It all started on Saturday. It was Miner’s Day, an actual holiday
designed to preserve the town’s history and culture. Did you know that this
town was founded by miners? They didn’t have electricity, so the nuns made
candles for them. No word on who made them matches.
I was asked to attend the commemoration of the library that day.
According to everyone, the first entrance to the mines was right on that spot
and the elevator was actually used by the miners to go down into it. The
elevator turned 100 years old this Miner’s Day and everyone was there to mark
the occasion.
I’d never seen the library busier. Easily one hundred people were
crammed inside, squished in the aisles and pouring into the main reading area.
Every aisle was full except for the literature aisle. I smiled from my spot at
the podium as people avoided the aisle with their own stories in it as though
it wasn’t even available for standing room.
That changed about halfway through the ceremony. The whole thing was
supposed to last around a half an hour, but that didn’t count getting people
arranged inside, or one of the speakers running twenty minutes late. So many
bodies meant the library was getting considerably warm despite the cool weather
outside. The people were fidgeting, and I wondered if part of the curse for
anyone here was claustrophobia.
Sure enough, as I was delivering my speech on the historical richness of
our town, Leroy started making his way towards an empty space, and the crowd
spit him out into the literature aisle. I tried not to stop speaking so as not
to draw attention to him. He looked surprised as though he didn’t know the
aisle existed, but then calmed down and looked ahead at me.
Once the ceremony was over, about half of the people left for the fair
at the church. The nuns held a small one every year to help the sale of their
candles, apparently. The rest of us stayed behind to socialize and have lunch.
I was in the center of the library, chatting with men who were once kings. Albert
Spencer kept pestering Mitchell Herman about his son. Back home, Mitchell had
been Cinderella’s father-in-law, but here he was the local cannery tycoon. He
was surrounded by wealth but isolated the ones he should love. Albert was asking Mitchell if
his son was still with his girlfriend. It seemed to be a subject he didn’t want
to touch and I didn’t care. My eyes wandered to the main desk, and there was
Leroy checking out a book! The librarian seemed to have no qualms about doing
her job during a private engagement. I excused myself from the gentlemen to see
if I could get a better view of Leroy’s book. I had to know if he checked out a
book from that aisle. It could have been a different kind of book; non-fiction,
self-help, hygiene. I was getting closer, but the check-out process had ended
and he was leaving. I certainly wasn’t about to follow him out, but the thought
of asking the librarian what he checked out crossed my mind.
I didn’t get the chance to ask. The floor only shook for a couple of
seconds, but it was enough to scare everyone. People ran for the doors and
flooded into the street. They were panicked and confused, but no one was
injured. I found Sidney in the crowd and grabbed him by the arm. I knew what
had happened, but I was going to make sure the people thought something else.
The next morning I watched the people as I went for a walk. A little bit
of rain in the morning doesn’t scare me into my car anymore. It always rains
here. Beneath umbrellas and under eaves, everyone was reading the daily paper
and talking about what had happened at the library the day before, or at least
what I wanted them to think happened. She was too far below to do any real
damage. Maybe it was the sounds of all the people that woke her up or maybe it
was the smell of the chicken lunch with chocolate cake? Whatever stirred
Maleficent, the people of Storybrooke simply thought it was settlement of the
earth due to the mine underneath.
I also observed something else. Passing an apartment building, Leroy’s
face peeked through the blinds of a fourth-story window. As it disappeared, a
white square sign with “Reagan ‘84” painted in red and blue replaced it. The
sign didn’t surprise me, since he seemed so passionate about voting. At the
time I shrugged it off and continued my walk.
But Monday evening I visited the library before they closed. There were
two more people in the literature section, and before the librarian had locked
the doors for the night, two more books were checked out. Yesterday morning on
my walk to work, two more signs for presidential candidates were up in front of
homes.
It wasn’t only thoughts of the election that stirred in these people as
more of them shared the same coincidence. Discovering the literature section of
the library was like catching a virus. First, you walked through it and picked
up a book. It didn’t matter if you checked it out or not; once you read a page
or two, you began to get ideas. Ideas like personal choice, self expression and
even the desire to leave Storybrooke. The travel section of the bookstore down
the street was bustling with people buying maps and travel books. No one was
going anywhere, of course. The curse prevents that.
The most alarming thing is that the people who enter the literature
aisle are slowly reconnecting to their original selves. Today at Granny’s Diner,
Archie sat down beside Marco and the two just chatted away. Until today, I’ve
never seen them even look at each other. I saw the former cricket and
puppet-maker in the literature aisle on separate days. I don’t even know if
they’d met until today, but there they were talking like they’d known each
other all of their lives.
But the library was becoming a popular place to visit. Tonight after
work I wasn’t even allowed inside. Due to the event on Miner’s Day, the number
of people allowed inside at any given time was lowered and the limit had been
reached.
Why the curse allowed a library in the first place, I’m not sure, but
this is something I need to handle now. I’ve got to find a way to shut the library
down or risk people coming out of the curse, let alone having others think they
can elect someone who will hold more power than me.
