Free Becoming Johanna by C. A. Pack Page A

dinner and fall into bed with a book. Always
with a book. That’s when her life began, for only when she immersed
herself in the pages of a well-written story did Johanna feel like
life was worth living. No wonder. She’d had a tough
childhood—orphaned when she could barely walk and brought up in an
institution best described as utilitarian, which brooked no signs
of independent thinking. Books were her only means of
escape.
    Johanna had grown into a
curious and imaginative child, forced to bury all indications of
innate intelligence if she wanted to avoid punishment and
humiliation. And being preternaturally intuitive, she quickly
learned to conform.
     
    One Friday evening, at the end of a particularly trying day, her boss
waited until after she punched out on the time clock to tell her to
pick up a package and deliver it to Mr. Henry Morton at Bay House
in Exeter. “It’s an emergency.”
    She had never heard of Mr.
Morton, nor did she feel inclined to go out of her way on her own
time on a rainy Friday evening to deliver a package to him. But
jobs were scarce, and she needed to keep hers if she wanted to keep
a roof over her head, even if the roof leaked and urgently needed
to be repaired. She silently cursed but audibly agreed, and trudged
out to her car.
    She had trouble finding
the address where Mr. Morton’s package awaited her. That part of
town had an abundance of winding lanes and gloomy buildings that
were not clearly marked. When she finally pulled up to the
structure that she believed matched the address her boss had given her—for
the building had no number—she was surprised to find an old library
she never knew existed. The name carved in the limestone lintel had
nearly worn away:
     
    The Library of
Illumination
     
    Johanna remained in her
car for several minutes, listening to raindrops drum against the
roof. The Library of Illumination looked closed, but she was
already there, so she might as well see if anyone was inside. She
ran to the building and pushed against the narrow double doors.
They opened into a drab vestibule with a scarred wooden floor and
dark patterned wallpaper. A small overhead fixture emitted just
enough light to enable Johanna to see a worn brass plaque with
narrow gills fastened to the far wall. A button that looked like a
doorbell had the words, What do you
seek? engraved beneath it.
    She pushed the button, but
didn’t hear it ring. Just my luck, she thought. She waited a minute and then pressed
it a second time. She was again greeted by silence.
    She thought about leaving
and telling her boss no one had been there. She looked out the
door. The rain had turned to hail, and she could hear it pitting
the outside of the glass.
    Annoyed, she pushed the
button again, and when nothing happened, she started poking it over
and over again, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. She was
supposed to be home, not here wasting her time in a strange place
in this dark, depressing warren of a neighborhood, just so her boss
could curry favor with a client.
    “ YOU—CALL—THIS—ILLUMINATION?” she shouted, violently stabbing
the button to emphasize each word.
    Suddenly, the wall sprang
open, and she stared into the room of her dreams. Books lined
polished wooden shelves that soared overhead for several stories—so
high, in fact, that the shelves actually looked like they got lost
in the clouds. But of course that was impossible. She chalked it up
to her need for food.
    Johanna leaned her
umbrella against the wall. Rivulets of water streamed down the
nylon fabric and across the floor. Like a caravan of parched men
lost in the desert, the old, dry floorboards welcomed the moisture,
absorbing it immediately. She brushed droplets of rain from her
sleeves before entering the library.
    Inside, what she saw
mesmerized her. The aged glass in the windows looked wavy and
translucent, and although she knew a storm raged outside, these
windows admitted a warm glow. Flames danced among the logs