Chapter Text
Early March. The sky was fresh and clear. Up above, clouds drifted with no particular direction, relying simply on the powerful winds to guide them. Down on the ground in a quaint university, students bustled about the building, chatting and laughing, hurrying to wherever they felt they needed to be.
Ashlyn lazed near the large open entrance to the building, unsure of where to take her day from there. At only noon, her next two classes were canceled, the university library wasn’t open yet and to make matters even worse, her supervisor whom she always approached for advice was out of the city for the whole week. Ash strolled back and forth, thinking of something to do at such an inconvenient hour. Eventually she decided to head home and hopefully use the unexpected free time to actually work on her paper.
At home everything was as Ash had left it. Her desk had piles upon piles of books on top of it. Dry ink blots dotted the scattered draft papers she wrote her poetry and stories on. Ashlyn settled on her patchy couch and averted her eyes from her creative sanctuary. She unzipped her pants, freeing up her belly, and melted into the soft cushions. If it wasn’t for the distracting ticking of her kitchen clock, she might have dozed off right there. Every once and a while she opened her eyes, but the uninviting mess on her table kept barging into her view, killing what little desire she had to get up and start working.
A few minutes later, an impatient rumbling of her stomach rustled through the silence. Ashlyn clumsily stood up and hopped to her kitchen. The apartment she dwelt in was rather cramped, but she insisted that the kitchen was furnished properly. Food was one of her biggest passions, one she devoted a lot of time to. Cooking, baking, and simply enjoying the meal; Ash could never resist the temptation.
On her first birthday after she enrolled at the University, one of the other students she was friends with gave her a thick handmade cookbook. Ashlyn had taken the time to carefully put down her most favorite recipes in it, so much so the book was almost full and could hardly be closed properly. Some pages were much more worn than others, some were heavily stained, and it seemed like the endpapers would soon rip apart, but the young cook treasured it and tried to extend its life for as long as she could.
After the warm meal, Ash noticed a new obstacle: a dry ink stain on the floor under the desk. She growled to herself and went to fetch the cleaning cloth, but no amount of scrubbing could remove the several-days-old stain. The thought of her parents scolding her for her not-so-good cleaning habits again made her uneasy. Better hide it before they decide to pay yet another sudden visit. She reached for the carpet and pulled it over the stain, then tidied up the desk itself. The unfinished drafts of the few poems went straight to the trash can, as did most of her writing.
Now that the desk was clean, she had no excuse not to work.
Half an hour later, Ashlyn could barely hold her head straight. The subject she had chosen for her paper, Culinary Symbolism in 10th Century Quellian Poetry , captivated her, but finding material to analyze was a struggle , draining all life from what she thought was an interesting project.
Stumped, Ashlyn looked around her living room for inspiration or a sign. Her eyes locked themselves on one of the open windows. Trees had already put on their luscious green attire, the rooks chattered loudly in the nearby park, now on the lookout for a suitable tree to nest on. The little snow that Quellburg got each year had melted weeks ago. Not even a homebody such as herself could resist such good weather.
Familiar turns, old decorated house fronts, same people day after day; Ash knew the short road like the back of her hand. She entered a slowly decaying building and was greeted by a tall, steep staircase. Years ago, when she first came through these doors, its dreary creaking almost made her turn back and leave for good. Ash was thankful she didn’t, for after the difficult climb was her favorite bookstore in the city.
Manned by a young woman named Julia, perhaps only a decade or so older than Ashlyn, it was an antiquarian store, with literature donated by its frequent guests and other like minded people. The room was small and narrow, illuminated by one janky ceiling light and several candles. It smelled of old paper and tea. Nothing was more pleasant on a lonely Saturday than visiting the store to browse and read through their stock. Ashlyn could spend several hours there, forgetting the outside world even existed. On an especially lucky day, she could find rare poetry collections, hundred-year-old books in astonishingly good condition, or intricately painted postcards with handwritten poems on their back.
Today, Ash hoped to find something she could use for her paper. An unlikely chance, sure, but a chance nonetheless.
“Nice to see you, Ashlyn.” Julia peeked from behind some jaggedy book stacks on her desks. She spoke one word at a time, unhurried and unbothered, as if her mind was in another place. “It’s been a while. How’s studying going?”
