“If she was she did not confide such information in me,” the man responds. “Your full name, Mister Keating?”
“Simon Jonathan Keating.”
The man inscribes it in the ledger.
“You may call me the Keeper,” the man says. “What did you roll?”
“Pardon?”
“Your dice, in the antechamber.”
“Oh, they were all little crowns,” Simon explains, recalling the dice on the pedestal. He had tried to see the other pictures but only made out a heart and feather.
“All of them?” the Keeper asks.
Simon nods.
The Keeper frowns and marks the ledger, the quill scratching along the paper. The cat on the desk lifts a paw to bat at it.
The Keeper puts down the quill to the cat’s chagrin and walks to a cabinet on the other side of the room.
“Initial visits are best kept short, though you are welcome back at any time.” The Keeper hands Simon a chain with a locket on the end. “This will point you to the entrance if you lose your way. The elevator will return you to your cottage.”
Simon looks at the compass in his hand. The needle spins in the center. My cottage, he thinks.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Do please let me know if I can be of any assistance.”
“May I leave this here?” Simon holds up the broom.
“Of course, Mister Keating,” the Keeper says, gesturing at the wall by the door. Simon leans the broom against it.
The Keeper returns to his desk. The cat yawns.
Simon walks out of the office and watches the pendulum.
He wonders if he is asleep and dreaming.
He takes a book from a stack near the wall and puts it down again. He wanders down a hallway lined with curving shelves so the books surround him at all angles, like a tunnel. He cannot tell how the ones above his head manage not to fall.
He tries opening doors. Some are locked but many open, revealing rooms filled with more books, chairs and desks and tables with bottles of ink and bottles of wine and bottles of brandy. The sheer volume of books intimidates him. He does not know how one would choose what to read.
He hears more people than he sees, footsteps and whispers close but unseen. He spots a figure in a white robe lighting candles and a woman so absorbed in the book she is reading that she does not look up as he passes.
He walks through a hall filled with paintings, all images of impossible buildings. Floating castles. Mansions melded together with ships. Cities carved into cliffs. The books around them all seem to be volumes on architecture. A corridor leads him to an amphitheater where actors appear to be rehearsing Shakespeare. He recognizes it as King Lear, though the parts have been reversed so there are three sons with a tremendous old woman as their mother descending into madness. Simon watches for some time before wandering on.
There is music playing somewhere, a pianoforte. He follows the sound but cannot locate its source.
Then a door catches his eye. A wardrobe overflowing with books has been placed partially in front of it, leaving it half hidden or half found.
The door wears a brass image of a heart aflame.
The doorknob turns easily when Simon tries it.
A long wooden table occupies the center of the room, strewn with papers and books and bottles of ink but in a way that invites new work rather than suggesting work interrupted. Pillows are strewn about on the floor and over a chaise longue. On the chaise longue there is also a black cat. It stands and stretches and jumps down, leaving through the door that Simon has opened.
“You are quite welcome,” he calls after the cat but the cat says nothing and Simon returns his attention to the now catless room.