An awning, an ice cream shop, a pizza restaurant, a parking garage. The lake is dotted with boats and kayaks. Traffic is stopped in a line up and down the road. No sign that a public library inside a rickety old blue house was ever here.

She turns in a half circle and stands beside the teenagers, a wave of hopelessness rearing behind her. Her notes on the floor of the vault, her trips along Backline Road, her discovery of Scheria, the book on her Father’s night table—all this investigation was supposed to lead her somewhere. It felt like a puzzle she was supposed to solve. But she’s no closer to understanding her father than she was when he locked her in the vault.

She’s about to leave when she notices, on the southwest corner of the intersection, a squat cylindrical box that has been painted to look like an owl with its wings pressed to its sides. PLEASE RETURN BOOKS HERE, it says on the door. On the owl’s breast:

LAKEPORT PUBLIC LIBRARY

“OWL” YOU NEED ARE BOOKS!

Its two big amber eyes seem almost to track her as she approaches.

They tore down the old library, built a new one at the edge of town, but left a box behind where people could return books? For decades?

From a certain angle, one of the kids on the corner seems to be walking right into the box, as though it was not there when the kids were imaged. Strange.

The owl’s feathers are exquisitely detailed. Its eyes look wet and alive.

… and her eyes, they grew three times as large and turned the color of liquid honey…

The book drop box, she realizes, like the coconut palms that stopped her in Nigeria, or the emerald lawn and blooming trees in front of the public hall in Nannup, looks more vibrant than the building behind it—more vivid than the ice cream parlor or the pizza place or the four kids caught by the Atlas cameras. The owl’s feathers almost quiver as Konstance reaches for them. Her fingertips strike something solid and her heart thumps.

The handle of the door feels like metal: cold, firm. Real. She grabs it and pulls. It starts to snow.

FIFTEEN

THE GUARDIANS AT THE GATES

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio O

… through the gateposts I could glimpse twinkling jewels in the pavements, and what appeared to be a steaming river of broth. Round the towers above, birds flew in rainbow-colored flocks, bright green, purple, crimson. Was I dreaming? Had I really arrived? After so many miles, after so much ·[believing?]· still my heart doubted what my eyes saw.