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[Sound of an ax chopping wood. Quirky music fades in…]
Christopher Gronlund:
I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…
My name is Christopher Gronlund, and this is where I share my stories. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny—other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never—EVER—share a story about lumberjacks.
This time, it’s a story about a strange book found in a college library that changes someone’s life forever…
But first, the usual content advisory…
“In the Margins” is a light-hearted story about books that almost doesn’t merit an advisory. But I suppose if I had to dig, I’d say there are a couple moments of light suspense and passing talk about college debt. There’s no swearing, although I guess in a roundabout way, there’s an unspoken moment alluding to a word some find offensive. But really: this is just a charming little tale…
One quick thing before we get going…
Some people assume another fiction podcast influenced Not About Lumberjacks, but it was actually an educational show called Evolution Talk, by a guy named Rick Coste.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Rick narrated the role of Pepper in the Not About Lumberjacks story of the same title. He’s also popped up, here and there, on other episodes.
The effort Rick put into Evolution Talk impressed me so much that I wanted to do a show of my own where I aspired to that level of quality. How good is Rick’s podcast? Good enough that a book deal came to him!
On October 15, Evolution Talk will be released as a book and audiobook. You can visit evolutiontalk.com to follow links where you can preorder both. I may have been the book’s first preorder, and I plan to get the audiobook as well. Rick is its narrator, and it’s always nice hearing him read.
I’ll be sure to include links to Rick’s sites in the show notes, ‘cause he also has a bunch of audiodramas and other things out there. He’s a mighty snazzy person…
All right, let’s get to work!
In the Margins
Upon a shelf in the rare books collection of the University of North Tingale library was a massive tome seeming to have survived centuries in a forest without total decay; or perhaps pulled from an ancient, wrecked ship at the bottom of the ocean. Its pages looked like undulating layers of clouds on a stormy day pressed between stained brown binding board. Upon its massive spine, a worn archival plate reading: THE EVD COLLECTION. FOLIO 1031. Lifting the volume was like pulling a stone from a garden, but its true weight was in its pages, smooth vellum sheets covered in handwritten text in a language Kenna Baynes had never seen.
She spent the morning guessing common words: “and,” “the,” “to,” and “I.” From there, she back-formed the script to construct longer words, until creating a loose key of letters. In time, she discerned the book was a handwritten catalog of others—a folio of titles from an old collection. When Kenna got up to stretch her legs, she thought, “How have I never noticed this thing before? An old, one-foot thick, half-decayed-on-the-outside, but well-preserved-on-the-inside book doesn’t just appear.” Was it so new to the collection that someone set it down while entering it into the library’s catalog and databases?
After a short stroll around the four tables in the rare books room, she returned to the massive tome. Exhaustion overcame the urge to continue deciphering text, so Kenna carefully flipped through its pages. About half an inch in, she saw it, two lines written in the margin:
The modesty and merit
Of the little gray bird
She noted the lines in her journal and closed the EVD FOLIO. When she returned it to the shelf, she noticed a woman on the far side of the room watching her.
By the time Kenna grabbed her journal and approached, she was gone.
* * *
On the main floor of the library, Kenna pulled her phone from her backpack. She opened Google and typed: The modesty and merit of the little gray bird. The search returned a book title: Modesty and Merit; Or, The Gray-bird’s Story of Little May-Rose and John by Ferdinand Schmidt. A search of the library’s catalog revealed the book was part of The Delaney Juvenile Collection in Hawthorn Library.
On the way across campus to Hawthorn Hall, Kenna kept an eye out for the woman she saw in the rare books collection of the main library. There was something unsettling about the way she peered at Kenna through the shelves, even though she figured it was likely the woman was watching her struggle with such a massive book. She paused at the entrance of Hawthorn Library and pulled out her phone, pretending to look at it while surveying the area one last time before going in.
Kenna found the book on a shelf near the back of the collection. It had a brilliant blue cover with ALL THE CHILDREN’S LIBRARY embossed on the front. The spine depicted a young girl reading a book above the same words on the cover, with MODESTY AND MERIT beneath another image of the same girl walking along a path. Kenna took the book to the tables in the learning commons and sat down.
