"We should really think about going home," Hannah said. Searching through each book had been tedious thanks to Will's insistence that the pages be handled like rice paper. He stopped short of having them put on gloves, but insisted that the pages be touched only along the edges. As a result, after almost an hour they had still only looked through about thirty books. "We don't want to overstay our welcome," Hannah urged Will again. "We'll be back." "I guess you're right," Will agreed, getting up from the library floor and stretching. He walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that flanked each side of the fireplace, studying them with what seemed like admiration written on his brow. “But you should keep going.” He turned to Nate. “You might want to do some research on the Underground Railroad, too.” "I can't," Nate told him. "I don't have a computer." Will drummed his fingers on the shelf. "If only I had access to something like, oh, I don't know... books? Yeah, encyclopedias for example." Will stopped drumming and ran his hand along the back of a row of encyclopedias. “You see, before the Internet, there were these things called 'books' with all kinds of information in them.” Nathan narrowed his eyes at the row of books. He couldn't remember the last time he used a real encyclopedia to do research. Now he was embarrassed, the logic had escaped him. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed with a sheepish smile. "How are you doing home?" he asked, changing the subject and hoping to regain some semblance of intelligence. “Because I might be able to help you out there.” "How do you mean?" asked Hannah. "I can take you. Hajji's car is still in the woods." "Do you have a license?" asked Hannah, with a mischievous look... in the middle of the paper... I those books are as old as the house," said the grandfather. "I remember watching them gather dust on the shelves when I was a child. . My father wasn't interested in reading about how to farm, he just did it. And I could never muster enough interest in them. I hope your friends can find a use for it." "Yes," Nate said. "Hopefully they can find a use for it too." "It's refreshing to see young people so interested in history. You know what they say. 'Those who forget their history...'" "They are condemned to repeat it," Nate concluded. "Very good, Nathan. The only reason we don't repeat the atrocities of the past is because we learned from them." His grandfather patted him on the shoulder and walked into the house. Nate wasn't worried about repeating an atrocity, but how to disprove one. He he followed his grandfather into the house. If there was a clue in those old books, he had to find it.