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August 9 - August 15, 2023
Stories want to change, and it is a librarian’s job to preserve them; that’s the natural order of things. The Unwritten Wing of the Library, for all its infinite magic and mystery, is in some ways a futile project. No story, written or unwritten, is static. Left abandoned too long and given the right stimulation, a book goes wrong in the head. It is a story’s natural ambition to wake up and start telling itself to the world. This, of course, is a buggered pain in the arse.
“A lie. A dream. Good stories are both,” Claire dismissed. “Is it so bad? He’ll remember the story, turn it over carefully in the back of his mind, feel the edges of it like he would a lucky coin. A story will change him if he lets it. The shape and the spirit of it. Change how he acts, what dreams he chooses to believe in. We all need our stories; I just fed him a good one.”
“When unwritten books get too wild, too loved, or just too hungry, they get it in their fool heads to be real. They leak into the world, usually in the form of one of their characters. They aren’t the most creative lot on their own. That guy is obviously the hero—did you see those cheekbones? All he’s missing is a sword and a white horse. That’s our character.”
No angel or Watcher that had followed Lucifer had ever, ever been forgiven. Heaven did not forgive. It wasn’t its nature—not when it came to angels.
It’s uncertain what precise conditions precipitate a book’s waking up and becoming a character. Some restless characters must be soothed back into their bindings once a decade; others may not stir for several centuries. Some wake when disturbed with attention; others fidget with neglect. Some ache to be told; others appear to want to escape their own narrative. Or improvise upon it. The only certainty is a book is most at risk while its author is alive. Like any good story, unwritten books have the capacity for great healing and great hurts. We do not act out of cruelty. The safest place for
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We think stories are contained things, but they’re not. Ask the muses. Humans, stories, tragedies, and wishes—everything leaves ripples in the world. Nothing we do is not felt; that’s a comfort. Nothing we do is not felt; that’s a curse.
Books and stories are the creations of imagination, and that power is just for humans. Take it from me. Gods can will a realm into being, and muses can try to edge things along, but only a mortal can imagine a different way for the story to go. How cool is that? Humans are freaking terrifying. I love it!
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’”
“‘The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.’”
“‘Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not.’”
“‘Logic may indeed be unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.’”
The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing, for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair.’”
Books have songs, songs have stories, and then there’re humans at the heart of the jumbled mess. I’ve come to the conclusion that you just can’t subtract a human from the story, no matter how hard you try. Even death doesn’t do that.
Whenever she read a book in a binge, cover to cover in a day with little break, she always found it stuck in her brain like a haze. The narrative voice stuck with her, and for a bit after, it was always like a waking dream, living someone else’s thoughts. The book haunted like a ghost in her head, coloring moods until she shook herself from it.
The Earth is not meant for someone who can’t treasure it. Time makes us clumsy, dulls our senses. Live too far past your tombstone, and you turn a bit stone yourself.
Nothing burns up humanity as thoroughly as eternity. One supposes that’s why librarian is not a permanent position. We need to retain ourselves, retain our souls, if we’re going to be any good to the books. My apprentice has an abundance of soul. That’ll make her a good librarian. That will also make her an unhappy one.
You know the difference between a hero and a typical villain in a fight?” Claire said, pinning accusing eyes at Hero over the teenager’s shoulder. “Heroes are optimists. Ambush a hero, and you’ll get shock, anger. Retaliation at the injustice. But a villain, a villain, now . . . they know how betrayal works. Strike a villain, they expect it. Villains get cautious, not angry.”
Earth is freckled with belief, positively pockmarked with it. No great idea fades from the planet without leaving a mark, and we dwell in the craters. We rely on these old lines and cracks to conduct our business. But watch out; belief changes, and so do the doorways. Walk through the wrong one and it won’t want to let you go.
War has always followed libraries, my apprentice. History has made no effort to hide that truth from us. Look at Rome; look at the Crusades. Vanquishing an enemy and taking his books was just as strategic as taking his cannons. Books are knowledge weaponized. And what weapons you cannot steal, you must burn.
Mark my words, souls are made of tougher stuff. You can wear one down, tear one apart, unspool all the thread, shave a piece off even, but destroy one? I imagine there’s an end, somewhere. Or states of being that are as good as an end. But even an end is just where you run out of book. Stories change, and stories go on. Maybe souls do too.
Angels were supposed to be feared. By evil, by forces of chaos. They were made to be feared to drive the darkness back. Not to drive suffering young souls into the mouths of hungering beasts.
“I am a book. A creation. A possession. As you are so fond of reminding me, I am bound to go only where the Library allows me and will spend all my foreseeable eternity having decisions denied to me.”
We are subjects to our own natures. Books must be true to their stories, and whether we’re dead or alive, the role we’re given will win out. Accept your duty and find peace. Fighting against your nature is only madness.
No story is insignificant. That’s what the existence of the Unwritten Wing teaches us. No escapist fantasy, no far-off dream, no remembered suffering. Every story has meaning, has power. Every story has the power to sustain, the power to destroy, the power to create. Stories shape time, for Pete’s sake. Once upon a time. Long, long ago. Someday. And then what happened?
“It’s not meant to. The pain in death isn’t the dying. It’s the wounds we leave in our wake.”
“Forgiven doesn’t mean no regret. We’ll always regret the wrongs we’ve done. It just means you aren’t punishing yourself for it.”
The trouble with reading is it goes to your head. Read too many books and you get savvy. You begin to think you know which kind of story you’re in. Then some stupid git with a cosmic quill fucks you over.
Remember the other libraries, other realms, other paths. Build good fences, make good friends, and keep your laundry indoors. Leave just enough doubt in their minds to make yourself not worth the trouble.
