Yesterwary

“We should get going,” Bastian said, holding out his hand to help her down. Demi took it hesitantly, and followed him back into the dusky library. After all the information that had fallen upon her, she was more grateful than she had ever been for anything in her life to be surrounded by books.

“Can I look around a bit?” she asked quietly, gazing up at the towering walls of literature that creaked and breathed as if life burned within them.

Bastian tilted his head, confused for a brief moment by her request. After remembering that she was still new to Yesterwary’s ways, he shrugged his shoulders. “Go ahead.”

Demi’s eyes flickered from spine to spine. Some were so caked with dust, the titles were completely obscured. But one cover stood out amongst the rest, jacket new and gleaming as if it had just been printed that morning. As she pulled the familiar book from its shelf, her heart would have skipped a beat, had it been capable of beating at all. Her eyes burned as Margo’s toothy grin beamed at her from the back cover of A Wary Yesterday.

A cloud of dust sprinkled down from above as Bastian leaned against the shelf. “Have you read it?”

“I know it by heart,” Demi whispered, clutching the book against her chest.

“Good thing,” he muttered.

“Why?” she asked, blinking to force back tears.

“Open it.”

Demi stared at Bastian with uncertainty as she hesitantly flipped open to the first page, and then the second, and then the third, and then somewhere in the middle, and, finally, the end.

“Most people don’t realize how often love plays a part in all the little things we take for granted,” he said regretfully.

Most of the pages were blank, and the few words that had managed to seep through were nothing more than jumbled splotches, protesting the rhyme and reason of any language known to humanity.

“All of the books are like this?” Demi breathed. Bastian nodded solemnly. “Why is there even a library at all, if none of the books can be read?”

“Honestly?” Bastian said, longingly gazing at the towering shelves around him. “No one knows. The library has been here longer than anyone can remember. A lot of people think it was the beginning of Yesterwary, filled with books that had been mistreated and forgotten.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s just another reminder of everything we left behind when we came here. Another little punishment for not being more careful with our hearts.”

Demi glanced back at the towering silhouette of the library, finding a sense of relief in the morbid irony that, in all the buildings of Yesterwary, it was the one place she would still be able to look upon her sister’s face. She followed Bastian into a rotting tenement just on the other side of the cracked pathway, and, as they sometimes do for writers, words failed her. But Bastian didn’t prod at her silence.

“I have another one for you, Paul,” Bastian said to a frail man, who was sitting behind a counter full of papers and food-wrappers.

Paul looked Demi over and shook his head. “Damn shame,” he mumbled, reaching for a key from the great wall of keys behind himself.

Bastian took the worn chunk of brass with a nod, and led Demi up to the seventh floor. There was no elevator—that would have been far too convenient for a place like Yesterwary. Each step moaned beneath them, and Demi suddenly wondered if the building had always been so broken, or if it had slowly decomposed with the footsteps of innumerable broken hearts.

Bastian stopped at a grungy door that could have easily tumbled from its hinges at any moment. With a swift jiggle of the key, he pushed the door open, and led Demi into an apartment similar in size to that of a shoebox. She wrinkled her nose as she glanced around.

The dirty kitchen—if you could even call it a kitchen—was made up of only half a refrigerator, a sink, and two holes that must have been cupboards in a previous life. The sunken bed was a mere five paces from the sink, and the bathroom—which was really more of a glorified outhouse—was separated from the rest of the room by a moldy shower curtain, which served little purpose as it was translucent.

“Does everyone in Yesterwary live in a place like this?” she asked, poking at the blanket on the bed. She wouldn’t have been even remotely surprised if it had jumped up and walked off.

“Newcomers and non-conformists, mostly,” Bastian said, wandering to the dusty window and pulling the curtains shut with vigor.

“Non-conformists?”

“The people who don’t see the point in working or following the rules,” he said.

“And what is the point in working and following the rules?” she asked, examining the bare cupboards and fridge, suddenly very aware of the angry, empty pit in her stomach.

“Same as in the old world: To have more, and better, things; to save yourself from boredom; to convince yourself that your life isn’t so bad,” he said, leaning back against the windowsill.

“How is that working out for you?” she asked, rubbing her stomach as she reluctantly took a seat on the bed. “Are you convinced that your life isn’t so bad?”

Bastian smirked as he dug a half-eaten granola bar from his pocket and tossed it to her. “No cooties, I promise,” he said, as she picked a piece of fuzz from her food. “I’ll take you to Work Placement in the morning.”

“Is that in your job description? Or are you just taking me out of the kindness of your own defective heart?” Demi asked through a mouth-full of crumbly oats and seeds, which had the consistency of a handful of dirt, but lacked the bold flavor.

Bastian stared her down in quiet wonder. It wasn’t often that people joked about the condition of their hearts in Yesterwary. It wasn’t often that they joked about anything at all. This newcomer was different—intriguing, at the very least. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at nine.”

Demi suddenly felt a wave of anxiety rush over her as her only acquaintance in this new place made his way for the door. The thought of being alone in the midst of such peculiarity put her on edge, and clouded her sense of logic.

“Bastian…” she called nervously.

“Yes?” he asked, keeping his face to the door.

But he was a stranger. Demi barely knew him, and surely it would have been neither respectable, nor safe to ask that a stranger keep her company throughout the evening.

“Your jacket,” she said, slipping out of his trench coat and reluctantly handing it over to him.

Bastian nodded silently in thanks. Every night in Yesterwary, he’d spent alone. He sighed as he closed the door behind himself, dug a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and wondered why he was disappointed to find that this night would be no different from all the others.

Demi waited by the windowsill until she saw the mop of tousled hair come into view on the street below, a bright red glow shining against his lips and a cloud of smoke rising from his mouth. Her cheeks twitched as she saw him turn back to find her window, giving it one last glance before hurrying off into the darkness.