A Name She Knew

The clerk would not give her the book. But Sefa had been a lamplighter for nine years, and lamplighters know how to come back when the office is empty. The book was not even locked. That bothered her more than a lock would have. It meant nobody expected anyone to care. Cooper Lane. Bound spring of the year nineteen. And there, in the column for the spirit's living name, in handwriting that had pressed hard enough to dent the page: Tomas Vell. Sefa sat down on the office floor. She knew that name. Tomas Vell had been a lamplighter too, on the eastern round, and one autumn he had simply stopped coming to work, and everyone had said he'd gone to the coast. He had not gone to the coast. He had gone into a lamp.