The Smell of Warm Paper

The bibliography shelves curve into a haze of yellow light. Every spine radiates a heat, the warmth of old linens left out in the sun. I trace my fingers across the leather of a book marked with the year 1903, feeling the dust particles shift under my touch. Near the desk, a spool of ivory thread unspools across the polished oak floor, taut, leading through the gap between the stacks and out into a humid darkness. I kneel before a small, green enamel box—its purpose I do not know—and brush away the grit. The thread vibrates when my fingertips touch it. The wall where I entered displays only blank plaster now. There is no corner, no archway, no break in the wall; only seamless stone, and the faint, metallic scent of ozone.