Here and there in front of her, figures stand at tables or sit in armchairs. On the tiers above, others peruse shelves or lean on railings or climb or descend the ladders. And through the air, for as far as she can see, books—some as small as her hand, some as big as the mattress on which she sleeps—are flying, lifting off shelves, returning to them, some flitting like songbirds, some lumbering along like big ungainly storks.

For a moment she simply stands and looks, speechless. Never has she stood in a space remotely this large. Dr. Pori the mathematics teacher—only his hair is rich and black, not silver, and looks wet and dry at the same time—slips down a ladder to her right, skipping every other rung like an athletic young man, and lands neatly on both feet. He winks at her; his teeth look milk white.

The yellow of Konstance’s worksuit is even more vibrant than it was in Compartment 17. The spot of syrup is gone.

Mrs. Flowers marches toward her from a long way off, a little white dog trotting at her heels. She’s a cleaner, younger, brighter Mrs. Flowers, with clear hazel eyes and mahogany hair cut in a professorial bob, and she wears a skirt and blazer that are the deep green of living spinach, and on one breast golden stitching reads, Head Librarian.

Konstance bends over the little dog: its whiskers twitch; its black eyes shine; its fur, when she puts her fingers in it, feels like fur. She almost laughs from the joy of it.

“Welcome,” says Mrs. Flowers, “to the Library.”

She and Konstance start down the length of the atrium. Various crew members glance up from tables and smile as they pass; a few conjure balloons that say IT’S YOUR LIBRARY DAY and Konstance watches them sail up through the aperture into the sky.

The spines of the books closest to them are teal and maroon and imperial purple and some look slender and delicate and others resemble great legless tabletops stacked on shelves. “Go on,” says Mrs. Flowers, “you can’t damage them,” and Konstance touches the spine of a little one and it rises and opens in front of her. From its onionskin pages, three daisies grow, and in the center of each glow the same three letters, M C V.

“Some are quite bewildering,” says Mrs. Flowers. She taps it and it closes and flits back to its place. Konstance gazes down the line of bookshelves to where the atrium fades into the distance.

“Does it go on—?”

Mrs. Flowers smiles. “Only Sybil could say for sure.”