Books are magic portals to other worlds, places where hope never dies, where loneliness doesn't exist, and great love truly happens.
Siena believed it wholeheartedly.
Siena also believed that disappearing into books, freeing her soul into the parallel worlds she was reading about, leaving her body, the imperfect, inadequate shell trapping her spirit in her everyday life behind, vanishing from reality for hours on end, was something of her special power. She considered the huge number of books she had read the only peculiar thing about herself. Siena didn't see herself as pretty or awesome, but she was well-read in her own opinion, possibly knowledgeable...
The problem was that no one she had ever met thought that her bibliophilia and bookish wisdom was anything special, or interesting; the amount of men who strolled into her life and then walked away, yawning, after the second, sixth, or the twelfth date was a good enough proof. The number of both the men and the disappointment and heartbreak they brought with them was growing gradually, and she was only twenty-three... if it continued this way... No, she didn't want to think about the count she would hit upon reaching forty.
Sighing, Siena closed the book she had devoured in the three hours since she returned home from work; the contemporary books seemed to be always getting shorter. She should reread The Count of Monte Cristo next, or War and Peace, those would last longer than The Fault in Our Stars.
Wiping the last tears lurking in the corners of her eyes, she pushed her reading blanket to the side and stood up from her cosy reading armchair, stretching all the muscles in her body that had gone to sleep during her long reading session. She walked across her sitting room towards one of its four walls lined with a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, made-to-measure bookcase, depositing the latest victim of her book-vampirism on top of the shortest pile of books, coming only up to her knee, composed of the volumes that had already spilt from the over-filled, white, wooden shelves. She needed more books. But first, she should get another bookcase, and before that, a bigger flat to store them all... She could always move to her grandmother's old house, lying empty and abandoned in the Tuscan countryside, if only it wasn't so far from the city centre and the high school where she worked.
If you continue at this pace in this flat, you'll bury yourself inside under all these books, that's that, she thought, jumping at the sudden sound of the cat flap reaching her from the front door, pulling her, at last, entirely back into reality. The noise was followed instantly by the appearance and a miaowed hello from Dante, her enormous, ginger tomcat, who, curiously resisting the gravity's pull, floated fluidly towards her across the tops of the piles of books, not upsetting one.
"You're the best duster in the world, Dante," she told the purring orange ball as it jumped in her arms from the closest, trembling pile of printed pages. "But that's not the reason I love you, I hope you know that. Let's feed you, shall we?"
Dante miaowed in acquiesce, allowing his human to carry him into the kitchen on her shoulder, his ginger fur creating a stark contrast next to her long, honey-blonde hair.
Even as Siena switched on the lights in the kitchen, noticing for the first time that night had descended upon the word outside while she was lost in her book, her phone rang, making her deposit Dante unceremoniously-- his bright blue eyes watching her with haughty indignation-- on the tiled floor, and rush back into the book-crowded sitting room, towards the armchair where she could see the phone's display shine through the white layer of her blanket, stumbling over one of the book piles in the semi-darkness, inwardly cursing her uncatlike clumsiness.
She stared at her phone, surprised into a silent, almost petrified state of motionlessness long after the call had ended, stirring back to life only when Dante jumped on her lap, and pawed her thighs painfully in demand of the promised meal.
James pressed the palms of his hands to his ears and closed his eyes, waiting for the phone to stop ringing.
He knew that he was almost running late with his article for the small local magazine in Inverness, but they would not help by calling to reminding him, scattering his inspiration, twice a day, for goodness sake. He came to live here, to this ancient stone cottage on the shore of Loch Ness from the stifling, overcrowded Edinburgh on purpose; he needed peace and silence.
James had accepted the Inverness job to pay his bills and food, but he didn't care about it beyond that. He had moved here to fulfil his life-long dream, to write a book about the Lochness Monster.
Noticing that the phone had finally stopped ringing, he removed the hands from his ears and ran his fingertips in a gentle caress over the old-fashioned typewriter which he had bought in an antique shop and restored to working order. The internet connection out here by the lake was almost non-existent, and the electricity tended to disappear with every gust of wind. He felt safer when he did not have to rely on the modern technology, which this place seemed to purposely defy, and chose to write his book the old-fashioned way.
Dark clouds had gathered above the still placid waters of the mysterious lake while he had sat at his work, James could see them well through the small window the typewriter was facing. Another storm was coming...
Excitement frizzled through his veins just like the surge of electricity travelled through the air around him, the sound of thunder shaking all the window panes of the cottage as it chased after the sudden, brief slash of light that split the churning charcoal clouds, there and then gone before he could admire its unique shape.
James loved the place. It was pure and raw and wonderful, unspoiled by the civilisation.
And to be able to stay here, you need to keep your job, at least until you finish your book, he reminded himself.
Sighing, he lit a few candles set in the wrought iron arms of the candelabra placed next to the typewriter, absolutely certain that the electricity would vanish for hours on end with the next flash of lightning. He removed the barely started page of his book from the device and replaced it with the one holding his unfinished article for the magazine. His inspiration was gone; he could also work now.
But not before he checked all the gizmos and gadgets of his own invention that, immersed in the profound waters of the mystifying loch, monitored Nessie for him. Or better, they would once they detected its presence.
He stood up from his chair and stretched his stiff muscles, then walked towards the door across the stormy tenebrosity filling the room, stumbling, twice, over the piles of books lying everywhere around the small cottage.
"I need more bookshelves or a bigger house," he muttered as a book's sharp corner connected with his toes. Maybe he could invent something to store the books he had read in an orderly fashion out of his way, he mused even as his phone rang again before he could walk outside.
"Yes, I know, and I'll bring you the article down in time!" he called angrily even as he picked up, then remained silent, his features settling into a mask of confused incredulity as he listened, for a very long while, to whom ever was on the other end of the line.
"That's done," the old woman informed her spectators, a small, motley group of people, as she put the phone down. "Laura's granddaughter is perfectly oblivious, but I'm sure that William's son has guessed or has been told something... Let's send them the letters we promised, and the plane tickets, so we we can talk to them personally."
"And so, finally, we found our new couple of Book Travellers." A middle-aged man spoke from the midst of the people sitting in the semi-darkness flooding the large room, to whom the perfect cleanliness and order, and all the strange appliances displayed on the tables lining its walls, lent a hospital ward, or a laboratory feel.
"Yes," the old woman, Alicia, agreed on a sigh. Being a devoted member of the Bibliophile Society herself, she always felt as happy for the new Book Travellers, as she felt sorry for them. It wasn't the safe and easy existence the majority of the twenty-first century people led. But it was a special, inimitable life full of adventures. She herself had never regretted joining the Society when it had been proposed to her; she was only sorry that she wasn't a Traveller too.
Now, it was her duty to initiate their new couple, one of them being her best friend's granddaughter. Would she find as much happiness and fulfilment in this life as her grandmother had? the old woman wondered.
Alicia couldn't wait to meet the young woman, and the man whom the destiny chose to become her partner.
She truly hoped that they would be happy.