The night always seemed to fall a bit quicker near the outskirts of town. Buildings that had long lost their inhabitants leaned quietly, letting the darkness ease over them like a cooling wave. The trees that had been allowed to grow up unattended embraced the walls, offering support where society had withdrawn it.

Some buildings stood on their own, with a moat of overgrown weeds protecting them. Others jutted into each other, like a gathering of frightened children. Only some people still lived in this area. The town itseld had seemed to migrate, and while it was still technically within the city limits, it seemed as though the people had moved on. Forgotten it.

The town wasn't central enough to sell the land as prime real estate. It wasn't wealthy enough to rebuild the area. So instead, they turned away and let the neighborhood sit empty.

On the north end, on a street that used to be called Wild Willow Road, in a cluster of buildings that no one quite remembered the history of, stood a darkened grey and brown building. It was reminiscent of a house in the elegant, boarded up doors and windows. It looked like an office building in its solid, structural lines. But it watched, like the old witch of the neighborhood, as the cats and birds and possums came and went, as the transient sought shelter in the houses nearby, and as the reckless adventurers stared up at it in curiousity, daring them to try and breach it's borders.

It stood, and it stared, and it waited, and it watched, protecting the precious treasures of ink and paper as the shadows slowly lengthened.

Once the night fell, the tiniest pinpricks of light appeared, barely discernable. But all those nearby could feel the sudden influx of life wafting into the streets and alleys. And only the most daring let it beckon to them.

Margaret Lessing

The summer dusk lay thick along Wild Willow Road. Almost as soon as she rounded the corner Margaret could smell the heady scent of wisteria, honeysuckle and crushed nettle spilling out from the overgrown gardens. She felt her eyes begin to water involuntarily, and swiftly brushed the tears away with her woollen sleeve.

She hadn’t gardened for five years, not properly, since moving to her little bungalow in the centre of town. It was, as her daughter and son-in-law had earnestly reassured her, a lovely little house: no stairs to have to totter up, a clean modern electric kitchen, a paved courtyard behind her bedroom that got a square of sunlight at midday and had a bench for reading.

The smell of Wild Willow Road couldn’t help but remind her of the garden she’d left behind: the turned earth of its vegetable patch, the roses she had coaxed into life around the kitchen window. She’d expected these memories to be more painful, but surprisingly the bedraggled street made her smile.

The library at the end of the street was barely discernible from the other shuttered houses; Margaret made her way towards it guided only by the pin-pricks of light. Strange, she had lived in this town since she had been married but had never heard of the library before yesterday. The square of card in her hand felt like a talisman.



She had dug the card out from a binder carried by the kindly, but somewhat condescending, representative of the University of the Third Age who had called at her door. In her late forties, she had looked young to Margaret, and had also looked somewhat put out when Margaret had passed over the fliers for embroidery classes and beginner French to pull out the faded handwritten yellow card.

“I don’t even know how that got there,” the woman insisted, and Margaret was pressured into picking up a leaflet for ‘Crochet Circle’ to induce her to go away. She had held on to the card. Whatever the representative said about there being ‘no library’ on Wild Willow Road, something in the scrap of paper called to her. Now that she was here, the presence of the library felt more like a confirmation than a surprise.

The door was unlocked, and opened into a room that was surprisingly welcoming. The dark wooden furnishings were well oiled, and gleamed in a buttery golden light. The librarian’s desk was empty but a silver hand-bell placed in its centre was accompanied by the slightly ominous note “summon the librarian” Margaret rang it, and the sweet clear tone echoed through the long room.