Catalogue slips · copied from the Shelf's registers
Slips from the Long Shelf
Copied for the bundle by a Novice-Shelver, with leave. The slips themselves never leave the Shelf. Copies do, and a copy is a rumor with good posture. (told, a Novice-Shelver)
States, as the Shelf enters them: caught, settling, held, fast. Failures: slipped, bled. (held, the Shelf)
Item Fragment, the Tidepools, the practice pools. (held, the Shelf)
Content A baker's first loaf of the day, broken by hand, and half of it left on the sill. (held, the Shelf)
Holders Past counting. The Shelf's estimate is ten thousand hands, and rising. (guessed)
State Fast. Worn smooth, the way sea-glass is. (held, the Shelf)
Note Held and let go by novices for generations: among the most-held memories there are. (held, the Shelf)
Item Fragment, the Hollow Road, brought up by an Archivist of the order. (held, the Shelf)
Content A carter and one horse, in the mornings: the harness, the cold, the horse leaning on him while he buckled it. (held, the Shelf)
State Caught. Slipped twice in settling. Held on the third reach. (held, the Shelf)
Bled She now knows the horse's name, and she never knew it before. (told, the Archivist)
Note Bleed small, entered. The name is not entered here; she asked that it not be. Her rota is advised. (held, the Shelf)
Item The Ledger Flame: the memory of the Shelf's own founding-fire. (held, the Shelf)
Holder First Warden Ilsabet Crane, continuously, for more than forty years. No living Keeper has held anything longer. (held, the Shelf)
State the field is empty
Note The field has been empty since the slip was made. The First Warden says she is no longer entirely sure where the Flame ends and she begins. (told, the First Warden)
Item None. (held, the Shelf)
Content For one breath, in the Recopying Halls on the late shift, the sound of a market forty years gone: cries, a cart, somebody laughing. (told, three scribes)
Note Echoes cannot be caught. This slip enters the witnessing, and nothing else. (held, the Shelf)