The Wikkeling by Steven Arntson

Collection
meant
Repair the Books
. Once per week the Subscribers gathered to do book maintenance. Rose’s father, who had been trained once upon a time as a doctor, was the lead conservator, and as such many of the repaired books somewhat resembled repaired people. Rose’s father would often do his work as if in an operating theater, with Rose assisting.
    â€œThread,” he would say, and Rose would hand him thread.
    â€œGlue,” he would say, and Rose would hand him the glue.
    Because of all of this, Rose knew how to fix books before she knew how to read them. She’d reattached bindings, installed new endpapers, and even affixed new covers to books that arrived stripped, sometimes making her own artwork after her parents told her what the book was about.
    Rose’s life in the Library was also a surprisingly athletic one. The Library was so large that living in it required a healthy amount of walking, especially going up and down stairs, because the four-level place had neither escalators norelevators. Two levels, the main level and the second level, had thirty-foot high ceilings with bookcases stretching from top to bottom. These walls had wheeled ladders built into them, which could be rolled from place to place.
    Rose’s parents encouraged her to use the ladders, and she quickly displayed a natural talent for climbing that was a bit mystifying given how slight she appeared. She could climb before she could walk, and became consequently good at falling without getting hurt.
    â€œShe’ll swing from her ponytail when she grows up,” her mother once predicted as she watched Rose leap from ladder to ladder.
    â€œWe’ll see whose hair she has when she grows up,” said her father, laughing. While her mother’s hair was long, blonde, and straight, her father’s hair was black and curly. Rose’s, so far, was in between.

    That was the life of the house’s back door: the life of the Library. The house also had a front door, which was seldom used. Visitors at the front door were nicely dressed, and they came from cars they parked in the slim driveway. They were treated very cautiously by Rose’s parents, and were never invited in. This was one of the first categories Rose ever understood.
There are two kinds of people: those who come through the kitchen with the secret knock, and those who come to the front.
    A few weeks before Rose had started kindergarten, she’d watched her mother answer the front door and talk with a woman whose hair stood in perfect, rigid blond ringlets. The woman wanted to discuss the parent-teacher association at Rose’s school. When the woman left, Rose asked, “Do the frontdoor people ever meet the kitchen door people?”
    Her mother put her hands on Rose’s shoulders. “Rosie,” she said, “they don’t. And it’s very important that they never do. When you start school in the fall, all the kids you’ll meet will be front door people. I need you to not ever tell anyone about the Subscribers—not friends, or teachers, or anyone. Do you understand?”
    â€œIt’s not alright for us to have all of these books?” said Rose.
    â€œThe books are fine,” said her mother. “The problem is us. You, your father, and I live here secretly. No one, except for the Subscribers, knows we’re here. This house is supposed to be empty. If you tell anyone that we’re living here, we’ll have to leave forever.”
    â€œBut people come and talk to you at the front door all the time,” said Rose.
    â€œWe’re tricking them for now,” said her mother. “We said we own the place. Hopefully, they won’t look into it any further.”
    This issue proved so important that her parents came to her bedside that night and repeated the whole conversation. Then, at breakfast the next morning, they talked it over a third time.

    At the moment, Rose sat at the small