She paid close attention to the book’s front matter, preface, introduction, and initial chapter, but couldn’t determine what any of it had to do with the marginalia found in the folio. Before deciding if it was worth borrowing the book and reading at home, she flipped through its pages. On the first page of the fourth chapter, written in the margin, were the words:
Can be found
Beneath the eagle’s wings.
She removed her journal from her backpack and jotted down the margin note beneath the other. She whispered as she read.
The modesty and merit
Of the little gray bird
Can be found
Beneath the eagle’s wings.
On her phone, she searched for beneath the eagle’s wings, resulting in several similar book titles: a Ken Follett novel, a story set during the Vietnam War, and an older novel set during the Spanish-American War. If a clue was hidden in any of those books, it would have to wait for another day—Kenna was almost running late for work. She flipped through the rest of Modesty and Merit, finding no other marginalia, and placed the book on the reshelving cart on her way out.
* * *
On a good day, Kenna had a difficult time focusing at work, but after the day’s discoveries, she had a harder time than usual. Her job in food services at Medical City Tingale was not without its challenges—loading tall carts with meals and delivering to patient rooms—but once load-in from the kitchen was complete, the rest was mostly routine. On this particular day, the cooks berated her for moving slowly; her thoughts were devoted to books instead of matching meals to rooms.
When she took the job, her parents said she was retreating from the challenges of better work. Kenna was the first in her family to attend college, and her mother and father did not approve of her choice to pursue a career in library science; nor were they keen on her doing menial labor or working in a service industry like them.
“If you’re going to go into debt, study something that will pay off,” her father once told her.
Her reply of, “If you’re going to demand your child go to college, then make sure that child can pay for college,” was a point of contention between the three.
Her parents meant well—she knew that—but she felt like anything shy of becoming a doctor or lawyer would never be enough. After completing her undergraduate studies, Kenna entered the master’s program. Her father told her to get a job and not take on more loans, and her mom said, “You can only hide behind the safety of school so long before you have to step out into the real world.”
Her mother was right to an extent: Kenna’s plan was to get a PhD and teach. But a career in academia was as much a part of the “real world” as anything, where one was compensated with real money to pay real bills and have real concerns about the future.
She wished her parents acknowledged that.
* * *
There was a slight chill in the air as Kenna cut across campus on her way home from work. Soon, crisp breezes would send a blaze of leaves skittering about sidewalks and covering manicured grass beneath autumn’s quilt. There were days the arguments made by Kenna’s parents to leave college for a job weighed on her, but when fall arrived, there was no better place to be than school.
She stopped abruptly in the middle of the quad. Before her, illuminated atop a concrete block was a bronze statue of the university’s mascot: an eagle. During her shift at work, she’d rolled the four lines around in her head like a mantra:
The modesty and merit
Of the little gray bird
Can be found
Beneath the eagle’s wings.
Kenna glanced around at the mostly empty square and approached the sculpture. She looked at the massive bird tilted in flight with its wings spread wide; unfortunately, she saw nothing beneath them. She’d never been so close to the eagle. Even though others climbed onto its base and took photos, she was one to stay off the grass and keep to designated walkways. But she was there, so why not?
She reached up and grabbed the edge of the concrete pedestal, scaling the side with her feet. Standing at her full height, the eagle towered over her. She examined the statue and where it was mounted to its foundation, but nothing stood out. Working her way around to its back revealed the same. She jumped down behind the sculpture and looked around. In a small pile of stones at the base, one caught Kenna’s attention. Tucked away among the darker, weathered stones was a lighter chunk of granite. She grabbed it and pulled, expecting a weight that wasn’t there. She rolled it around in her hands, realizing it was a fake rock usually used to hide house keys. She struggled with the sliding panel at its bottom, eventually opening the stone.
Out fell a small metal cylinder with a screw-top lid. Inside was a piece of rolled-up paper. She unfurled it like a tiny scroll and struggled to make out what was written on it.
