Speck loved to be by moving water. My strongest memory is of her animated by the currents, empathetic to the flow. I saw her once, years ago, stripped to the skin, sitting with her legs tucked beneath her, as the water rolled around her waist and the sunshine caressed her shoulders. Under normal circumstances, I would have jumped and splashed in the creek with her, but struck by the grace of her neck and limbs, the contours of her face, I could not move. On another occasion, when the townsfolk shot off fireworks in the night, we watched the explosions upriver, and she seemed more enchanted by the waterflow than by the loud flowering in the sky. While the people looked up, she watched the light reflecting on the ripples and the sparks as they hissed on the surface. From the beginning, I had guessed where she had gone and why, but I did not act upon that intuition because of a fundamental lack of courage. The same fears that had prevented me from crossing at the riverbend also made me break off the search and come back to camp. I should have followed the waters.
　　The path to the library never seemed as long and foreboding as on the night of my first return. The way had changed since we had parted. The forest thinned around its edge, and rusty cans, bottles, and other refuse littered the brush. None of us had visited in the years since she left. Books lay where we had left them, though mice had nibbled the margins of my papers, left their scat in our old candleholders and coffee mugs. Her Shakespeare was lousy with silverfish. Stevens had swollen with dampness. By dim candlelight, I spent the night restoring order, pulling down cobwebs, shooing crickets, lingering over what she had once held in her hands. I fell asleep wrapped in I he musty blanket that had long ago lost her scent.
　　Vibrations above announced the arrival of morning. The librarians started their day, joists creaking under their weight and the patterns of their routines. I could picture their goings-on: checking in, saying hello, settling at their stations. An hour or so passed before the doors opened and the humans shuffled in. When the rhythm felt normal, I began to work. A thin film of dust covered my papers, and I spent most of that first day reading the bits and pieces in order, tying the loose pages with entries in McInnes's journal. So much had been left behind, lost, forgotten, and buried after we had been driven away the first time. Reduced to a short pile, the words documented time's passage with deep gaps and yawning silences. Very little existed, for instance, from the early days of my arrival—only a few crude drawings and pathetic notes. Years had gone by without mention. After reviewing all the files, I understood the long chore ahead.
　　When the librarians left for the evening, I popped open the trapdoor underneath the children's section. Unlike on other forays, I had no desire to pick out a new book, but, rather, to steal new writing supplies. Behind the head librarian's desk lay the treasure: five long yellow pads and enough pens to last the rest of my life. To introduce a minor intrigue, I also reshelved the Wallace Stevens that had been missing.
　　Words spilled from the pen and I wrote until my hand cramped and pained me. The end, the night that Speck left, became the beginning. From there, the story moved backward to the point where I realized that I had fallen in love with her. A whole swath of the original manuscript, which is thankfully gone, was given over to the physical tensions of being a grown man in a young boy's body. Right in the middle of a sentence on desire, I stopped. What if she wanted me to go with her? I would have pleaded for her to stay, said that I lacked the courage to run away. Yet a contrary idea pulled at my conscience. Perhaps she never intended for me to find out. She had run away because of me and knew all along that I loved her. I put down my pen and wished Speck were there to talk with me, to answer all the unknowables.
　　These obsessions curled like parasites through my brain, and I tossed and turned on the hard floor. I woke up in the night and started writing on a clean pad, determined to rid my mind of its darkest thoughts. The hours passed and days drifted one into the other. For the next six months, I divided myself between the camp and the library, trying to piece together the story of my life to give to Speck. Our winter hibernation slowed my progress. I grew tired in December and slept until March. Before I could go back to the book, the book came back to me.
　　Solemn-eyed Luchóg and Smaolach approached one morning as I crunched a farl of oats and drained the dregs from a cup of tea. With great deliberation, they sat on either side of me, cross-legged, settling in for a long talk. Luchóg fiddled with a new shoot of rye poking through the old leaves, and Smaolach looked off, pretending to study the play of light through the branches.
　　"Good morning, lads. What’s on your minds?"
　　"We've been to the library," said Smaolach.
　　"Haven't gone there in ages," said Luchóg.
　　"We know what you've been up to"
　　"Read the story of your life."
　　Smaolach turned his gaze toward mine. "A hundred thousand apologies, but we had to know."
　　"Who gave you the right?" I asked.
　　They turned their faces away from me, and I did not know where to look.
　　"You've got a few stories wrong," Luchóg said. "May I ask why you wrote this book? To whom is it addressed?"
　　"What did I get wrong?"
　　"My understanding is that an author doesn't write a book without having one or more readers in mind," Luchóg said. "One doesn't go through the time and effort to be the only reader of your own book. Even the diarist expects the lock to be picked."
　　Smaolach pulled at his chin, as if deep in thought. "It would be a big mistake, I think, to write a book that no one would ever read."
　　"You are quite right, old friend. I have at times wondered why the artist dares to bring something new into a world where everything has been done and where all the answers are quite well known."
　　I stood and broke the plane of their inquisition. "Would you please tell me," I hollered, "what is wrong with the book?"
　　"I'm afraid it's your father," said Luchóg.
　　"My father, what about him? Has something happened to him?"
　　"He's not who you think he is."
　　"What my friend means to say is that the man you think of as your father is not your father at all. That man is another man."
　　"Come with us," said Luchóg.
　　As we wound along the path, I tried to untangle the many implications of their invasion into my book. First, they had always known I was Henry Day, and now they knew I knew. They had read of my feelings for Speck and surely guessed I was writing to her. They knew how I felt about them, as well. Fortunately, they came across as generally sympathetic characters, a bit eccentric, true, but steadfast allies in my adventures. Their line of questioning posed an intriguing concern, however, as I had not thought ahead to how I might actually get a book to Speck, or, more to the point, about the reasons behind my desire to write it all down. Smaolach and Luchóg, ahead on the trail, had lived in these woods for ............