THE FAIRY LIBRARIAN
by Linda Lotiel
Dusty Librarians
“I don’t know, to be honest. Any book on the tarot will do.”
“And how are we supposed to find any book on the tarot, if you don’t know the author?”
“Don’t you have a section for… I don’t know… some kind of esoteric literature? Like, New Age kind of stuff?”
The librarians exchanged a look. Nata felt the desire to leave the library, but she just stood there, wondering what was in that look. Was it a classic who-does-she-think-she-is look or more of a what-the-hell-is-new-age-kind-of-stuff look? The pair of cranky librarians looked as if the thirty-three years of Ukrainian independence never happened and it was still a Soviet library lost somewhere in a sleepy district of Kyiv. There wasn’t a computer in view, and Nata could see those ancient alphabetical catalogue drawers. There was also an old telephone with a dial you stick fingers into. Was it some kind of retro décor? Nata feared it was not. She adjusted her long blond fringe, catching her reflection in a glass cabinet. Those long crimson and black nails of hers. How would it feel to stick them into the holes of that dial?
Nata would have to find those tarot books on the Internet which should not be hard, and then just print them out for uncle Bogdan. The doctors had told him to stay away from screens as much as possible, while he was recuperating. She could have bought a book for him, but the uncle insisted on borrowing one from a library. “Those poor dusty books in there,” he had said. “Those poor dusty librarians. I feel like connecting with as many people now as I can, that’s why I’ve been left alive.” But the fact was that it was Nata who had to connect with the dusty librarians. One of them made a purposeful move towards the retrophone.
“Tarot, yes!” she was shouting in the receiver, “no author, no, nothing. How do I know? Tarot, what category is that, can you look it up? What? Da, da! Can you repeat?” she scribbled something that looked like a number on a page, “Thank you, Larisa, the cats are fine, da, da, talk to you later.”
The information provided by the distant Larisa seemed to be the number of the section that might contain some books on the tarot. The librarians took Nata there in a convoy formation: one ahead of her and one behind, moving along narrow passages between bookcases and checking the numbers on the shelves. The esoteric section turned out to be a half-empty shelf which, as it became evident to Nata much quicker than to the librarians, had no tarot books. There were titles that sounded like philosophy to Nata, a couple of books on kabbalah, one of which promised much happiness to the citizens of Earth, and a book on Carpathian magic with a beautifully designed cover. Nata, who was fond of drawing and was currently studying web design, pulled it off the shelf and discovered there were also excellent illustrations inside. The librarians were about to escort her back when a door slammed somewhere, then there were loud voices and a crash. The two women rushed away, forgetting about Nata, who was lost in the contemplation of a finely drawn molfar’s hat out of which mushrooms and ferns were growing. It also had roots, which made her think of hats and boots sprouting leaves and roots and becoming part of a landscape. There was also a picture with a hand that had an eye in the middle, and much more. She could take this book to uncle Bogdan. Or perhaps borrow it for herself…
“Psst!”
A blur out of the corner of her eye. For a split second Nata thought she saw a small human-like creature moving fast along the shelf, but then just shook her head. Her overactive imagination played a trick, of course.
“Of course. Only a figment of your imagination.”
The voice came from above, so Nata looked up and met the gaze of a pair of translucent pearly eyes. A cat-sized creature reminiscent of a fawn was staring at her point blank.
“We don’t have much time for disbelief and all that,” the creature informed her matter-of-factly, “so, for Merlin’s sake, could we save it for later? The old hags will be back soon. If you want that tarot book, you’d better come with me.”
Nata had a great respect for Merlin, so she suspended her disbelief, returned the Carpathian magic book to the shelf and followed the creature, who started skipping from shelf to shelf leading her… where exactly?
The Den
“I’d call it a Grand Reading Hall or a Parlour of Lost Knowledge, but let’s be honest. It’s a den. Or even a dump. Make yourself comfortable. Now that we are here, I’ll set off my time-extension spell, so we can take our time.”
Nata looked around. It must have been a forgotten storeroom. There were piles of books everywhere, reminding her of the Stone Forest in China she had once seen on a postcard once. A labyrinth, perhaps. She doubted that getting comfortable in here was a possibility, no matter how much time she took.
“So, you wish to step onto the perilous path of divination? Or to explore the great mysteries of the universe? What bends your heart towards this ancient and arcane knowledge? Oh, I am Swerbish, by the way. At your service, obviously.”
Swerbish perched on top of a stack as tall as Nata and bowed ceremoniously. He was indeed very fawn-like, with thick brown fur covering the lower part of his body and small curved horns on his head. He spoke Ukrainian with an accent Nata could not recognise.
“It’s not for me,” she said and felt the urge to apologise for it, “it’s for my uncle. He’s been to the war and he was badly wounded. Almost died. He’s in hospital now. He is a physicist and he’s never been interested in things like tarot, but now he wants to try it. He says he’ll believe anything now.”
Uncle Bogdan had said he had played with destiny once, against his will, and survived. Now he wanted to keep on playing.
“And how may I call the young lady on a noble quest for knowledge taken on the behalf of a wounded knight?”
