In the dream, this time, I am down deep in the water. I know it is Lake Jovan, can tell by how green the water is, how murky, the lake weed choking the bottom like angry cilia, loose garbage stuck in an eternal tableau in the depths. Even in the dream I think this isn’t unusual.

But there is something else, other shadows tumbling through the black surface of the lake above my head. I swim closer, twisting, reaching out. The shapes clarify; they are books, pages coming loose like soggy flesh in my hands. I let them sink behind me into nothing. I swim and I swim, and the farther I go, the thicker the water becomes with books. Pretty soon, with every stroke of my arms, I am hitting them on all sides. The water is being displaced, and I am being drowned by them.

There is someone else with me. I know it before I see her. She is floating in the book mire, and I nearly crash straight into her. She isn’t moving, floating there as lifeless as the water, the lake weed, the books. She is as much a part of the lake as they are. And she has endless hair, white, milky, and it blurs her face from me. I stick my hand in and try parting it so I can see her, because I feel I’d know her, and I need to know for sure.

Her eyes snap open as soon as I am able to get a good look at them. Then her hands go for my throat, and she drags me to the bottom.

I woke up on the floor, tangled in my bedsheets. I’d knocked over one of the many stacks of books I had on the nearby floor and the bedside table, too. My neck was sore from having used a few of them as pillows during the night in my sleep. I had no idea how long I’d been down here. I had never fallen out of bed before.

I tossed everything back in its place and looked out the window, pushing my dancing princess painting to the side. In the immediate distance was a grain elevator, an enormous J inside a diamond painted on the whitewashed brick. “J for Jerktown,” Tabitha had said once, in one of her more bitter moments. The elevator had always been there, blocking out the sun as it set every single day for ten years of my life. When we first moved here, I had told Mum that it must be Rapunzel’s tower, and one day it would be mine, too. She just smiled and let me dream.

Those elevators were sprinkled all over Manitoba, though, appearing on postcards and sometimes in our textbooks at school. The J itself had become a sort of provincial staple, and Treade was proud, to some extent, to boast two or three of them. The history behind the elevators and the people who owned them had faded now, the story of it on some plaque yet to be set up. But with the ethanol plant providing most of the town’s income, Treade had little use for the abandoned grain towers and all they implied. As usual.

The house was empty, the sun shone on my Rapunzel elevator, and my heart was raring to go. There was no time like the present to fulfil my promise. Before I could exhale, I was darting through the suburbs and open fields, getting lost in my head.

I found myself standing in front of the Fable Door so quickly that the effort it took to get here seemed like it had happened to someone else. I fingered the carvings, which always looked like they were submerged in the wood, diving through the waves on their way to worlds elsewhere. I had this urge to fling the door open and walk in through the front, bold as brass, taking ownership of the place like it was mine instead of having to scurry in the back way like a squirrel seeking refuge. I tugged on the chains and, as usual, they wouldn’t budge.

I spent some time clearing away my hole, making it easier on myself, and Li, too, to keep getting in and out. Now that I thought about it, this had to be how he’d been getting in here; probably saw me doing it on that rainy afternoon and followed me in like a shadow . . . even though he was so much taller than me, and it’d be a wonder to see him fit through at all. Short of him passing through the walls, though, there was no other way.

I pulled over an abandoned piece of rusted sheet metal from one of the various scrap piles leaning against the building, keeping it at the ready to cover my tracks when I left. I’d been pretty careless so far; if any of those new property owners showed up to appraise the place after that storm, they’d see my and the tree’s handiwork faster than we’d made it. I didn’t want to take the chance anymore. I crawled in.

Morning sun filtered through the rose window, tinting the library in the pinks of the glass. I shut my eyes and inhaled; the old book smell was like a cake cooling on a windowsill. Potent. Inviting. I wanted to soak it up, and I twirled in the joy of it, dancing in the dust motes caught in the light, and revelling in the discovery of this sanctuary. A palace of books, of dreams themselves. My perception of the library had shifted in spite of (or because of) my misadventures here: I felt safe, felt at home, and calm, too, even though Li could pop out from any corner and catch me off guard. And even though I didn’t know him at all, and that we especially didn’t have much to talk about . . . I found myself missing him.

