Page 37 of The Labyrinth

Rissa took a tentative step inside. Then another. I wasn’t sure what was going on inside her mind, but I so badly wanted to know. She spun in a circle, taking it all in. Eventually, when I was certain she was going to remain silent, she spoke. “We had a library in the village,” she whispered. “But it was a shelf of books in the school. I didn’t…I didn’t think this many books existed.”

“I thought…” I trailed off, wondering what it was I thought. “I thought you might like something to do. There are all kinds of books here. My father kept every book he could find after the Fall. Fiction, history, even some romance, if that’s what you’d like.”

Rissa walked away from me, toward one of the walls. She reached out her hand, brushing her fingertips across their spines. “I can’t believe this is real. That all these books are here.” She turned to face me, a wry smile across her face. “We had one fiction book in Ironforge. The rest were biographies, or science books about the land. It was a pirate story, about people who used to sail on giant things called ships on big bodies of waters called oceans. Can you imagine? Having enough water that a ship could float on it?” She shook her head, the waves of her hair swishing every which way. “I dreamed about being a pirate. Sailing around on a ship on all that water, having all of that freedom. It must have been incredible.”

I nodded, watching her with a quiet curiosity, a wonder spreading through my chest. “It must have been.”

I wanted to say more, to ask her a question, but she had already turned her attention back to the books, reading the spines of purples and reds, blues and greens. My father didn’t discriminate when he collected books. Anything was worthy of his collection. He loved his collection more than anything—even me. I let her explore, staying silent as she picked up this book and that book, thumbing through the pages.

“Did you know this one has your name on it?”

I cocked my head to the side. “What do you mean?” I knew some of the books had my father’s name inscribed on them, Danson Furie, carefully lettered in his fine script. But she wouldn’t recognize that as my father.

“This book.Tennyson’s Poetry.” She held it out to me, a small, worn black cover with gold lettering.

I fought back a smile, even as my heart cracked. Of course she had found that one. “Alfred Tennyson was my father’s favorite poet. He named me after him.”

Rissa poked her head up from the book with wide eyes. “You’re named after a poet?”

I nodded. “I am.”

I expected her to ask another question, to question more why such a terrible man had the name of a poet who created beauty. She simply turned back to the book, and started to read. She held the book to her face, wandering to the closest chair and sinking down, curling her legs up beneath her. Like a moth to the flame, I followed. “What he writes of…it’s a world I don’t know,” she whispered. “The world I know isn't beautiful like this. It’s dark, and bad things happen to good people, and it's not filled with pretty words like this.”

I bent, taking the book gently from her hands. “His words are pretty, yes, but he isn’t just writing about beautiful things, deliciae. Listen.” I flipped the pages to a poem I knew well, one my father made me memorize when I was too young.

O Sorrow,cruel fellowship,

O Priestess in the vaults of Death,

O sweet and bitter in a breath,

What whispers from thy lying lip?

'The stars,'she whispers, `blindly run;

A web is wov'n across the sky;

From out waste places comes a cry,

And murmurs from the dying sun;

'And all the phantom,Nature, stands—

With all the music in her tone,

A hollow echo of my own,—

A hollow form with empty hands.'

And shallI take a thing so blind,

Embrace her as my natural good;

Or crush her, like a vice of blood,

Upon the threshold of the mind?

I looked downto see her staring up at me with the roundest eyes. I couldn’t decipher the emotion in them, because it seemed to be a combination of them all. I saw affection and sorrow, sadness and understanding. It was a complete conflict I understood all too well because I experienced them on a daily basis. And now, here was the most perfect, stunning, wondrous creature sitting before me, reflecting the deepest of my emotions back to me, like a mirror I didn’t wish to look upon. Rissa was so good, too good, far better than what I deserved, and yet she was here, waiting for me to speak, to acknowledge this moment passing between us. No words would come. No reassurances passed my lips.

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