The floor between

There was no fifth staircase. There was, however, a landing that Mara had crossed forty-six times without noticing the narrow door beside the fire extinguisher.

That night, the door was painted blue.

She tried the smallest key. It turned with the polite click of somebody setting down a cup.

Inside was a room no bigger than a railway carriage. Shelves stood against three walls. A desk faced the east window. On it were the amber lamp and a biscuit tin full of pencils sharpened to almost nothing.

An elderly woman sat behind the desk, mending a torn page.

“You’re late,” she said.

“For what?”

“For asking. Your predecessor took eleven years.”

The woman introduced herself as Elin. She had been the library’s first children’s librarian, a long time ago, although she waved away Mara’s attempt to establish exactly how long.

“Time is useful downstairs,” she said. “Up here, it gets in the way.”

Mara placed the blue book on the desk. Its cover felt warm.

“Does it tell the future?”

“Only the small things people are about to lose.”

On the shelves were books of every color. One contained the words a father had forgotten how to say to his daughter. Another held the name of a childhood friend. A thin red volume contained a recipe that no living member of a family had thought to write down.

“People think libraries keep what has already been remembered,” Elin said. “We also make a little room for what nearly wasn’t.”

Mara picked up a gray book. Inside was a picture of the library itself. The east window was dark.

“When does this happen?”

Elin put down her needle.

“When the last person who needs this room decides they have nothing worth keeping.”

Outside, rain tapped the window. Downstairs, one of the radiators clicked.

Mara thought of the woman’s envelope. She thought of Ivo, asleep over his notes. She thought of the bus carrying the old caretaker home.

“How do we stop it?”

Elin slid a blank book across the desk.

“We ask a better question.”