Hope, How She Had Grown To Hate

It Was The Sibling Thing, I Suppose. I Was Fascinated By The Intricate Tangle Of Love And Duty And Resentment That Tied Them Together. The Glances They Exchanged; The Complicated Balance Of Power Established Over Decades; The Games I Would Never Play With Rules I Would Never Fully Understand. And Perhaps That Was Key: They Were Such A Natural Group That They Made Me Feel Remarkably Singular By Comparison. To Watch Them Together Was To Know Strongly, Painfully, All That I'd Been Missing.

She Either Confused Me With A Much Older Child Or Else She Glimpsed Deep Inside My Soul And Perceived A Hole That Needed Filling. I've Always Chosen To Believe The Latter. After All, It's The Librarian's One Sworn Purpose To Bring Books Together With Their One True Reader.

You Must Learn To Know The Difference Between Tales And The Truth, My Liza, She Would Say. Fairy Tales Have A Habit Of Ending Too Soon. They Never Show What Happens Afterwards When The Prince And Princess Ride Off The Page.

I Am Not A Storyteller . . . Not Like The Others. I Only Have One Tale To Tell.

It's A Funny Thing, Character, The Way It Brands People As They Age, Rising From Within To Leave Its Scar.