Going Through The Archway
Dr. Mitch Wren, fifty-three and unmarried, was devoted to books more than to anything or anyone else. As chief librarian, he spent most of his days at the Bond Street Library, a place that felt more like home to him.
On this chilly morning, the reading room of the library smelled of old books and hot herbal tea. He carried a stack of ledgers toward the back stacks where the lamplight flickered every once a while and the old shelves leaned like tired men.
But he wasn't looking where he went, his mind preoccupied with footnotes of his latest research and his mother's unanswered voicemail. So he didn't notice the stone archway at the end of the east corridor, the one with the worn carving of a closed eye with long lashes above it.
He tucked a pencil behind his ear and stepped through the archway, the air humming faintly against his skin like a wire buzzing out of sight.
Going through the archway felt like nothing at all and that was the trouble.
On the other side, the corridor was the same: the old lamp, same leaning shelves, water stains on the ceiling, smell of old books, dust and tea.
Wren set his ledgers on a table and frowned because the table had been on his left a moment ago and now it was on his right. Mirrored, he thought. Everything is mirrored.
He walked around the aisles, feeling uneasy and touching the spines of the books. He paused, noticing the gilt letters ran backward and he drew one book out, the pages were blank.
Sweat beads began to appear on his forehead, his lean chest heaving as he went through the books until he saw a single volume, warm to the touch and its spine read Dr. Mitch Wren.
He pulled it out and opened it. The handwriting was his own but he had never written these words. They described his life but with some differences: his empty flat, his aged, sick mother waiting for his visit, the monograph he'd abandoned twice, an old racing car. Then the entries drifted into things he did not remember like a coastal cottage, a garden, a woman laughing in a doorway with two happy sons who look very much like him.
“It’s a ledger of what might have been,” said a voice behind him.
An elderly librarian stood at the end of the aisle, her cardigan button wrong and her eyes, pale gray and tired. Wren knew her and so did every researcher at the library. For as long as anyone could recall, she oversaw the rare books section where ancient times and vellum manuscripts were kept out of the public eye and brought out only on rare occasions.
“Miss Elsie? I'm not sure what's happening….but what's this place?”
She smiled sadly. “The Reflection. The library keeps a copy of itself on the far side of the veil and sometimes a reader wanders in.” She sighed. “You'll want to go back before the lamps change. Walk through the arch the way you came and don't take anything with you.”
“This book,” Wren said, holding up his volume. “Can I….”
“No.” Her voice was gentle but final. “Not one page, Mitch.”
He nodded, replaced the volume and walked back along the corridor. At the arch, he hesitated, glanced back one more time and stepped through. Then he felt the hum run through him.
Everything was back in place and relief loosened his shoulders but his heart raced with excitement at what he had learned.
He gathered his ledgers and rushed to the rare books section on the third floor to ask why Miss Elsie never mentioned any of this to him or any of the other staff.
The young man behind a desk looked up with a frown. “Miss Elsie? Sir, there's no one here by that name.”
Wren shook his head. “She's elderly, always wears a gray cardigan. I think you are new here but Miss Elsie has worked here for decades.”
The young man's face went pale. He pointed with a trembling finger at the wall behind Wren where a framed photograph hung beneath a brass plaque. In it stood a woman in a gray cardigan, her buttons crooked and her eyes old and tired.
The plaque read: Elsie Moon, Head: Rare Books (1961-2002). Lost in the east corridor and never found.
Wren turned slowly and walked back downstairs to the second floor. He stood at the archway and stared at the carved closed eyes above it. It was looking at him.
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by my love for libraries and old books and the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "going through the archway”.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Image by Free Fun Art from Pixabay