You are not the only one, Lenora, said a quiet voice near her shoulder. No one can read them.

Normally when one thinks one is alone in a dark, possibly underground vault, one is startled out of their wits when a voice suddenly speaks out of nowhere. But this voice, a girl’s, was so soft and friendly and had such a charming accent (which Lenora could not place) that Lenora was instantly at ease. At ease, despite the fact that when Lenora turned around, no one was there.

“Hello?” said Lenora breathlessly.

Hello, said the unseen girl. She seemed to be speaking from right next to Lenora.

“Are you a ghost?” asked Lenora with excitement. She’d never believed in ghosts, but how lovely if they did exist, after all!

No, came the reply, and there was sadness in the word. I’m not a ghost. I’m a memory.

“Whose memory are you?” asked Lenora. A reasonable question.

No one’s. I’m a lost memory. Lost, like the words on these tablets, which were made on the isle of Crete thousands of years ago.

“But can’t they be translated?” said Lenora. “Egyptian writing is thousands of years old, but we can translate that.”

This is a language called Linear A. And it has never been translated, and may never be. We know little about the Minoans, who once had a great civilization, because of this.

Lost languages. Lenora had never thought about this. “I suppose many old languages must have been lost.”

Not just old ones, said the girl. Languages that are spoken even today are being lost, bit by bit. There are people trying to save them, but it is very hard.

And then it struck Lenora. The vault, these empty rooms … “This is lost knowledge,” she whispered in horror. “All these rooms should be filled with the things we’ve lost.”

Yes, said the girl. Lost, like me.

“Who are you?” asked Lenora. Now she was spooked. Not by the girl, but by the vast amount of empty space and what it all meant.

I’m a librarian, said the girl. Or at least, I was, a thousand years ago. I’m still sort of a librarian, here, though there isn’t much to do.

Lenora thought her heart might break wide open.

The girl continued. I lived in a small village in Japan, long, long ago. It was a poor place, but it was on an important road, and many travelers passed through. Some of them left behind manuscripts and scrolls, forgotten in their haste to move on to more important places. I could not read them, of course, but I thought they were beautiful, especially the ones with pictures. So I began to collect them.