Such was the event that occurred for Richard MacDermott. Things at his job had become intolerable. He was a design engineer for the Waterton Ship Yard. His job was to design expansions for docks, slips and breakwaters. He long ago realized his job was already like a worn out shoe and felt as if both feet had blisters.
He looked forward to any scrap of free time to get as far away from his drawing board as humanly possible. So when he prevailed upon his employer, Jim Wilkins to let him borrow his sail boat for a long weekend sail, Richard wasted no time setting off with all of his provisions and sailing gear carefully loaded on board.
The day he set sail was no less than glorious, a bright blue canopy of sky with fluffy, billowy clouds and nothing ahead but miles and miles of North Sea as far as the eye could see.
He mustn't have realized how the stressfulness of his job exhausted him. He began to feel drowsy and even though he ignored Jim Wilkins' warning to take an experienced sailing partner along, Richard craved solace.
He felt he was a good enough sailor since his ancestors in his mother and father's families had sailors back several generations, to manage alone.
His feeling of drowsiness made it difficult for him to stay alert.
At some point, his drowsy hazel eyes missed the heavy gray clouds just ahead over the open sea.
By the time he noticed and was awakened by a wet mist on his face, a wild wind whipped the sails. Richard quickly grabbed the rudder. But cold, hard wind made the boom spin out of control. He tried to secure it. Instead, a covetous gust sent it directly for his head, toppling him on the slippery wet deck knocking him unconscious
He didn't know how long he was unconscious or how far off course the boat sailed. He counted himself lucky that it beached rather than sank, his fear of drowning notwithstanding.
He wondered where he was. He heard the lapping of sea water againt the boat's bottom and figured he was in a shallow.
He climbed out and pulled the tow line so the boat was less likely to be carried out to sea and there being only sandy beach, he hurried to find driftwood to pile enough to secure the anchor. Instead of small pieces of driftwood, he found just what he was after, a large tree trunk that washed ashore.
Richard glanced back at the roiling sea and up at the dark, billowing clouds moving inland. He knew he needed to take shelter. He only wished he knew where he was. He didn't bother to take a compass reading since when he set saiol he planned to let the sea calm his nerves.
Now, he realized why a sailor should never ignore compass readings.
He rested a while on the beach until the dark clouds burst forth with rain drops the size of sour apples. He ran as fast as he could up the incline of the beachhead, when he spotted a grove of large trees and a seemingly forgotten path.
To the left of the narrowing path, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a large house.
"Good. Maybe I can ask for help," he muttered to himself.
He bounded up several stone steps to a small landing that led to another set of stairs and a front door that looked as old and weather worn as the house.
He thought about how such close proximity to the sea always took their toll on shingles and roof tops.
He shrugged for a moment and politely pulled on the lion's head door knocker.
The loud bang it made as the upper brass ring struck the plate attached to the door startled him.
"Well the occupants surely will hear that." He laughed to humself.
He waited a full minute. No one answered his knock. He tried again, assuming the people may be asleep. It was, after all, still early morning.
By the time he tried knocking for the third time, he began to feel exasperated.
He tried the door knob. It had begun to rust.
"Strange. If the door knob is beginning to rust, maybe the house is abandoned."
Very cautiously, he turned the knob. The door creaked as it slowly swung open.
Richard noticed the odor of mold old houses always seem to emit.
"Is anyone here?" he called.
No response.
He walked from the flagstone foyer into the great room at his right. The furnishings were covered in sheets. The fireplace mantel had not be dusted and the photo of a family was so dusty he had to brush it away to see the faces.
There was a tall, dark haired man, a woman who was probably his wife and a youhg girl all arm in arm in front of the massive, dominating fireplace.
He surmised the photo was probably taken at least two decades ago judging from the style of their clothes.
Richard realized the house was abandoned and it gave him a chill.
What if that family was murdered? The house was located within walking distance of the beach. Just as he was beached in a storm other unsavory characters could have washed ashore and found this house.
"Then, why cover the furniture in sheets?" he laughed to himself, realzing another more practical reason made more sense.
The wild wind lashed furiously against the house and created an odd, icy draft. He wondered if he dared light the fireplace. There was enough wood in the wood pantry next to the fireplace.
He figured if someone saw the smoke curling from the chimney, it might bring him inquisitive visitors.
He purposefully stacked a small pile of kindling and lit a fire under it. As soon as that took flame, he added wood.
The wood and kindling were so dry, they burned quickly. Richard had to pile more wood on.
He went into the large kitchen to look for a glass of water to wet the wood a little so it wouldn't burn so quickly.
He was surprised that the table had been set for three; but, the dishes were unused. There was a large stew pot on the stove that was also unused.
This made Richard wonder even more about the 3 people who once lived there.They must have been in a hurry to leave.
