[ WP ] : You , a historian , find something odd in your records . The same face , accompanied with variations of the same name , keeps emerging in paintings , drawings , woodcarvings and documents , from a span of several centuries . It looks suspiciously like your assistant .

It takes a certain kind of personality to become a Librarian, as for most people the job would quickly become boring and repetitive; the moment I met Keith though, I knew he would be a good fit to our team. In the six months he had worked here we had slowly become acquainted in the way the librarians do, sharing favourite novelists and poets and gently offering recommendations where they seemed appropriate. 
 
 I took to moving the schedule around, making sure that we would be working together in the hope that he would sidle up next to me with a musty book and tap on the cover before smiling at me and walking away. That was our code, there was no need for him to say “ Read this Ellen, ” he simply tapped, smiled and left it and I knew he had found me something good. 
 
 I wondered if it was perhaps abusing my power as Manager to always have Keith with me and leave Lisa, who I had privately nicknamed Loudmouth Lisa with my Assistant Manager Barry, but if anyone noticed, they were too polite to say anything. It was a peaceful and pleasant working environment. 
 
 Apart from the quiet and the soft musty smell, my favourite part of the job was the ability to choose special projects and the one I had lined up next had been on my list for a while. The Library, now a quiet provincial branch, had once been an archive for the county records and we had files and books stretching back for nearly four hundred years in the vaults. 
 
 It had long been my intention to begin the catalogue process and make a serious attempt to properly catalogue what we had down there. The librarian in me bristled to not have it properly ordered and listed in a searchable format. Now that I had Keith, it finally seemed like it might be possible to make a start, while he manned the desks. 
 
 I waited until a Monday to begin and leaving Keith upstairs, I descended down into the subbasements. Here the air grew cold and I pulled the shawl around my shoulders, moving forward until I reached the sorting area that had been abandoned since my last attempt down here. Soon I was perfectly warm, as I lifted and moved the boxes around, the shawl was discarded and as I carefully began to sort the first box the cold was forgotten. 
 
 Records are a beautiful thing, they place the world into order and then let you look down and see the patterns in the information. Here I had church and county records going back generations and with several books open across the desk I could trace family trees as they entered, expanded and in some cases left the county, or even died out. 
 
 Only a few stretched from the start of the records and I followed these through until they reached into the modern era. My thoughts of cataloguing were gone now, I was transfixed with the information and hours slipped past as I traversed through books, letters, files and at last, photographs. 
 
 Several times in the last hundred years there had been great celebrations; often after wars and Royal occasions they would happen, bringing together the majority of the county into a single place. At each there had been photographs taken and I scanned across the pages, looking for familial similarities, to see if I could trace the descendants by sight alone. Somehow I was convinced that I could see the matches, as if I would recognise them. 
 
 I had missed lunch, but even as my stomach began to rumble I paused, my finger over a face in one of the pictures that was not just familiar, but identical to a face I knew well, the one that I saw each morning in the staff room. I moved to the picture's key and looked for the name - Oswald Brownrigg – it must have been Keith ’ s grandfather, or perhaps a great uncle, as sharing a surname and such a strong resemblance was beyond coincidence. I flipped back to an earlier picture and scanned more closely, then checked the key, looking for the name. There, Thomas Brownrigg – I looked again at the photograph and this time saw it, although the beard obscured much of his face. 
 
 I wondered if this was perhaps a way to find a link to Keith. This would give us a topic beyond poetry to talk about and so, my hunger forgotten, I delved deeper, looking for more of his family records. They stretched back for many years and along with his family history I looked out photographs and paintings from local artists. 
 
 As I found each piece of the story I placed it to one side and continued on with my mission. Time was utterly lost to me, until I heard a gentle noise behind me and a soft cough. I spun, suddenly guilty and looked back to see Keith standing in the doorway, a soft smile on his lips. 
 
 “ Are you okay Ellen, it ’ s gone six and I wondered… ” I let the question trail off. 
 
 I shook my head. “ I ’ m so sorry, I didn ’ t mean to leave you alone all day, I just found something wonderful and became a little… well, obsessed I suppose. ” He nodded his head in understanding, but I couldn ’ t leave it there. I stepped forward and took his hand. We both seemed a little startled at my action, but I pulled him forward, towards the desk and picked up the first picture. “ I hope you don ’ t mind, but I found this, I think it must be your grandfather? ” 
 
 He took the book I offered him and then looked out over the rest of the images, photographs and books, each detailing some aspect of his family. Suddenly it dawned on me how… how creepy this seemed and I went to snatch back the book, but he held it away. 
 
 “ You… you did all this for me? ” He was frowning slightly and a cool sense of foreboding crept over me. 
 
 I looked away. “ It was just… your family kept coming up and… I just… ” 
 
 He stepped forward and picked up the photographs, one by one. “ I remember these. So long ago though. ” 
 
 He didn ’ t seem angry and the relief washed through me, followed by a moment ’ s curiosity. “ You ’ ve seen them before then? ” 
 
 He shook his head gently and reached for my hand again and guided it to the page. I looked down to where he had left it, my fingers framing a woman in a shawl. I looked more closely, but he already had another picture from my selection that he had lain in front of us and touched gently on another woman and then another. 
 
 “ Look. ” He pointed to each with his fingers splayed to touch the man I had found and the woman. “ They ’ re the same in each. ” 
 
 The woman did indeed look remarkably similar and as I looked across them all I began to see what he was pointing to. “ They… they look like me? ” 
 
 He moved in closer and lifted my hand to his heart, his other reaching back and stroking my hair gently. “ They look like us. ” 

