Chapter Text
Statement of Marie Dawson, regarding her time as a resident of the Sheffield University Library. Original statement given May 13th, 2012. Audio recording by Sasha James, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
STATEMENT BEGINS
Okay, I’ve probably only got a few weeks, max, before the guys upstairs figure out I lied to them. I guess I just have to hope that someone down in this place – you really need to get a cleaner, by the way, the dust is just atrocious and I would know – that someone reads my story before then and decides to take pity on me. Looking around at the mountains of scattered papers and open file cabinets, I’m not optimistic. But this is kinda all I have left.
My name is Marie Dawson, but everyone calls me Ree. Well, they used to. Nobody’s called me much of anything lately, which I guess makes the whole thing a bit meaningless, doesn’t it? But if you look up Marie Dawson online, you’ll find me. I’m 19 I think, I graduated high school at Castle in Northampton with decent grades and a second place medal in a local short story competition. Mum wanted me to stay nearby for Uni, but honestly I needed out. I won’t go into it, there wasn’t any abuse or anything, just… y’know. After seventeen years under one roof, you’ve catalogued all the things you hate about it ten times over. So, off I went to Sheffield. It was meant to be London, but money wasn’t cooperating and Sheffield had something that exited me enough not to mind: its Library.
It's not the biggest in the world, or even in England. It didn’t need to be. What mattered was that it was open 24/7, rain or shine. You have to understand, I’ve always been an avid reader (you can tell because I use the term ‘avid reader’ and nobody uses that in real life) and more than that, I just need a book sometimes. It’ll be 2 in the morning and I won’t be able to sleep until I’ve read something nice. So, yeah. I was exited about a library that would, y’know, let me inside at 2 in the morning.
I’ll skim the first year or so of Uni. I made a few friends, passed some exams, failed some others, had a bad hookup, nothing your Institute is probably interested in. I spent a lot of time in the Library, but also a lot of time in the real world, right? It wasn’t a problem. I just liked books.
Then we got closer to second year finals, and for some reason it was really getting to me. Like, you’d think years one and three would be the scary ones, but there was just something about finals last year that had me on edge. I just knew I wasn’t ready, I didn’t understand the material well enough and my study adviser wasn’t being helpful either and I was a bit of a mess. It turned into this awful loop where I couldn’t study because I was too anxious, and that only made me more anxious. So, I started spending more and more time in the library.
It was the ninth of April when I noticed I hadn’t left the library in two whole days. I didn’t have any classes on those days, my friends were busy with their own studying, and I always bring snacks when I go to the library, so there just… wasn’t any particular reason for me to leave. Actually, I only put down the books (I’d just finished a very nice mystery novel, I can’t remember any of the twists now but I know it was good) when the snacks ran out and I started getting really hungry. That was when I checked my phone and realized the two days thing. But you want to know something? Those were the best two days I’d had all year.
I think after that, something just broke a little bit inside me and I stopped caring about studying, or passing, or my family, or anything. I just wanted more of that. So, I did the logical thing. I went back to my dorm, raided as much food from the pantry as I could fit in a duffel bag, and found a nice little library nook to camp out in. Sheffield’s library is annoyingly open-plan in the front – but trust me, you get far enough into the aisles, and it gets real hidey-hole real fast.
I don’t know if you guys are quite nerdy enough to get it (I mean, you must be a little to work somewhere like this but there’s a difference between academic and pure nerd, y’know?) but I really was in heaven, living in the library and haunting the YA fiction section like a ghost. I think it must’ve been around a week in when I found the Book.
It was called A Disappearance, and I remember being surprised I hadn’t noticed it earlier because it was so pretty. I put a lot of stock in covers and spines and such, I always figured that if a writer didn’t have enough ideas to commission a good creative representation of their work, they’re probably not creative enough to write anything terribly good either. Anyways, it was just lovely. A light blue, faded almost to grey, and I think it was probably pretty old because the letters on the spine were painted, and the paint had almost entirely flecked away. I thought that was really funny – a disappearance, disappearing. Heh.
On the front there was a silhouette of a woman, looking out across a sea that just seemed to go on forever. There was a bookplate on the inside, a pretty fancy one and it must’ve been way more recent than the actual book because it still looked nice and shiny. It read “From the Library of Harriet Fairchild” and if you know who that is, let her know she’s got great taste.
Anyways, the book itself was even better than the cover. I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s about a lady who becomes invisible and uses it to travel the world and see all its wonders. The only weird part was that it was missing a chapter. Like, someone actually cut out pages 87-99 with scissors. It didn’t ruin the book or anything, but c’mon! Who does that? It was the chapter right before she goes invisible, so it probably explained how she did it. I’m still not over this. But, I digress.
