When I was a little girl, I discovered a small library hidden away just off the main road of the town. At first glance, it seemed like any old library would, its stone walls covered in green ivy. But the moment I stepped through the heavy wooden doors, I recognized that there was something different about it.
It was enormous. Hundreds of books taller than me piled high on shelves that reached toward the ceiling like ladders to the clouds. A spiraling staircase, crafted out of cherry wood, led to a second floor where even more books were stacked, and in every direction I looked, I could see reading nooks draped in colorful, shimmering curtains that looked like rainbows. A goblet of slushie sat on a charmingly rustic table waiting just for me to try it, and plants that I had never before seen interspersed themselves among the bookshelves. Sunbeams illuminated the library, creating a warm golden hue.
A desk with an ancient computer pushed to one end gleamed like a candy apple in the sunlight. As I stepped cautiously forward, stilted noises made me freeze in place. Suddenly a soft yet authoritative voice echoed through the library, “Welcome, Lucy.”
A woman appeared behind the desk. She had bright blue eyes sparkling like a fresh morning sky. Silver hair fell to her waist like a cascading waterfall. She wore a long, flowing dress of deep purple, adorned with golden patterns that seemed to dance as she moved.
“Are you a librarian?” I asked, unable to hide my excited curiosity.
“Indeed I am, dear. I am the keeper of this enchanted library.”
My heart raced in disbelief. I had always imagined something like this while reading books, but to actually be here? It was quite remarkable.
“What do you mean by ‘enchanted’?” I asked, trying to contain my wonder.
“All the books are alive,” she explained. “If a reader has enough of an imagination, they can enter the stories and see them as they were meant to be seen, rather than just reading the words on the pages.”
I could hardly contain myself. “Then that means I can see all those characters and places I have read about come to life right before my very eyes!”
“Exactly. Now, where would you like to go first?” She smiled warmly.
My mind was racing; there were so many places I wished to explore. In the end, I opted for “Baba Yaga,” a story I found in one of the library’s concealed corners. After weeks of checking out volumes that seemed to have been forgotten by the rest of the world, I was delighted to finally find another book of these marvelous fairy tales.
As I opened it, the words upon the pages glowed faintly. Babbling like children, the letters spun around, dancing and singing a jubilant tune. I felt myself getting dizzy, and the next thing I knew, I was no longer in the library.
“Do you promise to be good and not to touch the things you find on the other side?” a witch dressed in worn-out clothes asked two frightened children.
“Of course,” spoke the little girl.
As soon as they were free from the witch, they ran towards me.
“Do not go towards her!” I cried out. “She is dangerous!”
The boy’s eyes darted about nervously. “But she is our grandmother!”
I was so taken aback by the news that I could do nothing but watch as they ran towards the growing poky fence in front of the house that the witch shared with her duck and cat. Without giving it much thought, I joined them in getting through the door before it was locked tight.
The inside looked like a rag doll closet: some frowning dolls sitting upon a chair at one end and a wooden horse with its neck so long that it reached up to the ceiling standing motionless at the other end. In the middle of the room was a ragged old bed.
Out of nowhere, I spotted a girl about my age dressed in a long, soft gown. She seemed more afraid than the children also trapped inside the house.
The witch approached the bed where the children were huddled. “What have you found?” she asked suspiciously.
The girl was trembling so much that I thought she might break into half. Finally, mustering all of her courage, she answered truthfully, “An axe.”
“An axe that my good-for-nothing cat found!”
The cat was as large as a dog. He jumped from his chair and crawled up onto the bed. “While searching for mice, I spotted a slave and his master—“
“But my kingdom come, where was I? I forget everything when I am awake!”
He lay down by the pillow before the children could think to escape.
So the sister crawled out from under the bed. Shaking, she gathered the courage to throw some food pieces to the kittens that came running.
One kitten meowed sweetly, “Kind bird, say whatever you wish, but sit on the pillow.”
So the sister surprised herself and got up onto the bed.
The witch stood up, looked around, and shouted angrily, “Didn’t you see the the stuff around?”
No one knew what she meant but didn’t dare to be any longer awake than necessary. All the dolls, the mouse, and the horse began to sing, but they couldn’t keep their eyes open much longer.
Then the old ram, with two of his granddaughters the wild goats, rushed in on us and broke one of his horns to pieces so that we were soon wide awake.
Now I couldn’t wait to know where I was off to next. I simply returned to the library and picked another book that shone brightly on the shelf. In the end, I chose “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
Boy, was the world of Tom Sawyer strange!