“Natalya. Well, friends usually call me Nata.”
“And what do fairy librarians usually call you?”
“Er… You’re the first.”
“I’ll call you Nataro, then. If it pleases my lady.”
Nataro, she said in her mind. The name was strangely pleasing. She straightened her back and nodded. Being called “my lady” made you feel… different.
“I will be honoured to show you around my den, Nataro. These books are mostly in Russian, as you can see. People don’t want them anymore and keep bringing them to the library. The old hags sometimes put them on the shelves but mostly they dump them in here. Here is my poetry-that-people-stopped-rereading grove: you can cry your heart out there. Here is the pile of books that people hated to part with, but they felt they had to. Some of them are falling apart. Here is my favourite stack, War and Peace. I’ve read most of them, but I am saving the best for the last.”
Nataro stared at the piles. In the tall tower of books that people hated to part with there were lots of battered volumes that had obviously been reread many times. She noticed at least five copies of Master and Margaret. There was also Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Ilf and Petrov, some books translated into Russian from other languages. She saw volumes by Shakespeare, Hemingway, Wilde and spotted a copy of Three Men in the Boat exactly like the one her parents used to have. Did they still have it or did they also take it to a local library because they felt they had to? Would they reread the book in Ukrainian or just forget about it?
“You have reread War and Peace so many times?” she wondered out loud, looking at the stack consisting exclusively of the War and Peace volumes. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Swerbish exclaimed in indignation. “Holy Merlin, you don’t think I am reading the text, do you? I am reading the fingerprints on the pages, the coffee stains, the torn pages, the dried flowers, the dead flies! The notes are the best! Sometimes there are accidental bookmarks left inside: concert tickets, postcards, even letters! Those are such thrillers. I am reading the readers, of course. I am reading their past lives.”
“I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Nataro began but Swerbish just waved a hand and continued talking.
“War and Peace is better than a thriller — it is a horror book! So many were terrified by it when they had to study it in schools. Those pages still smell of their fear. Captivating reads! Do you want to read a couple of those?”
“Thank you, but probably not. About that tarot book you mentioned…”
“Oh, certainly, how could I forget! I’ve got a nice pile of diabolici books over here — there is everything you ever dreamt of: theosophy, astrology, chiromancy, water memory, you name it! And the readers of these books, oh, they were even more diabolici than the authors! So many raving notes all over, and blood on pages and… well, you wouldn’t want to know what else!”
“Diabolici?” was all Nataro managed to ask.
“Long story! And my time-extension spell is wearing off… now where was it? Aha, here we are! Two of them, good as new, and only a little blood in this one.”
The one that had “only a little blood” in it was entitled All Secrets of Tarot, and its cover featured two perfectly manicured hands holding a card. There was also a scratch that could have been made by an angry cat. The other one had a naked lady and lots of burning candles on the cover. The title promised that the tarot would be “plain and simple”. It indeed looked as good as new.
“Which will it be?”
“Is this Plain and Simple book very… diabolici on the inside?”
“No blood or anything like that,” said the librarian with a sigh, “very few notes. I’m afraid its previous owner was not really getting into the spirit of it.”
“Can I borrow it then?” Nataro said with relief. She was a bit uneasy about bringing a book with a naked girl on the cover to her uncle, but at least the girl had her back to the reader. In any case, better this than the blood-and-scratch one.
“Certainly!” Swerbish said, beaming and rather forcefully pushing the book into Nataro’s bag. “Of course, you realise that there will be a…”
Price to Pay
On her way to visit the military hospital on the following day Nata was going through her meeting with the fairy librarian over and over again. Should she tell uncle Bogdan about Swerbish, the girl thought, waiting at the traffic lights and then crossing Lesi Ukrainki Avenue. The territory of the hospital was enclosed within crumbling yellow walls, with barbed wire attached on top. In some places, brave vines were clinging to the barbed wire. As Nata rushed towards the checkpoint where, as always, a lot of people were crowding to get in, she reached for her ID inside the bag and felt the glossy surface of the Plain and Simple book. The fairy librarian had set his price: her uncle was supposed to leave as many notes as possible in the book and even more than that: stains, crumbs, drops of sweat or, ideally, blood. Swerbish wanted to read uncle Bogdan, this wounded Ukrainian “knight”, recuperating in the hospital and satisfying his newly discovered thirst for the mysterious. But asking her uncle to do that meant telling him everything. Did he really need that much mystery at the moment?
Once inside the hospital’s huge inner courtyard where autumn was already claiming the leaves on the trees in spite of the unusually warm September, Nata felt the chill that always engulfed her in this place. There were veterans learning to walk without one or even both legs, or trying to use phones with one hand. There was the general atmosphere of gloom that the sunshine and warmth failed to dispel. She was happy uncle Bogdan still had all his limbs, but his internal injuries were grave, and there was a piece of shrapnel in his head which could not be safely removed. Nata hurried along, thinking that she could describe Swerbish as an eccentric librarian who studied people’s habits of note-taking, failing to mention he was a fairy. There was also another alternative, though. As she thought about it, the den was immediately in front of her inner eye and Swerbish’s musical voice sounded in her head.
