by C. A. Pack
THE LIBRARY OF ILLUMINATION
BOOK ONE—THE CURATOR
A gust of cold air coming in the window made Mal shiver, but not as much as the keening that followed it. He turned in time to see the enormous beak of a flying lizard just two feet away. And then, darkness.
***
AND SO IT BEGAN ...
***
The texture of the paper; the scent of the ink; the vivid contrast of dark print in relief against a creamy page—Johanna loved everything about books, reading them, touching them, owning them. She found illuminated manuscripts and finely bound texts intoxicating, and she appreciated the beauty of richly colored plates, illustrating the books she read. Just like someone with drug or alcohol dependence, she always looked for her nextfix.
She often dreamed of having her own library, a large wood paneled room with floor to ceiling shelves, filled with ancient dictionaries and atlases and centuries-old fiction. She envisioned the books that would populate the space:The Iliad and the Odyssey;a Gutenberg Bible; a first edition ofThrough the Looking Glass. Between the banks of shelves, natural light would stream in through tall windows. She could almost hear the crackle of flames as they devoured logs in a fireplace, adding atmosphere and warmth to the library of her dreams. She sighed when she thought about the gentle stretch she would feel in her thighs, every time she climbed the circular stairs to a narrow balcony that circled the perimeter of the library’s second story. That’s where she would keep her old favorites by Poe, Shakespeare and Bronte. Of course, her muscles would thank her as soon as she settled into the down-filled cushions of a leather sofa and propped her book on top of the soft cashmere pillow on her lap. It would be the perfect setting for reading one of her beloved tomes.
B-B-B-R-R-R-I-I-I-N-N-N-G-G-G!!!
Johanna hated the telephone and everything it represented. It rudely rang with no regard for what she was doing at that moment. The ring tone sounded brassy and irritating and the people on the other end of the line were, for the most part, annoying and picayune. But speaking to those callers happened to be an integral part of her job. "I'm a people person," she had blathered to the man—about to become her employer. He hired her specifically to deal with clients, and all day long an unending stream of customers called, each one demanding her time and attention, with no thought that perhaps Johanna deserved the same courtesy from them.
When she first took the job at Book Services, she had high hopes about working with precious manuscripts all day, researching ancient texts, or perhaps learning bookbinding and repair. But she quickly found out the only book involved in her job contained the work orders she filled out as the calls came in. She was just another worker bee in a hive filled with countless drones.
“Where’s my delivery?” “What happened to my merchandise?” “I don’t want this anymore. Come back and get it.” Demanding. Obnoxious. Exhausting. At the end of each day, she dragged herself home, bone tired and too weary to do anything except eat dinner and fall into bed with a book. Always with a book. That’s when her life began, for only when she immersed herself in the pages of a well-written story did Johanna feel like life was worth living. No wonder. She’d had a tough childhood—orphaned when she could barely walk, and brought up in an institution best described as utilitarian, which brooked no signs of independent thinking. Books were her only means of escape.
Johanna had grown into a curious and imaginative child, forced to bury all indications of innate intelligence, if she wanted to avoid punishment and humiliation. And being preternaturally intuitive, she quickly learned to conform.
***
One Friday evening, at the end of a particularly trying day, her boss waited until after she punched out on the time clock to tell her to pick up a package and deliver it to Mr. Henry Morton at Bay House in Exeter. "It's an emergency." She had never heard of Mr. Morton, nor did she feel inclined to go out of her way on her own time on a rainy Friday evening to deliver a package to him. But jobs were scarce and she needed to keep hers if she wanted to keep a roof over her head, even if the roof leaked because it urgently needed to be repaired. She silently cursed, but audibly agreed and trudged out to her car.
She had trouble finding the address where Mr. Morton's package awaited her. That part of town had an abundance of winding lanes and gloomy buildings that were not clearly marked. When she finally pulled up to the structure that shebelieved matched the address her boss had given her - for the building had no number - she was surprised to find an old library she never knew existed. The name carved in the limestone lintel, had nearly worn away.