Moving around to the front of the eagle sculpture, in the floodlight illuminating the massive bird, she realized she was holding the full key to the text in the EVD COLLECTION FOLIO.
On the back appeared to be a short message in the strange script. She found a bench beneath a light and sat down. In her journal, she worked out what it said:
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…
* * *
The following morning, Kenna was at the main library when it opened. She took the collection’s copies of The Hobbit to a table and flipped through the pages, looking for another clue.
Nothing.
She’d noted there was also a single copy in the Delaney Juvenile Collection in Hawthorn Library, but she had something else to attend to first.
Kenna kept an eye out for the woman who seemed to be watching her the previous day as she made her way to the rare books collection. After checking in, she immediately went to the shelf where she found the massive folio.
Nothing.
It was not shaping up to be the morning she hoped for…
* * *
Kenna practically jogged across campus to Hawthorn Library. She took its copy of The Hobbit to a table and slowly turned its pages. There in the margin, beside Gollum’s second riddle to Bilbo Baggins, was another written in pencil:
Where does the wind come from
In its ever-turning gyre?
And can it be harnessed
From the top of a spire?
The only spire on campus was the clock tower at the top of the administration building. It never dawned on Kenna to see if it was accessible to students, but it was only a couple buildings away—and she still had time before her morning of classes started. She placed The Hobbit on the reshelving cart and made her way to the administration building.
Kenna’s only trips into the building were to the bursar’s office on the first floor. She wasn’t sure if she’d be allowed access beyond that, but she found an elevator that took her to the top floor. After wandering the hallways, she found a door leading to a stairwell. The stairs leading down were open, but a locked, retractable cage blocked access above. She knew she couldn’t pick the lock, and she doubted they’d let her up—even if she asked nicely. Kenna looked out the window, pondering her next move—and then she saw it…
* * *
The University of North Tingale was known for looking ahead—all while preserving its better traditions. Part of this future view was acknowledging the situation its students would face long after its Chancellor and older professors were gone. The university’s standing as an academic force was rivaled only by its focus on environmental sustainability—a campus powered completely by renewable energy.
Kenna stood before the three wind turbines powering the athletic complex. She quietly muttered the latest clue to herself:
Where does the wind come from
In its ever-turning gyre?
And can it be harnessed
From the top of a spire?
The only thing she could see on the tops of the turbines were warning lights for medevac helicopters on the way to the hospital where she worked. Even if Kenna could reach them, the area around the turbines was fenced and off limits. She walked along the fence line thinking about other places the riddle might refer to. Did she give up too easily in the administration building? Was there another spire on campus or in town—like a church—she was missing? But it seemed obvious the riddle alluded to the wind turbines. Kenna was so deep in thought that she almost tripped over the small pile of stones at the base of one of the fence posts.
Like the evening before, one of the stones was not as it seemed. Nestled in the hollow space inside the fake rock was another piece of paper with a message. She sat down and decoded it.
A book can be as strong
As the Tree of Heaven
Growing beside an apartment
in old Williamsburg
* * *
Kenna was never one to skip classes, but if there was ever the day to do so, it had arrived. She raced back to Hawthorn library and searched the catalog for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Thumbing through the book, she saw it in the margins:
Many things go unnoticed
As we race through our bustling days
But when viewed through the Enduring Arch
The seventh hour points the way.
There were several fountains on the campus grounds, but only one Enduring Arch, a memorial erected in honor of students and alumni no longer alive. Kenna made her way to the mall stretching out before the administration building and looked around the arch. It was tucked away on a shaded pathway beneath a canopy of trees, a bronze work not too much taller than a large doorway. She saw nothing at either base, or near the dedication carved into a stone on the walkway beneath it.
“The seventh hour points the way,” she whispered. Was the clue meant to be solved earlier that morning, or did she need to come back in the evening? She looked around for other clues, but nothing stood out. Kenna was about to give up when the clock tower chimed.