I found myself locked in an awful room, miles away from anywhere I had been—a room with an open trap, an empty chest, and nothing else at all. The lights flickered, even when there was no wind. I was terrified. I dashed straight to the trap door beneath the bed and opened it. Saying my prayers, I crouched down through the trap and hurriedly crossed the floor above. Then I got myself safely locked in again.
Next, while Tom went to his Aunt Polly’s lovely house, I found myself lost up on the hills, with the hefty echoes from Log Jam echoing through my ears. Then I swam in the Mississippi and had more adventures than I could recount.
Lastly, when trying one of the other stories in the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” I traveled to a chilly room with an even chillier slave and a frowning young lady next door who paced constantly from one end to the other.
“The snow is deep outside, Miss Eva, and I fear it will freeze over before night,” said a gentleman to Eva.
Then strange-looking folks began to appear in the snow until finally a genteel chair, hailing from Africa or somewhere with people clambered aboard. At last Eva got into them, and I stood there lost in wonder—until, lost or not, I too got in the chair and straight before it.
I was now in for an adventure, even more so than Tom had ever known. In the short time it took the chair to cross the icy snow, it was full past sundown and the deep fog and darkness were closing in on us.
Suddenly a huge black bear appeared by our side, so that I thought I was done for. Next, there were strange faces peering in from the backpack, all eagerly asking to hear a story before we reached their village.
But everyone was more surprised than the other to hear the one I told them all about Uncle Tom’s kind spirit and, soon after, we reached there. Everything was merry and bright; snowflakes as big as goose feathers danced around in the night sky, and colored lights from the cottages winked cheerfully. The people heaved sighs of relief when we arrived. It wasn’t long before one of the ladies from the sleighs began to sing a simple hymn, and it grew smoother and clearer, until it sounded like the greatest music orchestra you could think of.
Now the sun was coming up that we saw the ice sculptures outside the cottage door: a striking-looking St. Bernaise dog, a young lady with flowers twinkling from head to toe, and a prince, each face even more delicate than the next.
Though I could have enjoyed myself for longer, I was afraid—I had yet another world to see, Goody Two Shoes. This book was different from all the rest because I got to see it through Goody’s own eyes. I once more felt as though I were at home.
My heart was so light when I thought about surviving hardships just as she had, even though I hardly would have liked all the far-away rocky slopes where old fashions were kept so much longer than here in England.
Oh, yes, reminding me that mountains exist! I also read of the charming islands that Roberto and Rosa lived on, appropriately named the “Isles of Beauty,” with an enchanted garden in front of each floating house next door, where wild vines hung daintily.
Next, my socks got all mixed up in Texas, where the weather was stifling at night and where there was also no need for curtains hanging at open doors and windows all around—bleak nights of this sort in the Caribbean Sea.
Suddenly the idea struck me, perhaps I might also travel somewhere else while here.
“Would you like to do that? Yes? Then you can do so,” said the kind old woman. “You can choose company or go alone; it depends on your taste.”
So I asked everyone who was in the library and among the stories whether they would like to come with me. But Tim, the best boy in England, had already given up all hope of my companionship and planned to go off to far away Lindau, Switzerland, and so spend as much of the rest of his short life as he could away from his parents. And though he had rather reserved book companions in the library where I knew best, I thought afterwards it might still be in poorer taste to go to Lindau without first preparing a nice room.
Never had there been so much exciting talk throughout the entire library as since I’d arrived! Everyone wanted to visit the country or person where the story went down.
So we prepared a big house that could be made as wide as the leading road, covering all crevices with sand if anyone happened to feel lonely, since they had no one’s house to knock at. It nearly broke everyone’s heart to leave their homes at first and then meet with the absolute shock of finding them in Lindau overshadowed by even taller mountains. How we enjoyed it was a different matter!
But just when after months of feeding the pigeons on our foreign roof—as I say, for instance, the one hatching out those plentiful brown-gray letters—I was suddenly aware for the very first time that I was sitting on my own verandah back in the enchanted library all along.
What fun that library was! What strange lands I had hastened through!
“I love the journeys you let books perform,” I said, “but two doors would you be so good as to add at either end of our lovely library?”
“What for?” she asked.
“Why, for mirth when the road is more of a dark corridor sort.”
She smiled at me, and looking so dark in her eyes that I could fancy she was thinking perhaps she’d no more right to be dark hidden than cheerfully and bright exposed.
“May I go?” I asked all the same.
She consented, and assuredly from her attics she got hold of a ferry just like that place over the river…