The shelves curve in a deliberate arc. Classical pillars, evenly spaced, rise from antiquated hardwood floors, marking the bounds of a finely carved balcony. Hanging lanterns emit warm halos that lick the book-lined walls. A blue-gray runner, etched with delicate stars, shimmers in the candelight.
Ana runs her hand along the smooth mahogany railing as she walks. She pauses, staring pensively into the vast cylindrical library, its floors stretching down to unknowable depths.
Moonlight filters through domed windows, casting a pale glow on her face. Tonight, Ana is searching. Searching for a very specific book. But in this place, there are no titles, no catalogues, no librarians to ask.
Here, books hide in plain sight, cradling unspoken truths – until something primal calls them to speak. Here, one must rely on memory alone to guide—and memory has a way of masking itself as impulsive, intuitive sense.
Ana drifts toward the shelves, lifting her fingers to trace the leather-bound spines. Each book is unique—not only in colour, size, and wear, but in its emanating presence.
Ana’s eyes settle on a book bound in forest green. She draws it from the shelf and lets it fall open to a page worn soft and yellowed with age.
It tells of a woman recently widowed during the Second Great War—Nora, a mother stretched thin. But as Ana reads, she realises this book does not simply tell—it reveals. Thoughts and moments unfold together, Nora’s voice rising from the page as vivid images gather in Ana’s mind, as if she’s standing tentatively in the corners of Nora’s world, bearing witness.
Nora laments: “Oh, Noel. The Germans target the merchant ships. Food is dwindling, and prices rise. How will we go on? I have three mouths to feed, but they only cry—asking questions I cannot answer.
It hardly feels real that you’ll never walk through our door again, rest your head on my shoulder, kiss our babes goodnight. You were our light. Now, we are left in the dark.”
Ana draws a slow breath. Though her grief differs from Nora’s, the same sense of loss, of uncertainty, presses heavily against her chest. However, beneath Nora’s mourning, Ana senses a desperate determination and quiet resilience that comes from having only ever known precarity.
Ana sinks into a nearby armchair, upholstered in deep blue suede. To her right sits a steaming cup of tea on a small side table. Unsure of its origin, she glances around—but no one is there. She takes small sips, savouring the tea’s hearthfire heat on an otherwise cool night.
Nora’s book calls for her attention once more, and Ana reads on.
In her thoughts, Nora speaks to her husband, relaying the happenings in her and their children’s lives, musing on memories between them as young lovers, and at times, cursing the Lord for His cruelty.
Yet Nora is one of the lucky ones. Her heart beats. Her lungs fill with air. She sings her babies to sleep—while elsewhere in Europe, entire bloodlines have been extinguished.
For Nora, life is hard, but it goes on. Only now does she see what a privilege that is. And then, suddenly, the war is over.
Ana senses the chapter’s end as Nora tells her husband they’ve been accepted into a migration program to Australia.
“My dearest Noel, I can only hope this new beginning will help us hope again. I cannot be sure I’m making the right decision, but the wind whispers, urging me into the unknown and assuring me the answers lie in newer, warmer waters.”
Although there are more pages in Nora’s book, Ana understands that this is where the story is meant to end for her. She closes it and returns it to its place.
Leaning against the wall, Ana closes her eyes. She lingers in the stillness, pondering her connection to this woman from the past. She admires Nora’s profound love for her family, her dignified resolve, and willingness to move onwards.
“Meow.”
Ana straightens, alert. She looks around — nothing.
Then again— “Meow.”
The sound is faint and seems to be coming from below.
Ana walks toward a spiral staircase of darkened bronze and begins to descend. A few floors down, the sound becomes louder, crisper.
She exits the staircase and circles the floor. Halfway around, a calico cat sits atop a cerulean stool beside a matching chaise lounge.
The cat hushes, satisfied—or perhaps expectant. Ana crouches and scratches it gently beneath its chin. It settles and begins to purr. As Ana rises, the cat blinks slowly, then shifts its stare to the bookcase behind her. She turns to follow its gaze.
On the highest shelf, in the farthest corner, rests a thick chestnut-brown book tied with dark twine. Older than the rest, it exudes a powerful, timeless aura.
Ana steps onto her toes and pulls the book down. It is heavy in her grip.
Behind her, the cat lets out an inquisitive chirp. She turns to find it perched on the chaise, tail curled neatly, as if saving her a place.
Ana sits and unknots the book’s twine. Once freed, the book feels lighter in her hands. She opens it and is transported, drawn further back in time than before.
Through its words, Ana is drawn into the world of Etain, an adolescent girl in a village at the edge of an ancestral woodland. There, Etain supports her mother—a healer and keeper of ancient rituals—preparing for the day she will take on her mother’s sacred work. Like her mother before her, Etain will one day guide women through the art of bringing life into the world and, when their time comes, perform the rites that carry them onward into the next.
