The Museum of Literary Souls (A Short Story) by John Connolly Read Free Book Online

should be marked up, and the difference is deposited with the
Trust.”
    “I’m not sure that I understand,” said Mr. Berger.
    “It’s simple, really. It’s all to do with ha’pennys and
portions of cents or lire, or whatever the currency may be. If, say, a writer
was due to be paid the sum of nine pounds, ten shillings, and sixpence ha’penny
in royalties, the ha’penny would be shaved off and given to us. Similarly, if a
company owes a publisher seventeen pounds, eight shillings, and sevenpence
ha’penny, they’re charged eightpence instead. This goes on all through the
industry, even down to individual books sold. Sometimes we’re dealing in only
fractions of a penny, but when we take them from all round the world and add
them together, it’s more than enough to fund the Trust, maintain the library,
and house the characters here. It’s now so embedded in the system of books and
publishing that nobody even notices anymore.”
    Mr. Berger was troubled. He would have had no time for such
accounting chicanery when it came to the Closed Accounts Register. It did make
sense, though.
    “And what is the Trust?”
    “Oh, the Trust is just a name that’s used for convenience. There
hasn’t been an actual trust in years, or not one on which anyone sits. For all
intents and purposes, this is the Trust. I am the Trust. When I pass on, the
next librarian will be the Trust. There’s not much work to it. I rarely even
have to sign checks.”
    While the financial support structure for the library was
all very interesting, Mr. Berger was more interested in the question of the
characters.
    “To get back to these characters, they live here?”
    “Oh, absolutely. As I explained, they just show up outside
when the time is right. Some are obviously a little confused, but it all
becomes clear to them in the days that follow, and they start settling in. And
when they arrive, so too does a first edition of the relevant work, wrapped in
brown paper and tied with string. We put it on a shelf and keep it nice and
safe. It’s their life story, and it has to be preserved. Their history is fixed
in those pages.”
    “What happens with series characters?” asked Mr. Berger.
“Sherlock Holmes, for example? Er, I’m assuming he’s here somewhere.”
    “Of course,” said Mr. Gedeon. “We numbered his rooms as
221B, just to make him feel at home. Dr. Watson lives next door. In their case,
I do believe that the library received an entire collection of first editions
of the canonical works.”
    “The Conan Doyle books, you mean?”
    “Yes. Nothing after Conan Doyle’s death in 1930 actually
counts. It’s the same for all of the iconic characters here. Once the original
creator passes on, then that’s the end of their story as far as we, and they, are
concerned. Books by other authors who take up the characters don’t count. It
would all be unmanageable otherwise. Needless to say, they don’t show up here
until after their creators have died. Until then, they’re still open to
change.”
    “I’m finding all of this extremely difficult to take in,”
said Mr. Berger.
    “Dear fellow,” said Mr. Gedeon, leaning over and patting Mr.
Berger’s arm reassuringly, “don’t imagine for a moment that you’re the first. I
felt exactly the same way the first time that I came here.”
    “How did you come here?”
    “I met Hamlet at a number 48B bus stop,” said Mr. Gedeon.
“He’d been there for some time, poor chap. At least eight buses had passed him
by, and he hadn’t taken any of them. It’s to be expected, I suppose. It’s in
his nature.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “I got talking to him, although he does tend to soliloquize,
so one has to be patient. Saying it aloud, I suppose it seems nonsensical in
retrospect that I wouldn’t simply have called the police and told them that a
disturbed person who was under the impression he was Hamlet was marooned at the
48B bus stop. But I’ve always loved Shakespeare, you