The Lending Library

Mrs Aldous ran the smallest lending library in the county out of her front room, and had a rule: you could write in the margins, in pencil, provided you rubbed it out before returning. For thirty years no one broke it. Then, one wet March, a book came back with the pencil still in it — and an answer to a question she had not written down.

The closer we looked, the less certain the easy conclusions became — which is usually the sign that a thing is worth the looking.

The remainder of the piece is below.