Page 152

They got on the bus early, groggy and full of Christmas cookies.

Yulia really liked Walt’s gingerbread brownies, to her chagrin and Walt’s delight. She brought a hefty chunk of them with her to snack on.

Hollis had been to a large city before. His pa brought him up to Chicago for a birthday a few years back. He would never get used to how tall the buildings were or the press of so many people close by.

Annie and Yulia seemed much more in their element. Annie kept making them stop to look into store windows as they walked from the bus stop.

The library was huge, with a giant domed ceiling and multiple floors. Hollis felt small and out of place. Yulia asked the librarian about records and archives. Then led them up to a quieter space where they were located.

Walt’s anxiety had been slowly growing throughout the day, but now that they were there, he was making Hollis want to pace.

Calm down, it’s fine.

I haven’t seen myself in ages. I don’t remember—well, I remember my own face, but not the details of it.

Walt, I wouldn’t care if you looked completely different than you described. As long as you didn’t lie about your age we’ll be okay.

“Ah, I think I went a bit too far. They’re talking about the mill closure though, so I think they definitely wrote an article about it,” Yulia said.

Walt swung them around so they were facing the wall instead of the giant clunky “microfilm viewer machine,” as Yulia described it.

We rode a bus for three hours in traffic, we can’t just turn around and avoid this.

We can do whatever we want. You’re the one who said that.

Hollis rolled their eyes.

Good grief.

Annie was holding the film to the light and squinting at it, an objectively worse way to look than Yulia.

“Here’s a few maybes,” she said.

Hollis could hear her handing her pieces to Yulia.

They were quiet for a while. A sweat broke out on their neck.

“Did you find it?” Hollis called over their shoulder, a prisoner to Walt’s insistence at facing the wall.

“Yeah,” Yulia said, flabbergasted. “Yeah, we did.”