The oddest thing about the archives was just how eclectic it was.
The project was fresh and new and still finding its footing, still focused on gathering enough materials to justify its existence. Its scope was the history and past membership of a local organization that had been a fixture in the community for over two hundred years, but as far as Rose knew, the other archivists on the project were taking in everything that was offered. Scope and relevancy were stretched to their furthest extent and then further. Among their materials were the belongings of now-deceased members, salvaged from attics and basements and closets in the homes of their descendants, many of whom she had to assume were hoarders. In one collection she found a box three-quarters full of Beanie Babies, thrown in with a battered old paperback entitled “The Handyman’s Guide to Astral Projection,” a painstakingly annotated copy of the Key of Solomon, and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
The second oddest thing was probably the dead people.
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