In one fairy tale from the Land-of-Almost-Awake, a girl from Miamas broke the curse and released the sea-angel. But Granny never explained how it happened.
Elsa sits by the desk of the woman with the black skirt in a chair that Elsa assumes must be for visitors. Judging by the cloud of dust that enveloped Elsa when she sat down, as if she’d accidentally stumbled into a smoke machine at a magic show, she decides the woman can’t have very many visitors. Ill at ease, the woman sits on the other side of the desk, reading and rereading the letter from Granny, though Elsa is quite sure by now that she’s only pretending to read it so she doesn’t have to start talking to Elsa. The woman looked as if she regretted it as soon as she invited Elsa in. A bit like when people in TV series invite vampires in and then, as soon as they’ve crossed the threshold, think “Oh shit!” to themselves just before they get bitten. At least this is what Elsa imagines one would be thinking in that type of situation. And that’s also how the woman looks. The walls of the office are covered in bookshelves. Elsa has never seen so many books outside a library. She wonders if the woman in the black skirt has ever heard of an iPad.
And then, once again, her thoughts drift off to Granny and the Land-of-Almost-Awake. For if this woman is the sea-angel, basically she’s the third creature from that world, along with Wolfheart and the wurse, that lives in Elsa’s building. Elsa doesn’t know if this means that Granny took all her stories from the real world and placed them in Miamas, or if the stories from Miamas became so real that the creatures came across to the real world. But the Land-of-Almost-Awake and her house are obviously merging.
Elsa remembers how Granny said that “the best stories are never completely realistic and never entirely made-up.” That was what Granny meant when she called certain things “reality-challenged.” To Granny, there was nothing that was entirely one thing or another. Stories were completely for real and at the same time not.
Elsa just wishes Granny had said more about the curse of the sea-angel, and how to break it. Because she supposes this is why she sent Elsa here, and if Elsa doesn’t figure out what to do she’ll probably never find the next letter. And then she’ll never find the apology for Mum.
She looks up at the woman on the other side of the desk and clears her throat demonstratively. The woman’s eyelids flicker, but she keeps staring down at the letter.
“Did you ever hear about the woman who read herself to death?” asks Elsa.
The woman’s gaze glides up from the paper, brushes against her, and then flees back into the letter.
“I don’t know what . . . it means,” says the woman almost fearfully.
Elsa sighs.
“I’ve never seen so many books, it’s almost insane. Haven’t you heard of an iPad?”
The woman’s gaze suddenly moves up again. Lingers for a longer time on Elsa.
“I like books.”
“You think I don’t like books? You can keep your books on the iPad. You don’t need a million books in your office.”
The woman’s pupils dither back and forth over the desk. She gets out a mint tab from a little box and puts it on her tongue, with awkward movements as if her hand and tongue belonged to two different people.
“I like physical books.”
“You can have all sorts of books on an iPad.”
The woman’s fingers tremble slightly. She peers at Elsa, a little as one peers at a person one meets outside a bathroom, where one has spent just a tad too long.
“That’s not what I mean by ‘a book.’ I mean a ‘book’ in the sense of the dust jacket, the cover, the pages . . .”
“A book is the text. And you can read the text on an iPad!”
The woman’s eyes close and open like large fans.
“I like holding the book when I’m reading.”
“You can hold an iPad.”
“I mean I like being able to turn the pages,” the woman tries to explain.