“Lenora!”
Haruto shot past her. The boy was standing on some kind of disc that hovered in the air and seemed to be powered by something in his backpack, but Lenora didn’t have time to think about that, for he was heading right for the woman in red, who shrieked and dodged, and for an instant her spell was broken and Lenora clawed her way back from the edge.
The woman recovered quickly and raced toward Lenora as Haruto flew in a circle around the dome. Lenora felt terror crash down over her once more. A moment later, the woman had Lenora by the arms, laughing, shoving her back toward the edge. But this time, she thought, I will not fall. Haruto will catch me.
The woman’s eyes flashed red in fury.
“I am not afraid!” shouted Lenora. “This is my Library, and my friends will always be here for me.” And now she began to push, hard as she could, and this time it was the woman who took a step back.
With a final shriek, the woman transformed once more, briefly, into a creature of pure nothingness—and then, as though she were sucked away through a straw, she vanished.
There was no time to celebrate. Lenora waved to Haruto, cried, “Thank you!” over the roar of his hover board, and gripped Rosa’s device. She remembered the lies the girl in the purple raincoat had told her. That Lenora had been fired, and Malachi had been devoured.
The windswept dome vanished.
Lenora found herself in a long, columned hallway, surrounded by a whirlwind of action. Everywhere, librarians were running up and down, some of them pushing empty bookshelves back into place along the walls or adding books to the shelves. Strangely, the walls were also covered with hundreds of signs that said things like:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The phrases sounded like famous lines from a book whose title Lenora couldn’t recall. But there was, again, no time to figure this out, for these were lies and Lenora knew the girl in purple must be responsible. She ripped some of the signs from one part of the wall, then another, but when she turned back, more signs had appeared.
Lenora caught a passing librarian by the arm. “What’s going on?” she asked, gesturing at the signs.
“I don’t know,” said the harried librarian, who was lugging a box of books and looked quite weary. “We’ve tried tearing them down, but it’s no good. Please, Lenora, do something!” She hurried away with her box. Lenora watched her go, allowing herself one moment of pride at how hard her fellow librarians were fighting. Then she turned her attention back to the matter at hand.
She looked everywhere, but she couldn’t see the girl in purple. Patrons were gathering around the signs now, and some of them were beginning to nod. Lenora even saw a small boy writing in a notebook as he studied the signs.
How can they believe these lies? she thought. Then she noticed something happening to her, too. A tiny drumbeat in her head, repeating over and over, louder and louder: Ignorance is strength. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. IGNORANCE! IS! STRENGTH!
The lie began to make a certain sort of sense to Lenora. When repeated over and over like that, it seemed to become not a lie, but truth. She took out her notebook. And then—
“Lenora!”
Rosa came sailing toward her through the crowd.
“Rosa!” cried Lenora. Her wise and knowledgeable friend’s appearance caused the awful drumbeat to cease immediately. “Thank goodness you’ve come.”
“Malachi told all of your friends you would need us. What can I do?”
Lenora gestured to the signs again. “Someone is putting these up everywhere. They are having a very strange effect on patrons, and me! We need to remove them all and find her. I bet you’ve got an idea.”
Rosa’s helmet glittered in a way that suggested twinkling eyes. Rosa waved one of its many devices, and a whirlwind sprang up that ripped all the signs from the walls and gathered them into a spinning tornado of lies.
And in the middle of them stood a girl in purple, shock on her face.
She recovered quickly. Looking straight at Lenora, she said through her sharp teeth, “You have lost forever. Give up.”
But Lenora shook her head. “Your lies won’t work on me anymore. I see you for what you are. And know this—I will fight untruths wherever I find them, for as long as I’m able. And there will be others like me who fight your lies, always, wherever you appear.” Lenora knew this was true.
With a hiss, the girl began to transform into a dark nothingness. And then, as though she were being sucked away through a straw, she vanished.
“One more to go,” said Lenora to Rosa. “And then I can give you back your device. But quickly—why are you here? I thought you were meeting your spaceship.”
“My ship is stuck here for the time being,” replied Rosa. “The koala stole one of its parts!”
“That darn koala,” said Lenora. “We’ll get him someday! Goodbye for now.”
She gripped the device tightly, and thought once more of the hatred and rage she had felt toward the man in the green raincoat, and how she’d wanted to attack him …
The hallway vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lenora Leaves
For a moment, Lenora couldn’t figure out where she was. It was as though she were in the middle of a gigantic factory that contained one huge machine. Everywhere she looked, she saw conveyor belts, platforms with spinning rollers, and slides that led down to wheeled buckets. There were even little robots scattered around the floor. But none of it, whatever it was, was operating. The robots and conveyor belts weren’t moving at all. Lenora suspected that it ought to be working, but had no idea what to do about it. She hurried along, searching for the thing she had come for—the man in green, who seemed, in some ways, to be the worst of all the members of the Board.
As she went, she noticed there were openings all along the walls through which the belts moved (or ought to be moving). Above many of these doors were signs that read FOLKLORE and ALGEBRA and COSMOLOGY and hundreds of other topics. These were all library categories. Lenora was beginning to think this massive machine was all for sorting books. And then she saw something odd. Above one of the doors was a sign that said, simply, LENORA, in bold black letters.
No time to wonder, for she heard sounds ahead of her, and she sped up into a run. Veering around a silent conveyor belt, she ground to a halt.
She had found the man in green.
He was standing in front of an enormous vat of books, at least twenty stories high. It looked like the books were supposed to feed out onto the conveyor belts, but a door through which they moved had been slammed shut. In its place the man in the green raincoat had pulled up a trolley full of many different books, which he was preparing to dump onto the belts.
Lenora saw some of the titles. We will not repeat them here, but will only write a very sad thing. Some books exist that are not meant to educate, or entertain, or illuminate. They are meant to spread fear, lies, and hatred, and when read by those who do not understand their true purpose, they can be deadly things indeed.
Lenora knew these books for what they were, and hate rose within her. She found herself again wanting to throw herself at the man. Her fists shook.
He was looking right at her, and smiling. “I’ve reprogrammed this machine, you know. Now these books will be spread throughout the Library, instead of being kept in a special section just for them.”