"But...it all sounds like something straight out of a
fantasy novel! You can't really expect me to believe..." She
didn't finish. Was believing in werewolves and a school for
dog–shifters so much more difficult than believing in
the talking dog who sat before her?
Chronus's big head nodded. "Can I trust you to keep
all I say in strictest confidence?"
"Of course. Who would believe me?" She rolled her
eyes. "One single word about a talking dog and no one would
stay around long enough to listen to the shapeshifting part."
"You have a point. Modern culture ignores what it
deems impossible. That's one of the reasons I chose this
site for our school. Mid–Western Americans are such
gullible skeptics. As long as the surface seems normal, they
don't want to believe there could be more."
"There's more?"
"Let me tell you about what is not seen. You call this
the library basement. Below are two more levels."
She looked down at the oak floor. "The whole
shapeshifting school is beneath me?"
"The first sub–level is our school and library.
We have a library about the size of yours in terms of
volumes. No duplicates, of course."
Liberty remembered her first exploration of the old
building, when she had squeezed through the small flap in
the door and gone down the stairs to the level below her
office. She remembered the sign that read "Library." That
was where she had first met Chronus. Since that day the door
to the janitorial closet had been locked, and she had been
too busy with other things to wonder why. Now she knew.
"You have real librarians working down there? Now?"
She'd begun to whisper as if beings below her feet could hear.
"Some are librarians. Others have worked in libraries
for a very long time, before formal trainings were
available. And many others are what I call scholar
librarians, familiar with languages and the history of
specific areas of the world."
""This basement couldn't hold that many books."
"To clarify, our levels are larger than the footprint
of this building. We have a lot of space. The lowest level
is like a hotel. Perhaps resort would be a better
description. We have rooms for all our librarians, scholars,
faculty, workers, and students."
"They sleep there?"
"What did you think?" His gentle chuckle echoed in the
room.
"I don't know. They disappear?"
"Temporary invisibility can be very useful during
shifts. But it's a very advanced skill that takes a lot of
energy. Mostly we rely on humans' inability to see the
impossible."