Authors: Cameron Jace
P.S. Burn after reading
***
Rumpelstein High’s library, Bedtime Stoories, was bigger from the inside than it measured from the outside. It was humongous. Loki speculated it was even bigger than the school itself, which didn’t make sense, like almost everything else in this town.
Axel had showed Loki into the library, bragging about how no one attending or working at Rumpelstein High cared about it or its books.
“Every commercial book you need, you can find on the internet. You can download it with a click of a button and a drop of blood from your credit card,” Axel had said. “It’s that simple. Only the real books, the ones that haven’t been forged or re-edited are found somewhere inside Bedtime Stoories. Those are the old, dusty, handwritten books with yellow pages and the smell of age on them. Those are the books people think they don’t need anymore. We’re smarter, because those are exactly the books we need to solve our mystery.”
The library was dimly lit, and it became darker with every step. Hundreds of books were stacked on the shelves on both sides, buried under thick layers of dust and spider webs. The floor underneath Loki creaked as if no one had been there for ages. He wished he’d find someone reading a book, but nobody was there. The library was suspiciously vacant. It was like a haunted house, only with thousands of books. It seemed that Axel was right when he said that no one used it anymore.
A spiral staircase in the middle led to a second pitch-dark floor. Loki tried to catch up with Axel who walked silently but fast, hurrying between the tables and shelves like a rat on rollerblades. Loki thought he saw him turn right between the shelves somewhere.
While looking for Axel, Loki finally saw someone sitting by a dusty table, burying his head behind a large book. He couldn’t see his face, but white silvery hair was showing from above the book’s cover. Scanning lower under the table, Loki saw that someone was tapping an impatient foot against the floor. Scanning upward again, he saw two holes in the book the library patron was holding. Two pairs of eyes stared back at him from behind the holes. Loki looked away, and followed Axel.
“Hey,” Axel whispered from behind the shelves. Loki saw two grey eyes looking at him from between the books. “In here,” Axel said.
Silently, Loki walked around the shelves into a darker area. “Where are you, Axel?”
“Right here,” Axel ordered him to follow him deeper into the dark.
“I think I saw someone reading a book with holes in it,” Loki said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Axel said, not looking back. “It’s Skeliman the Ferryman.” Axel said, the light from his phone shining in the dark. “I read something interesting about him this morning. It turned out he stopped working as a ferryman in the Swamp of Sorrow. That’s why we didn’t come across him yesterday. He guards Bedtime Stoories now. His new name is Skeliman the
Libraryman
.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I think they pay him more in the library. That’s why he likes it in here. They say you just have to act like he isn’t there when you see him, and he will not harm you. It’s rumored that he’s engrossed in reading children books about wizards and witches, and forgot all about his job. That’s why the library is a mess.”
“You said he was blind,” Loki said. “That he had empty sockets because he was a skeleton, so how can he read?”
“Maybe he pecked eyes out of someone like the pigeons in the Cinderella tale,” Axel said. “You know that story, right?”
Loki nodded, missing Charmwill glimmer—but not missing Pippi Luvbug so much. “I’ll have to ask Genius Goblin about all that, later,” Axel said.
“If you say so,” Loki brushed a spider web out of the way. “Why are these corridors so dimly lit?”
“That’s the way libraries are everywhere,” Axel whispered, not turning around. “Each library is camouflaged, hiding the
real
library inside it somewhere, which can only be reached if you walk the darkest aisle until the end.”
“Are you saying the dim lit aisles are made to keep normal people away?”
“Indeed. No one walks a dark aisle in a library to its end, especially when it gets pitch-dark. People are scared of these dark aisles but they don’t talk about it. It’s very scary if you ask me, but there is a reason for it; the dark leads to the real library. “And why is there a real and unreal library?” Loki whispered, following Axel.
“The unreal library has the forged books everyone is reading nowadays. The real library contains the most important historical books written about fairy takes before they were forged,” Axel said.
“I don’t buy this crap,” Loki said.
“I do,” Axel insisted. “I read a theory about it in the forum, and I believe it. The history of the world has been forged to conceal the truth from us. I read that every nursery rhyme, song, lullaby, and silly fairy tale has clues between their lines, but we have to decipher them to discover the truth.”
