“And what happens to those who do?”
The serpent smiles. “You mean those few who managed to escape spending a mealtime with me?”
“Yes, them.”
“Let’s just say the punishment was fitting, given the crime.”
As soon asI set foot into the library, the doors slam shut behind me, blanketing me in darkness. A sinister chill sneaks through the cavern, and when I take another step forward, the patter of my boot against the floor echoes multiple times, fading into the vast distance.
The sense that something isn’t right gnaws on my belly, but after a few more steps, a light appears in the darkness. It’s small, but it swells with time. Once it’s reached me, I realize it’s a lantern, and a few more steps reveal that holding the lantern is some sort of apparition.
It’s hooded in white and pale itself, its fingers long and sickly as they grip tightly onto the lantern. It stands before me, the hood covering its face, but as it nears, I hear no footsteps.
“I’m looking for a book that will tell me the whereabouts of the Youngest Sister,” I say, hating how each tremble of my voice stretches out to fill the cavernous space that, as far as I know, could go on for eternity.
The creature nods, then beckons with the hand not holding the lantern for me to follow.
Following what appears to be the undead into the darkness is likely a poor decision, but given my only other option is to turn around and face the serpent on the other side of the door, I stick close behind the creature.
I have a sneaking suspicion there are more rules the serpent hasn’t told me, and because the library itself is in charge here, leaving it without reading any of its books seems like an efficient way to offend my host.
I follow, shivering in the cold and listening to the only sound in the place—my own footsteps.
“Do you keep the library dark to preserve the books?” I ask. “I heard light can damage the pages, especially of particularly old texts.”
The creature doesn’t answer. Doesn’t make any change in its movement to indicate that it heard me. Oh, well. My theory makes me feel better about the darkness, anyway.
Eventually, we reach a section of the cavernous space where the light from the lantern illuminates small sections of bookcases. We wind through them, and though I can onlyglimpse sections of them at a time, I get the sense they could reach all the way to just below the surface of the earth. Dried bark makes up the bookcases, as if the roots of the Tree curved perfectly to craft them. The books themselves are odd. For one, they’re all white, and their casing is unlike that of any book I’ve ever seen, smooth and hard. Not at all like the cloth and leather-bound books of my parents’ library.
After what feels like a half hour of winding through the place, the apparition comes to a sudden halt. I have to dig my heels into the earth to keep from running into it, which I’m grateful I manage, because I don’t want to chance spooking it.
The creature holds its lantern up to the bookcase, the light illuminating a single volume set apart from the rest. I pick it up, and the book itself is colder than the room, no title in sight. The texture of the blank cover is familiar, and it takes me a moment to realize what it is hewn from.
It’s white and pearly and certainly made of bone.
My skin crawls, but I thank the creature all the same. Its only response is to keep walking. After a few moments, it stops at another shelf and indicates yet another book. I grab this one as well, trying not to squirm at the feel of what I very much hope is not human bone.
It continues on until my arms are piled high with books, and I have to use my chin to keep them balanced.
“Is there someplace I could set these down?” I ask.
The creature turns its neck to look at me, though I’m not sure how it sees me with its hood drawn like that. But then it drifts forward.
I’m relieved to find it’s led me to a wooden table, which appears to have grown straight from the ground. There’s a lantern atop, which the creature lights with its own.
“Thank you,” I say, relieved to give my heavy arms a rest and set the books down on the table. But by the time I glance around, the creature is gone.
A chill settles through my bones, and the dreadful question of how I’ll get out of here if the creature doesn’t come to fetch me. Then again, there’s something about this place—the serpent, the creature, the library itself—that seems to know what one needs.
Or, at least, what one wants.
That thought isn’t as comforting as I hoped it would be.
Since there areno titles on the covers, I start with the book on the top of the pile. It appears to be a history of the world, and though it tells the origin of the Three Sisters, daughters spun by the Creator himself and set as stewards over the realms, it provides no indication of their current whereabouts.
The second book I have more hope for. It’s a set of folk tales regarding the Three Sisters. There are several about the Youngest Sister, and while they chronicle situations in which she came behind her two Sisters to right their wrongs, none provide much clue to how to contact her. It also includes the story that ended up with Nolan and me in this mess to begin with, but aside from a few minor changes—the Middle Sister’s lover being a fisherman instead of a mason—there’s nothing helpful in that one either.
The third book is much like the first, repeating the Sisters’ origins, though with a focus on how the Youngest Sister was regarded as the favored child of the Creator’s, at least by the elder two Sisters’ estimation. This was the wedge that initially kept the elder two Sisters knit at the heart, while the Youngest was excluded out of envy. This book’s author had doubts, though, of whether the Youngest was truly the favorite, or ifshe received fewer rebukes due to wreaking less havoc than her Sisters.