“Much as I like to read your wounded knight, lady Nataro,” he had said, “you are just as interesting. Or even more so. Should the knight prove unwilling to read the book the way I like it, bring me one of yours instead. The one you have already read. The one in which you left a rich trace. Consider this option well. After all…”
Nata stopped abruptly close to the entrance to the medical building where her uncle’s ward was located. What was it that Swerbish had said in the end? She hadn’t really paid attention to it back then since she had been overwhelmed with the den, the fairy and the choice he had posed. But now it all came back to her.
“After all,” Swerbish had been saying in a rushed soft voice, as he was escorting his visitor back to the esoteric shelf, “I am not asking you to break the curse that binds me to this library to all eternity. Sometimes I wish a missile would hit it and burn me with all its dusty old volumes the sight of which I can’t stand anymore, to say nothing of the hags… I am not asking you to set me free because… speaking of the hags. Here they come. Time for me to disappear. Till we meet aga…” And he was gone a second before the librarians returned.
There is a curse, Nata thought.
I am not asking you to break the curse.
“Nata! There you are!”
“Uncle! You are finally allowed to go outside, great!”
“Fancy a walk around the yard?”
“Sure! I’ve got something for you. Here.”
“Oh wow, look at that! Is that Kama Sutra? Just the thing we need in our ward!”
“Only the tarot I am afraid.”
“Just my luck, eh?”
Very soon, though, a siren announcing another air attack on Kyiv cut short uncle Bogdan’s first walk: they had to rush to the bomb shelter. As they were sitting there together with other patients and the staff, her uncle was studying the book and chatting excitedly. Now and then Nata thought about Swerbish, all alone in his den. She was absent-mindedly doodling in her notebook, as she often did during long hours in shelters or down in the metro stations. Her pencil, as if of its own will, was drawing an outline of a tiny figure on top of a stack of books.
“Nice!” Bogdan commented about her sketch and then he went on talking about the tarot. As he read the description of the card called “Justice”, he digressed into a rant about the war and what would be true justice, when Russia was concerned, and what places in Moscow he would target with rockets.
What if a rocket did hit the library? What if the curse prevented the librarian from leaving it even if it was burning? What if she could break…
That Curse of His
When she went to see Swerbish for the second time, the hags were busy chatting with an old woman who looked like a retired school teacher. She seemed to have brought more Tolstoy books — more thrillers for the War and Peace pile, Nata thought. She hesitated, unsure how to summon the fairy, but he appeared by himself and beckoned her silently. The women were so engrossed in their conversation that Swerbish didn’t bother with a diversion this time.
“I doubt those silly hags even noticed your arrival, my lady Nataro,” he announced with content, “I shall not cast my time-extending spell. Which is a relief: it is exhausting.”
He perched on the stack of translated books, right on the lilac volume of Oscar Wilde’s tales, and looked at Nataro expectantly. She dutifully pulled a book out of her bag. She was ready to pay the price.
It had been easy. Three years ago, when she was still a student, she had taken part in an English-language creative writing program. The participants were given an assignment to write a story from the point of view of one of the characters in Homer’s Odyssey. Nata had bought a second-hand Russian translation and read it, making lots of notes on the margins. There were also scraps of paper with her draft and doodles with the female characters between the pages.
Secretly, she was happy to get rid of the book. She had bought the Odyssey in the Ukrainian translation later, but more importantly, that old book reminded Nata of her failed attempts to write stories. She couldn’t do it, no matter which language she wrote in or which genre she tried. It was frustrating, since she felt she had a story in her. If she could only find a way of releasing it…
Swerbish was exultant as he opened the battered Odyssey. Would he really be able to read her from that book, Nataro wondered. The creative writing event had happened before the Invasion of 2022, and that life was now over. And yet somewhere between those pages was her Homer-filled spring, her clumsy writing attempts, her new friends who also struggled with the task, especially that couple who fell in love while crafting their stories. One of them wrote a story from the point of view of the two monsters whose names Nata had been unable to pronounce, especially in English. But she remembered vividly how that guy read it out loud in two weird voices, and their creative writing instructor commented that they were the symbols of aggression and depression. There was also that funny boy, Taras, who later went to the front and was killed… Would Swerbish sense them all in her book? Nata had picked Penelope as her point-of-view character back then. Now Nataro wondered, why faithful Penelope and not powerful Circe, for example. Circe, the sorceress. She put a curse on someone, didn’t she? The Curse…
Would she dare to ask the fairy about his curse? What if Nataro could break it? And then a thought struck her: what if you had to fall in love? A true love’s kiss or whatever. She threw a quick glance at the twenty-centimetre-tall fairy with hairy legs. Surely not! Swerbish was relishing her Homer, purring with delight and making an occasional comment like “that stain smells of inspiration” or “A bow on the wall? Perfect! Won’t be there for long”. The fairy was lounging on Wilde’s tales, and Nataro suddenly remembered one of them. Wasn’t there a story about a ghost and a girl who liberated him? What was it, the Canterville Ghost? Yes, that was it. Surely, the girl didn’t have to kiss the ghost! But what did she have to do, exactly? Nataro could not recall that part. To go on some kind of journey? And wasn’t that ghost trapped because he had murdered his wife? What did Swerbish do to land a curse that got him trapped in a library?