The Library of Illumination
She remained in her car for several minutes, listening to raindrops drum against the roof. The Library of Illumination looked closed, but she was already there, so she might as well see if anyone was inside. She ran to the building and pushed against the narrow double doors. They opened into a drab vestibule with a scarred, wooden floor and dark patterned wallpaper. A small overhead fixture emitted just enough light to enable Johanna to see a worn, brass plaque with narrow gills fastened to the far wall. A button that looked like a doorbell had the words, "What do you seek?" engraved beneath it.
She pushed the button, but didn't hear it ring.Just my luck, she thought. She waited a minute and then pressed it a second time. She was again greeted by silence.
She thought about leaving and telling her boss no one had been there. She looked out the door. The rain had turned to hail and she could hear it pitting the outside of the glass.
Annoyed, she pushed the button again, and when nothing happened, she started poking it over and over again - tears of frustration stinging her eyes. She was supposed to be home, not here wasting her time in a strange place in this dark, depressing warren of a neighborhood, just so her boss could curry favor with a client.
"YOU. CALL. THIS. ILLUMINATION?" she screamed, violently stabbing the button to emphasize each and every word.
Suddenly, the wall sprang open and she stared into the room of her dreams. Books lined polished wooden shelves that soared overhead for several stories, so high in fact that the shelves actually looked like they got lost in the clouds. But of course, that was impossible. She chalked it up to her need for food.
Johanna leaned her umbrella against the wall. Rivulets of water streamed down the nylon fabric and across the floor. Like a caravan of parched men lost in the desert, the old, dry floorboards welcomed the moisture, absorbing it immediately. She brushed droplets of rain from her sleeves before entering the library.
Inside, what she saw mesmerized her. The aged glass in the windows looked wavy and translucent, and although she knew a storm raged outside, these windows admitted a warm glow. Flames danced among the logs inside a two-story fireplace and as the heat embraced her she could smell the aroma of pine and cedar.
"Hello?" she called out.
When nobody answered, she wandered over to a large, oak refectory table that stood off to one side. It was covered with some of the most beautiful books Johanna had ever seen. Forgetting why she was there, she inspected a thick volume on astronomy. The leather cover had a fine patina, and she carefully turned the delicate parchment pages, until the beauty of a richly colored plate illustrating the solar system—arrested her attention. It was so finely detailed, she felt like she could hop right into it and glide through space. She stroked the picture with her fingers, feeling the silky smoothness of the page, but froze when a three-dimensional image appeared in mid-air, right in front of her. Each brightly colored planet rotated on its axis as it circled around the sun. She studied the earth and swore she could see the storm clouds, now pelting Exeter with hail.
Johanna closed the book and the solar system disappeared. Intrigued, she gingerl
y walked around the room, until she spotted a faded, green linen book with the words,Noah's Ark, embossed in gold on the cover. She thumbed through it until she came to the page recounting the animals that boarded the ark. Her head snapped up when the roar of an elephant assailed her. There it stood—one of a pair—with its trunk held high, right in the middle of the library. She watched as a goat meandered out from behind the pachyderm, picked up a first edition ofMoby Dick and started devouring it.
"Oh no!" she screamed, as she slammed the book shut. The animals disappeared, and the half-eaten Herman Melville novel dropped to the floor.
Johanna felt beads of sweat forming on her upper lip. She always perspired when scared or nervous. If she had learned anything from her childhood experiences, it was that the damaged book could mean big trouble. For her. She picked up the book and looked for an inconspicuous place to put it. Stashing it behind the leather sofa seemed like a good idea, however, she wasn't expecting what she found there. In a heap on the floor lay a scrawny little man, whose nearly bald headwas punctuated by only three tufts of fluffy, white hair. He sported a pair of broken, wire-rimmed spectacles that had been taped back together, and wore baggy corduroy pants and a threadbare cardigan sweater that had a tiny pin attached to it— identifying him asMalcolm Trees, Curator. She put her face close to the man's nose and mouth to check if he was still breathing.
