His first shot buried itself somewhere in the romance novels. His second hit the man with the eyebrows in the left shoulder and spun him. The man lowered himself to one knee, set the backpack on the carpet as though it were a large and fragile egg, and began crawling away from it.

Move, says a voice in Seymour’s head. Run. But his legs refuse. Snow flows past the windows. An ejected bullet casing smokes by the dictionary stand. Minerals of panic glitter in the air. Jean Jacques Rousseau, in a green-spined hardcover that’s right over there, one shelf away, JC179.R, said: You are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!

Go. Now.

He has shot two holes in his windbreaker, the nylon melted around the edges. He has ruined the jacket; Bunny will be disappointed. The man with the eyebrows is dragging himself by one set of fingertips down the aisle between Fiction and Nonfiction. The JanSport waits on the carpet, the main compartment half-zipped.

In the space inside his ear defenders, Seymour waits for the roar. He watches the leak seep through the stained ceiling tile and fall into the half-full trash can. Plip. Plop. Plip.

Zeno

Gunshots? In the Lakeport Public Library? Impossible to unfasten the question marks from such statements. Maybe Sharif dropped a stack of books, or a century-old truss in the floor finally snapped, or a prankster set off a firecracker in the bathroom. Maybe Marian slammed the microwave door. Twice.

No, Marian walked over to Crusty’s to pick up the pizzas, back in a jiff.

Were other patrons on the first floor when he and the children came in? At the chess table or in the armchairs or using the computers? He can’t remember.

Except for Marian’s Subaru, the parking lot was empty.

Wasn’t it?

To Zeno’s right, Christopher is managing the karaoke light perfectly, spotlighting only Rachel-who-is-the-innkeeper’s-maid, while Alex-who-is-Aethon delivers his lines from the darkness in his bright, clear voice: “What’s happening to me? This hair growing out of my legs—why, these aren’t feathers! My mouth—it doesn’t feel like a beak! And these aren’t wings—they’re hooves! Oh, I haven’t become a bright strong owl, I’ve become a big dumb donkey!”