The Seelie's Mirror

Chapter 20 Where to Next?

Chapter 20 

Who says that this will be a normal book hunt? I didn't.

If you imagine us going from stair to stair or aesthetically, then guess again. True, there are parts of this library that seem normal and might even resemble those fairytale castles, but this place is also part of the fairy realm. There are parts of the library that can't be explained by science or logic.

One book tried to eat me when I was trailing my hand on the array of books on the wall. Gem, my new fowl companion, pecked the book back onto the shelf.

Yes, you heard that right. When the cannibalistic book attacked, Gem hebutted the book and slammed its beak harshly on the book's spine and put it back in its original place. I was curious if the book was even alive or not after seeing how damaged the book's spine was. Because of that incident, I learned my lesson on not touching anything while I am in this library.

"Nope. Not this either." Klovis lets out a sigh of disappointment when he returns the book to one of the tree's branches—yes, you heard it right. There's a part of the library, specifically in a park-like scene, that bears books as fruits. The garden, as I like to call it, is made out of books. The flowers are all made of book pages and if you pluck them, they turn into a book. Klovis says that if you bury the book, it reverts back into a flower. I don't know if that's true, but I don't want to find out.

Klovis is at the very top of one of the tallest trees in this garden, while the rest of us are at the bottom and waiting for him to finish checking. I move back a few paces while Klovis makes his way down before jumping and landing before us.

"Where to next?" I ask, moving away when I see a flying book that's flapping its pages as it flitters in front of me. I fight the urge to wave it away out of fear that it will hit me with its spine.

Klovis's gaze falls. "That was the last of it." He looks so tired and disappointed. I am too, because this only means that we got the hint wrong. This means that we have to start from the beginning.

Thinking about how we wrestled, tackled, fished, and captured some of those books made it more depressing. All our efforts were wasted, it seems.

I place a hand on Klovis's bare shoulder, offering him a smile. "That's fine. We can try again, right?"

Klovis tries to look supportive, but his eyes are filled with worry. There's no time limit on the task, but what we are worried about is Zhier. There's no certainty that he hasn't followed us to this stage. It is already surprising enough that he is even here with us.

"You're right." He places his hand on top of mine and takes it into a soft, firm grip. "Let's head back and see what we can figure out again."

Klovis is still holding on to my hand as we begin to retrace our steps back to the catalogs. Gem and Jade seem to be getting along well. In fact, they were playing with each other, even running around us. Klovis laughs at them, making me feel relieved that he is feeling better after how we failed to decipher the clue.

I started to hear a bird singing. When I turn to follow the tune, I see a falcon with a golden tail singing some sort of melody perched on one of the branches of the book tree. I pause and stare intently at the creature.

Klovis looks back and follows where I was looking. He looks surprised when he sees the bird. "That might be the first living creature that's not made out of pages that we have seen here." He comments.

I can't deny that he is right, but that wasn't the reason why I was staring at it. Back in the room where the catalog was, I remember how the crystal ball showed me the name of the book of Joanah along with its location.