a walk to the midnight library. You've gotten in your car and driven to the edge of the

village. The main road has narrowed. Forests, pastureland and old farms dock the dimming distance.

Whatever life has had to offer you, whatever reality has forced you to have laid,

you're looking for something different. A mood, a setting, the warmth and chill of beings of a different

nature. You turn on to a nameless lonely old road marked only by a small wooden sign that

illuminates when your headlights catch it. Its deeply carved script reads, this way to the midnight library.

The damp gravel road rolls out before you as you drive for a while, not aware of your thoughts.

Tall, patient pines stand like soldiers guarding the way. The formation of pines gives way to a

clearing, an open rectangle of low brambles and pale weeds. Even if there weren't already several

cars parked here, you would know instinctively to stop. You pull into a patch alongside a rusty

Chevy, with briars now reaching across its hood and whiting their way around its bent aerial antenna.

The windows are blurred with a blue milky film. All four tires are flat.

You cut your engine and relax behind the wheel for a moment, trying to push the question of what

you're even doing here from your thoughts. Two figures in dull coats can be seen walking into a

random space at the brink of the gray green woods. You stare, blink with slow resolution and open

your door. A rush of steamy twilight air engulfs you before you step from the vehicle.

You breathe in sugar pine, bellwort, and wild ginger, and head towards the woods.

Unsure if you've chosen the same entrance as the featureless fellows, you let the cool grove draw

you inside. A group of crows take flight as you walk, they're complaining cause, echo, and then

echo again, as to remind you twice that you've disturbed them. You make believe the way ahead is

fitted with an obvious path. A soft glowing ribbon of fog threads its way around, hugging the

trunks of the leaf trees and sinking into the beds of red ferns. You pause to check if you've heard

...