Chapter Four: The Labyrinth

By: Liza Dei

For some ungodly reason, you have not given up on this dreadful story. I pity you, really, I do. In the timely event that this story should end here due to some horrible tragedy, just remember, I warned you from the very start.

In the days that followed my arrival at the library, little happened. I made attempts to beat back the dust with little success. The war seemed to be overwhelming and I slowly became aware that the library was not on my side. Every time I thought I had wiped a shelf or straightened a case, the whole lay out seemed to shift by its own will and what should have been clean was no longer clean. Instead, other shelves in other patterns were where all my hard work had been, as though the rooms changed at night while I was gone…

Of course this is quite the insane notion and thereby not possible. Still, when one is left alone too long, one does wonder what the mind does see and what it merely thinks it sees. The line between was not entirely clear by the time that my first guests became involved in my story. Maybe it was only the dust on my glasses, but there were sometimes shadows within the shadows of the library, but if I called out or sought their audience, I would find nothing. Passing strange, but reoccurring strange.

This is why when I heard the doors of the library flung open one evening, I was not inclined to move away from my work on the second story near the balcony. I must admit, I was trying to keep close to the center of the library because the "changes" I mentioned were fewer and less profound there. I didn't go to check the door for two reasons mostly, first, the fact that I thought I was hearing things, as I seemed to a great deal since coming to the library, and second, because I feared the shelves would rebel again and I would be lost.

But when the bell on my desk began to ring, I was obliged to answer. Upon coming to the railing of the atrium, I discovered the figure ringing the bell was quite real, if a little odd. It was a young man, no more than twenty-five at my guess, clad in black from head to toe in a rather disheveled and unkempt style. Even his black hair was long and hung in his eyes. It was not until I called out to him and he turned to face me that I got a good look at him. He was pale, which made my heart leap for most literature lovers in these pop-culture days are very pale and this gave me hope that maybe a few had survived through the years of teasing and beating that high school laid on the brainy. But as I drew closer on my way down the stairs, I began to sense the obviously sleep deprived and malnourished man was not looking for a book. I had been right.

He nervously and uncertainly told me that a young woman had run into the library in fear of one of the local insane transients (wouldn't we all?), and asked if I had seen her. I could only shake my head.

"No," I said. "I'm afraid that if you hadn't rang the bell I wouldn't have believed that anyone was here at all. We don't have many patrons right now, none at all, actually."

The man seemed to understand, but was insistent on his missing lady. "I want to speak with her. She's frightened after all and I want to be sure she's all right."

This statement was what got to me. I was growing to distrust the library and its pathways. I knew the routes that rarely changed and tried to keep to those for now for lack of nerve, but this girl had run in blindly, trying to get lost on purpose and I was sure that the library would be happy to assist her in that goal.

I had nodded. "I understand. Please, wait here." I told the man, heading for the intersection of TRAVEL and NATURE on the first floor where the survival guides were found. The dust was still thick enough on the floor for every step to leave a footprint, perhaps enough to track with. I returned with the book to find the young man sitting cross-legged on my desk, amid the scattered useless library maps and scattered paperwork, staring up at the chandeliers in a wonder similar to my own when I had first seen them. Seeing me, he smiled sheepishly and muttered a quick apology before jumping off. I smiled, and then quickly buried the smile in the book to avoid letting him catch it. I flipped the pages as he waited until I came across the specifics of tracking. I scanned a few lines, grabbed the useless maps of the library and began to search the floor for unfamiliar prints. My guest did likewise after checking both his steel-toed boots for prints and mine. Of course the steel toes in my boots are on the inside, unlike his, which had an appearance of something gargoyle-like. I rather liked them.

As we set off following what seemed at first to be a very distinct set of tracks though what seemed to be a very distinct pattern of bookcases, I felt, or rather I thought that I felt, the whole library heave slowly, as if taking a deep sigh, or dampening a laugh. I, as well you would have too I hope, passed this off as my own anxiety getting the better of me. After all, when was the last time an old building burrowed its way into your brain and began to play with you mind until so many things were warped and snapped that you couldn't make heads or tales of a normal situation? I should have asked Johnny while I still had an expert on the subject around before things went awry. But then again, being the unstable and untrusting fellow that he is, was, um… whatever, he probably would have snapped on me, thinking I was making sport of him for something I clearly could have had no idea this related to his life at all. If you don't know what "making sport" of someone is, turn off your computer and go cuddle your dictionary in the corner for a while, bathing in your own ignorance and the shame of it, you twit.

