Every Librarian Knew One Basic Fact

Every librarian knew one basic fact: classification precedes organization. If you wanted to put together a library people could use to find things out, you had to figure out which categories to put the books in. Hawkeye’s library didn’t contain nearly as many categories as most. At least three-quarters of her hard copies were about the Disappearance or related subjects – including the Neighbors.

Boss and his comrades zeroed in on these immediately, especially the one written by John Davies, Neighbors And Their Spirits Of Glory. According to Davies, when Neighbors die, their comrades petition the Spirits of Glory to allow the departed ones to enter into their company. Hawkeye had memorized the Genparl approximation of the ritual, assuming it must be genuine, but now that she was about to travel with real Neighbors, she wondered if they would agree with anything that had been written about them in her library. They stood looking, as if they could read the entire content of the books simply by reading the spines.

-from Spirits Of Glory, by Emily Devenport