“Li?” My voice bounced off the books and vanished. I was probably early. But I was still excited. Maybe we shared more than I thought. Maybe he was the answer to all my empty hopes for this town. Maybe he was a dreamer that had been ill-treated by Treade, too.

Or maybe he just hung out here to get away from his overbearing parents.

Either way, there was something about him, the way his eyes barbed into me like they were willing me to keep still. How he flitted from one place to another like a handful of light. How he so badly wanted to see me again. Or had that just been a hopeful daydream, too?

Deciding to wander around while I waited, I wove from stack to stack. The books were endless, each one a speck in a universe. I wondered where they came from, where the covers had been bound, where the gold foil had been stamped. Some books were musty and worn, others looked unopened and fresh, and I could see that many were first editions. I snatched them up like precious stones, and after a handful of random selections, I settled in perfect quiet with Oscar Wilde in hand. There was a beautiful engraving of Dorian’s portrait on the facing page, and I touched his brooding brow to feel the smooth parchment paper against my finger. It was so new, I could feel the grooves of where the press had insinuated the image.

That’s when I heard the flapping.

It broke the silence so hard that I jumped, dropping the book. I stood still, thinking it was just another one of his tricks. “Li? Is that you?”

I scooped the book back up, trying to find the source of the noise, or at the very least detect Li’s shadow nearby. But I was totally alone. I heard a rustling, and then again the flapping. It sounded like someone shuffling a newspaper restlessly, and it was getting closer.

I looked up and something white flashed above me, diving for my head with its wings spread. I ducked as it swooped back up and flocked to the banister of a nearby landing. I raced out to meet it, stopping short a few feet to get a good look at it. It was big, about the size of a crow, with an unforgiving beak. In the light it looked creamy beige instead of white, and it was speckled with indiscernible black markings.

“How did you get in here?” I wondered aloud. There might have been a hole in an eave somewhere; the place was old enough. But as I got a closer look, I realized that it was definitely not a bird I had ever seen on the prairie before, and as it preened under a wing and I squinted at it, I felt no closer to knowing. When I took one step too close, its head swivelled my way and it opened its beak. Not a sound came out, and before I could move, it had taken a direct dive for me and stolen the book from my hands in its outstretched talons. It vanished into the dark corners of the library.

“Well,” I said, keeping the dialogue-with-no-one going, “okay, then.”

Further rustling. But this time it was the sound of a page turning, and as I whipped around, there he was, clearer than the daylight dancing through the rose window.

“Oh, hi!” I said, breathless with enthusiasm.

He stood with his back to a bookshelf, the jacket I’d seen him wearing both times we’d crossed paths now slung over his shoulder, revealing a wrinkled — but pristinely white — button-up shirt that seemed like it belonged on Jay Gatsby and not this continuous trickster of mine. He was reading, and what I first took to be immersion in whatever the book was, turned out to be just another prank, as the book was upside down in his hands. He still didn’t look up, though; didn’t even seem to register that I was there.

I waved my hand in front of him. “Hellooo?” But as soon as I started waving, his hand lifted up to copy me. I stopped and lowered mine. So did he. He suddenly looked up from the book and at his hand, bewildered that it was moving of its own accord. We were suddenly trapped in a grainy Chaplin film.

I took a step back until the gulf of the aisle between the bookcase rows stood between us. He put the book down and backed up, too, never meeting my eyes. We judged each other, poker-faced and trying to predict the next move. I pinwheeled my arms gracefully in the air, one at a time before doing a slow twirl. He followed suit, trying to keep a very serious face as we performed these mock-ballet moves, shuffling our feet in complement. I lurched forwards suddenly and he caught on just in time. Danced to the left, now to the right. Twirling, arms up again, into the aisle, and out from the row. We mirror kids were nearly nose to nose, hands up. Who was the original image now? Who called the shots?

We stood there in the silence for what seemed like a decade, daring each other to break the spell. Somewhere close by, I heard what had to be that bird flapping. I twisted away.

“Did you hear that?”