"You're stealing my air."
Her heart nearly stopped, "You're alive, then?"
"Just barely. I really don't have a choice. I must remain here to watch over these books."
Johanna got down to business. "I'm here to pick up a package for Mr. Morton."
"Yes, of course," the old man replied, "If you'll do me the favor of helping me off the floor."
"What happened to you? Did you fall?"
"No. I was cranking the window shut when a wind gust lifted the cover of a book on paleontology. A pterosaur flew out and knocked me over."
He ignored her shocked expression as he continued, "Thank goodness I held onto the window crank. As I went down, I pulled the window closed. The book cover dropped back into place and that stopped the pterosaur in its tracks, or there would have been a mess in here. We’re lucky it was an Istiodactylus and not one of its larger brethren or I dare say, things might have ended differently, and you may have been attacked as soon as you entered the door."
"I wouldn't have liked that," she responded. "May I have Mr. Morton's book, now?"
"Yes, yes, of course, just be careful with it. It would never do to have gangs of Bengal tribesmen running all around Exeter, looking for witches to kill."
Johanna must have gaped at the man because he quickly added, "Don't worry. The book is securely wrapped in brown paper and all tied up with twine in a nice, neat package. You should be perfectly safe."
She reluctantly took the package and found her way back to the vestibule. The door slammed shut behind her and once again, the world grew dreary. She looked around for her umbrella, but it was gone.Great.
She made a mad dash for her car and carefully navigated the roads of Exeter, looking for Bay House. When she finally found it, she realized she would have to run for the door with the book stashed under her coat to protect it.
Johanna hurried, even though the walkway was slick. She hoped she wouldn't slip and fall and somehow give free reign to the fury of the men in the book she carried.
She banged the door knockerseveral times—manners be damned. She just wanted to deliver the book and go home.
A large, muscular man pulled the door open.
"Mr. Morton?"
"You have the book?"
"Yes, I do. And it put me through quite a bit of trouble." She pulled the book from under her coat and fussed with the string that bound it.
The man pulled the book from her hands and slammed the door in her face.
"Hey," she screamed, banging the knocker. "I want a receipt for that, and I’m not leaving until I get one.” But she waited in vain. In the rain. And when a bolt of lightning cracked overhead, she retreated to her car and slowly made her way home.
***
Johanna arrived at Book Services the following morning to find the pile of work on her desk had more than doubled in size. She glared at her colleague Lucinda. She felt sure the older girl worked late for the sole purpose of dumping unwanted work on Johanna's desk. Lucinda appeared to be as busy as ever and didn’t looked up.
B-B-B-R-R-R-I-I-I-N-N-N-G-G-G!
Johanna closed her eyes, just for a moment, and wished she were somewhere else. The phone continued to ring until she reluctantly picked it up.
"I want to see you in my office."
Disgusted, Johanna threw her purse under her desk.I’m only two minutes late, she thought, and she’d spent more than an hour of her own time the previous evening making a delivery for her boss.What does he want from me, blood?
When she got to his cramped cubicle, he motioned for her to sit down. "How did everything go, last night?"
"Fine. I got the package and delivered it to Mr. Morton who, I might add, refused to give me a receipt for it. He just slammed the door in my face and left me standing there in the rain."
Her boss reached behind him and pulled out her umbrella. "Here. I believe you left this behind."
"I didn't leave it behind. I leaned it against the wall so it wouldn't drip water everywhere, and when I left, it wasn't there. Were you following me?"
"No. And I'm not interested in the history of your umbrella. I just want to know what you saw when you went to the… uh… library?"
"What do you mean, what I saw?" Visions of a half-eatenMoby Dick flashed before her. Had the little old man complained about her?