He considered the possibility they left due to a storm surge that brought the sea inland and they chose to evacuate.
He would later discover he was right about a storm, just not why they left.
Richard found there was still a few tinned goods in the pantry and a cannister of tea.
"Oh boy could I use a hot cup of tea? It's so cold in here."
He put the kettle on after having to let the faucet run free of brown water, The stove still had enough gas to make a pot of tea.
He filled the pot, placed it on the tea tray with a china cup and saucer he found in a cabinet and headed back to the living room.
He glanced around the room trying to imagine who had occupied the house and why it was abandoned.
He didn't realize how exhausted he was. He curled up in front of the fireplace and slept so soundly and didn't wake up until he heard a clap of thunder and saw lightening blazing across the large bay window of the great room.
The fire burned down to glowing embers. He rose, stretched and yawned.
WEhen he was still half asleep, he saw it must still daylight because the sky had begun to lighten somewhat.
He felt hungry and wondered if there was anything edible in the kitchen pantry. He found only tinned fish which was not what he had in mind for his first meal since sun up when he set sail.
Any of the provisions aboard the sailboat would likely be water logged from the storm and winds.
"Oh well. I guess I'll wash up and head into town."
The town was as abandoned as the house and any hope of finding a small cafe or coffee shop was not likely. The town was really only a small village. He poked his head into various shops.
Where was everyone?
With the storm gradually receding, Richard was ravenous. All he found for sustenance was an empty shop that had a few shelves of tinned goods. He grabbed a tin of coffee, some powedered milk, a box of groats and sugar.
He felt guilty about leaving without paying; but, he lost his wallet when the sailboat beached.
He reminded himself to search for it later in the day.
He never got around to it.
He found an empty mansion at the edge of town he hoped would at least have a caretaker. It was quite elegant and imposing.
All he wanted was access to the kitchen to make himself a light meal.
He opened the large entry doors cautiously. He called out. There was no response. He wandered around until he found the huge kitchen. It too looked as if it had not been in use for a long time.
Still, his hunger worsened. He reached for a small saucepan to make himself porridge with the groats. He guessed at how much water was needed. At least, the tap water here wasn't brown.
He found the larder pretty empty except for several boxes of rice, tinned beans and sausage links.
"Better help myself to those goods. It may be all there is for supper."
Richard finished his meager meal and decided to have a look around. Who would abandon such a lavish place he wondered.
By late afternoon, he tired of the mansion's musty odor and figured the place at some point in time had become a museum.
He wandered around the small village until he came to what was obviously a library. He peered inside. It too was empty.He hoped he might learn something about this empty little village the storm had brought him to.
There had to be a reason for an entire village to be abandoned. It couldn't have been some kind of chemical or gas attack because there were no bodies lying about.
He walked inside the building.
"It surely is a library," he muttered to himself.
He was awed by the fact that every wall from floor to ceiling was lined with book shelves.
"There must be several hundred books in here."
He noted he'd begun to speak aloud more frequently given the absence of others.
He saw there were several levels, three to be exact and that each level was accessed by three separate spiral staircases.
It didn't miss his notice that one of the three was relatively older than its two counterparts.
He surmised two newer staircases may have been added in the past decade or two.
The wood embellishments were still highly polished and had not dulled with age.
He looked around the book shelves on the ground floor. Many appeared to be biographies of village families.
He wondered aloud how an abandoned village could have had so many residents as to even fill up the three book shelves.
Where did they all go? Who were they and why did they leave?
The odd thing about the library was that it was so well kept. Not a speck of
dust anywhere in sight. The wood floor, though old, looked as if there had never been any foot traffic. Whoever built the library spared no expense to install heavy oak planks for flooring.
He could still smell the oak scent, even with the stuffiness of the indoor air.
Actually, there was another odor pervading the library coming from the books. It smelled like a bale of wet paper. Yet, there was no sign of mold or mildew from dampness or damage from water.
The inside of the library was almost a if it was hermetically sealed.
Outside of a few odd cold spots, the temperature inside was mostly ambient by comparison to the weather outside.
He glanced at the large window that had a window seat with book shelves beneath it. As if a visitor could sit for a time and read at their pleasure.
He saw the three spiral staircases, the two more recently added had a dizzying effect when looking upward from the ground floor.
"Why add new stairs to an abandoned building in an abandoned town?"
He could see from his vantage point the library's three levels, each with hundreds of books lining shelves, seemed to reach the ornately colored, mosaic ceiling.
The three spiral staircases gave access to the two upper levels of the building.
He climbed the oldest, probably original, spiral staircase. It began to wobble violently as he reached the first curve of the stairs. He hurried back down in case the entire older staircase sent him plunging to the first level.