As usual, Li’s way of replying was as far from words as he could get. He jumped out of our mirror dance and grabbed my hands, spinning the both of us in dizzy circles and distracting me from any noise, had there been one. I stumbled but he caught me, and we laughed as he helped steady me on my feet.

“You’re crazy!” I puffed, far from being genuinely peeved as I gave him a playful nudge. He just smiled and looked down, collecting his jacket where it had fallen and draping it over a nearby chair. He looked a little sheepish.

“What, you didn’t think I’d come back?” I teased. He shrugged, but his eyes shone with gratitude. “You must be really bored, hanging around an abandoned library just to mess with me.”

He puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes, pivoting on a heel back towards the bookshelf. I followed as he plied a few books free, balancing them on his head, feet feeling for the invisible trapeze line.

“Really bored,” I said, following him close and walking his line, “to take all my pictures just to make sure I came back.” A surprised chuckle rose up as he lost one of his carefully balanced books to the floor. I rushed past him, snatching the last book from his head before he could get a hold of my shirt, and perched it on my head, instead.

“You know,” I started, walking his trapeze backwards now, “I don’t think it’d be in my best interest to keep hanging around with a thief. Not good for my reputation, you know how it is.” Hands clasped behind his back, his broad shoulders dipped down, he nodded and took on an air of gentlemanly understanding as he waltzed in my wake. I did a little twirl.

“And I really needed them, so that of course adds insult to injury,” I pressed on, the book on my head wobbling a bit as my conviction started to slacken. He came around me in a slow half circle, appraising my form as he came to the other side, gently taking the book from my head. He clutched it to his chest like he was afraid it would get away, then revealed its cover and the title emblazoned on it in red cursive. He grinned like a clever cat. Finders Keepers by R. Stoat, it read. My mouth fell open and I just laughed. He gave a little bow and shelved it again.

“I would have come back anyway, you know,” I said, flicking him hard on the shoulder. “When I make a promise, I keep it.”

He beamed beatifically and pinched my nose before turning away, but I seemed to think there was something like relief in those grey eyes.

He darted towards another row, and I pursued, and though I tried to bound right behind him, he was gone.

“Aren’t you ever going to stand still?” I crept alongside the bookcase with one hand on its contents to keep myself composed, until another hand shot out from an empty space between the books and made a grab for my wrist. I shrieked and evaded, backing into the case on the other side, but something was there to nudge me on the shoulder. It was the toe of a shoe, Li’s shoe, and when I looked up, there he was, hanging idly off a sliding ladder.

“How did you do that?” I asked, bewildered by his sleight-of-everything.

He held up a finger as though he’d suddenly had an epiphany. He dug through his pockets, his sleeves, and only when he gave his curly head a scratch did it come to him. Reaching behind my ear, he thin-air-snatched a Polaroid, tumbling it between his elongated, precise fingers. I took it before I could be teased with it, seeing that it was a picture of the deer clock on the back wall. A picture of time, a thing I was arrogantly convincing myself I had in infinite supply.

This time, the flapping got both of our attention. We both looked up, and floating down on us with all the grace it had failed to show before was the white bird. It kicked up its little feet before settling on Li’s outstretched hand. I was delighted at first, thrilled and awed that I was going to be able to get up close, but my face fell. I backed away, and both Li and the bird looked at me as though I was the crazy one.

“What is that?” I pointed, feeling my spine tighten with something like shock. “How are you doing that?”

He and the bird tilted their heads in concert, absorbing my words as they both took a closer look at each other. The bird puffed itself up, each individual feather rustling in that familiar papery way. Because that’s what the bird was made of. It did not have curves on it, but folds, and those black markings I couldn’t make out before were letters, because the paper was book pages. I had searched Treade for some magic, and here it was, right in front of me. I just couldn’t accept it.

