A Mischief in the Woodwork

CHAPTER 26

Essence

I became obsessed with two things following the incident with Tanen in the city. The first of these things: essence. What lived inside things. In a sense, I took it up in honor of Tanen, as, with his persistent talk of dimensions, he had challenged the way I accepted things as they were rather than getting to the bottom of what made them tick – as if honoring him thus made up for my stunt in the city.

I knew it could not smooth over what had happened as far as he was concerned, but I began on that path as soon as I had the presence of mind anyway – as soon after as our reaching the library. It was a wonder that he saw it through, taking me there, after the attack, but it was almost as if he did it to make a point. To rub something in my face.

Something to do with colors. True colors.

I don't know. After it became clear he was not going to turn back because of his injuries, and seemed, in fact, determined to ignore them until he'd fulfilled the gesture of taking me to that confounded library, I chose to focus solely on the inspiration of essence. And in the library, there was lots of essence ripe for discovery.

The library was underground, these days – only one window up in the corner of the towering ceiling cresting ground level and providing a single shaft of pale light in the place. The sole source of illumination was saturated with dust matter, just one spotlight of the stuff that haunted the fortress throughout. I could smell it on my breath, taste it on my tongue.

I entered one of the great aisles of books and ran my fingers gently over the row of spines. Visions resulted like a deck of cards being shuffled into my mind. Knowledge, stories of grandeur, theories, musings, facts... Thousands of charged words, carefully preserved between the covers of the books, breathed into me with my touch. I nearly gasped from it, but pressed my fingers flatter, drawing more.

The onslaught was incredible as I treaded down the aisle. And I realized: I could learn everything that had been poured into these volumes, without even reading them. To think, if I did read them...the extent to which I could fathom what had been put into them, and from whence it came.

From whence everything came.

Up until that moment, I had not rightfully considered the curse upon my fingertips for the gift that it could be, in this place teeming with the secrets of things that may very well explain what had hindered, condemned, and otherwise terrified the nation for all of these years of ruins, and the 'mischief' that had only ever been the only name we had for what had caused it all.