Loki didn’t comment. Axel was too enthusiastic about his nutcase theories, so he let him talk. Maybe he’d end up telling him something useful to help him reveal the vampire princess’ mystery.
“I heard there is a war between storytellers in the world; between those who forged the tales and those who want the truth back,” Axel kept walking. “The original texts are buried somewhere in the darkness of libraries all over the world, only for those who want to know the truth. Not all of the truth has been documented, though.”
Axel’s melancholic theories reminded him of Charmwill who had always talked about the fact that fairy tale characters were real enough they could bleed. The fact that he kept the fairy tales he knew locked inside a book that turned into a parrot was enough evidence to support Axel’s theory.
“The more we delve into the library, the more we’ll breathe the dust of books that haven’t been used for centuries,” Axel said. “So don’t resist inhaling the dust,” he stopped and turned to face Loki who was about to laugh hysterically; Axel was wearing goggles. “The dust in the darkest part of the library contains the magic spell that will lead us to what I want to show you.”
“Listen,” Loki said. “I don’t mind your nonsense, but I can only take so much. You’re crossing the line of rationality.”
“And entering a haunted castle to kill a Snow White vampire princess was rational to you?” Axel mocked him, adjusting his goggles. “Trust me. It’s Fable’s idea. She’s the one who told me about the secret library. She found out about it in one of her mysterious books, the ones full of spelling mistakes.”
Loki couldn’t argue now; he trusted Fable, even if she was a bit off her rocker like her brother. “Why are you wearing goggles?” he said.
“I’m prepared to inhale the dust of the dark, but I don’t want the dust to hurt my eyes.”
“And you think the dust won’t hurt
my
eyes?”
“How many times will I have to tell you that you’re not a nerd? Only nerds wear goggles. You’re a good looking vampire hunter. Nothing bad should happen to you. It’s only miserable guys like me who run into a series of unfortunate events all the time,” Axel said and started walking again.
Loki coughed slightly after inhaling the dust, but kept walking. They reached a point where it felt as if they weren’t in the library anymore, as if they had walked through a portal of darkness into another dimension. Loki hated dark aisles in libraries; he’d always thought they were creepy and ghost infested.
When it became too dark for even cats to see, Loki flicked on his Zippo lighter.
“Not now,” Axel turned around, and clicked the Zippo lid back down.
“You don’t like my windproof Zippo pocket lighter?” Loki frowned.
“It’s not the Zippo. It’s your brain that I don’t like.”
“It’s a
Don’t Fear the Reaper
Zippo. I love it,” Loki flicked it on again, messing with Axel.
Axel blew the flicker of fire dead then clicked it shut again. “Not yet. Stop talking, and follow me.”
“Whatever you say, Holmes,” Loki rolled his eyes, and followed him into the dark. The floor felt as if it could barely hold their weight.
“Stop,” Axel said, striking his own Zippo to life.
“Oh—so this is a war of Zippos,” Loki grinned in the dancing fire. “I light up mine and you don’t like it because you think that yours is better. And where did you get that Zippo; a Darth Vader Zippo? Are you kidding me? You don’t even smoke.”
“Shut up.” Axel’s face blurred behind the fire. Loki thought Axel’s little Snow White adventure yesterday helped boost the feistiness in him.
“Don’t you ever tell a vampire killer to shut up,” Loki raised his voice from a whisper to a thick angry whisper, spitting all over the fire.
“I haven’t seen you kill cockroaches. The vampire princess could’ve torn you to pieces yesterday. God only knows why she spared you.”
Loki lowered his eyes. Axel was right. There was no explanation why she‘d spared their lives yesterday, but he doubted she did it for Axel. Why was Loki different from the others and how was he still alive after she’d laid her eyes on him?
He wondered if he should tell Axel about his dream in the parking lot, but he thought Axel would read too much into it.
“Look here,” Axel said. He pointed at a small door, the height of a chair. It was a wooden door with strange engravings on it, and it had a doorknob the shape of a rabbit’s nose.
“Axel?” Loki pointed a finger at the door. “What is this?—and don’t say it’s a door.”
