Classical style, heavy on the description
Quote:
Her editor’s mention of non-fiction triggered a memory for Catherine and she once again forced herself away from the smoky view. At the front of the house, past the formal dining room and across from the front parlor, Catherine entered Aunt Abagail’s cherished library. Unheard of in traditional Victorian design, the house’s crowning glory was a two-story library, accessible from both floors. Over the years, Abagail lovingly gathered the multitude of volumes that filled the space. Many were gathered during her time as a private tutor for two sets of twins in a family consumed by wanderlust, but most were rescued from estate and yard sales and trash bins. Abagail personally repaired broken and damaged bindings. Moldy, mildewed, and insect infested volumes were disinfected and quarantined from the main collection until they were satisfactorily recovered. The collection contained examples of almost every genre, fiction and non-fiction, and in several languages.
The distinctive scent of old books enveloped Catherine as she entered the room. It was a smell that both intrigued and repulsed her. As passionate about books as her aunt, the smell signaled the entrance into a world of wonderful and weird places, times, and beings that were as familiar to her as the people she met in her daily life. But it was that same passion, those same fictional worlds that made Catherine an orphan at the age of twelve and left her upbringing to her sixty-five year old spinster great-aunt.
Catherine was still undecided about the collection. The most valuable books were packed in her car, destined for her own shelves, but she couldn’t decide whether to sell or donate the rest. But that was a decision to be made later. Now she scanned the shelves on the lower level, seeking a green cloth bound volume with a silver title plate on the spine. Looking up and down the densely packed dark wood cases, she found it on the top shelf, just below the upper walkway. Catherine climbed the tracked ladder and gingerly pulled the book off the shelf. Descending the ladder, she placed the book on the large wooden worktable in the middle of the room without looking at or opening her selected volume. Instead, she crossed to the opposite side of the library and stood in front of the only case in the room that did not contain books. Twice already during her stay, she had stood here and collected favorite pictures and mementos. Now, sliding her finger along the underside of a lower shelf lip, she activated a hidden catch. A section of facing at the bottom of the case popped out just enough for her to swing the compartment door open. Catherine knelt and removed the dusty wooden box that resided inside. She blew the thick layer of dust off the lid and placed the box on the table next to the green book after closing the baseboard compartment. Catherine climbed the staircase and removed three more boxes from hidden compartments on the second level of the library. She placed them all on the table. These four boxes were just large enough to hold a ream of paper each, the purpose for which they were designed.
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Dreamer