The Librarian of Worlds

Graham nearly cried when his mother told him the news – he would be spending the afternoons in the library, helping old Mister Haines look after his books. It was a natural solution for his steadily dwindling English grades, and a suggestion of his teacher, in fact. Time with books would cultivate a better appreciation for them, and then he even would want to study their secrets… So the theory went.

A bitter surge went through him as the doors to the library opened, letting loose a strange kind of smell that only bookish people could possibly know. Graham gave one final look to the outside world, and then found the pressing stare of his mother. It was as good as a physical push; he found himself stumbling inside.

All around were shelves upon shelves of books. None of them interested him, of course. What kind of self-respecting fourteen-year-old would come in here by choice? Graham looked from end to end and saw that there were several people his age. They were sitting about, reading. How odd!

Soon, there was a faraway call from a voice that sounded rather ancient, “Ah, yes. My good boy, Greyhen. It was Greyhen, wasn’t it? You have a lovely mother, what, so freely offering her only child’s services. I would imagine that, well, by the looks of you, you would be sorely missed on the farm…”

“Excuse me?” Graham answered, astounded. “I’ve never been on a farm in my life… and that’s not my name!”

Mister Haines stepped out from his desk, and a mountain of disorderly tomes, to finally reveal himself. A few more steps and a wiggling of his spectacles was all he needed to revaluate his assessment of the boy. “Of course. You are no farmhand, but rather quite the miscreant. A worthy scholar who is wasting his latent abilities with the pen. Or that is the story I’ve heard.”

The boy made as if to answer, but he had none to give. Instead, he was whisked away by an old hand and made to sit at the desk, amidst the great pile of books. A piteous sound left him; he knew exactly what the librarian wanted him to do.

“Take your time, boy. I want you to go through every single one of these books and list them by alphabetical order. Now, you may have noticed that they are not like the other books. No scribe. No stripey code thing. No tatty translucent covering. They are very unique – one of a kind, each and every one. And they are very old. They are exceptionally old! So, I need you to take good care of them whilst I am gone.”

“Where are you going? I’ve only just got here,” Graham cried.

The librarian let out a quiet laugh and then fell silent. His body grew stiff, and his hands rose in a jagged motion towards his face. He brushed his white stubble and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, only a moment later, their colour seemed to have faded to a watery blue. “I have not been here long either, and I do not have much longer left.”

Mister Haines then pushed the boy slightly, so that he could reclaim his coat from the back of his chair. He donned this item, and it hung about him like some strange artifact; it seemed to come from a time even older than his own.

“When will you be back? What about the others here?”

Mister Haines looked around, and so did the boy. There were no others. The library was quite empty, and it had always been so. The children that had been here were not children at all. They were shadows. “I will be back as soon as I can get back,” the librarian spoke. “Do what I have asked, and the task will be complete; I will be able to find you. But listen to me, Greyhen, do not – no matter how strong the urge – open a single book. And if you do, if you must, then do not let a single word enter your head.”

Haines left in a rush, his eyes darting about, his face crinkling as he went. The doors closed, and as swift as the man had left, so did silence fill the void. However, as far as silences went, this one was far from ordinary. Graham felt the quiet so intensely that he no longer felt alone at all. He could feel the shadows creeping from every corner.

The boy stood up, so as to see as much of the room as possible, and he backed himself against the tower of books. They were now his fortress. Slowly and cautiously, he took books from the pile and briefly eyed them over, reluctant to sacrifice his awareness of the library and its every shelf, corner, and shadow. The books were all fabric bound in the same style, and yet they all varied. Some looked so old, others less so. Some had pages that were gilt golden on the edges, and some had embossed titles. Some had a certain smell. Others smelt of nothing. All, however, were imbued with a delicate energy. Graham could not tell what it was, but he found himself drawn to the books as a moth drawn to a flame. He could not tell whether they would protect him from the shadows, or if they were the cause of the shadows. But from what the old librarian had said – his warning – it made sense that these books were not to be trusted.

They had odd titles. Never more than a single word, if they could even be called words. Names would be closer to the truth! ‘Abelor, Adisus, Ahmet…’ And so, the first few were added to a new pile. Slowly, this grew in size, and it too equipped a lofty grandeur. Graham briefly forgot about the shadows and found himself drawn closer to this neat and orderly tower. There was a vibration. There was an aura. There was a channel. The delicate energy turned deep, and it emanated from these books now – the ones that had been piled alphabetically. And, all of a sudden, overwhelming was the desire to peer inside. Just one. Just one book. One page…

A shaking hand pried through the air; it touched the cover of the book on the top, and then with a hunger, opened it up. The title page, and then ravenously onto the next. The words leapt out. ‘In the beginning, there was… In the beginning, there was… In the beginning…’

And as if entrapped by the substance of a dream, the words stuck. They twisted and turned, and they raged like the burning of the primordial explosion. They planted themselves and began to grow. A whole new world. A whole new world was being born inside of a mind. And it was beautiful, and it was horrible… and it did not stop.

In the library, the shadows found form again. But the world was wrong. It was different. A time gone by. It was a new land. There were people, but they were clad in old clothes, and they spoke in another tongue. To the boy, they were nothing. They were just figments of his imagination, and yet they were just as real as he. Soon, they had all passed away. And the world was on fire. The shadows returned as silhouettes perpetuated by a cosmic inferno.

‘The page eaters have come,’ a dark tone rumbled and shook the foundations of all that ever was. It was enough to sever the boy from the dream.

He awoke violently.

On the table, there was a single book, black and crumpling. It had been scorched from the inside out.

In his hands, there was another book. He held it tightly against his chest, so tightly that he even struggled to breathe. As he came back to his senses, and peeled his eyes away from the dark bundle of ash, he loosened his grip on the tome and held it in front of himself.

‘Mundus,’ it read.

Graham heard the doors open; he was too shaken to inquire who had entered. But he noticed the shadows leaving. They were no longer shadows but children once again. It was closing time.

A contented smile finally pulled him fully awake. It was his mother, and she was accompanied by Mister Haines. They shared a jest over the boy’s work ethic. The entire mountain of books had shifted.

Haines came to pat the boy on the back, and as he did so, he swept the burnt-out book into a bag, and whispered, “You did well to survive. But it cost us a world.”

Graham’s heart began to race, before his mother pulled him to his feet, and then towards the door. “Thanks again, Mister Haines,” she called.

The old man smiled, until it was just the boy looking at him. Then his face grew tired. He suddenly pointed to the boy; the book was still in his tight hold. Graham recoiled and squirmed from his mother’s grasp. He held the book out shakily… but the man simply shook his head and silently mouthed, ‘Keep it… It is your world, after all.’