Li jumped down from the ladder; the bird barely stirred. He came slowly towards me, his free hand reaching out and taking my wrist so he could position my arm properly. I let him mould me like an obedient marionette as he turned his own arm so it eased against mine, giving the bird an easier means to pass between us. Li’s touch was so cold, but I stayed quiet, afraid that if I showed any real apprehension I’d lose the moment. A ripple of kinetic energy sizzled through my skin as his arm pressed into mine. I tensed, not knowing what to expect, but as the bird gingerly raised one talon, then the other, and settled on my wrist, I smiled. It didn’t weigh anything; it was paper, after all. I experimented with moving my hand up and down, and though it shook its head and ruffled itself up again, it didn’t fly away. I forgot that I had been afraid only a few seconds ago.

I looked up at Li, whose smile crinkled his eyes. “You really are a magician,” I whispered. “How can you be doing this? It’s like . . . breathing origami or something.”

He ran a hand down the bird’s breast affectionately, like they were old friends. It dipped its head down, gratefully. Lost in his thoughts, Li’s face grew far away, going to a place that I couldn’t see. I knew he couldn’t answer in the way I was used to, so I tried to read him, tried to divine what was beneath the surface of his skin, but I got nowhere.

“Li?” I broke the silence. Suddenly, the bird on my hand collapsed, and I gasped, trying to catch it. It had quickly unfolded itself and reasserted into a pile of wrinkled pages at my feet. Li looked genuinely stricken. I stood there dumbly, bending down to pick the paper up, feeling like I had just broken all of the bird’s fragile bones, if it had any. It had seemed so real in my hands.

“I . . .” I mouthed, trying to hand the pages back to him. “I’m so sorry. Can you . . . ?” Can you fix it? Can you make it alive, again? The questions sounded even stranger in my head.

All I could say was “I’m so sorry” again and again, unable to control my irrational feelings of guilt over ruining something so precious and remarkable. His hands were instantly over mine as he shook his head. It’s all right, his eyes softened. He guided me into the centre aisle, right into the light of the rose window, pages in hand.

He was clasping my hands tight, and this time I didn’t try to get away or incite a chase. This wasn’t part of his slapdash comedy routine or his one-boy-circus act. This was something sacred. He turned my palms up and put one of the pages into them, his other hand over my eyes. I shut them obediently.

“What are you—”

He shushed me with one finger to my mouth. I swallowed. Then, before I could guess what he was going to do, he rested his hand right over my sternum. My heart rose to the occasion and beat against it. Other than Paul, I’d never been this close to or alone with a boy, let alone someone like Li; someone who shone from their centre, someone who made even the air around him buzz with possibility — all without saying a word. These thoughts rushed through my head as he pressed in harder, like he was trying to knead my heart in his palm. I was about to tell him to stop, until I felt the paper in my hand twitch.

I opened my eyes because I had to see this. The corners of the page were curling up, edge by edge, as if it was looking for a good place to start its life. I stood very still, barely breathing, feeling my pulse in my temples as the page straightened itself in portrait right there in my hands. It seemed to shiver. Li was as focused on it as I was, and he reached out a long finger to gently poke the paper right in the middle. A ripple passed through it, and in its wake were the insinuations of fold lines. Our eyes darted together, and grinning, he quirked both eyebrows at me. Go on, they encouraged. I focused on the page, trying to summon everything whimsical in me that I could imagine, and with a rush in my heart, I gave the paper a poke.

Fold, tuck, pull, revolve. I suddenly had a paper sparrow pecking at my palms, looking for paper seeds.

Speechless, I raised my palms up, and the bird took off into the light.

In the halo of Li’s Cheshire smirk, all I could say was, “This whole place is magic, isn’t it?”

He rolled his eyes, grabbed my hand, and took me for a chase after the little bird. It soared into the light of the rose window, and we lost sight of it.

We jerked to a stop, Li pulling me behind a bookcase and looking around like someone was hot on our trail. He had plunged us back into another game, and I was more than willing to dive right there with him. We were crusading archaeologists, maybe, pursued in the jungle by poachers as we sought the rare Paper Bird, which needed our help to evade the poachers’ nets. Pace by pace we kept to the shadows of the shelves, each corner holding the possibility of being discovered, framed, or betrayed. In a rush, he pointed. There was a flash of light, the sparrow hopped into view, then took off again. We stumbled after it, climbing the curving iron staircase right on its tail, and listened to our footsteps fall away like raindrops behind us.

