George leaves the small room where he sits in a wardrobe and enters the kind of library he’s always wished for, full of books and woodsmoke and soft leather chairs. The whole library was overflowing with books. They rested on tables, shelves, the floor, and even a chair. Leather-bound and clothbound, old and new. In that library in Little Lea, nine-year-old Jack sat at a desk, one too large for such a young boy, and his head was bent over a huge and old atlas of the world. It was bound in soft cloth, and the edges were smooth from use. Jack was flipping the pages and smiling as if painted sea
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