Photo by Roger Brown
Desiree was the first to come across Mr. Lockton’s Library. She discovered it on a cloudy morning in April, puddles scattered about from the rainshower that night. The air was damp and she breathed it in deeply as she wandered about the grounds of Hillsay Academy.
BY ARIESHA MAIS
Desiree was the first to come across Mr. Lockton’s Library. She discovered it on a cloudy morning in April, puddles scattered about from the rainshower that night. The air was damp and she breathed it in deeply as she wandered about the grounds of Hillsay Academy. All the other girls at the boarding school were still at breakfast, treating themselves to the special Sunday cinnamon rolls and berries. Desiree had skipped breakfast. After getting dressed in her ugly uniform, she ducked beneath the hawk-like watch of the teachers and slipped out of the dining hall early to explore. She was happy to get out of breakfast. She despised the noisy chatter and giggles of the girls at her table because she always felt like they were chattering and giggling about her. Desiree had only been at Hillsay for a month, and although that wasn’t enough time to make friends, it was enough time to hear the rumours of the magical library and gather the nerve to go searching.
“You ask Mr. Lockton for a book, and it’ll take you to a new world!” she once heard a girl whisper at the back of history class.
She walked tentatively on the cobblestone and traced her small hand along the cool red brick, hoping to find an abnormality in the pattern. Hillsay academy was on a hill in a part of the woods that had been well-broken in by people. However, while the front of the school was paved and welcoming, the back was still in the embrace of mother earth. Thick grasses and plants flourished around the tall evergreen trees, and the ground descended into a dark ditch. To keep the girls safe from this monstrosity, fences were placed to cover the back of the school, ensuring no wandering child tumbled down into the lush green depths. The teachers had firmly told Desiree upon her arrival that passing the fences was strictly prohibited, but according to the murmurs throughout the school, past the fences was the most likely place for the library to be.
Before continuing further, she took a moment to pull out the tight braid in her hair. Madam Carmine redid it every other day, and each time Desiree felt as if she did it tighter than the last. The tired-eyed English teacher was the only one with the same kinky black hair as Desiree’s and thus was given the extra task of taking care of it. The way Madam Carmine impatiently tugged at the curls each time told Desiree that she was bitter about this special job. The way she did it reminded Desiree of her mother, who would always force it into two braids instead of one, and threatened to cut it all off if she moved too much. Desiree never felt threatened by this statement. She wouldn’t mind if her hair was short like the boys at her old school, and she knew her mother was too scared of having her mistaken for a boy to cut it anyways.
Pulling out the last of the braid, she shook her head and felt a wave of relief rush along her scalp. She approached the back of the school with her head up high. Discreetly, she climbed over the wired fence. As she was just about to reach the other side, she felt a tug, heard a quiet tear, and felt a wild pain running down her leg. In shock, she turned her head to see a long line of blood dripping from her ripped stocking, a mangled wire still hooked on her flesh. Desiree yelped and pulled away, thrusting herself completely over the fence. She was sprawled on the grass and bleeding, but she had reached the other side. Aware of the abyss just inches away from her, she took in a shaky breath and stood up carefully. The wild pain roared even louder than she expected. She tried to take an agile step towards the wall of the school, but her leg gave out. Desiree tumbled down, getting battered and clawed by the plants and trees that looked so beautiful from afar. Soon the sun was nearly out of view, and Desiree could do nothing but close her eyes.
She awoke, warm and comfortable on a purple reading chair. The wild pain was gone and she didn’t have a single blemish or pain. Magic? A man was standing above her, watching her intently. He smiled kindly when Desiree met his eyes. There was something odd, yet tremendously comforting about this man. He wore a green knitted vest over a cream button-up shirt and had glasses so thick they looked like telescope lenses. He had a meticulously trimmed brown beard, though no hair on his head. Desiree couldn’t tell if he was young or old at all. Desiree’s eyes widened. Magic.
Desiree looked around and admired the magnificent library around her. A royal blue carpet stretched across the ground and meticulously kept shelves of books reached high to an oval skylight window. There was a gentle light that cascaded down and seemed to sparkle.
