Genealogy was such tedious work, but not to the head of the department. Neither was it a bore to her seniormost assistant who, at the ripe old age of 39, would stay in the library far beyond closing just to find out if two people connected down the line.
There was a near-obsessive degree of meticulousness to her work, scrutinizing letters, photographs, and family trees with big green eyes through wire-rimmed glasses, letting out an occasional “a ha!” or “so you’re the missing cousin!” every now and again; in essence, this was her life. At her graduation, her mother proudly told her friends that her daughter was the Jacques Cousteau of lost family. Mum was so proud.
As it happened, the raven-haired researcher at Gannet Public Library, a beacon of Gannet’s Hollow’s English and Scottish heritage, directly christened by Sir Abraham McLeod himself, found something out of place. Nestled in the stacks of meticulously and perfectly labeled folders and paperwork, was a manilla folder, not unlike the others, that she could have sworn she did not put there.
A short amount of time went by while she decided how to react to it. It wasn’t there when she went to the restroom. Did someone drop it off? Was it an intern, maybe? She glanced up at the analog wall clock: 8:07am. The interns didn’t arrive until 8:45. Her eyes became slits.
Huffing an annoyed breath, she thrust her clenched fists upon her hips, and glared at the abomination. This was certainly not her doing: for one, the writing was hurredly scribbled on the tab – nobody in their right mind would ever write directly on a folder tab, that’s what the labels were for! Yet there it was, in the same lavender-black ink that was in her prized Waterman. Secondly, everyone in the department followed a strict and precise labeling system that she herself created.
Nestled within the folder was a single picture. It was a crisp image captured on Kodak Tri-X film, suggesting the photographer knew his work. She handled it with gentle curiosity so as not to get fingerprints all over it, nor reveal her distinct interest at the easter egg that may have landed in her stack of otherwise well-organized papers.
The image itself bore no name on the front, and if the chicken scrach on the tab was supposed to be a name, someone must not have known English, or Welsh for that matter. The image was of a familiar looking face, one she couldn’t put a name to, which piqued her curiosity even more. “Who are you?” she asked herself in a whisper of confused exasperation. “And how did you get here?” Flipping it over, she found a clue: 1991, written in blue sharpie.
Three minutes went by as she flipped between the date on the back and the image itself before snapping out of it and putting it back in the folder. She let out a long sigh before finally setting it aside. “I’ll figure it out later,” she muttered. Noting the time was 8:30am, she placed a weighted placeholder on her stack of work and grabbed her bag, which was resting on a chair nearby. “I must fuel myself before the patrons arrive.”