“What did you do?” Nataro said out loud, and he snapped the book shut immediately. “I mean… the curse,” she added lamely, but it was not necessary. The fairy librarian had understood her perfectly well.
“Does my lady have an appetite for a long tale?” he asked, but without waiting for her reply, he jumped onto another stack, the one with poetry, and began his tale.
The Tale of the Curse
My dear lady Nataro, Homer-reading, Tarot-seeking, Knight-healing lady Nataro, have you ever heard of the enchanted forest of Brocéliande? For this is where my tale starts. Shall I tell it in hexametres — but no, it is not the rhythm of Brocéliande… Oh sweet are its streams and dark are its groves, full of ancient magic. Did you know, my lady, that fairy woods used to roam freely across the world, engulfing a village here, surrounding a town there? Raw, wild, primordial magic, feral and vicious at times, but strong and wonderful. Mortals were drawn to it and burnt by it. Many fairies delighted in human suffering. But then came the time of another kind — the bookish magic, enchantment of words and lore. The two powers clashed, and there were countless wars in magic forests.
In Brocéliande, Corrigan, a powerful sorceress, fought for the old magic, and few could measure up to her, not even Merlin himself. I was there, together with my twin brother, and we fought on the side of the book magic. We both thought it was the future — and we enjoyed the way it tasted. In each alphabet, there are endless possibilities. In each book, there is another world. Corrigan hated bookish enchantments with a passion: she believed that mortals should only be enchanted by the song of leaves and the curve of a river and the dance of a fairy in blooming hemlock.
But she met her match — and out of a Breton tale they stepped, the pair of them, brother and sister, son and daughter of the famous Aoutru and Itroun, whom Corrigan’s spell had destroyed. Their personal grudge and their love of books did wonders. My brother and I rushed, as did many other fairies, to their side and we thought we would defeat Corrigan once and for all. But Los Gemelos — this is, my lady, how my brother called that heroic pair of twins so that nobody confused them with us. Why Spanish, you might ask — well, my brother is a walking Tower of Babel, a mixture of all languages he has read books in. Back to my tale: Los Gemelos did not desire her defeat or death, believe it or not. Their view of revenge was a bit insane, if you ask me. What they desired was Justice. And a Balance.
This is what made Brocéliande what it is today. It is still the place of primordial magic, but now it is confined to the innermost past of the forest. Corrigan still abides there, and she can cast a spell or lay a curse, but Los Gemelos make sure she does it with fairness. If there is a spell, there must be an anti-spell. If there is a curse, there must be clear rules on how to break it.
What did I do, you asked me, my lady, and how can I answer so that you, a lovely lady but a mortal, can understand? You should have been there, you should have seen me, getting exciting in a magic battle, getting carried away with my love of stories. I… overdid it. When you love something too much, your intensity becomes poisonous. Water in a clear stream turns undrinkable, a dance wears the dancer to exhaustion. My passion gave life to something that shouldn’t be alive. And it still dwells in Brocéliande, still hunts, still kills.
“What is it?” Nataro whispered. But Swerbish was silent. Was he angry that she interrupted his story? He had been evidently enjoying telling it. Nataro mumbled an apology, and he raised his hand to stop her. Then he jumped onto another stack. Nataro had noticed this one before: it consisted of various collections of plays: Shakespeare, Moliere, Shaw, Wilde again. Swerbish sat down on the top book in the tower and patted it as if it was a sofa on which he was getting comfortable. Chekhov, Nataro read on the spine. One can hardly get comfortable on that.
Swerbish still didn’t talk.
“You can’t say what it is, can you?” Nataro said at last. He nodded. “So, to break the curse, one would have to figure it out, right? Otherwise, it would be too easy.”
“I doubt it would be easy even if one knew exactly what one is up against. The Metaphor Grove is a dangerous place.”
“Metaphor Grove?”
“Oh yes, a place in Brocéliande where all metaphors that became accidentally alive dwell. Some are peaceful enough. But some are parasites or predators.”
“Like the one you created?”
“Precisely.”
“And one needs to find it in the Grove, without knowing what it is, and defeat it?”
“Yes, or be defeated by it.”
“What will happen then?”
“With Los Gemelos upholding Justice, one would probably not be eaten. But then Corrigan would use it to her advantage somehow. Making my curse even more severe — banning me from visiting my brother, for example. Now I can do so once a year. It is hard to say — Brocéliande always spins its own tales. Whatever happens, it is never straightforward or fully predictable. Like a text with many authors, where one writer’s toy may become another writer’s weapon and shoot.”
“But, if you can’t tell what it is directly, you could at least drop a hint?”