Maybe it was seeing the bird come to life, maybe it was my willing heart, but for a moment I thought that the ground had some give to it, like the squish of wet, warm moss beneath my sneakers; thought I felt beads of sweat dot my neck, and that, in the distance, something exotic was cawing across the infinite canopy. The library felt like it was fading around the edges, giving way to something else, somewhere else, but every time I tried to grasp it with my eyes, it became solid again. And Li was there right along with me, playing the stoic Indiana Jones type en pointe, never missing a beat. How could we be sharing the same daydream, connected by a slender thread in the midst of infinity?

Stepping carefully on the landing, Li suddenly stopped, swerving his head around. We’ve been spotted, said the sudden twitch at the corner of his mouth. And also, we’re doomed! Someone had loosed a booby trap on us and there was little time to escape. Our only apparent salvation was at the top of those mysterious stairs I had seen yesterday, the door, now that I could see it closer, seemed to be made out of the wall itself. We heard a rumbling — or did we? — of falling rock, and though we were on the doorknob quick as anything, it was jammed. Li patted himself furiously for a key, gesturing wildly, feeling our end drawing near. I shook him, demanding he snap out of it, and just as we were about to be toast, a rustling of wings made us both look up. The bird pecked on the lintel, and the door swung inward.

We shut it behind us to keep any imaginary poacher or their offensive rock slide at bay, panting at the relief of our adventure marathon coming to a close. The game fell around our ankles and we looked at each other, laughing midcollapse and wondering what got into us. I don’t bother asking what had happened, because I wasn’t sure it had happened at all.

A light tapping drew my eye around the room. I followed it along, and there was the little sparrow, perched on the edge of a small porthole window near the ceiling.

I looked around for a stepstool, and when I came up with nothing, gestured at Li. “Hey, can you give me a boost?”

He picked me up like I weighed as much as the sparrow. I tried not to turn red or let my face get hot, because this is what friends did, boost each other up to windows . . . in magic libraries while you tried to catch a paper sparrow from flitting away. Right. I reached out to cup the little thing in my hands, but it hopped away, persistently tapping against the glass.

Out there was the library’s back property, lined by Wilson’s Woods and the other abandoned junk. It seemed so far away, like I was looking into a faded photo whose meaning had changed just as much as I had. I held on to that sensation, let this enchanted world I occupied be my home instead. Out there, the morning light struck the trees, especially the ones busted up by the storm, and transformed their broken bodies into something of a miracle. Something so destroyed made into something that could, at least, pretend to be alive in sunlight. I was torn, wanting to dart between those trees with Li as easily as we did through the shelves, and never wanting to have to cross those woods to go home again.

The sparrow and I regarded each other. We were on the same page. “I think he wants to be set free,” I said, reaching for the rusted clasp that kept the window closed, the sparrow hopping excitedly at my hand. Li suddenly put me down.

“Hey!” I protested, but he leaned into me and scooped the bird out of the window. He carried it over to a fireplace, one big enough to stand inside, at the other end of the sitting room. He opened his hands there, and the bird fluttered up and away. I climbed into the fireplace from behind him; the walls were close for him, but nonetheless, I fit in there, with space enough to twirl.

This place really was a palace. “It’s amazing! It’s so big!” I peered into the shadows of the flue, and sure enough there was more fluttering. Little nests had been made in the incongruities of the brick, made out of shredded pages and anything else available. This was their aviary, and as I felt a hundred paper eyes settle on me, I decided not to disturb it any longer.

“I don’t know if I can really trust my eyes, anymore,” I said, absently running my hand along the carved mantelpiece, which was devoid of anything personal or revealing about this place — no photos, no mementos. But from the way the door had been deliberately painted into the wall, I could tell that this sitting room was to always be a secret, to be private. A retreat. There was a sofa in the middle, all red velvet and curved, looking like something out of Louis XIV’s cat-scratch bedroom. Fit for a king, but whose throne could it be? And books in here, too, but no shelves; they were spread around the floor in piles, just like in my room, some full open like they had just been freshly read and abandoned, midsentence.

