Though this is a sequel of sorts to The Amethyst Library, it can be read as a standalone.
A girl wanders the catacombs of Amethyst, stocking the books back in their homes. Amethyst has not had a helper before. Sarita is the only one who has taken care of the library and the souls…until now. But the girl is Sarita’s grandchild and she stakes claim to Amethyst’s heart.
Sonal is twenty-four and she is lost. She went to the big city to fulfil her dreams and she did. But two years into living the life she had always wanted, she felt…empty. A vessel, a thing, a nothing. She has no parents so she calls her grandmother for advice. Sarita tells her to come home.
It takes Sonal three more months to realize coming home is the only decision. So she packs up from the city, leaving it for the time being at least. She comes to Amethyst, ignores the board, and hugs her grandmother like she has not seen her in decades when it has only been a year.
Sarita knows she must put the girl to work immediately. Brooding helps no one. So she performs a little ritual – a drop of Sonal’s blood smeared on the very board that Sonal ignored – and hopes the library will work its magic on her. It does. It adopts her and reveals all its secrets to her.
From running around for work, crashing in bed almost every night after an arduous day, thinking, breathing, doing work, Sonal finds herself living a curious life. She has breakfast with her grandmother, lunch with Sarita’s pet ghost who loves to discuss literature and has been digging further and further into the library to find gems to impress Sonal. Tea is usually with a bunch of students who think it’s cool that someone as young as her is manning a library and dinner is at a table, using an actual plate and cutlery rather than a takeaway box.
It’s not the fast-paced life she is used to and has its own challenges: once an unruly ghost decided it would be fun to terrorize a couple who was hiding in the history section, kissing, only to have the girl clonk it on its head with a fat tome of War and Peace. The ensuing fight had required three ghosts and five students to resolve. It is a different matter altogether that over a bottle of chenin blanc, grandmother and granddaughter rehashed the whole incident, laughing hysterically.
All is going well, Sarita is pleased to note and she can see her granddaughter emerge from the ball of stress she had hidden behind.
Until a boy comes and shakes the peace.
*
A boy comes back to Amethyst. It has now been almost a decade since he last stepped inside. In the intervening years, though he has not thought of the place often, he has thought of it randomly. Like when seeing the bright yellow sun rays hitting a dusty table. Or the smell of tea leaves wafting through the air.
He has fond memories of the place of course. Afterall it was here that he fell in love for the first time. Even if it crumbled in the end.
The library looks timeless and instantly he is soothed. A decade ago he may have proclaimed he was not lost but this time, as he enters at the ripe age of twenty-nine, he is not so sure. He does not like to say he is lost. More like temporarily displaced.
Seeing a younger Sarita behind the main desk makes him feel like he has travelled back in time. On closer scrutiny, he realizes Sarita has not aged backwards but it is someone who bears a striking resemblance to her.
He reaches the desk, as if floating on air and when he converses with her, though she tells her name and explains her connection to Sarita, the boy is once again seventeen, who had entered Amethyst in search of a girl.
*
The girl is on her third glass of chenin blanc. She proclaims this is her poison and she shall only drink chenin blanc from now on. She could make love to it, she says, scandalizing the ghosts in the process. But she is unrepentant, even mischievous as she contemplates what more she can say that will bring back that startling colour to the ghosts’ faces.
The boy has been here for a month. When he came to the place where he spent many a happy days while in college, he had thought the place would soothe the hurt left behind from a broken marriage. It did that and more. He feels like a different person.
Not different child, thinks Sarita, but more you. The you that you thought you had to leave behind.
She shakes her head as she takes a sip of her chenin blanc, savouring the bitter hidden behind the sweet and sour. Sonal isn’t wrong, she thinks with a laugh. The wine is rather smooth and warm, like a hug and a kiss and yes…even sex.
The boy and girl are in deep conversation now – something to do with comparing different kinds of alcohol – that they do not see when the ghosts and Sarita leave them to it.
Sarita goes back to her desk but this time, she cannot see the outcome of the boy and the girl’s meeting. She knows it is significant. But whether it’ll turn romantic or remain a friendship she cannot say. She can see though that the cloud of misery hanging over the boy’s head has dissipated. She can also see that Sonal is less restless and is finding more and more joy in Amethyst and the work it requires.
For now, that is enough.
Connecting this post to #BlogchatterA2Z. To read other posts, check Theme Reveal 2022: Without Prearrangement.
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