The librarian’s face became stern again. ‘And in one life – one of his lives – you are dead. Will that be painful for him?’

‘I doubt it. He doesn’t want anything to do with me these days. He has his own life and he blames me that it is unfulfilled.’

‘So, this is all about your brother?’

‘No. It’s about everything. It seems impossible to live without hurting people.’

‘That’s because it is.’

‘So why live at all?’

‘Well, in fairness, dying hurts people too. Now, what life do you want to choose next?’

‘I don’t.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want another book. I don’t want another life.’

Mrs Elm’s face went pale, like it had done all those years ago when she’d got the call about Nora’s dad.

Nora felt a trembling beneath her feet. A minor earthquake. She and Mrs Elm held onto the shelves as books fell to the floor. The lights flickered and then went dark completely. The chessboard and table tipped over.

‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Elm. ‘Not again.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘You know what the matter is. This whole place exists because of you. You are the power source. When there is a severe disruption in that power source the library is in jeopardy. It’s you, Nora. You are giving up at the worst possible moment. You can’t give up, Nora. You have more to offer. More opportunities to have. There are so many versions of you out there. Remember how you felt after the polar bear. Remember how much you wanted life.’

The polar bear.

The polar bear.

‘Even these bad experiences are serving a purpose, don’t you see?’

She saw. The regrets she had been living with most of her life were wasted ones.

‘Yes.’

The minor earthquake subsided.

But there were books scattered everywhere, all over the floor.

The lights had come back on, but still flickered.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nora. She started trying to pick up the books and put them back in place.

‘No,’ snapped Mrs Elm. ‘Don’t touch them. Put them down.’

‘Sorry.’

‘And stop saying sorry. Now, you can help me with this. This is safer.’

She helped Mrs Elm pick up the chess pieces and set up the board for a new game, putting the table back in place too.

‘What about all the books on the floor? Are we just going to leave them?’

‘Why do you care? I thought you wanted them to disappear completely?’

Mrs Elm may well have just been a mechanism that existed in order to simplify the intricate complexity of the quantum universe, but right now – sitting down between the half-empty bookshelves near her chessboard, set up for a new game – she looked sad and wise and infinitely human.

‘I didn’t mean to be so harsh,’ Mrs Elm managed, eventually.

‘That’s okay.’

‘I remember when we started playing chess in the school library, you used to lose your best players straight away,’ she said. ‘You’d go and get the queen or the rooks right out there, and they’d be gone. And then you would act like the game was lost because you were just left with pawns and a knight or two.’

‘Why are you mentioning this now?’

Mrs Elm saw a loose thread on her cardigan and tucked it inside her sleeve, then decided against it and let it loose again.

‘You need to realise something if you are ever to succeed at chess,’ she said, as if Nora had nothing bigger to think about. ‘And the thing you need to realise is this: the game is never over until it is over. It isn’t over if there is a single pawn still on the board. If one side is down to a pawn and a king, and the other side has every player, there is still a game. And even if you were a pawn – maybe we all are – then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. It might look small and ordinary but it isn’t. Because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.’

Nora stared at the books around her. ‘So, are you saying I only have pawns to play with?’

‘I am saying that the thing that looks the most ordinary might end up being the thing that leads you to victory. You have to keep going. Like that day in the river. Do you remember?’

Of course she remembered.

How old had she been? Must have been seventeen, as she was no longer swimming in competitions. It was a fraught period in which her dad was cross with her all the time and her mum was going through one of her near-mute depression patches. Her brother was back from art college for the weekend with Ravi. Showing his friend the sights of glorious Bedford. Joe had arranged an impromptu party by the river, with music and beer and a ton of weed and girls who were frustrated Joe wasn’t interested in them. Nora had been invited and drank too much and somehow got talking to Ravi about swimming.

‘So, could you swim the river?’ he asked her.

‘Sure.’

‘No you couldn’t,’ someone else had said.

And so, in a moment of idiocy, she had decided to prove them wrong. And by the time her stoned and heavily inebriated older brother realised what she was doing, it was too late. The swim was well under way.