“When viewed through the Enduring Arch…”
Kenna stepped back along the path and lined the tower clock up with the top of the arch. While it was ten in the morning—time for the second class she’d miss that day—she traced a line with her eyes from the center of the clock face to the seventh hour. Following it further led to a cluster of bushes along the side of the administration building.
The campus was alive with motion, students and faculty rushing about their mornings. Kenna felt strange crossing the grass and approaching—and then looking behind—the bushes, but no one seemed to notice as they trotted along, lost in the business of their days.
In the bushes, Kenna found another fake stone. After deciphering the message inside, she read:
There is no lake in the green camp
Where we toil beneath a blazing sun
All under the watchful eye
Of the one who owns the shade.
This riddle wasn’t as obvious as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to Kenna, but she figured the answer was somewhere back in the Delaney Juvenile Collection…
* * *
On her way to Hawthorn Library, Kenna searched green camp book on her phone. The first result was for a book called Stanley Yelnat’s Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake. Clicking the link brought her to an image of its cover. Written at the top: “Louis Sachar, author of the bestselling Holes.”
She’d heard of the book—even meant to read it when she was younger. Thumbing through it in the Delaney Collection led her to another clue.
* * *
The rest of Kenna’s day was a blur. The hint in the margin of Holes—The next clue you seek, May make us seem haughty; It can be found in the spot, That a C makes quite naughty—led her to three large letters spelling U N T. It was meant as a photo op in an age of social media, where students could pose beside free-standing letters as tall as them and let the world know they attended the University of North Tingale. Instead, students often posed to the left of the letters while holding signs with a large C written on them, while others bent to their sides, forming Cs with their arms. In the grass behind the U, Kenna found a stone. Its deciphered message read:
The heart of two dogs
Can be measured
By a boy’s love and
Something only an angel can plant.
In the margins of Where the Red Fern Grows, the next clue—It seems you’re getting closer, ever growing in your powers; the next stone that you seek, lies in a bed of flowers—led Kenna to the main university entrance. There on a hill, surrounded by a bed of flowers about to give in to cooler weather, was the university crest. She wandered up, not caring if she was stepping someplace she was not supposed to be at this point, and found a fake stone.
It was not lost on Kenna how direct the last clue was—seemingly written for her, letting her know she was getting close. It was a bit unsettling. But as she sat at the bottom of the hill with the stone’s note and the script key, her concerns disappeared. The next deciphered message read:
When your memories are not your own
And a nurturing father is not enough
You can escape Elsewhere on a sled
And be delivered to sweet music.
Kenna read Lois Lowry’s The Giver in junior high school. She found it to be a rather bleak read, but was moved when its main character hears music for the first time as he rides a sled down a big hill to a house full of lights. In the margins next to that scene, she read:
Just in case you’re wondering
Our intentions are rather legal
The final clue can be found behind
The university’s luckiest eagle
Kenna’s stomach rumbled as she crossed campus to a bronze bust of an eagle near the Student Union. She’d stopped by the water fountain at Hawthorn Library with each pass, but hadn’t eaten since breakfast. On a pedestal in the grass outside the union building was Baldy, a statue students rubbed on the head for luck at the beginning of each semester. Behind his base, hidden in bushes, was a stone. She opened it and took the final message into the union with her, where Kenna finally got a bite to eat.
* * *
She was exhausted after losing herself in a day unlike any other, and the first bite of a chicken wrap hit the spot. After another bite, Kenna reached in her backpack for her journal to decode the message. That’s when she saw her phone and realized she had several missed calls.
Work!
Not only had she skipped classes for the first time, she’d never missed a shift at work, either. The messages from her boss went from sounding concerned to angry. Kenna called back.
“Sarah, it’s Kenna—I’m so sorry I didn’t call. I’m not feeling well. I closed my eyes before getting ready for work and dozed off. I think I’m sick.”
She’d never lied, either.
“I’m sorry…I said I’m sorry. What?! Are you serious? This is the first time anything like this has happened—I never miss work…What do you mean? Well, if you want to be like that, you never give anyone a reason to feel motivated. You treat everyone like they’re beneath you—especially students…No, I don’t think I’m better than you. No, I don’t. Look, do I still have a job or not? Fine. If you’re going to be like this the first time I’ve ever called in sick, you’re probably doing me a favor. Take care!”
