with alarm.
“That’s … fascinating, dear,” her mother said with concern. “You’ve always had such a vivid imagination. Maybe you should write this all down. We could show it to a nice doctor.”
After that, Lenora had learned to keep silent about the Library—for that was how she thought of it now, with a capital L, and its name “not written in ink but in a golden splash,” to quote one of Lenora’s favorite books.
“Because,” she had said to the sensei, “I—I—really like kendo. Please let me try.” Lenora winced at her weak response. But she could not tell the truth.
The sensei had pondered this, chin in hand, looking Lenora up and down. “I would not normally do this,” he said. “But there is something about you … I will allow you to try. It will be very difficult, you know.”
Lenora was not worried about that. If only the teacher knew how very many difficult things she had already overcome.
Now, a year later, as she leaned against the wall, her entire body begging for mercy, the sensei approached and removed his mask. He smiled at her kindly, and, she could tell with irritation, a bit of pity. “I admire your fighting spirit, Lenora,” he said. “But this really isn’t the place for a twelve-year-old.”
“I must study kendo, sensei,” she told him, bowing despite her aches and pains. “I need to become a master, because years in the future, I’m going to have to fight off three robots wielding two swords each in pitch darkness, and I need to be ready.”
“I see,” said the sensei, putting his mask back on. “Well, back at it, then.” He returned to the group of fighters whirling about, shouting and hitting one another with their bamboo swords. Over the past year, the sensei had gotten quite used to the occasional odd phrase slipping through Lenora’s lips, and they had developed a silent agreement that he would not ask any further questions.
Lenora thought about returning to the fray. But she had to admit to herself that she had had enough for one night. Her parents had been completely mystified as to why Lenora had demanded to take kendo classes six nights a week, but they had finally agreed. They were also confused as to why she wanted to spend her remaining free hours after school at the library, reading, but after much arguing and pleading from Lenora they had allowed her to take the bus by herself so that she could go anytime she wanted.
Lenora had tried to get back to the Library. She had searched every inch of the regular library with its lovely, large windows through which sunlight poured eagerly in, and beautiful cedar beams that stretched up to the high ceiling. But she hadn’t found a way in. She’d asked the librarians, but they would only smile mysteriously and change the subject. So Lenora knew she’d have to be patient, however much she hated that.
She knew that when she did get back, she had to be ready. Ready not only to help her patrons, but to fight the Forces of Darkness, who were the enemies of knowledge and wore black bowler hats and would try to devour her the first chance they got. She’d faced them several times before, and the experiences had been so harrowing that she still jumped every time a person in a black hat passed her on the street.
And so Lenora could only read book after book after book, and get herself whacked around by kendo swords, and wait as a year passed.
One Saturday morning she was lying in her favorite spot at the library, a window seat that was sunny all day long, reading about the Battle of Pelusium and wondering if it really had been fought with cats. She’d met a time traveler in the Library who might be able to tell her, and resolved to ask him the next time she saw him.
The library had been oddly quiet all morning. Lenora realized it had been a long time since she’d seen any patrons, or any librarians. Closing her book, she got up to investigate. She went out into the wide-open atrium at the center of the library and looked in all directions. She didn’t see anyone, not even any librarians behind the reference desk.
Then a librarian swerved into view, walking swiftly from the back of the building. As the woman got closer, Lenora saw she was crying and carrying a cardboard box. Lenora ran to her. Her name was Aaliyah, and she was one of Lenora’s favorites. “What’s wrong?” Lenora asked, alarmed.
Aaliyah stopped, sniffling. “I’ve been fired,” she said through her tears.
“What?” said Lenora, outraged. “Whyever would they fire you?” For Aaliyah, in Lenora’s expert opinion, was one of the best.
Aaliyah looked in all directions. It was as though she suspected someone was watching or listening to them. Then she beckoned Lenora off to the side, into a narrow space between two stacks. She looked around again, then knelt and whispered into Lenora’s ear: “The Library needs you. You have to hurry!” And from the way she said it, Lenora knew exactly which Library she meant.
Then Aaliyah stood, took one more fearful look around, and moved to leave.
“Wait!” said Lenora in a loud whisper. “Don’t leave. Stay and fight! I’ll find a way to save your job, I promise.”
Lenora knew that if she had said such a thing to any other adult, they would have simply patted her on her head and called her adorable.
But not Aaliyah. Aaliyah was a librarian. And she knew.
The woman put her box on the floor. “Very well,” she said in a whisper. “I will try. But I don’t know how long I can manage. Please hurry, Lenora!”
And then she strode quickly away, toward one of the deepest corners of this library.
Lenora stood there, stunned. The Library needs you. But why? And what could she do to help? She had no idea even how to get back to it.
While she stood there, she noticed a woman and a boy approach the reference desk and look around curiously, doubtless wondering why there wasn’t a librarian in sight.