Eleven Years Overdue

The book came back through the after-hours slot on a Monday, and when Faith scanned it the system did something she had never seen it do in twenty years. It froze, then it flagged the title in red. Eleven years, two months overdue. Faith had been a librarian long enough that overdue books rarely moved her, but she sat down with this one. It had been checked out by Lena Surrey, who was sixteen at the time, and who had walked out of this very branch on an October afternoon and never been seen again. The case had gone cold the way cases do, slowly, in stages, until it was just a photograph on a noticeboard nobody updated. Faith turned the book over in her hands. It was in good condition. Better than good. Somebody had kept it carefully, somewhere dry, for eleven years, and then chosen this week to bring it back.