Kenna was glad she’d had a couple bites of her chicken wrap—she couldn’t imagine being upset on an empty stomach. After calming herself with a series of deep breaths, she finished eating and decoded the message.
When we were young
Toys seemed real.
Left on their own
Toys become real.
Kenna cleared her tray and rushed back to Hawthorn Library to find its copy of The Velveteen Rabbit.
* * *
As Kenna approached Hawthorn Hall, she noticed the woman from the rare books collection leaving the building. She chased after her, calling, “Hey! Hey!”
The woman walked faster, and Kenna broke into a full run. She cut the woman off.
“Can I help you?” the woman said.
It dawned on Kenna that she may have just chased down an innocent person. The woman appeared to be in her mid 60s and harmless.
“I’m sorry,” Kenna said. “It’s just…it’s been a strange couple of days. I swear I saw you watching me yesterday in the rare books collection at the main library.
The woman smiled and said, “You best hurry. The Eliza Vivian Delaney collection is about to close for the weekend…” Then, she turned and walked away…
* * *
While searching the collection’s catalog for their copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, Kenna realized she’d spent the last twelve hours racing about campus on a chase she hoped was about to end. Throughout the day, she’d vacillated between intrigued and terrified, wondering if she was being set up for a dreadful end. But the look on the woman’s face seemed to assure her she was safe. She went to the shelf to pull The Velveteen Rabbit, but was greeted by THE EVD COLLECTION FOLIO instead.
“Eliza Vivian Delaney,” Kenna said while shaking her head.
She picked up the massive tome and sat at a table. A piece of paper stuck out from its pages. Kenna removed it—happy to see she didn’t need to decipher yet another clue.
Kenna,
You have likely deduced these pages contain a listing of books from a collection. Some of those books are housed on the shelves around you. The others are here as well—just out of view.
Beneath the short note was a hand-drawn map of the library where she sat. A dashed line pointed back beyond the restrooms.
Kenna picked up Eliza Vivian Delaney’s big book and followed the path to a door reading NO ADMITTANCE.
She shifted the folio to her off arm and checked the door.
It was unlocked.
* * *
Kenna opened the door and saw a stairway leading down, the only light illuminating the way from the dim bulb in the stairwell. She cautiously descended, until reaching the bottom. A hallway lit by distant red EXIT signs spread out to her right and left. Kenna closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to adjust to the darkness. It worked. Before her, taped to the wall, was an arrow pointing to her left drawn on a piece of poster board.
Before the events of her last two days, Kenna would have turned back once she opened the door and looked down the dark staircase—if she even made it that far. She always played it safe, even though her parents believed her choice of study was reckless. Now, she found herself at a crossroads—without a job, support, or even much more than a vague idea what she’d do after graduation. Her mom was right: it was easy to hide behind the safety of school. But as Kenna looked down the old steam tunnel, she didn’t feel safe. If nothing else, she had a massive book in her hands that could serve as a weapon or shield. She slowly made her way down the hallway.
As she neared the end of the corridor, in the red glow of the EXIT sign, a figure seemed to rise up from the floor. Kenna froze. She turned her head back the way she came. If she dropped the book and ran, she could probably make it back to the light of the staircase—but she couldn’t do that to the old tome. She turned back to face the figure before her.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Don’t worry, Kenna.”
The voice was familiar.
“Who are you?”
“You’re safe.”
Kenna stepped closer and recognized her Special Collections and Archives professor.
“Dr. Sheng? What’s going on?”
“I’m about to show you.”
She turned and descended the staircase behind her.
* * *
Kenna followed her professor. As she passed through the door at the bottom of the stairs, she saw an old bomb shelter sign on the wall. On the other side of the door was a small library.
About a dozen people, ranging in age from someone who could be Kenna’s big brother to a woman who could be her great grandmother, sat at tables in front of rows of shelves. Dr. Sheng took the folio from Kenna and sat with the others. She gestured for Kenna to sit in a chair facing the group.
