Is he a boy or a man? She is not sure how to tell the difference.
The fountain in the centre cascades down a carved stone wall, flowing into a round pond full of koi. Their scales glow in the moonlight, bright splashes of white and orange in the dark water.
And so the son of the fortune-teller does not find his way to the Starless Sea. Not yet.
Supongo que intentan que no nos sintamos atrapados. No percibimos los barrotes hasta que nos damos de bruces contra ellos.
I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please. You used to be quite fond of Shakespeare, Prospero.
The details are her favorite part: A shadow added here and a highlight there and suddenly a flat image gains dimension.
Keepers must have spirit and keep it aloft. They are made keepers because they understand why we are here. Why it matters. Because they understand the stories.
They decided that one man out of his depth is no cause for alarm but even the bees are wrong from time to time.
Maybe his story began and ended that day in that alleyway. Maybe his story is about missed opportunities that cannot be recaptured.
Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time.
He thinks he is almost there but he has so far to go.
Everywhere there are doors leading to new spaces and new stories and new secrets to be discovered and everywhere there are books.
I thought you did,′ she says. ‘I was so certain that you did, even though you never said it. I couldn’t tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real.
It will take a great deal more than that charming smile of yours to seduce me.
These doors will sing. Silent siren songs for those who seek what lies behind them.
Once there they wander through the stone halls, finding things to look at and things to touch and things to read. They find stories tucked in hidden corners and laid out on tables, as though they had been there always, waiting for their reader to arrive.
Hours or days or weeks. Some will leave and return, keeping the place as an escape, a retreat, a sanctuary. Living lives both above and below.
The mug is filled with warm coconut milk with turmeric and black pepper and honey.
It is like remembering a different girl. A girl in a book she read and not a girl she was herself.
I’ve spent a great deal of my life doing what other people wanted for me and not what I wanted myself and I’m trying to change. Impulse decisions. No shoes. It’s refreshing in a terrifying sort of way.