Abruptly, she turned and hurried from the room, the cold intensifying as she moved away from it, like a dog snapping at her heels. She darted back to the center room and then to the next chamber in the circle.
The library.
As the other room had thrummed with cold, this one was warm and sweet with leather and old paper and the richness of oil lamps. So many of them stood in the corners and against the bookcases that she wondered how the room hadn’t gone up in flames long ago.
She turned to shut the heavy door, anxious to put the thick wood between her and that crowded space next door full of the cold she had roused. But she realized she’d be in the dark if she did. No edge of skylight peeked over the doorframe above and no window broke the line of books on the walls. Nell searched for a match, a bit of flint, something to light the lamps.
There was nothing. If only she could make fire, as Max had!
But why not? Opening the lock had emboldened her. She could almost feel that sizzle of electricity Max said was in the air. Carefully, she sat down across from the largest lamp, a branched candelabra, oil and wicks ready for lighting. What had the old man said of fire? It devoured.
She’d known plenty of heat in the long walk in the mountains, too much of it in the tiled room. She remembered the feeling of being suffocated by it, heat taking the air she was meant to breathe. That was devouring, she thought. Heat swallowed the air. She was suddenly aware of it in the room, rising off her skin, warm in her breath. Could she use that? She imagined pulling it to her, a churning, gathering pressure. She’d seen a flower in her mind, and it had unfolded in her hand. Now she saw a bright, flickering spark, ready to ignite the lamp’s golden oil, red blooming in the shadow.
A warm gust blew across her face, and the central lamp blazed up, bubbles surging in the oil as it fed the new fire.
The room was alight.
A man is a thing unformed, edgeless as water,
Ever-changing as cloud,
Soft clay at the base of the creek
To be trod underfoot and remade.
Only with the armor of thought
Does the shaped join the shaper,
Sharing in the gifts of the making.
Rise, my sons, and become solid as the mountain,
Strong as the onward rushing sea
That pounds the sand
To remake the edge of the world.
Such says the mind that made all.
Such is our gift and our joyous call.
At last, the books satisfied Nell. She had pulled out a fragile old volume called The Mind of the Universe and turned its pages, silky with age. Words bounded from the page, and she felt like a person who had gone to sleep working at a problem and woken from a dream that made everything clear. But, like a dream, the meaning was as fragile as cobwebs, and she had to grasp it carefully, slowly, only half understanding.
As the newborn bird is blind,
As the fledgling falls from the nest,
So are we
Rising from the dark,
Untaught and unprotected.
But we, too, may soar into the light and above the wind
If we force open our eyes
And spread our arms to the sky.
Her heart leaped, reading it. But she couldn’t understand exactly. At some points, the passages seemed like a conversation, one person to another, an argument.
And yet beware, for we are
But creatures of thought and change,
And we dance the line
Uneasily.
There was that. She wondered if it had been written when the change came. Then another:
The wise know a great secret:
We are no bird
But a fanged, wild thing,
Crouching,
Waiting
To return.
She guessed it had already returned. A few pages later, the passages spoke of the language of creation. Nell put her finger on that word. She looked up at the lamp, blazing before her.
What else could she create? she wondered.
“Barriers are small things to one who understands,” she read. “Take care, seeker, for in this, there is danger as well as joy. In all things balance. Where there is illumination, there is also darkness.”
Barriers, she thought. Barriers are what keep us here. Something held the window back. Could this book show her a way to break through?
She stifled a desire to flip the pages, searching. The book was old and fragile.
Then she heard something. A sound, in the center hall.
Someone was coming.
Nell slammed the ancient book shut and hurried to the bookcase, where she wrestled it into place, sending up a cloud of old dust that made her long to cough.
But she swallowed against it. Someone was in the center hall. More than one person. Footsteps echoed across the floor. She had no time. Where could she hide?
There was no place to go. The table offered no shelter. The walls were all books.
And the lamp was lit.
Before she could move to snuff it out, they were there — the Master Watcher and the Guide.
She had meant to surprise the old man. She had hoped — she had expected — to see the look on his face, the look he had given to Max, given also to her. Her eyes darted again to the light, hoping he would understand what that meant, hoping to see the expression on his face change the way the books said things changed — from dark to light.
The change came, but it was only from surprise to horror. The Guide looked