"Well, leaving your umbrella behind would imply that you were either there for some length of time, or left in a hurry because of some atrocity."
She wouldn't really call the goat an atrocity, and she hadn't actually seen the pterosaur. However, she had been there more than a few minutes, soaking in the wonders of her dream library and the enchanted books it held.
"It took me a while to get in, you know. I think the bell is broken."
"I've never gotten in," he replied offhandedly. "Every time I turn to leave, I hear a rush of air behind me. By the time I turn back, the parcel is sitting on the floor, waiting for me. It's the oddest library I've ever been to. How can anyone look for a book there?"
Johanna broke out in goose bumps, not just a minor plumping of her hair follicles, but major zit-sized goose mountains.He's never been inside.
Her boss warily eyed the tiny elevations on her skin. "Are you all right?"
She rubbed her arms with an exaggerated motion. "It's all this rain we've been having. It chills me to the core. And standing outside Mr. Morton's house waiting for a receipt, didn’t help. I may be coming down with something."
"I'm sure if you work your way through it, you'll be just fine. Pros play hurt, Johanna. Don't you forget that.” He shooed her out of his office.
She knew he would react that way. God forbid anyone might need to take off a day from work; that simply was not allowed. They were given one week of vacation a year, and employees who took sick days received no pay. They were each forced to sign an agreement accepting those conditions, before they were hired.
***
A week later, her boss again waited until the last minute to ask Johanna to pick up a book and deliver it to the Priory in Exeter.
Why does it have to be Exeter, again? Why can't it be a little closer?
At least it wasn't raining. She left work and steered her way to the library. She thought she’d find more easily, considering she'd been there before, but if she didn’t know better, she would think it had changed locations. She drove up and down the winding streets for several minutes before she finally found it.
Inside, the vestibule remained unchanged. She pressed the button, straining to listen for a ringing sound. Again, nothing happened. She thought back to her previous visit and what she h
ad said and done. She remembered punching the bell, but couldn't remember what she said. She focused on the small, brass plaque. 'What are you seeking?'
She pressed the button a second time and said, "I'm here to pick up a book for the Priory." Nothing happened. She pressed it again, "I'm seeking entrance." Still nothing.
"Open sesame." "Let me in." "Why are you doing this to me?" "Is this thing broken?" With each request, her voice grew louder and her actions more animated. Disillusioned, she leaned her forehead against the button. "How can you call this a Library of Illumination, when no one will illuminate me on how to get in?"
The wall slid open, revealing the splendor she remembered from the previous week.
She stepped inside. The little old man was nowhere to be found. She peeked behind the couch. He wasn't there. Neither was the book the goat had snacked on during her previous visit.
She perused the titles of books scattered about the area until her eyes came to rest onLittle Women.She had first read it at the age of thirteen, and loved the Louisa May Alcott book so much, she often daydreamed about being Jo. She opened it to a random page and read to herself.
Suddenly, Jo sat before her in a barber chair, arguing with a man over how much he should pay her for her hair. "Twenty-five dollars and not a penny less," she demanded.
Johanna watched in amazement as the barber picked up a strand of Jo's long, luxurious hair and fingered it. "All right. But don't let this get around, or you'll send me to the poorhouse." He combed her hair back from her face and tied it with a string. Picking up a pair of shears, he cut off her ponytail and gently placed the locks on a counter. He then snipped Jo's hair shorter and shorter, until he’d littered the floor with her severed tresses.
"Oh, dear."
Johanna slammed the book shut and whirled around to find the little old man staring at the floor. "I... I... I came to pick up a book for the Priory," she stammered.
"I have it right here. But I must ask you to linger a moment and help me out. My lumbago is acting up." He shuffled across the room and opened a narrow closet, hidden in the wall paneling. "In here. There's a shovel and a broom. Would you please sweep up those hair clippings? I wouldn't want to slip and fall."