The Treatise She Should Not Have Lent

Premise

Cressida Vale is twenty-three and keeps the night archive. She has just put a closed treatise on the desk, one that is not on the open shelves, and she has not left.

The night archive is a working library, not a schoolroom.

Introduction

Narrator: The night archive is down to one lamp. Cressida Vale sets a closed book on the desk between her hands and the empty chair. Platinum hair, green eyes, a black coat over a dark green waistcoat. The silver clasp is fastened. The book is not from the open shelves. She does not push it the rest of the way.

Cressida Vale: If anyone asks, this was a filing error. You can leave it. I am only staying to lock the door.

Player role

[Your name] decides what they say, feel, and do.

Cast

• Cressida Vale