It was an act of nature. Or God. Or fate. Perhaps all three. What everyone did know was that the tree had crashed onto the roof of one house and tipped up the foundations of the other. It had stood between those two homes for just over sixty years and with the disregard that nature has for walls-as-boundaries had sunk its roots deep into the ground of one property and curved itself over the gables of the other. The two houses had been locked in a no-speaking spell for almost thirty years. A slight had passed between the oldest man of each house - who had said what had been lost somewhere in the dim decades of the argument, but the cudgels of the fight had been taken up with great enthusiasm by the next generation (and the next). A promising friendship between the youngest daughters of each family broke off, the sons began ignoring each other when they backed out of the driveway, the children obeyed the cement line between the two properties as though it were an electric fence.

Fary was very, very moving. Her voice was soft, like the lapping of the river against fishermen’s canoes on quiet mornings. Fary’s smile was the dawn, her ass round as dunes in the Lompoul desert. Fary had eyes that were both doe and lioness. At times an earth-shattering tornado, at others an ocean of tranquility. God’s truth, I would have lost Mademba’s friendship to win Fary’s love. Luckily, Fary chose me over Mademba. Luckily, my morethan-brother deferred to me. It was because Fary chose me in front of everyone that Mademba stepped aside.

While his father scanned the shelves, sliding the books one by one into the gaps from which they’d come, Bird ran his fingertips over the embossed spines where gilt lettering had long been rubbed away, breathing in the peculiar smell of the library: a mix of dust and leather and melted vanilla ice cream. Warm, like the scent of someone’s skin.

It soothed him and unsettled him at the same time, the murky hush like a wool blanket thrown over everything. Underneath, something large lying in wait. It never ended, the stacks of books needing to be set back in place, the constant insistent reiteration of order, and the thought was dizzying: that just beyond this shelf there were hundreds more, thousands of books, millions of words.

She was always doing that, telling him stories. Prying open cracks for magic to seep in, making the world a place of possibility. After she left, he had stopped believing all those fantasies. Wispy, false dreams that disintegrated in the morning’s light. Now it occurs to him that, perhaps, there might be truth in them after all.

It takes him a long time, but he finds it. Pressed down into the dirt, teeth edged with rust. But it is there, hard and solid and real in his hand. It still fits in the lock, still clicks when he turns it, still draws the bolt back so he can turn the knob and step through.

She grew larger. From within, Bird thrummed against her: his heels the mallets, her belly the drum. She could feel his hiccups, a microscopic ping. When he turned over, she felt the movement inside her stillness. What’s it feel like, Ethan asked, wondrous, and she tried to explain: what the ocean floor felt as the waves rolled out, then in. The librarian slid another book across the counter toward her as she ventured farther and farther from shore.