Page 144 - The Midnight Library

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‘It was bearable.’

‘Another thing that is strange,’ Hugo said. ‘At any point in this
conversation you or I could disappear.’
‘Have you seen that happen?’ Nora took the mug Hugo handed her.
‘Yeah. A few times. It’s freaky. But no one else would notice. ey become

a bit vague with their memor y for the last day, but you would be surprised. If
you went back to the librar y right now, and I was still standing here talking
to you in the kitchen, you would say something like “My mind’s just gone
blank – what were we talking about?”, and then I’d realise what had

happened and I’d say we were talking about glaciers and you’d bombard me
with facts about them. And your brain would fill in the gaps and make up a
narrative about what just happened.’
‘Yeah, but what about the polar bear? What about the meal tonight?

Would I – this other me – would she remember what I ate? ’
‘Not necessarily. But I have seen it happen. It’s amazing what the brain can
fill in. And what it is fine with forgetting.’
‘So, what was I like? Yesterday, I mean.’

He locked eyes. ey were pretty eyes. Nora momentarily felt pulled into
his orbit like a satellite to Earth.
‘Exquisite, charming, intelligent, beautiful. Much like now.’
She laughed it off. ‘Stop being so French.’

Awkward pause.
‘How many lives have you had?’ she said eventually. ‘How many have you
experienced?’
‘ Too many. Nearing three hundred.’

‘ ree hundred?’
‘I have been so many things. On ever y continent on Earth. And yet I have
never found the life for me. I am resigned to being this way for ever. ere
will never be a life that I truly want to live for ever. I get too curious. I get

too much of a yearning to live another way. And you don’t need to make that
face. It’s not sad. I am happily in limbo.’
‘But what if one day there is no video store? ’ Nora thought about Mrs
Elm, panicking at the computer, and the flickering lights in the librar y.

‘What if one day you disappear for good? Before you have found a life to
settle in?’