“Trust me, my lady Nataro, I’ve already dropped every possible hint I could. Because, if I’m not mistaken, you are going to…”
Brocéliande
If you fail to be shocked by a fairy in a library, a portal into a magic forest might also seem natural and almost welcoming, Nataro thought. All libraries everywhere are connected to one another, Swerbish had said, and now his library unrolled a shaky bridge into his brother’s library “on the edge of the second circle of Brocéliande”, whatever that meant. Nataro wished she had a map of the place where she was going, slowly, step by step, holding on to the thin railings of the bridge and not looking down. But there was no map. There was one mortal who sometimes came to Brocéliande and put what she saw on a map, Swerbish said, but he did not have a copy of that. She was his brother’s friend, and that selfish fairy didn’t like sharing his friends or their maps. When they got to the other end of the bridge, there was a moment of deafening silence… and then the sounds of rustling leaves, whispering branches and singing streams exploded around them. Nataro found herself gasping, as the enchanted forest of Brocéliande breathed and laughed around her.
“Allora, who have you brought here, bratyku? Ya, yaka, yaka, yaka!”
Swerbish’s twin was very much like him, only his fur had a greenish tint and huge pearly eyes looked naughtier. Of course he was happier, Nataro said to herself, after all, his library, all rocks, stones and caves, was in Brocéliande, and he was free to roam the forest as he pleased. The place reminded her of Dovbush’s cliffs in the Carpathians: huge stony outcrops, luxurious soft moss, pine trees.
“Yaka yaka yaka?” Swerbish repeated with a disgusted look. “What on earth are you reading now, Douz?”
“Gente di Dublino!” shouted Douz, and Nataro felt an urge to shut her ears against the shrillness of his voice.
“You are reading James Joyce in Italian?!”
“Oh sì, certo!”
“I am not even going to ask why,” Swerbish said, rolling his eyes, and then turned to Nataro. “Anyway, this is lady Nataro, and this is my brother Douz, and he is crazy, I am afraid.”
“Pazzo-pazzissimo!” said Douz sweetly, bowing to Nataro.
“Nice to meet you too.”
“The lady has kindly volunteered to try and break my curse,” Swerbish informed his brother. Douz did not answer but performed what looked like a brief battle dance. “Since I can only get out of my library to yours and no further, could you be so kind and take her to the Metaphor Grove? And let Los Gemelos know?”
“Oh they will know, fratellino,” Douz replied with a grin. “There are more ears in questo bosco than earwigs.”
“If even I can’t understand you, brother, nobody else stands a chance!” Swerbish sighed and sat down on a stone that looked like an arm-chair. Then he said to Nataro: “the Grove will tell you your own story in a twisted way, my lady. But you must remain in control. Remember, you are the author.”
“Andiamo, andiamo!” Douz exclaimed to Nataro making a gesture that could only mean one thing — an invitation to follow him. So she did just that.
As they were descending down huge rocky steps, walking though thickets and meadows, past streams and waterfalls, Douz, sitting comfortably on Nataro’s right shoulder, was constantly talking in a mixture of languages out of which she occasionally picked a familiar word or a phrase. Luckily, he gave her directions with his hands rather than words. He also advised her to use her “immaginazione” in the duel with what he called “la bestia”, but, if she heard that correctly “cum grano salis di razionalità”. She knew the Latin expression “cum grano salis” because her mother liked using it — take everything with a grain of salt, she would say when Nata got too excited about something. And razionalità — well, that was clear enough. The sweets of imagination and the salt of rationality. Did she have enough of both?
They stopped to drink some water from a stream that bubbled happily at the foot of a small hill. When they climbed it, Nataro saw a wide road and thick woods beyond it that looked dark in spite of the afternoon sunshine that turned Brocéliande golden. Douz tried to explain something to her urgently, talking about “la bestia” with sparks in his eyes. Nataro stopped even trying to understand him.
“Thank you, little book-lover, I’ll take it from here,” a deep female voice said. Douz fell silent immediately. An old woman with long silver hair stood before them, looking straight at Nataro. The woman’s eyes looked young in her old face and their gaze was disquieting, as if there was murky fire burning deep within. Corrigan herself, Nataro thought.
“You are going to attempt to lift the curse from this insufferable creature’s brother, I am told,” the old woman said in English with a slight accent. Was it Welsh? Or was it Brocéliandish? “This means several rules apply to you, young mortal. First, only the beast that he created will attack you. Other dwellers of the Grove will leave you alone. Second, if you win, the curse will be broken and Swerbish will be free to leave his library. Third, if you lose, well… Los Gemelos will surely protect you from death — they are too soft — but the forest itself will choose the penalty for you. Perhaps, I’ll help it a bit. Have you got any questions?”
“I… don’t know how to fight metaphors,” Nataro mumbled, “do I get a weapon or something?”
Corrigan rolled her eyes, but then another voice spoke. Two voices in fact, speaking in unison.
“You already have the weapon you need. You fight metaphors with metaphors, if you want a duel, but if you want to find their source and get rid of them, you use understanding. You are up against a parasite. Keep your eyes open. If you can recognise it and find where it is growing from, you can cleanse Brocéliande from it forever.”
