The children let out little groans of disappointment as Rabbit’s house in the Hundred Acre Wood began to fade away and they found themselves in the story room once more. M’gann closed the book and set it on her lap. Her illusion of Tigger did one last bound, appearing to follow his castmates out of the room. “You were a wonderful audience today,” M’gann told the little ones. “I’m so proud of you. Tomorrow, I’ll be reading two more chapters of Winnie-the-Pooh so we can continue our adventure together.”

After bidding her audience good-bye, M’gann headed back to her desk in the main wing. She had a nice free period now to help patrons, plan her workshops, and put books back into circulation as she pleased. It was a great job and M’gann knew it. Despite all that had been going on in her life, she still felt safe in her library in District X. M’gann stopped abruptly and turned into an aisle to tuck a book further onto the shelf so it wouldn’t fall off.

But there, sitting on a library stepstool, was a young woman surrounded by textbooks. A couple of the woman’s emotions signaled loud and clear. Confusion and frustration. M’gann took a step towards her and tilted her head to the side. “Hi.” She knelt to be at eye level with the woman. “You look like you could use a little help from a librarian.”