“Are you Mr. Lockton?” she asked, now completely awoken from her drowsy state.
“Yes,” the man replied with a smile and a nod.
“Um…” Desiree mumbled, anxious to ask the question, “May I have a book please?”
Mr. Lockton’s eyebrows raised, and he said “Are you sure? There is no better world for you than the one you are in now.”
Desiree thought of her dreary days at Hillsay and her maddening days at home. The snobby girls and the stuffy teachers and her naggy, uptight parents, always watching and judging and stopping her from doing what she wanted. She scoffed. She was sure that she would love a world where nobody judged her.
“Yes. I would like a book. I don’t really like anybody here.”
The librarian pursed his lips and headed to the shelves. Desiree got up and trailed behind him as he scanned the tall shelves looking for a book. He looked at her from the corner of his eye.
“Are you sure?” he asked firmly.
“Yes,” Desiree said quickly.
“Listen. I’ll give you the book, but know that once you turn the first page, it will be too late to change your mind. Okay?”
Desiree nodded eagerly and cradled the thick red book he handed her. She squeezed her eyes shut in delight, and when she opened them, she was laying in her dorm room bed. Night had already come, and all the other girls were sleeping. She was now wearing her frilly school-issued nightgown that always itched her neck. With a fierce grin, she flicked on the reading light and marvelled at the ornate floral patterning on the cover of Mr. Lockton’s red book.
Without hesitating, she turned the first page. Desiree watched the book with terrified eyes as a silver cloud of smoke bloomed from the pages and menacing black vines sprouted from the letters. A heavy feeling of dread dropped harshly upon her as she felt herself losing consciousness. She began to feel the weight of Mr. Lockton’s warning.
Desiree woke up gasping for air. Her eyes were wide and terrified. She felt frozen. The air was cold and she looked around to see that she wasn’t in a different place at all. She was in the same room, in her regular bed. However, there was an eerie difference. The beds of her classmates were empty and looked like they had been for a while. Dust and vines collected all around them as if they hadn’t been slept in for at least a decade. The grandfather clock at the front of the room was set to twelve o’clock and unmoving. In a panic, she grasped around for the book. She felt the textured cover on the pinky finger and immediately picked it up. She looked at it and her eyebrows furrowed. The vibrant red had faded to a dull pink, and the floral pattern was now one of thorny vines. She opened the book gingerly and peered through the pages. They were all blank.
From beneath her confusion and worry arose Desiree’s fiery urge to explore. With a quick deep breath, she crawled out of bed and headed down the stairs to the dining hall. Like the dorm, the dining hall was empty as well. The patter of her bare feet echoed in the desolate room. She only realized then how big the room was. She was pleased with the fact that there was no one to yell at her to put on shoes after getting out of bed. She guessed that she could do about eighty cartwheels in a row down the length of the hall, and so she tried. She got to twenty-two when she felt too sick to continue.
She sat down at one of the many long wooden tables and caught her breath. Without thinking, she began waiting for the chefs to start bringing out the food. She figured it was Monday, so she braced herself for porridge, but after an agonizing two minutes of waiting for a breakfast she didn’t want, it dawned on her that nobody would be coming. She looked around once again and noticed how thick the dust was everywhere. She could see every foot and handprint from her cartwheels on the tile floor like little animal prints on fresh snow. A strange sense of peace and excitement settled upon her. She was the only one here. She thought of Mr. Lockton and how foolish he was to think that this life was something to warn her about.
With no teachers to hustle her to class, Desiree sauntered back to the dorm to get dressed. After deciding that she was in no danger, the eerie vines and cold air no longer felt menacing. She was now a bold explorer investigating a mystical realm — there was no pleasure in being a scared little girl. She yanked her top drawer open with raised eyebrows and a smile, hoping for a surprise. She looked down at the open drawer and wasn’t surprised at all. Uniform clothes sat neatly in there, ready for inspection day. A thick layer of dust covered them, and there were vines curled around the fabric. Disgusted, she yanked open the second drawer and stared sweetly at what she then saw. Stuffed in the drawer there was a yellow T-shirt, teddy bear socks, a pair of grass-stained jeans, mud-caked sneakers and her precious red hoodie, all completely untouched by the dust and vines. These were her “real-people clothes” as she called them. The clothes she was wearing when her parents dragged her to Hillsay. She blew a raspberry at the top drawer, then tossed off her nightgown and threw on her real-people outfit.
