Chapter 7
Gwen thought the lizard would have a harder time fucking with her in front of witnesses, so she loaded a few of Arthur’s notebooks
into her messenger bag and went to the Brooks Library.
She still had her student ID, although she had withdrawn from her classes. There was no point in going on with them, and at
the beginning of the month she had emailed the registrar to ask for another deferment. The registrar, Mrs. Howard, had signed
off on her leave, mentioned the campus had mental health resources if she was struggling, and closed with a wry request not
to wait another twenty-five years to finish her studies. Gwen was sorry she was going to have to disappoint her. It appeared
she was not going to get her degree after all.
Gwen found a spot at her favorite table and read on. Her time with Arthur’s Toolkit had quickly become the part of the day she looked forward to the most. She liked especially that Arthur had written everything
longhand, enjoyed his flowing, almost calligraphic script. If she had been reading him on a screen, Colin would’ve been reading
with her. That would’ve spoiled a little of her happiness.
What came through Arthur’s writing most clearly was his excitement for the details he discovered in books. No one needed a
magic wardrobe that opened into Narnia if they had a library card; if you had a library card, you had a thousand magic wardrobes
to choose from, ten thousand. That was how Arthur saw it. A library card was as good as a sword drawn from a stone.
He had a lot to say about magic swords, weapons with names, quirks, even romantic attachments.
They wanted to be looked after, wanted proof they were loved.
They could be stubborn and haughty, or playful and tricksy.
Arthur said the famous swords of antique myth had vivid personalities for good reason.
Such weapons were best thought of as stand-ins for the human soul, which was itself a kind of blade, and a body only its sheath.
Next to this was an even more provocative thought, left in the margins for her eyes alone: “G.—I’d be more proud of this metaphor
if it wasn’t a metaphor. If an evil spirit can enter our world from the Long Dark, in the form of a dragon, then I’ve no doubt
a righteous spirit can be drawn in the form of steel. I’d try drawing one myself, instead of going spelunking with a troll,
but knowing my own history of moral stupidity, I worry the first thing such a sword would slice in two would be ME.”
He had his findings too about the business of killing dragons. He believed they all had a weak spot, like Smaug’s missing
scale. Only the weak spot was not a flaw in their armor, but a flaw in their character: their insatiable, blinding greed for
sorrow and blood. Though they were otherwise cunning creatures, their compulsion to taste their victim’s grief often led them
into mortal danger. In many fables, heroes found ways to get close to a dread wyrm by making themselves invisible to them
(see the case of one Baggins, Bilbo). Stories were littered with magic rings and enchanted draughts that would do the job
of disappearing someone who needed to vanish. This too was a reminder that evil had its blind spots. The wicked could hardly
conceive of the motives that drove the kind and the compassionate, and it left them vulnerable. The truly cruel carried the
seeds of their own destruction, which was why the ouroboros was the simplest and truest story ever told about dragons, because
they could not help devouring themselves. The cheat cheated himself; the poisoner, in a careless moment, drank his own poison;
the snake ate his own tail.
She was with Arthur in the library until after dark. At five, she piled the notebooks back into her bag and went out into
the sharp cold. She had switched off her phone while she was in Brooks but reactivated it at the bottom of the granite steps
and saw she had a voicemail from Allie, not six minutes old.
She hit play and heard traffic noises, the blast of a horn, someone cursing. Allie breathed wetly.
“Gwen, there’s about a ninety-seven percent chance I’m lost,” Allie said. She sounded like she was struggling not to sob.
“I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But I should’ve known, I should’ve, I should’ve asked questions, I should’ve been a better person, and I should probably not’ve tried to walk to your house, are you at exit nine or exit—”
“FUCK OUTTA THE MIDDLE THE INTERSTATE YOU MAD BITCH!” someone screamed, and a horn wailed and Gwen’s heart seized. The interstate.
Allie was on foot . . . on the interstate. Gwen had a sudden vision of Allie weaving along the right-hand lane while headlights
rushed toward her from behind.
“—almost at exit eight I think I’ll get off there an’ ask for digressions,” Allie was saying, but Gwen hung up.
Gwen was a ten-minute drive away but exit 8 in Gogan was just a quarter mile from the Market Basket where Tana Nighswander
was general manager. Gwen dialed Tana and started to run.