I picked across the glossy hardwood floor, trying to make my dirty shoes avoid the crimson and gold tasselled rug, whose woven patterns looked like a hundred stars all blossoming outward. Li had eased himself down by the sofa, pulling from his pocket one of the pages that used to be the crow-like bird I first saw. It floated in front of him and became a hummingbird, thought coalescing in form like mercury. I knelt down on the carpet at his feet, tucking my ankles under me as I watched the fragile creature flutter like a heartbeat in his hands.

“How can any of this be real?”

The hummingbird folded in on itself, midair, and the page that had just been alive floated quietly down to the sofa. Li glanced down at me, squinting, pointing at my heart and nodding, then pointing to my forehead and frowning.

I got it, easily enough. “Usually when someone says trust your heart, it means they don’t have any clue what’s going on either.”

That got him. His smile broke against his mouth like a wave.

I guess I’d just have to accept it, paper birds, almost jungle, and all. But now that he was sitting still, I figured he would be willing to answer some more questions, in as much as he could in his own way. I got up and pulled him to his feet. “How long have you been coming here, Li?”

Eyes dropping to the ground, then swooping back up in the air, he seemed to be genuinely calculating. He drifted to a nearby wall, smoothing it out at first with one hand, then the other. He looked like he was feeling around for an answer, listening for something inside. But he came away without one, turned to face me, and stretched out his arms.

A long time.

“Really? Man . . . I’m jealous!” I threw my arms up, reaching out to mimic him and smooth out the cool plaster of the wall. “I would give anything to have found this place years ago.” This place. This den of mysteries and enchantment. Where magic lay in concentrated wait before being snuffed out. It could have changed so much.

When I turned back to him, he was staring at me with those relentless, piercing spheres. He quickly looked away and shook his head, like I shouldn’t really be jealous of him after all.

“It would’ve also been nice to have met you sooner, too,” I dared to admit, pivoting towards him. “Have you lived in Treade for long? I’ve lived here forever and I’ve never seen you before. And believe me, I would have seen you.” I would have been drawn to you, I thought, but I swallowed that away like a lot of my awkward adolescence.

He didn’t look up or even try and sign an answer. “You are from Treade, aren’t you? Or maybe Winnipeg? Do you have family here?”

Leaning the back of his head against the wall, he shut his eyes and let go of an immense sigh. He pointed to the floor.

“What?” I looked down. “You mean . . . here? You don’t . . .”

Slowly, his eyes opened. A smile flickered past his teeth.

“Li . . . you live here?”

I’d never considered the idea until it had fallen out of my mouth. If I had asked myself before, I wouldn’t have believed my head. But his way with this room, the mischief in his eyes . . . the library’s blueprints were his fingerprints. It was more his mansion palace than it would ever be mine, and he was the vagabond king.

Some of his vitality came back, my moment of realization floating off towards the climbing sun as he took credit for my guess. He curtsied, welcoming me into his sacred inner sanctum. I returned the favour.

“Well, thank you for having me, and for not kicking me out when you had the chance.” I laughed. “I hope you don’t get in trouble for squatting here. You’ll eventually have to hightail it once they tear this place down though . . .”

He cocked his head, unsure of what I meant. “Well, some development company owns this place, now. That’s okay. You really don’t have to stay here, though. Really. Whatever the problem is, you can always come to my mom’s place. We have a spare room and—”

Even as I offered, I knew it wouldn’t fly. He waved me off like I was one of his court jesters who was offering too many empty praises to the king. I wondered what Mum would think if I brought a strange, homeless mute boy home, especially one that dressed in the wrinkled remains of a suit shirt and pants, with eyes like gleaming agate who could do real magic. Bend reality. Make true dreams. She probably wouldn’t think much of it, anyway. But Li was as hard to pin down as the little bit of light filtering through that porthole window. And that just made me want to see him more often. Keep him company. Harmonize the threads of our daydreams. Even if, for a second, I wondered if it was something sinister that had forced him to hide here. I shook my head.

“Okay, fine, I’ll let you continue being homeless and I won’t say a word to anyone. That’s your business.” I acquiesced and bowed low, and he knighted me with an invisible sword, welcoming me into his fold. “Besides, who wouldn’t want to live in a library?”