Rabbit Hole

Adi Jess was engrossed in a book, more accurately a notebook. A singularly intriguing little black moleskin notebook to be precise. Her brow furrowed under her glasses as she turned the pages of handwritten journal entries by a lady born in the early 20th century named Margaret Scranton.

What she held in her hands was the first of 100 similar notebooks, each neatly labeled with their number on the spine in the same meticulous writing as the verbiage inside. She paused to look around the library, noting not for the first time how few people were in the building on this late October Friday.

She looked over at the box of notebooks and again at the letter from the law firm of Kreibich & Roberts. “Bequeathed to the public library by the estate of Margaret Scranton.” Adi had no idea why, but she loved puzzles, and this was a perfect way to spend a quiet Friday evening. Upon doing some research, she had learned that Margaret Scranton was widow thrice over, had been extremely wealthy upon her passing a month ago having reached 100 years old.

However, as far as Adi could see, she had never, nor had any Scranton family member for that matter, had a library card. Why had she left her journals to a library? She flipped through some of the notebooks on the top of the pile and discovered they were in chronological order. But that wasn’t the whole story. In the first volume Margaret noted that when she began in earnest to write down her story near the end of her life, she felt there might be more than one way for a stranger to fully absorb another person's history.

That led the eccentric lady to tell her story one year per notebook as one would expect. However, you could read everything in chronological order, reverse order or in what she decided to call the “Scranton Order.” This would have you alternate the notebooks in both chronological and reverse order ending in the middle with what she implied to be a pivotal year which impacted everything afterward. As you read forward towards that year and back from the end you would both come to a climax and a beginning that led to the end you read back from.

Placing the first volume back into the box, Adi rose and let her colleague Veronica know she was moving to the large conference room to work on this project. The college-aged library aid smiled and nodded, though Adi felt she had not actually heard a word she said. She smiled pleasantly, turned, lifted the heavy box and moved along the back of the room to the unoccupied conference room with the large oak table. It has proven perfect for working on puzzles, a frequent weekend meal break activity.

Once she placed the box down, she began pulling the notebooks out, one by one and placed them in five rows of 20 volumes in numerical order. Before she descended down the Margaret Scranton rabbit hole, she left the room to make herself a cup of tea. Having done that, Adi headed back and closed the door. Taking a sip after blowing gently on it, her hazel eyes looked over the collection. Which order should she follow?

Either way she would finish the first volume since she’d already started that one. She picked up the notebook, and continued reading about Margaret’s bucolic infancy in faraway New York City. Born to simple parents newly arrived from France, the events outlined were charming, but nothing exceptionally unusual for immigrants from Europe. It was clear Margaret had written these memories long after. As a result, they were obviously summaries of memories and stories from her family and friends: likely romanticized and incomplete.

Adi continued to sip her tea as she read until she finished the first volume. The last entry noted that as her first year of life came to an end, things were simple, safe and unremarkable. But then she concluded with the words, “If only they had given me up for adoption as they planned. Or never had me in the first place. It all could have been avoided.”

Adi closed the book and pondered her final comments. Had her parents been poorer than Margaret had conveyed? Was she unplanned which would have been stigmatizing in that time period? Were they abusive? Did something about her life take a turn for the worse because of her upbringing? She looked away from the beautiful flowing cursive handwriting and pondered her next notebook selection. Volume two or one hundred?

She was really unsure of how to proceed. If she read in order, she would potentially find the answer over Margaret’s lifetime of stories. Or should she read in the alternating pattern Margaret recommended, unsure of when she would learn the answer to the riddle. It was then that she noticed volume fifty-one. Sitting out on the conference table, she noticed the spine was slightly more worn and it was overall slightly thicker than the others.

Adi let her right index finger caress the cover as she adjusted her black eyeglasses with her other hand. Absentmindedly, she reached into her pocket and with a quick glance through the conference room windows at the book stacks, she took out her vape pen. She inhaled a tobacco, vanilla, and cinnamon blend, slowly exhaling a misty cloud as she continued to tap the fifty-first volume wondering if she should skip to the pivotal part. Margaret seemed to be pushing the reader to follow that pattern to delay learning what happened halfway through her long life until the last moment.

If Adi followed Margaret’s intentions, volume fifty-one was the last one you would read. And she had to admit its slightly odd appearance was intriguing. Squatting down, she took a second, final hit of her pen and pocketed it. As she did this, her eyes scanned the edges of its paper and took in its spine. There was something in there. The answer to the puzzle potentially. And what was the harm in seeing that now? She could still read through everything later.

It felt wrong. But she reached out and slipped the elastic band keeping the fifty-first little black notebook closed. Before reading anything, she flipped the pages, and out fell a small bundle. Adi saw what looked like a Roman soldier and the words “U.S. $1000” across his tufted helmet. She stared at the bundle which now lay on the conference table. Reaching out hesitantly, she picked up the bundle and saw there was a note bound with what she now realized were traveler's checks. Something she hadn’t seen in years.

Slowly, carefully she slipped the rubber band off and lifted the note off the top of the group. It simply said, “Your choice.” Her choice? Putting it to one side, she began to slowly flip through the book of checks, counting silently as she did. Once through the pile she began again. By the third pass she let herself believe she now held $20,000 in her hands. Adi looked at the fifty-first volume and picked it up as she unconsciously tucked the bundle in her pocket, so it was out of sight in case someone walked by or came in the room.

The notebook was blank, or at least it seemed that way. Flipping through the pages, she found a single entry by Margaret in the middle of the notebook.

“My dearest unknown friend. It is finished. He’s gone and I have taken what’s left and converted to the checks you now hold. In the end, though I deserve every penny considering what I had to go through to get this money I realize now it’s cursed. I leave my story and these damned checks to you. I will depart soon, however I suspect unless you choose a path like mine, we won’t meet in the next world. Unless they are truly damned than I'll watch out for you in the fog of the beyond. Sincerely, Margaret.”

Adi put the notebook back on the table and sat down. She should turn the money over to the library board, after all Margaret had left the box to the library not her specifically.

Her mind wandered to her student loans which despite having graduated a decade ago haunted her. Medical bills and credit cards. Her sister who was always needing something to get by. She also thought of some of the good she could do with twenty thousand dollars. She bit her lip as she reached for the bundle. Her choice.