He was determined to see what lay above on the two upper levels. He tried the spiral staircase nearest the large window. It seemed sturdier than the first one. He reached the second level and it was like an optical illusion, as if he stepped into one of those distortion mirrors.
He gripped the railing tightly, feeling somewhat dizzy and disoriented.
This next level was unexpectedly sparse except for hundreds more books.
He saw that many of the books were family histories. He pulled one off the shelf and felt as if his hand was stuck in an electric outlet.
He quickly put the book back. and hurried down the stairs.
His hand was reddened and felt sharp spasms. He refused to let that stop him from exploring.
He decided to try the last set of spiral stairs that led to the third level. However, the library light inside became almost as foggy as a sea mist. Just not damp as sea mist is.
Like a fierce warrior, hw hurried up the third set of stairs.
Oddly enough, unlike the other two stairs, the access to the third level was less dizzing.
It had fewer books than the other two levels.
Dare he risk getting another static electric shock?
Given the dim light inside the library, he soon was aware there was no electricity of any kind.
Who lives without electricity in this day and age? He wondered.
The other thing he noticed was that this level had no seating unlike the other two where one reading desk and several curved benches were attached to the walls.
He reached cautiously for a book. No static shock. The book appeared to be some kind of adventure novel by a lone author. In fact, it was non-fiction and chronicled the town's founder and his fanaticism for books.
Richard mused to himself that it explained the derth of books.
He settled down on the highly polished "dust free" floor and read on.
He learned George Harligen owned the abandoned mansion and built this also abandoned library. The pages of the book were curiously new when he thought such old books would have yellowed pages.
Richard found his eyes slowly getting heavier and heavier. Perhaps becuase of the deadly silence of the interior of the library, the overpowering mustiness, or simply due to his own lack of sleep.
When he awoke, he felt as if he was still asleep and dreamed he heard voices. He rose as the book on his lap fell to the floor with a loud echo he could hear throughtout the library.
Then, he thought he heard movement coming from around the book shelf.
"Who's there?" he called. The response was dead silence.
"I think I must leave this building. It has a peculiar effect on me."
He replaced the book only to notice several books looked as if they had been moved slightly from their resting place on the shelf.
As he glanced at each one briefly, he saw all of these books were family biographies. But the names of each family were clearly not of any notoriety.
He opened one, then another, and another.
All of the books has one link: they were all Harlingen families who lived in this strange, secluded village.
When he glnced through the last one, he saw that the family name was listed with the same address as the house he visited after being washed ashore.
His facial epression changed when he read that the chronological time when that family lived in that home was fairly recent. He guessed not more than a decade or 2.
Forgetting his former desire to flee and try to find some way to communicate with someone who would rescue him, he continued to read about this family.
A mother, father, daughter and son. It mentioned a terrible snow storm and the daughter being lost.
He read that the parents searched everywhere including the library.
There, the biogrography ended as if a door slammed shut.
"How odd?" he muttered to himself.
Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a young girl looking at him. Richard was thrilled. Now he would finally be rescued.
"Can you help me? he asked.
The figure remained silent. He rubbed his eyes.
"I must be imaging things."
"No. you are not imagining me," the yung gilr said, pointing to the book shelves.
"We are all here you see."
"We?"Richard asked.
\
"We, the people of this village. It's the library, you see. It became our refuge from storms. We ggathered here just as George Harlingen planned. You weren't tossed ashore by the storm. You were led to find a place among us."
"That's not possible."
"In this world, anything is possible"
"What do you mean this world?" Richard asked.
"Why the place we all go when we are lost and never found." she answered.
"We found you just as you found all of us."
"In books?" Richard asked.
"Quite. Have you never read a book and the characters in it seemed all too real? Well? We are real. "
"But I made it ashore. I found that house. I saw photos."
"And you did all that after you left the other world for this one. Just as I did and my parents and brother did when we were lost in the snow. We all came into this library for safety but we found the library was another world we had ventured into."
"So you're saying I'm dead? I imagined I was tossed ashore by the shore?"
"Many who live in these books felt as you do. Not really ready to be immortalized in literature."
"I'm just having a bad dream. I'll wake up and I'll be rescued."
\
"By whom?" she asked.
Richard panicked for the first time in his life. What if she was right? What if he was dead? What if he wasn't ever really dreaming?
\
It was true there were no inhabitants in this village that is so very secluded in a rocky inlet.
Richard McDermott suddenly felt as if his mind was swirkling like the angry sea.
Yet, he felt a strange sense of tranquility. Fate hunted him when things had become intolerable and brought him to an end where his story would be told in a book of his very own making.
He followed the young girl whose image seemed to fade as if she passed through a magic mirror.
"May the next restless soul find Harlingen Library" Richard thought.
"She will and she will find your book as you found ours." a chorus of voices said.
"
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