Rule One: If a talking animal asks you to do something, you’d better do it.
Talking animals are scarce in Sacramento Valley, so I figured Rule One of the Folktale would never apply to me. That’s when the hedgehog flagged me down outside the coffee house to give me a quest: find a lost library book and bring it back to the Circulation Desk. Not the way I wanted to spend my time after the worst week ever at the cubicle farm, but I didn’t ask questions. Because Rule One.
Then I learned the library in question is the great granddaddy of libraries, and it crosses entire universes, plural. And it had just exploded ahead of schedule. Because apparently, there is, in fact, a schedule for library explosions…who knew? And the wayward book is The Codex, the first bound book. Ever. Without it, the library unravels and all recorded knowledge everywhere goes poof. And don’t even get me started on the psychotic wild turkey that keeps trying to murder me.
Good thing I bought a jumbo cold brew.
Dover Whitecliff 