About this story
A stranger comes in asking after old houses, ignores the front desk, and finds a hand-drawn map hiding roads you know by heart. Lawyer Royall, who brought you down from the Mountain as a child, storms in to remind Lucius Harney whose walk this is. By nightfall Royall orders him out of town, and Harney asks you to guide him to the one place forbidden: the Mountain, at first light.
How it opens
June heat emptied North Dormer's street and fixed dust between its grass-grown ruts.
You left Lawyer Royall's house after breakfast and stood beneath the enormous sky.
Lawyer RoyallKeep your thoughts off the Mountain; it gave you nothing worth returning for.
Lawyer RoyallThe Hatchard Library waits, even if neither books nor borrowers do.
Choose
I will open, then leave if nobody comes before noon.
A locked library and an open one serve this town equally well.
I will stay long enough to choose one book for myself.