“We’re sorry if we startled you,” Dr. Sheng said. “Consider it a bit of clever hazing.”
“Hazing…for what?” Kenna said.
“We’d like to offer you a job in the better part of the Eliza Vivian Delaney Collection. Well, not better—there are so many wonderful books upstairs. Perhaps ‘the more interesting’ part.”
“What’s going on?”
The woman Kenna spotted in the main library’s rare books collection spoke.
“Every six to eight years, we notice the right person to help carry on this collection. We’ve all been that quiet soul content to be alone in their studies and the books they love.”
Kenna looked around the room, noticing two other professors she’d had during her undergraduate studies. The younger man tended to the service desk upstairs.
“Our offer is simple: as secure a job as any you will find—one that offers opportunities to teach and travel if you desire?”
“Doing what?” Kenna said.
“Teaching here at the university if you wish? But mostly, helping us find and catalog books that never existed.”
“That makes no sense. How could you catalog books that don’t exist?”
“Well, books that were never published. That’s what’s down here: manuscripts found in piles at estate sales. Novels stored on old hard drives. Stories deserving a wider audience than a handful of friends and family, but never seeing publication. Some of the greatest books ever written spent their lives hidden away in drawers or boxes, never seen by the public—but still, every bit as deserving to be read as many classics.”
Dr. Sheng patted the EVD Folio and said, “That’s what’s cataloged in this book.”
“But why the strange code?” Kenna said.
“Miss Delaney was a very playful woman. One of the university’s first librarians, she fell in love with books—particularly children’s books—and never outgrew them. She developed the code as a child to communicate with a friend. Don’t worry, the folio’s contents are now deciphered and in a database.
“Eliza had an uncle who wanted to become an author, but never saw publication. He helped build the steam tunnels beneath the university, back when one needed academic or social standing to see publication. His books are the first entries in the folio—an accounting of their titles, a biography, and a description of the books he wrote. Some of his manuscripts are on the shelves behind us. Miss Delaney believed it was a shame how many great writers are never read. She made it part of her life’s work to find and catalog other lost manuscripts. We carry on her tradition, and we’d love for you to help.”
Kenna dreamed of one day working in an ornate library, a palace to literature made of cut stone, rich woods, and gleaming brass. The heart of the Delaney Collection could have been the library at any old elementary school built in the 60s: a concrete space full of metal shelves, lit by fluorescent lights. But it seemed fitting that such a collection was housed in an old bomb shelter. It was a comforting thought that if the world became fire, ‘books that never existed’ would be the books to survive.
Kenna smiled and said, “So, when do I start?”
* * *
SIX YEARS LATER
Kenna and Dr. Sheng spied on the potential new recruit, a quiet bookworm named Roger.
“Roger? Who names their kid Roger these days?” Dr. Sheng said as they watched him tinker with a fake stone behind the massive eagle statue. He opened it and looked around when he found the rolled-up paper within. Kenna and Dr. Sheng averted their gaze and returned to acting like two colleagues who bumped into each other on the way to teach their next classes.
Roger went to the same bench Kenna sat on when she was given the code’s key and directed to the first book in her playful hazing. This time, though, Kenna got to write the clue:
A patchwork quilt
Is the best defense
against a frenzied storm
On a dark and stormy night…
* * *
[Quirky music fades in…]
Christopher Gronlund:
Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks.
Theme music, as always, is by Ergo Phizmiz. Story music this time was by Adriel Fair, Trevor Kowalski, and Many Moons Ago–all licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Sound effects are made in-house or from Epidemic Sound and freesound.org. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and the music. And, for as little as a dollar a month, you can support the show at patreon.com/cgronlund.
November’s anniversary episode is on its way, and I can assure you, there will be no mention of lumberjacks. Especially not a rough-and-tumble lumberjack with a heart of…tin?
It’ll all make sense in November…
[Quirky music fades out…]
[The sound of a chopping ax.]
Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!
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