Where a Second Head Would Be

In the late afternoon the library is quiet, and light comes down the atrium onto the stairs. Beside the returns desk a slot is cut in the wall, and above the slot is a sill, and on the sill a black cat lies asleep with his paws under him.

You put the cream card with WHOEVER on it into the slot. It slides in and is gone. The slot is warm, and so is the sill.

The cat opens his eyes. They are gold. He does not look at you. He looks at the space behind your shoulder, a little above it, where a second head would be. You count. At nineteen he looks away and washes a paw.

A woman at the desk, in a lanyard that says MINA, writes in a notebook without raising her eyes. The cat gets down from the sill, crosses the atrium to the back stairs and goes down them.