Roey looked sulkily into her bedroom mirror. She turned around, scrutinizing her nose from every angle, but whichever direction she faced her nose, slightly resembling a ski slope, looked the same to her. It wasn’t that Roey actively disliked the way she looked; just her nose. When you got down to it, she was actually quite pretty, and she knew it. Her flowing, fiery red hair could not match her personality better. Next came her favorite feature: her eyes. Dark brown, nearly black, and combined with her hair, they gave her an almost magical look. But, being human, she always saw the worst in herself and could only focus on her nose, her other features becoming unimportant and of no consolation. Roey sighed in frustration, feeling a little guilty. How could she be so shallow? She had much bigger problems to deal with than her looks. She made her way over to her bed. Out from under her white bed with pink trim, which she was about seven years too old for, she pulled a large book. It was thick and heavy, bound with leather. The pages inside were yellow with age, but being no expert, she could put no number on its years. The writing was not from a computer or a typewriter, but written by hand, with ink and quill, she imagined. There was no name, no one to take credit for all the work they had done. Strangest of all, though, Roey thought, was that there was no title. She had checked over and over through the whole book, but no miraculous change occurred. The cover was that of the type of book Roey would have expected to be engraved with gold letters, but that was not the case. The writing was not from a computer or a typewriter, but written by hand, with ink and quill Roey climbed into her bed and pulled the covers up. She opened the book and could hear the stiff binding crackle as a small trickle of dust came down on her. The discovery of the nameless book had been exciting. There was a minimal amount of books in Paristile. People referred to them as books, but in Roey’s mind they barely qualified. Pamphlets, a historic account of the formation of Paristile, a book of laws, dictionaries, and thesauruses—they weren’t books, though, merely resources. Roey’s definition of a book was something that made you think, made you question, made you wonder. None of these could even begin to make your mind work in the way that her new-found treasure did. Although she loved to read, this was a rare opportunity. It was usually herself and her writing she had to rely on for a bit of creativity. Roey had no idea how she could have overlooked the book so many times, but perhaps it had not always been there. Two nights ago, as she had been climbing into bed, she saw its unfamiliar spine mixed in with a pile of a few other so-called books on her bedside table. How it got there was beyond her. For some reason she decided not to tell her family. Mainly this was because she didn’t want to deal with the inevitable questions from her parents that would follow her vague explanation. “How old is it?” and “Where did it come from?” She felt strange answering questions on a topic she hardly knew anything about. But maybe the questions were what she longed for, what she wanted so desperately to hear. Her sister, Mouse, had been born with insatiable curiosity. You could see in her eyes the longing to explore the world around her the day she was born. Her name was actually Marguerite, but Roey had started calling her by the pet name she’d come up with years ago. When Marguerite was little she always wanted to know what was in cupboards or on counters, and so she would poke her head in like a mouse. Now the bedroom in which the seven-year-old should be sleeping was empty. Instead of her cozy bed, Mouse slept deeply in a hospital bed, with no certainty of waking again. Roey couldn’t bare to face her absence, and mentioning the book to her parents and not being immediately flooded by questions from Mouse would be too much. She would have to truly acknowledge the fact that her little sister may never come home. Roey could never forget a particular day, about two years ago. The memory of Mouse brought a smile to her face, in spite of everything. It had been Mouse’s fifth birthday. Roey could see pure delight on Mouse’s face as Mom brought in a beagle puppy She had never expected such an amazing surprise, and Roey, looking at the huge grin on the little girl’s face, was ecstatic seeing her sister so happy. Mouse had always been grateful for what she had, Roey knew. The littlest things, Mouse had always acknowledged, and it didn’t take much to earn her trust, her love, her gratitude. She had always admired how open Mouse was, never judgmental; Roey wished she could accept everyone that way. But Roey realized that all this happy memory meant now was that Mouse may never smile again. Roey had pushed these thoughts out of her head many times already, and once again attempted to shake them from her mind. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t an issue, everything would be fine; the book was here now, that was the important thing. Roey replaced her dreadful feelings with the words of the book-with-no-name as she began to read. She was able to make out most of the handwritten words without difficulty. As the setting was described, Roey painted a picture of it in her mind. It seemed no different from her own world of Paristile, with nothing particularly distinguishable from any other place. Roey must have dozed off at some point. As she was reading, she was engrossed in the words,
By Nadezh Mulholland, Illustrated by Jessye Holmgren-Sidell