You have to shift several books in the box to get at this one. When you pull it out from the bottom of the box, the book on top of it comes out with it, slightly stuck to it. You carefully pull the upper book off the first one you were trying for, and place the upper book on top of the other books in the box.
Now that you have the first book out in the open, you see that it is a hardcover, but (like many of the books in this box) newer than many of the leather-bound volumes that you have seen in this room. The book falls open in your hand, to a picture of what appears to be sheet music to a melody, with no title and no caption.
Intrigued, a bit in spite of yourself, you turn to the title page. Underneath "More Infectious Than Girls' Laughter" in a very pretty but still readable font, it gives the publishers as "Mystic Inc." but does not list an author.
You flip through the book. It's not immediately clear what the book is actually about, but the pictures in the book are provocative. Most of them are not photographs, but are still photorealistic, and are done in a very fanciful style reminiscent of Maxfield Parrish or Michael Parkes.
One of the pictures is circular, and shows a dark scene of a house at the end of a high, winding road. One of the windows of the house has a light on in it, adding a suggestion of coziness, but what really makes the picture striking is the ring of birds' heads around the outer edge of the picture. Not put in afterward as a framing device, but part of the picture, as if a dozen or so birds had hovered in a vertical circle --- heads towards the inside and talons towards the outside, even though that means that some of them were impossibly hovering upside down --- in just the right position to all be decapitated by the putative camera lens. All the birds are facing you, and appear very intent on something.
Another picture shows a sunny meadow, filled with flowers. A single faun, panpipes in hand, stares slyly back at you.
Oddly, one page of this book, about a third of the way in, has a completely black rectangle for an image. It's as if someone meant to perhaps put a photo there, but the editors didn't notice that the picture was unexposed.
Another picture shows a woman levitating against a dark blue night sky. This picture actually has a caption: "Jean-Louis Jérome."
Several dozen pages later, the next image makes you inhale sharply. It shows a finely furnished room, with velvet draperies, paintings on the wall in heavy gilt frames, a long flowing tablecloth, a silver samovar, a bowl of grapes, and other things of that sort. On a chaise longue, looking completely relaxed in slumber, is one of the more beautiful women you have ever seen depicted anywhere.
Sleeping on her right side, she faces towards you. Her long red hair hangs over the edges of the chaise. Glorious red ringlets drip across her left cheek, not hiding the faint but contented smile that illuminates her young face. She wears a long diaphanous gown, and her skin is fair and unblemished, almost glowing with an inner light.
The most eye-catching aspect of the picture, however, is the way that the far wall of the room seems somehow to be pulled back or receding, without actually going anywhere. There is a sense of tension, as of a slingshot just poised to hit the target. it is one of the more intriguing optical effects you have ever seen on paper.
As you are regarding the young woman and the room she is in, she suddenly opens her eyes and appears to look directly at you! You are taken aback that the picture actually moves, right there in the page, and you hesitate. She pushes herself up on her arms and says something, but no sound reaches your ears. However, as soon as she does this, the book is torn out of your hands and flies across the library, landing on a closed crate and still managing somehow to remain open to the same place.
Brilliant white light streams out of the book. There is a gust of wind. You blink your eyes a few times, and the light is gone. In its place, feet resting firmly on a square of the wooden grid floor, stands the woman from the picture, as large as life and twice as self-assured. She looks around the room, and breathes in deeply.
Yes, this looks about right. Even the Numérot is here.
Her voice is high and sweet, and yet surprisingly loud against the library's hush. She is only about a meter and a quarter high, and she is barefoot. Her face looks even younger than it did in the picture, perhaps twenty years old. Seen full size, her eyes are remarkably large, and a deep sea-green color, in stark contrast to her red eyebrows and the paleness of her skin. Matching her eyes green for green is a large stone pendant that hangs between her breasts, strung on a silver chain and glinting in the light.
I knew someone would do it sooner or later.
You are torn between "Who are you?" "Where did you come from?" --- although the answer would appear to be "the room in the book" --- and "Did I bring you here?" The answer to the latter question seems to be at least partly yes, so you settle for asking the first one.
Mmm. That would be telling. But you --- here she measures you with her eyes --- may call me Penny Farthing. Pleased to meet you.
Your immediate reaction is disbelief. There is no way a creature such as this would be named after something of so little worth, unless the namer was blind, and hostile into the bargain.
Smiling, she turns from you to examine the book she emerged from. Upon reading the title, she shakes her head, and the smile distinctly transforms itself into a smirk.
Do you know where you are? Your voice clearly displays the surprise you still feel.
She laughs, and it is a wonderful laugh, at once both childishly innocent and somehow seductive. Her gown swirls about her as she turns back to you, the now-closed book in her left hand.
Yes, of course. I've not been around him in a while, but I can still recognize his handiwork. This library bears his imprint. She waves the book she is holding at the walls, and then sets it back down on the crate.
You feel a rush of responsibility for the unexpected and unannounced presence of this unknown woman inside the Abode. Summoning up cheerful politeness to cover a sudden sense of unease, you take a step toward her.
He's around here somewhere right now. I'll just ---
She cuts your words off with a single abrupt shake of her head and a very charming smile. In a girlish movement, she reaches up with both hands and pulls her long hair back behind both of her shoulders. She takes two steps toward you, and then cocks her head, as if listening to something.
That won't be necessary. I'll just surprise him. Don't worry, I know his little ways, and I can elude the watchbots. But thank you for your concern.
She walks rapidly to the door in the eastern wall, pulls it open, and closes it silently behind her as she leaves.
You stand there, feeling as if this whole scene is slightly unreal. After a few seconds, it occurs to you to wonder why she never asked you who you were. It was as if somehow she already knew what she needed to know.
Shaking off the spell of the past few moments, you gaze down at the open box at your feet, which had seemed so ordinary and innocuous before, but which now possesses a slightly ominous aura of caprice. Trying to decide what course of action to take, you look back up at the now still library.