What Happens in the Library

The door-latch clicks. Into the dimness comes the faintest of whispers, a scratching like someone writing words with iron gall ink, a goosefeathered quill. Her round-toed walking shoes come to a halt, and she leans against a shelf, her ears straining. The voices are rusty, and there are scrapes like the vellumed movement of antique volumes, cracks like book-spines being splayed. She traces a hand over a book and feels its feathery paper. There is a silence, then more murmurs, urgent now.

“Aw.” The librarian groans. “Sex in the stacks again?”

The rustle of pages sounds to her like laughter.