Los Gemelos were tall and beautiful, putting Nataro in mind of the Elves from The Lord of the Rings. What they said and the tones of their resonant voices were somehow reassuring. It all made sense, strange and otherworldly sense that her life had lacked for so long. She felt she was ready to enter the grove of metaphors and face its parasite.
“In bocca al lupo,” Douz shrieked into her ear, drowning something Corrigan and Los Gemelos were saying.
All right, let us just assume it was a good luck wish.
La Bestia
As Nataro entered the Grove, a furry wolf crossed her path and disappeared among the trees. Was this a good sign? There was only way to find out, so Nataro shrugged her shoulders and walked along the path.
The forest was dense and smelling of fungi. It looked like any other forest at first glance but then Nataro sensed a whiff of strangeness and probably watchfulness. Was the Grove studying her? She thought it was exactly what it was doing. The proof of it came in just a few steps. Nataro caught a glimpse of a crumbling yellow wall among the tree trunks. She stepped off the path to take a closer look and yes, there was some barbed wire on top of it, just like on the wall around the military hospital in Kyiv. There was also something on the wall as well — a nest with an egg in it? And something black hanging off the wall’s peeling surface — a branch perhaps? Or a toy gun? As she tried to make it out, the barbed wire started moving snake-like and crawled down the wall, covering it like prickly ivy. The wire hissed menacingly, and Nataro mumbled: “Okay, okay, I am not touching your wall!” She quickly returned to the path and kept walking. Keep your eyes open, Los Gemelos had said. She just needed to be alert and analyze what she saw. But what did she see?
Trees, more trees. What were they, beeches? And the coniferous trees looked very much like smerekas that grew in the Carpathians. There was also an oak tree with a strange flower-like sign on it. The top of the oak had been sewn off and… was that a bird on top? What did it all mean? She kept walking but when she turned her head to look at the oak one more time, she thought she caught a glimpse of a large bowl with a fish in it. She shook her head, and the bowl disappeared. What was going on?
Walls, eggs, birds, fish — those were metaphors, for sure, but were they all part of her task? Was she supposed to identify or connect them somehow? Nataro didn’t have the slightest clue how to do that, so she just kept walking. Perhaps she was just not that good at thinking and detecting tropes. Still, she could keep her eyes open. What did she see now?
The forest became less dense, and some evening sunshine soaked through. There were a lot of ferns. Among them Nataro spotted a stump with some toadstools growing out of it. The shape of the stump was strange. Wait a minute…
It was a hat, lying upside down! And it definitely stirred something in Nataro’s memory. Something recent, something… bookish? Had she seen this hat before?
As she was standing there, staring at the hat, another one grew among the ferns, and another, and another. One popped out of the ground just by her left foot, and a bunch of bright red fly agarics rapidly grew out of it. Nataro took a step back. Was she going to run away, the way she did with the wall and barbed wire? She broke into cold sweat.
Come on, she said to herself. These are just hats! What harm can they do? And yet she felt she was under attack. What if she just… Nataro stepped forward again and tried to pick up the agaric hat in front of her. She discovered it was genuinely growing — there were roots holding in to the ground. Nataro pulled violently and got it out with a jerk. The dangling roots reminded her a bit of the barbed wire. One of the fly agarics tried to bite her fingers. She dropped the hat again. Fight or flight?
“Neither!” she shouted, and some of the mushrooms in the hats cowered. She had to think! What hints did she get?
First, “immaginazione”. What could she do with hats? How to contain them, stop them from growing? A hat shop! Nataro imagined a large hat shop with hats arranged neatly on shelves. “A hat shop!” she shouted experimentally, still imagining it with all her might. The hats got very still for a moment… and then it happened! They started flying out of the ferns and arranging themselves orderly on the branches of the trees nearby. They even stacked themselves according to the mushroom types. No new hats seemed to be growing out of the ground.
Nataro was exultant. “Immaginazione” worked! The hats did not look menacing at all. In fact, the whole place now reminded her of that pretty hat shop in Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. And she, Nataro, was just like Sophie who… Oh no.
Nataro heard someone moving behind her. She knew exactly who she would see when she turned round. She turned with a sense of doom and faced the Witch of the Waste, just as huge and imposing as in the cartoon, wearing luxurious purple furs. The witch in the cartoon put a spell on Sophie, making her old. Was it going to happen to her now? Think, Nataro, think!
Cum grano salis! It sounded like a magic spell in itself. What if she tried it as a spell and launched a pre-emptive attack? “Cum grano salis!” she shouted, and a snowfall of salt — a saltfall — swirled round the Witch, who stopped and waved her hands, as if trying to swat mosquitoes. That gave Nataro a few more moments to think. Where had she seen that first hat before? As well as the oak tree with a sign and a bird and a fish? Weren’t they all in the same book? And why smerekas, here in Brocéliand? There was a pattern to it, wasn’t there? A Carpathian pattern. A molfar’s hat! That book on the esoteric shelf! That was it!
The Witch, brushing away the last grains of salt, transformed in front of Nataro’s eyes. She was now a grim wrinkled man in ethnic clothes, wearing that very hat. He advanced, raising his hand. So much for recognizing the book, Nataro thought. Instead of the Witch of the Waste she would now be cursed by a molfar.