“It’s not a door,” Axel took off the goggles and leaned forward. “It’s a
secret
door.”
Instead of stomping his feet and screaming, Loki leaned forward, so that their noses almost touched. “For your information, a door that looks like a
door
can’t be a
secret
door. If it were a fireplace that actually turned into a door it would be a secret door.”
Axel thought it over, scratching his temples. “It’s a magical, short, door. Are you satisfied?”
Loki sighed, breathing out warm air that stuck on Axel’s face like steam from a boiling kettle.
“So why is it short?” Loki said.
“I think it’s made for dwarves,” Axel giggled. “You know Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and now a short doo—“
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. What’s behind this door?”
“All the secrets we need to know about your vampire princess,” Axel reached for the nose-shaped doorknob and began twisting to open it. The nose looked too real. Loki twitched a little.
“Peep,” Axel squealed, “just kidding. You know that doors don’t have noses, don’t you?” he said as he opened it, and a golden light showed through from inside.
Loki knelt down to peek in. He saw a huge room, the secret library with the un-forged books, he presumed. Axel squeezed himself through, crawling on all fours. Loki followed him like a rat after cheese.
“Close the door behind you,” Axel demanded, standing up, ruffling the dust off his jeans.
“Are you sure no one can lock the door from outside and trap us inside?” Loki asked.
“Stop worrying so much. Live a little,” Axel said, standing behind a big round table with a single lamplight the shape of an apple next to numerous books. “Why is it that you always have to have a plan? We’ve just entered an amazing secret library. Enjoy it, and loosen up.”
Loki wasn’t going to argue now. Axel had no idea who Loki was and why he wanted to kill the vampire princess. To Axel, this was the best adventure he’d ever had, and Loki envied him slightly. How amazing was it to be able to enjoy every moment of your adolescence without being on a mission?
Loki examined the multi-leveled shelves stacked up high. The secret library was circular, with a ceiling that was tapered to a point, suggesting they were inside some sort of a tower—he’d never seen a tower sticking up out of Rumpelstein High. The walls were lined with bookshelves so high Loki didn’t think that the tall ladders set on casters all over the library could reach the top. The books were bound in leather and velvet, clasped with locks made of obsidian. The spines were decorated with glowing gold scripts and waving calligraphy that he couldn’t read. Some shelves were labeled as incomplete; some were empty and labeled with mysteriously unreadable language. The floor underneath was inlaid with chips of glass and precious stones woven together, forming some kind of pattern, like a secret message. Loki circled around it, trying to unlock the logic of it. He sensed that the pattern held readable letters designed to look like a crawling snake on half a circle.
”Is that a letter j?” Loki asked Axel.
“Yep,” Axel raised his head from the book he was inspecting.
“J,” Loki tried to read. “a,” he circled around it. “Is that a w?”
“The whole word reads: Jawigi.” Axel said. “Fable told me she heard it’s a secret and powerful word that not many people know about. It’s a kind of a spell or doorway to something.”
Loki looked at it again and Axel was right. It read:
J A W I G I
Loki swallowed, looking back at Axel.
“What’s wrong?” Axel asked.
“I think I read this word somewhere before,” Loki tried to remember He wondered if it was a suppressed memory from the days before he was shadowed.
“How so, have you ever been here before?” Axel raised an eyebrow.
“Of course, not,” Loki rubbed his forehead.
“Don’t sweat it. No one even knows what it means. It could be a new hamburger in Sorrow for all I care,” Axel said. “Come over here. I want to show you why I brought you to Bedtime Stoories in the first place.”
“I’m listening,” Loki said.
“Yes. I’ve found evidence that the princess we encountered yesterday is, in fact, the real Snow White, and that she’s always been a vampire,” Axel repeated proudly. He climbed up the ladder then dropped thick volumes of ancient books, thudding onto the table.
“I don’t care what she is,” Loki said. “I just want to find a way to kill her,” he tried to neglect the guilt he felt inside saying this.
How could you still want to kill a girl who spared your life, and needs you to save her?
“Look, I don’t know why you’re so keen on killing her, but if you really want to, knowing who she really is should help you find her weakness. Yesterday, when she had you in the grip of her hands, I thought you were really going to die.”