To find the library, you must not look. 

You must let it catch you. Lose the chase. Stumble at the last moment and embrace the fall. The loss will be very sweet. Some people outrun the library their entire lives. But, those people are not meant for what the library offers them. You are.

You are meant for stories. Stories that have not been read in centuries, that yearn to be cherished, stories that hold wonders most human minds cannot comprehend. The library doesn’t choose often. Do not waste the gift it has bestowed upon you. 

Outside the library is a storm, a gentle one. The kind that soothes your mind and lulls you into a pleasant sleep, where you dream of only calming matters. The storm does not end. Its steady pitter-patter of rain provides the stories lining the endless, dark chestnut shelves that brush the ceiling of the library. You must catch a drop, or two, or maybe even five, depending on how long you want to read, in a delicate basket made of yew tree twigs and bring them past the library’s grand doors. The doorknocker, golden and shaped like a curious raven may ask you to read it a story later as you step inside. Please be kind and take a moment to indulge the raven’s curiosity about life beyond the endless rainy fields it watches.

Inside, the drops, still singular in the basket, not yet running together as raindrops typically do, will change into ink, and paper, and endless worlds with stories you may get lost in. You may sit down with your basket of books, curl up in one of the many plush, broad-backed velvet armchairs, and read. 

The covers will be blank. You will not know what story you are reading until you are truly in it. You may choose to move on to a new story, leaving the one you picked up unfinished. But, more often than not, you will find that each drop you collect from outside the library turns into the story you desire the most, and maybe even the one you need.

And, because I have seen it before, time and time again, you will read until your eyes are sore. You will read until the softly glowing lanterns in the library burn low and you must seek out matches to relight them, your book still clutched in your hand as you half-read, and half-search the library. You will stop in the middle of a hallway with a high-arching ceiling and gently worn floral wallpaper, to turn a page anxiously as a battle scene unfolds and the heroine of your story fights for her kingdom. Around you, the library is quiet, save for a crackling fireplace and the distant sound of herbal tea and fruit-filled scones being prepared. You have not met those who run the library. They tend to stay out of sight. You will look up after a moment, the task you had set forth to complete forgotten, but a smile on your lips. Your heroine won. It’s time for a new story. 

You will quickly learn after having finished a book or two or ten that the library is more than just a place to read. When I speak of becoming entranced in worlds, so lost you forget which reality you truly belong in, I am not speaking metaphorically. You will learn that once the last page has been read, the book will give you instructions. You must listen carefully.

Be patient with the book. It is not given the chance to do this often. It may take a moment for it to remember the possibilities it can offer you. Listen, as it tells you of how you may enter the book and live in its story, laugh with its characters, and experience its wonders. You will question if this is possible but please, do remember how you came to hold this book in your hands and you will no longer have doubts. The book will tell you that you will not have eternity inside its story, you will only have as long as it took you to read the book. Use your time wisely. 

You may eventually choose to step inside the book’s pages. Do not be scared, it is a seamless transition, and you will be back soon. Remember, you cannot stay forever. 

When you step in, you will be greeted by characters you had only ever envisioned. You don’t know it yet, but they will become close companions and you will grow to cherish them dearly. They will smile and embrace you and tell you they have been waiting for your arrival. You may notice that a character is missing from the group. You may have even been hoping the scene that blurred your vision and stained the pages of your book, the one where a beloved character died, wouldn’t stick when you entered this story. You were hoping to see them alive and well, brushing death off like snow on a particularly harsh winter night. Stories, unfortunately, follow their plot in relation to death as the real world does. 

Enjoy your time. Do not linger with death, it is not a joyful companion, and the library offers you this gift so you may smile and feel content. Experience the world that had you turning the pages so fast you gave yourself paper cuts and caused you to feel every emotion so closely one may think you had lived this story yourself. Just live. 

But, I must warn you, so that you can prepare. You will grow to love the world like you were born there. You will fit into the world like it has been built around you. The wonders you see will never leave your mind, and later, when you are gone, you will remember them as clearly as if you were still in the moment. The characters will feel like you’ve known them from your very first breath. They will feel a part of you, and being separated from them will feel like being cleaved in two. 

You will tell yourself the library would never dare to pull you back, that it would never take you away from this world that has enchanted your soul so beautifully. You will brush off any worries you have, telling yourself that your love for everything you have made a part of yourself will be enough to keep you rooted in its embrace. 

When you feel the tug, you will rage so strongly that you fear the wave of it will push you out of the world too early. There will be anger and screaming, viciously bright. Your friends will worry, and you will try to calm yourself for them, but all of the anger this pain has manifested as is because of them as well. 

And I’m sorry, but you will beg for more. More sunsets with those you have come to love. More days spent exploring the ruins of cities too fantastical to describe. More moments that feel too vivid and alive to truly be real. More time. 

You will promise every inch of your soul to whatever forces may be listening. You will sacrifice what makes you whole for a few more days, even minutes. But only the library listens, and it does not want to see you undone. It knows what you do not, so it ignores your pleas, though it pains the library to see you unravel yourself so quickly. The library lets your cries fade away but still, you beg anyway. 

You will beg, even though you will have felt the time slipping away, a clock running too fast for your happiness. You will linger a little longer in each moment, take every second to remind yourself you are there, you are present. You will do everything you can so as not to let go of the perfection you found in this world. But, your grip will loosen. And you will let go, feeling everything you had grown to love slip between your fingers as the tears spill from your eyes. 

Please, do not cry. Wipe those tears, do not sorrow over what you have lost. Remember everything, though it may hurt, though it may feel like a page is being torn from the book that is your soul, remember what you were gifted. Do not look back and regret how quickly you turned the pages, and how fast your eyes darted over the words. You may wish you had sat in the moment a little longer, truly soaked in the feeling of reading something so incredible it made impossibilities feel possible. You may wish you had not gone into the book, to begin with, and you may even wish you had never let the library catch you. Please, remember all that has come from being here.

You will come to terms with the loss, knowing that you cannot let the feelings consume you. You will remember how much more there is to explore, to learn, to love. You will take a moment, cherish the time you did have, and appreciate what the library has given you. Then, you will take a deep breath and pick up the next book.

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