Walking down the paved hill away from the school, Desiree felt the wind in her hair for the first time in a while. The sky was gray and the air was stagnant and cool, but she felt warm and safe in her red hoodie. She began to skip, then jog, then run down the hill as she began picking up speed. This was the best life she could imagine. After one large leap, she landed on two feet at the bottom of the hill. She slipped through the bars of the ornate metal fence that caged the school in. She planned to find something far better than porridge to eat.
Desiree skipped down the path that led to the rest of the world. The forest surrounding her looked thicker than normal and was oddly still, but she didn’t mind that. She made up for the stillness with her quick feet and swinging arms.
At the end of the path, she found an empty road. She remembered seeing this road packed with cars just two weeks ago when the history teachers took them on a field trip to the museum. Without looking both ways, Desiree skipped across the road and walked to the nearby plaza. She recalled seeing a pizza shop there through the window of the bus on the way there. She thought pizza would make the best breakfast. Her steps slowed when she realized that she couldn’t get pizza or anything else for that matter, without money. Slightly panicked, she kept walking. She was hoping that some kind adult would fall for her puppy-dog eyes and buy her a slice and hopefully not call her parents. However, as she approached the plaza, she found that she would have a lot of trouble finding this kind adult. Like the school and the forest and the road, the plaza was empty.
She walked straight to the window of the pizza shop. The place was barren and full of dust. Defeated, she looked around the plaza. There was a dress boutique, a chocolatier and a few novelty shops lined up in a neat row in front of the parking lot. She noticed a payphone standing at the end of the plaza and walked briskly towards it. Instead of searching for coins, she went straight to the emergency call button. She was certain that there would be someone to pick up. She cradled the cold plastic receiver to her ear and listened intently. She heard nothing but scratchy static, and then the daunting beep of a failed call. She didn’t know what to do. It was as though everyone had simply disappeared from the world. Her stomach squealed and she began to feel dizzy. All the worry that she felt waking up into this strange world started rushing back. She wouldn’t survive here long without any food. But how would she get back? Mr. Lockton told her that there was no return. She knew she had to try. She also knew that there was no use in crying, but she did it anyway as she made the dreadful trek back to Hillsay.
As she walked, the silence of this world began to surround her more than before. It turned into a significant weight that hung on her shoulders, heavy enough to make her steps slow and difficult. The now ravenous hunger in her stomach was the only thing forcing her tired body forward. At times, she felt tempted to veer off the paved path and into the forest, where she would sleep in the lush bushes until she had the energy to skip and run and do cartwheels again.
The sun in the sky that was barely there began to fade away entirely as she trudged up the hill. In the darkness, she felt her way along the walls of the school, occasionally being pricked by the thorns of the vines that weaved into the brick. There were no animal calls, no rustling of the trees. Desiree found herself traversing through a thick, dark silence. She remembered the path she took to Mr. Lockton’s library and hoped that her desperate hands and feet would lead her in the right direction.
She heard a dull clatter and felt a little scratch, which told her she had reached the fence. She climbed over it, now thankful that she was wearing jeans that wouldn’t get caught in the wire like her stockings did. After reaching the other side, she got on her hands and knees. She had the idea to crawl down the ditch this time. She clawed at the ground full of thick grass and fallen leaves until she felt the edge. Slowly, she led her body down the steep descent, carefully clutching branches on her way down.
A warning was a warning though. Desiree kept climbing further and further down, but she never got closer to Mr. Lockton’s library. After a while, her hands grew too weak to clutch the branches, and her legs became too shaky to hold her up. Desiree tumbled down, but this time, she did not wake up.
Aiesha Mais’ short story, Mr. Lockton’s Library placed fifth in our writing contest. Mais is a student at Pickering High School in Ajax, Ontario.