The Experience of Being Alive

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The dining hall erupted into chaos. Binny’s memory of what happened next was fuzzy. Binny rushed to Hermione with the others in tow. A tablecloth was torn in pieces to form a tourniquet. Hermione’s bleeding was profuse, as the cut was long, but it didn’t seem horribly deep. And after a while it stopped.

The Keepers disappeared almost immediately as the crowd started to get upset. Binny was so focused on Hermione that she didn’t realize an enormous group had gathered around her, demanding more details of what she’d found, and desperate for her to tell her story. Everyone wanted a copy of the book. 

Binny felt terrible that they were all gone. The thought of redoing all that work was hard enough. But Binny couldn’t even imagine how she could find another dream in which to hide from the Keepers to do it. There was no way the Keepers would let her get away with this again. She had failed.

Everyone was talking about the Keepers and what they had done. People were arguing over details of how they’d pulled off their massive lies. Debating how they’d done it. One person asked Binny and the others where the scroll had been. Arya explained it had been in the basement of the library.

Before Binny knew what was happening, the mob had decided the library was their next destination. Word was spreading like wildfire throughout the Stacks of what had happened, and now not just the thousands of diners at Binny’s meal, but hundreds of thousands of characters were all converging on the library, demanding answers.

Binny, Arya, Katniss, Hermione, and Michel found an unoccupied pair of couches and plopped down. Hermione winced as she knocked her arm as she sat. The bleeding was still stopped but she was in a lot of pain. Each of them was exhausted.

“Thank you for trying.” Binny said to Hermione. “I’m sorry I let you down. I just couldn’t kill them.” Binny turned to the others. “I’m sorry I let you all down.” Binny felt the emotion rising in her chest.

“Are you kidding? You didn’t let us down. You got us this far.” Katniss said emphatically.

“I’m the one who should be sorry. I betrayed all of you to them. I was so invested in the rules of this place because I knew I would have to live by them forever. I couldn’t imagine any other way to be. I’m so ashamed of what I did, and I’ve regretted it ever since.” Hermione said.

Binny saw the deep pain in Hermione’s eyes, “I forgive you.” Binny smiled sympathetically. “I still don’t understand how you got a copy of the book.”

Hermione smiled a little, “I followed Michel.”

Binny turned to Michel. “I told you someone might see you.” And then in a softer tone, “We should get you lessons from James.”

“But how did you copy the whole book so quickly? None of our copies went missing. At that point it was thirty-five chapters. It would have taken forever to type.” Katniss asked.

“Like the stained glass house, Wonderland is a dream sequence. So my magic worked there. The doubling charm worked wonders. Also, because the copy produced was by magic, it was different in some fundamental way that made it undetectable by the Keepers.” Hermione explained.

The noise from the crowd was getting louder and angrier. People were demanding answers. People were demanding the truth. People were arguing about what to do next.

Arya had been sitting on the edge of the couch and was now turned at an angle, looking closely at one of the nearby bookcases.

“Arya, what’s so interesting?” Binny asked, curious.

From the general crowd tumult, Binny and the others started hearing phrases like ‘Hey look.’ And ‘I want one.’ Shouted across the Library floor.