Remain in control of your tale. Remember you are the author.
Not a spell, a thought exploded in her head. Molfars do fortune-telling, don’t they?He would predict Nataro’s future! Actually, he could help her identify the parasite and how it was connected with the book.
“You are an old wise molfar and a sentinel of ancient knowledge”, Nataro informed the man, hoping her voice didn’t tremble. “Tell me my future, o the wise one. I know I will detect the parasite soon. How will I do that, exactly?”
The man stopped and stared at her. Nataro thought he was going to pout, like a child who was forced to tidy his messy room. Then, reluctantly, the man spoke:
“You will do it by going through every hint you were given. You’ve used some but not all. You will remember the ones you have so far ignored, and it will all fall into place.”
“Thank you!” she exclaimed and then shrieked. The man had raised his hand, and she saw an eye in the centre of it. That must have been another illustration in the book, but now the eye looked directly at her. It winced — and then plants started growing rapidly out of it! There was also an explosion of moths. The plants twisted themselves around Nataro’s ankles, and a swarm of moths tried to get into her eyes. Was this the time to run at last? But how would she think and remember the hints if she was running through the forest, being chased by plants and insects? And why do these tendrils look like barbed wire — was there a theme?
And then Nataro couldn’t bear it any longer: she started running back the way she came, trying hard to think. The thought had already been there, forming in her mind, and running actually helped it on its way. The plants hissed behind her back — they were quick, too. Nataro managed to visualise a huge lamppost, just like the one in Narnia. It grew right out of the moss in a small glade that she was running past, and the moths flew to the light, leaving her alone. But she could not imagine how to get rid of the plants. She had to focus on the shape of that thought.
Barbed wire, the wall. There had been something on it, but she had walked away. She definitely had to get back to that wall. What was it? A toy gun? And what had Swerbish said? One writer’s toy may become another writer’s weapon and shoot. Could that toy gun fire? As she was running past the oak again, there was now a big puddle right in her path. Were those stones in the puddle? Or fish?! No time to think — she could hear the hissing plants approaching. Nataro jumped from one stone — or fish — to another and then another, just like the fairy from one book stack to another.
Chekhov! The last stack he had been on, with the plays! There was Chekhov on top. Swerbish had actually patted the book! The thought was now in its last stage of formation. Nataro could feel its outline in her brain.
The Chekhov’s Gun on the wall. The one that must always fire in the critical moment of the story. That was la Bestia!
What was her story? This one, the one she was now running through like a hunted deer. Where did it start? In the library, and there was that book on Carpathian magic. That very book was the gun that had to do the shooting! And here it was, shooting at her now. Or at least trying to. Panting, she tried to speed up. The wall was not far.
So that was the parasite! A gun hanging on the wall and turning every insignificant detail in a story into something that simply had to fire. Its roots invaded the very fabric of the story, becoming more and more prickly and dangerous. Something sharp scraped Nataro’s neck. She was out of breath and the plants were upon her.
In the last rays of sunlight Nataro saw a splash of yellow among the branches. She dashed for it, ripping some clingy tendrils from her neck and shoulders. The gun! The wall was now cleared of all the barbed wires snakes — they must have spread around the forest chasing her, but the wall itself was now uncovered. The gun was right there, long, black and not toy-like at all. She yanked it from the wall. It was heavy and felt good in her hands. The hissing plants stopped and held their breath, if they could breathe. Nataro felt that they could do that and more.
Wasn’t it what the fairy had done? Made this thing alive? Personified it? Wasn’t it the problem? Nataro felt a strong urge to shoot and she did know how: uncle Bogdan had taken her to the shooting ring several times before he was drafted and she had enjoyed it a lot. But was this the solution?
Remain in control of your tale. Remember you are the author.
One writer’s toy may become another writer’s weapon and shoot. What if she reversed it?
“One writer’s weapon may become another writer’s toy and stop shooting,” Nataro said firmly and then addressed the gun in her hands. “You’ve played here for long enough. Time to stop. You’re just a toy. People can have toys in their stories, just for fun and games, not for drama. Insignificant details, little things, mere trifles. Entertaining, funny, harmless. No more firing!”
And she dropped the gun to the ground. The plants stopped breathing and slowly turned into… just plants. A second later, they looked as if they had been growing there peacefully all along. Nataro looked down and saw a yellow plastic gun at her feet. A water gun. Like the one she used to have as a child.
“Hasta la vista, Bestia,” she whispered.
What was it here, in the air of Brocéliande, that made you speak in languages you didn’t even realise you knew? She picked up the gun and walked to the edge of the wood. It felt like walking to…
The Edge of the World
“So. I’ve got my own tarot deck now, look.” Uncle Bogdan showed the deck to Nata proudly. “It’s a classic one, but I’ll get a Ukrainian military one, too. Do you want a reading?”
“Wow, uncle, you do tarot readings already?”
“Well, nothing better than a bit of divination during a missile attack. Everybody around here already knows their future. Your turn, niece!”