“It’s going well, I’ve been very busy with my paper . That’s why I came, actually.” Ash said. She scanned the bookshelves and frowned at Julia. “Wait, did you move the poetry section?”
“Yeah, a couple of weeks ago. It’s over by the entrance now.”
Ashlyn followed Julia's gesture to the even smaller and stuffier room. Somehow, it managed to fit two unstable bookcases and a large table, so seemingly full that putting even a single thin notebook down could cause it to collapse.
Ash picked up the closest book, then the one under it, and so on and so forth. Like a thirsty castaway, she searched through the forest of lines and words, her eyes peering for a spring to give life to her ideas. Northern Anthology, Late Maxine’s Poems, The Voice of Ink : they might have piqued her interest on a different day, but she didn’t want to settle for a distraction.
Half an hour or so later, Ash picked up a small hardcover book. The paper had yellowed with time, but the endpapers and the binding looked undamaged. A few bookmarks stuck out from the middle, and on the back Ash found a small note dating 25 years ago. Uninterested in its words, she flipped to the table of contents and saw a promising chapter name — 10th century authors .
Finally ! So excited at the possibility of something new, Ashlyn accidentally dropped the book down. As she turned around and bent to pick it up, a light reflected in her eyes.
In the long, windowless corridor behind the staircase to the first floor, a door was open; one Ashlyn never saw open before.
“What's in that room?” she said.
“Which one?” Julia briefly peeked from her desk. “Ah, that’s a library. Demian owns it.”
“Is it open for visitors?”
“Of course, I read there all the time. It's a nice quiet place.”
Ash wiped the dust from the book, sat in a chair and began reading it, yet her eyes kept drifting to the faraway light.
The clock struck five. Ashlyn hadn’t even noticed how another forty minutes had gone by. She bought the only useful book she found and waved Julia goodbye.
Pulled by her curiosity, Ash couldn’t resist the mystique of the strange library. She walked past the staircase and stepped in, unveiling the mysterious world inside.
The interior was even more crowded with bookshelves than the bookstore and rather frowsty, with no one to be seen. The floorboards creaked under Ash’s feet as called for someone, coughing quietly from the accumulated dust. Nobody answered her call. To fill in the time, Ashlyn decided to take a look at what kind of books they had on the shelves: Dawn Moonlight, The Essence and Practical Use of Eanian Magic, Battles and Truces. The second name caught Ashlyn’s attention. She knew about the Eanians, the elusive bird-people that lived in the mountains north-east of Quellburg, but most libraries and stores didn’t have any serious literature about them: fairytales were usually the extent of what they offered. The title confused her, but before she could really process it, an old man came out of the staff only room and greeted her.
“Good day, young lad.” He said. “I’m Finn. I haven't seen you around before, what brings you here?”
Finn was about a head taller than Ash. He was wearing a peachy cardigan and a colorful tie. The thin man had thinning hair to match, and his oversized reading glasses were barely holding onto his crooked nose.
“Good day…” Ashlyn said and turned around to see him. The man looked surprised, but still offered Ash his hand. She raised her eyebrow and returned the handshake. “I was just in the bookstore across the corridor and noticed you were open, so I figured I might pay you a visit, too.”
“Pardon my rudeness, miss ,” Finn said. “I do hope you enjoy our collection. Demian has acquired quite a lot of rare editions here, are you looking for something in particular perhaps?”
“Yes, I am on a lookout for anything about 10th century Quellian poetry. As you may now, it was a pretty dark time in —”
Suddenly, a quiet, but persistent knocking came from a closed room to Ashlyn’s left. It was muffled, but she could tell that whatever or whoever was making that noise was hitting something made of metal.
“What’s this sound?” she said.
“Don’t worry, miss, it’s Mia, our local cat,” Finn said. “Demian adopted her two years ago to help with rats, her hunting skills are quite a sight to behold. She likes to play with her toys at this hour.”
“Oh, I never knew this building had a rat problem,” Ash said. “It is quite late, right? Isn’t it past five already?”
“It is.”
“Gosh, I gotta go. What days are you open?”
“Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. I’ll be glad to see you again, young lady.”
Dusk was mesmerizing that day. The sky dome was drowning in deep scarlet reds. The pale sun slowly floated to the horizon. Ash saw none of this beauty, still deep in her thoughts about her project, this strange library, and the silent knocking.