A Christmas Keepsake Read Free Page A

half running, to reach her destination.
    She at last pushed through the doorway, and warmth and shelter wrapped about her like a well-loved blanket. She knew the Reference Division well; she haunted it every time she managed to come to London. She drew a deep breath, and the mustiness of aged leather filled her lungs: a comfortable, soothing smell. She could never grow tired of books.
    A search through the card catalogue proved her suspicions correct; the mysterious Mr. Holborn had written another, earlier, book on social reform. Armed with its number, she searched the stacks.
    She found it easily, amid the towering shelves crammed with their aging volumes—then stood with her hand on it, mustering her courage to pull it from the shelf. What if it, too, shifted its words, said things it should not? She swallowed. There was only one way to find out.
    Eyes closed, she opened it quickly, at random, then forced herself to study the page. The section described squalid living conditions for a family of seven sharing a single room. The print didn’t shift.
    From that she gathered a measure of encouragement, and turned the page. His words horrified her—but only their meaning, not their behavior. They remained just as they ought, firmly printed in black ink on the sheet yellowed with age.
    Slowly, she leafed through the remaining pages. Not a single change, not so much as the slightest blur interrupted her scanning. She found herself reading long passages, caught up into the power of his writing, appalled by his vivid accounts of deprivation. But there were no alterations, no shifting letters.
    At last, frowning, she replaced the book on the shelf. From her pocket, she brought forth Life in London. It opened to Chapter Ten, and at once the letters danced before her eyes, blurring, beginning their metamorphosis...
    She slammed it shut and gripped it tightly, afraid to open it again, as if the words might fly from the page and wing their way about the library to infect the other volumes with their peculiar madness. It still did it! Yet James Holborn’s other book did not.
    She shoved Life in London back into the pocket of her down jacket. Her fingers encountered the plastic sack of chocolate chips, and she slipped a couple into her mouth. What was different about his two books? They both advocated social reform. Yet one dealt with the poor, while the other addressed the rich and their callous attitude...
    No, from Chapter Ten onward in Life in London, Mr. Holborn wrote about a specific event, a Christmas house party, not conditions in general.
    She leaned back, and the metal rim of the shelf pressed through her coat into her spine. A specific event, something that actually happened—at least in one version. In the other, something else entirely happened. Mob riots—possibly even a revolution.
    She shivered, feeling as if her fingers had turned to icicles. She was getting too fanciful! What did she think, that something happened at that house party that had the potential to change history—in effect, bring about a social revolution...
    “... unspeakable horrors, after the manner of their brethren in France .” The words, glimpsed so briefly as they shifted across the page, returned to haunt her. Dear God, a revolution, in London, in 1810...
    This was ridiculous. Twilight Zone time, just like Amanda suggested. Something pretty darn peculiar was going on, with that she couldn’t argue. What she needed was more information about the time. Christmas, 1810, to be exact. If other books behaved strangely, altering their accounts of this particular period, she would know she was onto something. If they didn’t, she’d take the book to an optometrist and find out if anything was wrong with her eyes that might pick up some unstable quality in the printer’s ink. Perhaps the page had been bleached, erasing earlier words, then the new ones printed over the top.
    If that were the case, then she should see both versions at the same time,