A jolt of electricity went through her as she entered the Map Division. It was like resurfacing from a dark, cold lake into life. The air became warmer, the colors brighter, the sounds sharper. The reading tables waited, waxed wooden surfaces gleaming, and the shelves around the walls beckoned, bursting with relics. Sunlight, nearly blinding, streamed in through the huge windows. It took a moment for Nell to get ahold of herself.
It was so strange to be back again, after so many years. She had almost managed to block it out. To stop missing it so acutely. Every detail, every moment.
Just beyond the main reference desk, the unobtrusive side door marked Staff Only waited. She paused with her hand on the knob.
Just do it, she admonished herself. Her hand wavered. Get it over with.
Nell didn’t really know what to prepare herself for, but the scene on the other side of the threshold was not it. She’d been bracing for chaos and shouting, like the day of the Junk Box Incident, she realized as she waited awkwardly in the quiet, half in and half out of the door.
It wasn’t just quiet, it was utterly silent, she thought. She’d never seen the back offices this deserted.
After a few seconds, the door started to slowly close on her before she snapped back to life and leapt clear.
“Hello?” she called softly.
“Oh,” another voice answered. “Just a moment!” A librarian not much older than Nell poked her head out of the first office, surprised.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m trying to find Swann,” Nell said. She didn’t recognize the woman, which meant she must have been hired after Nell had left. “Do you know what’s going on?” The police hadn’t told her anything on the phone, just ordered her to come.
“There’s been—” the woman paused. “Well, we don’t quite know yet. But it looks bad.”
“Ma’am?” Nell looked up to see a police officer appear out of the conference room partway down the hall, and his partner behind him. “Are you an employee here?”
The librarian was staring at Nell more intently now. “Oh my,” she said. “You . . . you’re Dr. Young’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Nell admitted. “Helen Young. Nell.”
Her face darkened. “I’m so sorry, but all this”—she gestured to the stillness—“this is about Dr. Young.”
Nell stared for what felt like an eternity, trying to discern the answer in the woman’s face.
What had he done now?
Her father had always been an uncompromising, unstoppable force. It was what made him the best at what he did while also making him impossible to love. Had he attacked a colleague’s work? Disagreed over the provenance of a new specimen? Quarreled with the board, even?
“Whose life did he ruin this time?” she finally managed.
“If you could come with me,” the first officer replied.
From within the conference room, a familiar figure burst into the hall behind the other policeman. “Nell!”
“Swann!” she cried.
Her heart clenched. She had missed him! He’d been the director of the Map Division for decades, but he had been so much more than that to her, too. An uncle, a mentor, a friend. And he looked the same, even seven years later—tall, impossibly slender, wispy white hair—just like an actual swan. The sight of him brought tears to her eyes.
“Ma’am, please—” the officer near him started, but Swann had crossed the hall in three steps on his long legs and swept her up into a bony hug before she could move.
“I’m so, so sorry,” he said as he released her, his hands still on her shoulders. “I was hoping to pull you aside before you got here and tell you privately.”