The Gift

Chapter 73

Whit

Wisty and I are close enough now to hear what these citizens are chanting about, and it's pretty vile.

"Books equal chaos! We want order! Books equal chaos!"

We wander/hobble into the crowd and gradually nudge our way forward to a spot where we can see what's going on.

"Books equal chaos! We want order! Books equal chaos!"

Who are these people who've been utterly convinced that books lead only to chaos, fear, evil?

The scary thing is, they look normal. I suppose they are normal. At least, in their own minds. They probably wake up and have a cup of coffee and feed their whiny kids and hug their families. I spot a couple of the grown-ups here with a toddler on their shoulders; there with a baby in a backpack.

But there's something different and creepy about them, too. There's something missing from their eyes. They're alive, they're living, but there's not much spark of life or real passion.

The imposing stone building behind the park has a set of stairs leading up to its colonnaded entryway and is flanked on either side by two stone lions. The inscribed name over the enormous filigreed doors has been blasted away, but it's plain that this was at some point a big city library.

Judging from the pile of books out front, it's currently empty enough for a soccer match or a mega-rock concert. The pile is taller than the top of a goalpost.

And right now it's being doused with kerosene by a bunch of jackbooted New Order officials. A boiler-bellied man at the top of the steps is speaking into a megaphone and holding a torch above his head.

I don't know what it is about the New Order and their policy of hiring the most obscene-looking adults they can find, but they don't seem to be at risk of being understaffed. Take the meanest vice principal you've ever met, cross him with a praying mantis, and add in a tendency to bark like a German shepherd, and maybe you'll start to get close to what this N.O. guy is like.

"In the name of The One Who Is The One!" he yells. The crowd goes wild at this gibberish.

"In reparation for all those who have been lost forever to the wandering of the imagination! Lost to the obscene lust for dreams… and to knowledge for knowledge's sake!"

My "elderly" ears are about ready to shatter with the roar of the crowd, and I have to plug them.

"As punishment against those who have squandered their duty to Order and Society by indulging in the wastefulness, inefficiency, and lack of productivity that these cursed volumes engender!"

Wisty can't take it either. She slips up and gives me a look of complete disgust.

"And as a warning to all who stand here today as imposters"-I swear he's looking straight at us now-"those of you pretenders who do not truly believe in everything that the Order has done to transform us and provide for the stability of our future, you shall burn, too. We will find you, and you will burn!"

The crowd noise is earsplitting now. "Burn! Burn! Burn!" they chant. I think one of my half-deaf eardrums actually pops.

Wisty tries to make up for her slip and chants along with them. "Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn those crummy old books!"

I say a prayer that my sister doesn't accidentally make herself light up.

"Let us begin our ritual to cleanse our town, our community, our lives, of these germs and aberrations. We shall count down from five, and then we shall be free! Five!"

The crowd joins in. "Four! Three! Two!" The ground trembles underneath their foot-stomping. "One!"

And now the torch is arcing, end over end, through the air toward the kerosene-doused stack of books, thousands of books, many of which I recognize by their covers.

I tense up and dispatch all of my concentration and energy toward the torch. It takes more effort than I would have thought. But then the torch stops in midair, hovers, and then zooms straight back at the potbellied official. To my utter delight, his hair catches fire.

The crowd quickly goes silent, but we're not done yet. I see Wisty staring at the book pile. And she closes her eyes and mutters something-I get only a brief snippet of it: something about kissing joy as it flies-and then the books' pages start heaving up and down. Almost as if they're breathing… alive.

The covers start flapping… like wings.

They're flying! The books are flying!

They cascade up into the sky with a glorious rustling sound, like a thousand birds singing with new energy and life. They drift into the form of an enormous V, as you would see geese or swans doing, only of course there are tens of thousands of book-birds in this flock. And then these escaped prisoners-having narrowly dodged execution-start winging toward the setting sun, to the west. Just like us.

"They're a protected species in Freeland," says Wisty.