Etain stands beside her mother at the edge of a funerary circle. It is still dark, but the horizon glows with the first hints of dawn. The body of an older woman lies upon the pyre, ready to be returned to the earth, transformed. Women wail, her mother begins to sing — beautiful and guttural, a sound fusing both love and sorrow, guiding the spirit's passage into the Otherworld. Singing in harmony, Etain burns the sacred herbs.
A scent of woodsmoke and thyme rises from the page. Ana breathes it in.
Amidst the flames, a young girl approaches Etain’s mother, whispering into her ear. Turning to Etain, her mother says gently, “Darling, you must go to Gráinne. Her labour has come early. Attend to her.”
“Without you?” Etain asks, her voice tight. She’s assisted at many births, but has never led—and never alone.
“It is time. You’ve learned and practiced—but most of all, you are calm, determined, and wise. You are ready.”
With her woven satchel of poultices and a steady breath, Etain bows to the departed, then turns toward Gráinne’s hut. The keening fades behind her. A new cry waits ahead.
The birth is quick and uncomplicated. Etain sings as she passes the baby to Grainne, ensuring both are imbued with vitality and strength. The newborn screams—indignant, perhaps, to be cast from the primordial pools from which all life springs.
Etain wipes her palms on her tunic, watching mother and child breathe in rhythm. Smoke from the pyre still lingers on her skin. Life and death. The cycle never breaks—only folds in on itself.
Etain’s mother steps into the doorway, smiling. “You walked through fire and came out a woman. I’m proud of you.”
Ana closes the book, eyes brimming. The bond between Etain and her mother stirs something deep within her—echoes of her own. It is this very bond, this enduring longing for her own mother, that has brought her here.
She sets the book aside and wipes her tears. The cat senses the shift and nestles close. Ana strokes its soft fur, comforted by the steady rise and fall of its small body.
From above, a bell sounds. Ana counts: one, two, three, four, five, six—the final toll echoing through infinite space. “It seems my time is nearly up,” she murmurs to the cat.
The cat jumps down with a mew, beckoning Ana to follow. She does. At the staircase, it pauses. Ana crouches, rubbing behind its ears. “Thank you, little one.” The cat watches her go, eyes steady and knowing.
Ana climbs up and up, higher than she’s ever gone. At last, she arrives at the uppermost level of the library. Great domed windows open to a star-freckled sky.
A soft ticking draws her focus. A grandfather clock stands near the wall—6 a.m., but its hands do not move, as if time itself has frozen. Opposite it, on a low table near the balcony, rests a book: rich indigo, embossed with a delicate floral pattern.
Outside, the sky shifts to deep purple, soon to be brushed with rose as sunrise nears.
Ana feels a flutter in her chest—something between anticipation and yearning. The clock hands begin to move. She reaches for the book, finding a bookmark tucked inside. With trembling fingers, she opens it.
Her mother, Clara – young but weary – cradles a 3-month-old Ana, smiling as she nurses. In the quiet of the moment, she speaks in her thoughts to her daughter.
“You’re so small. This warm little weight curled against me, like you still think we’re one person. You lived inside me for so long, and now you’re here. The cord is cut, but somehow, you’re still tethered to me in a way deeper than anything I’ve ever known.
The world feels too sharp sometimes, even cruel. The evening news is full of horrors, and all I can think is—let it never be you. Your existence has awakened a ferocious protectiveness I never knew I had. I’ve known love—but never like this.
I’m scared I won’t be enough. That I’ll make the wrong choices before you get the chance to make your own. I just hope I don’t pass down the same scars that were passed down to me. But more than anything, I hope I can raise you to feel loved. To feel valued, confident, and free to become whoever you’re meant to be. I don’t hope for what you’ll become—that’s not my decision. I just want to give you options, to open doors that were closed to me.
This love isn’t a feeling—it’s a force. It demands everything of me, a total willingness to sacrifice—even my life—to keep you safe. And I give myself to you gladly.”
Placing the book back down on the table, Ana lowers her gaze to her rounded belly—the swell of new life stirring within. She presses her palms to it, tenderly. In that moment, she feels it all: the same fierce love, the same tangled rush of fears and hopes her own mother once carried.
The sun begins to rise, stirring tangerine into the sky. Ana’s time in the library is ending, but she no longer feels lost or afraid.
Nora, Etain, Clara—each word Ana has read is a thread, weaving her into the ancestral tapestry of women who came before her. Women who were born, who lived, who suffered and cried, who laughed and loved, who gave birth, who died. Every moment—every life—necessary for Ana to stand here now.
These women are written in her bones. They live in every cell of her body. Their memories, their flaws, their strengths have been folded into her, passed down like sacred stories carved into skin. She understands now that she doesn’t need the library to know them. Ana herself is the archive of all they have endured and dreamed.
And one day, her own daughter may walk these halls, searching for Ana in the flicker of lantern light, the rustle of pages. And when she does, Ana will be waiting—her story tucked away in a book, ready to be found.
