Page 1 of The Nook for Brooks
BROOKS
Once upon a time,in a town small enough to fit inside a snow globe, there was a tower. Not the ivy-clad, maiden-hair-down-to-the-ground kind. This tower had fewer songbirds and more squeaky steps, as well as a window that got stuck on humid afternoons. There was also an issue with the plug in the bathtub, but that’s for another story.
Nonetheless it was still a tower, inside which lived a boy who very much appreciated that his pinnacle afforded him the luxury of keeping the town at bay when he wanted to be alone, which was pretty much most of the time.
Not only did the boy like his seclusion, he also liked to keep his life neat and well arranged.
He preferred things that could be stacked, filed, or alphabetized. He liked shelves that stayed level and chairs with four precisely even legs. He wore pressed shirts because pressed shirts behave. He wore bow ties because someone has to carry the banner for whimsy. He boiled water, poured tea, and set the cup down exactly where the saucer waited. It was not a dramatic life, but it suited him perfectly.
He never asked nor expected anything of anyone… and he wanted nothing but the same in return.
Oh, there was one other thing he liked—books.
Yes, how he loved books. All sorts of books. Books that smelled like rain in a forest, and books that smelled like they’d been hiding in a cedar chest for half a century. Paperbacks with crisp covers that still held their corners, and hardbacks so solid they felt like they might outlive him. Slim novels you could read in one sitting and still think about for years, and enormous epics you had to commit to like a relationship. He loved the clean snap of a page turning, the soft slide of a bookmark settling into place, that pause of respect as you finish a book you weren’t quite ready to say goodbye to, and characters who would live rent free in your head forever. He loved leather bindings that whispered under your fingertips, gilt edges that caught the light, and dust jackets that fit so perfectly they could have been tailored. He loved books that made him laugh out loud and books that made him set them gently in his lap just to recover. He never cracked a spine, never let a cover curl, never left a book face down as if it were napping on the job.
To him, each one was a perfect, self-contained world—silent and steady, holding its breath in the dark, until the moment you opened it again and let the light spill out.
Yes, the boy would read book after book after book in the safety of his tower. Only when his eyes needed a rest would he look out from his high window, from which he could see the entire kingdom—or at least the parts worth watching.
The town was nestled within a handful of streets, with its quaint houses and colorful shopfronts. Through it meandered a river, lazy and cool in the warm days of late summer, and the park in the middle of the village offered a shady spot for birdwatching or avoiding one’s neighbors.
At the center of the park, a ring of stone circled an opening in the ground.
Some would call it a well. The boy had another name. He called it “the Chasm of Lost Wishes.” A well suggested flower-haired maidens carrying buckets of fresh water as weary travelers quenched their thirst. A chasm suggested exactly what it was—a black hole which did not grant wishes but instead swallowed them whole.
He liked watching the chasm, not because he enjoyed seeing other people pining for their dreams to come true, but because the way a person approaches an edge tells you exactly what you need to know about them.
Some leaned in so far that the soles of their shoes almost left the ground, confident to the point of being reckless. Some tossed coins from a distance, the gesture of someone who is careful what they wish for. Some simply hovered, hands in pockets, refusing to throw their dreams to the wind with such abandon. The boy respected the hoverers. They were his people.
Of course, as with any structure of fortitude, his tower came with rules.
He had drafted them himself and posted them where he alone could see.
Rule one: tea first.
Rule two: paperbacks do not belong face down on any surface, ever.
Rule three: leave the tower only when absolutely necessary, such as in the unlikely event of a fire, earthquake, or when the smell of Pascal’s freshly baked croissants wafted over the river and in through the window, beckoning the boy to partake of their buttery bounty.
The boy followed the rules. The rules rewarded him with an unremarkable peace that he guarded the way other people guard wealth. He had built a small, precise life and found it almost enough.
And sometimes “almost enough” was good enough.
That was until the dayhearrived.
It was a hot afternoon toward the end of summer, when the cicadas were playing their one song on repeat and the sun blazed high above.
Suddenly a handsome prince entered the square.
He came dressed for travel rather than ceremony. His boots were scuffed and well worn. His tunic had many pockets, no doubt filled with the accessories of a traveler. And on a silver chain around his neck hung a compass, winking in the sunlight.
He had the kind of walk that suggested he was in no hurry to get where he was going, and the swagger of a man who enjoys the journey as much as he looks forward to the destination.
For a short time, he circled the town square the way newcomers often do. His smile was pleasing, his face handsome, yet there was also a glint of curiosity in his eye that the boy found somewhat intriguing.
Then the prince spotted the chasm in the middle of the park.
He went straight to it as if drawn by a spell and set his palms on the warm rim of stone. He looked down into the dark then drew a coin from one of his many pockets. He balanced it on his index finger and turned it once. Twice. The boy could almost feel the wish brewing, the way the air gathers before a storm.