Nata stopped doodling and closed her sketchbook. Uncle Bogdan was looking at her very seriously, while the others in the shelter were moving closer. Well, if these long-suffering people wanted a show, why not give it to them?
“Do you want to ask a specific question or just let the deck tell you what it wants to tell?”
“Just let the deck speak.”
“Very good. But I’ll be peeking into the book from time to time, mind. I haven’t learnt everything yet.”
Uncle Bogdan patted the Plain and Simple book — or rather the back of the naked girl on the cover. He could keep the book now, Nata thought. Swerbish was no longer in the library. Once the curse had been lifted, he took the yellow water gun and said he would travel across the world, from library to library, shooting streams of water into readers who tended to grow too hot reading certain books. His brother got so excited about the idea that he wanted to come too, and the twins started arguing. Nataro had not been listening: she had to face Corrigan herself. After the nightfall, the witch turned into a beautiful young woman with shining red eyes. She had a gift for Nataro. And what a strange gift that was…
“Right,” uncle Bogdan interrupted her reverie. “Let’s begin. And the first card is… oh wow!”
Nata looked at the card in front of her. It showed a young man walking on the edge of a cliff, carrying a staff over his shoulder. He looked just as lost in daydreams as Nata had been. He had a white rose in his other hand.
“The Fool!” her uncle announced. “The beginning of beginnings, the zero card. Zero experience, foolish and naïve, but ready to set off on an adventure. He doesn’t realise he is walking on the edge of the world. He is smelling roses! Do you realise you are walking on the edge of the world, niece? Smelling roses?”
“I do, actually.”
“Good for you!”
“Don’t we all,” said another veteran sadly.
“Only some of us are limping,” signed the man who had lost his leg.
Nata remembered the sigh that Corrigan had made when handing over the gift. The bonfire was bathing a wide glade in red light; there were sounds of music and merry-making. The dwellers of Brocéliande were celebrating — but whether it was her own victory over “la bestia” or just another night of fun in the magic forest, she didn’t know. The little object in the palm of her hand felt cool and smooth. What was it? “Let’s call it the moral of the story,” Corrigan said softly.
“Now, the second card,” uncle Bogdan said. “And it is… the King of Cups!”
The card showed a rather pompous king on a throne holding a big chalice. Nata didn’t like the look of him. Her uncle hastily consulted the book.
“An educated and cultured man, trustworthy and empathic, will give you good advice. Hmm, it must be… me! So, listen to me carefully, young and naïve heroine!”
Nata should have told him about her adventure but she couldn’t find the words. She had also tried to write a story about it and, of course, the words failed her one more time. So Nata kept drawing pictures in her sketchbook. A cursed library. A fairy librarian. A parasite metaphor. A wall with a gun on it. A witch with a gift. The opal that Corrigan had given her whispered to her sometimes. It said things like “Mere trifles” and “What if I reversed it”. What did it mean?
“And the third card is… The Two of Wands! Reversed!”
This card showed a man in a red hat, standing between two tall poles and holding something round in his hand. A ball? No, it was actually the globe.
“Why is he holding the globe?” Nata asked. Her uncle was again peeking into the book.
“Not sure about this one,” he admitted. “And the card, when it is reversed, doesn’t bring good news. We’ve got someone going the wrong way. Not realising their potential. Perhaps the globe represents the potential you are not realising, niece? This card can also mean self-doubt. Inattention to detail. Are you inattentive to details, Nata?”
Mere trifles. But what if I reversed it.
And then it hit her.
“I am,” she whispered. “But this changes now. Thank you so much, uncle!”
*
It took her about two months. As the autumn was fading into winter, Nata spent up to six hours daily drawing: she just couldn’t stop. Card after card, with libraries, books, librarians, readers…
Yes, there were details that you didn’t pay attention to, and not every gun on the wall had to fire. But you could reverse it. You could pick a toy, a mere trifle, and start a new story with its help. You could make a trifle significant, if you wanted to. Isn’t it what tarot readers did?
She drew a pair of cranky old librarians. A retrophone that can reach the ultimate catalogue and find the book you need, anywhere in the multiverse. A book with bookmarks, notes and blood stains. A shaky portal between libraries. A magic forest. A rocket hitting a library. A labyrinth with riddles. An escape route. A trope that becomes alive. A heroine who wins by thinking. A reader who gets overheated while reading… Nata was telling her story, after all, but in a way she had never anticipated.
When it was ready, Nata called her deck of thirty cards “Nataro Library Oracle”. She was very shy to do readings at first. But then it just flowed. Her friends loved it and kept coming for more. Her uncle’s hospital friends asked her to do it for them again and again. When her reading featured a card with a book of a particular genre, they asked her to bring them a book like that from the library. The dusty librarians and their shelves soon became much less dusty. “You should publish your deck, niece,” uncle Bogdan told her, “More people should see it.”
Nata kept drawing new cards: the library world seemed to be infinite. When the deck was finally published, there were already sixty cards in it. She knew that was not the end of it. When you are walking on the edge of the world, smelling roses, you might as well make the most of it.
Kyiv, September 2024
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