Now, if you were paying attention, you will recall that these strange happenings began near sunset, as so it was as my male companion and I began to track the missing lady in the jungle of literature. It became very dark very quickly in some places, in others, it was inexplicably bright as day, right in the middle of the library. I had not thought to search out a flashlight, or any guild light for that matter, because I disliked staying too long in the library at night, when the shadows were more solid. So, I really had no reason to know if there even were any portable lights in the library. Stumbling over a loose book lying on the dusty floor, my tracking partner voiced his concern, or whatever you'd call it, over not having a light.

"There's no way we'll be able to find Devi at this rate! Don't you have some flashlights, or candles or something?" He asked.

I sighed, putting down the book and maps on a table close by to rest. As I did so, my hand brushed a filthy old oil lamp, the kind your grandmother may buy when she makes you go antiquing with her. I blew on it, disrupting the dust on and around it, then took my pocket-handkerchief to the rest. Wiping away the rest of the grime of years, I found it a lovely light stainless steal and etched glass, with oil and wick still usable inside. If you know anything about fire safety, you know libraries are not as prone to fires as they once were, thanks to sprinkler systems and the use of electric lamps. Before things became safe in libraries, we used oil lamps.

"Sir," I asked over my shoulder, bidding him closer to look upon our luck. "You wouldn't happen to have a light on you, would you sir?"

He nodded his head of pale, drawn skin and black spiky hair and produced a book of matches, nearly empty, from his coat pocket. He looked uncomfortable as I took them, as though sickened when our hands touched in the exchange. He drew his hand back quickly and tried not to let me see how he rubbed it in irritation. "My name is Johnny. I don't like to be called "sir." It's far too sanctimonious to me, in a mock and half meant way I mean. Just call me Johnny, or Nny for short, because you're helping me. That means you can't be all bad."

I returned his matches after lighting the lamp while he spoke. "Yes, well, however you feel most comfortable. I don't like to leave poor impressions on people, especially over something so easily adjusted as a name or reference. Nny, was it? Thank you Nny," I said, holding up the light. "I believe you have just saved our expedition. Though I do wonder…" I did not finish my sentence, which is a rude thing to do, but I didn't mean to say it aloud in the first place, so I assumed it didn't matter.

Johnny said nothing about it, seeming to be use to rambling. With his approving nod, we went on, following a trail we could now at least see.

Unfortunately, even with the light we soon found that we had actually lost the tracks we had been following sometime earlier and that we were now simply wandering between the philosophies of the Greeks and the Macedonians. Johnny, upon realizing this, turned right around to march back the way we had come in irritation.

"I don't see how this could have happened!" He said, his voice a mixture of concern and venom. "We only just saw the last step and now we've lost it! How far could she have possibly-"

Johnny did not finish his sentence, though I was in about the same mood he was and cared little enough for where he chose to end his statements. Then I realized why he had halted. My guest and I had turned right between two bookcases after leaving the table were we had found the lamp and left the maps by mistake. Then we had turned left at the end of the case and walked up a center isle for some feet and gone to turn another corner when we realized the smudges on the floor were not the footprints we were seeking to follow. Johnny had turned around to go back the way we came, counting the cross isles back to the one we had come from, only to find that it was not there. Instead of the narrow isle that lead to the turn and the table, there was a bookcase that stood perpendicular, or cross T to the ones on either side of us. Behind this bookcase, was a very solid brick wall.

It was all I could do to contain myself. The library had done just what I had feared it would do. I turned to Johnny, looking for a reaction. He approached the wall slowly, running a hand across the dusty shelves to be sure they were real. He turned back to me, calm and looking thoughtful.

"Has this happened before?" He asked quietly, as if suddenly remembering that he was in a library, or trying to conceal the conversation from someone else.

I could only nod.

His gaze slid from my face to the shadows the oil lamp threw about us. "How often?"

I shook my head, my voice lowered by instinct to imitate his behavior. "Every," I coughed due to the dust. "Every few hours or so. There is no schedule by which to… to…" But there were no words for it, so I left off again.

Johnny held out a hand to take the lamp. I left him take it. "I'll lead." He said shortly, without a backward glance at the shelf, the shadows, or the mystery.

A/N: Ooo, creepy! What is really happening in this library? How can Johnny be so calm? And how is our dear Devi fairing in the labyrinth? Read on! Review!