When I finished up, I remember noticing how empty the library had gotten. Sheffield doesn’t have a closing time, like I said, but most people obviously don’t sleep in the library so they have to go home sooner or later. I figured I would maybe head across the hall to grab a book from Historical Fiction – by that point I was trying to avoid running into people who might recognize me and wonder where I’d been, so I only left my little corner at night – and that was when I noticed that it wasn’t just normal empty. It was empty. Not a soul in the entire library, I checked. Nobody but me. I looked out the windows, watching the occasional car go by, and it felt like I had my own castle full of books. Somewhere separate from the rest of the world, all for me. I found a book and went back to reading, but this time I didn’t have to hide away while I did it.
I read, and read, and read. I didn’t stop for anything. Why should I? I had no responsibilities, no deadlines, nothing between me and my one true love. I don’t know how long I lived like that, but it felt like forever and it wasn’t long enough.
I do know that I cleared out the YA fiction section completely, because I was working my way through the Adult Mystery aisles when I spotted him. I was in the middle of a mediocre police procedural, looked up wondering if I could find anything better, and there he was. Just a janitor, carrying a mop, like he was supposed to be there. Like he wasn’t the first face who had intruded upon My Library in who knows how long. Like he wasn’t shattering the greatest and only peace I had ever known by his very presence.
I bolted. Must’ve looked pretty weird to the guy, but I was way past caring. I ran for my nook in YA fantasy like my life depended on it, curled up against the wall, and cried. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad, except even from my nook I could hear people again, moving and talking and existing somewhere else in the library and every time I tried to calm myself down I would hear another noise and it sounded like screams made of broken glass (I’m mixing metaphors intentionally, for dramatic effect. I’m sure you understand). I started feeling around blindly, pathetically, for a book. Any book. And the one I found was A Disappearance, and suddenly everything made sense. I knew what I needed to do.
By two pages in, I stopped hearing those infernal noises. By the midpoint, I was finally able to sit up and go somewhere more comfortable. And when I finally reached the back cover? I knew what I would find when I stood up to go use the restroom. Nothing. Nobody. Freedom.
I read My Disappearance a lot, after that. At first it was every time I’d been bored by too many books in a row, then it was after every fifth book, and eventually I was rereading more than I was reading anything new. It didn’t matter. By then, the books weren’t even the point, not really. I’d read all the good ones anyways. The point was My Library. My castle. My escape. I wouldn’t risk the magic fading. I wouldn’t go back. I couldn’t.
If I had a choice, I would still be there. I wouldn’t be in this grimy, dusty, busy place where people are loud and peace is a lie you all tell yourselves so you can convince yourselves you’re happy. Trust me on that. But one day, My Disappearance, well… disappeared. I don’t know where. I don’t know how. It happened while I was reading a surprisingly decent old people romance book, one of those ones where you’re always wondering if the next line will have something racist in it. It didn’t, and the couple were cute, and then I finished up and went back to My Disappearance and there was nothing. It was gone. I ran to the entrance, hoping desperately that whatever thief had somehow snuck in and stolen my book, I could catch them before they left. But there was nobody there. Just me, completely alone, and terrified because I knew that was about to change.
I screamed, for a while. It’s easy, to scream at an empty world, to scream where no-one will judge you. It was one of the first things I did, actually, when I found my escape the first time. Parallelism, I guess. I did a proper search after that, went through every nook and cranny in the massive place, but I knew I wouldn’t find what I was looking for. I suppose I was really just saying goodbye.
It didn’t take long before My Library wasn’t mine anymore. So I picked myself up and went back out into the world, hunting for my book. I will find My Disappearance, and I will find the thief who took it from me. And I am going to kill them with my Bare. Fucking. Hands. I will gouge out their eyes, and write a twelve page fanfiction chapter for My Disappearance in their FUCKING BLOOD. And then, I am going to read my lovely book, and nobody will ever see me again. That’s why I’m here, really. I can’t say I care too much about your mission, but you’ve got an artefact storage and this shady woman I tracked down near Oxford told me it’s got magic books sourced from all over. I told the artefact storage people I’m a grad student researching reports of paranormal effects in literature, but they didn’t seem convinced. It probably didn’t help that I still hate looking people in the eyes.
So I came here, because you allow anyone to deliver a statement, and I’m really hoping you’ll be kind enough to go up there and speak with the artefact people on my behalf, or tell me if, somewhere in your piles of paperwork, you’ve got a horrible little creature confessing to stealing a magic book in Sheffield. Please. I need this. I can’t keep going without My Disappearance, without My Library, without my escape. I can’t.
STATEMENT ENDS