sarah 🍉’s Reviews > The Vanishing Stair > Status Update

Oh, it was coming. The rising beast in her chest, the thing with the fingers inside that squeezed her heart in broken rhythms, the thing that whispered troubles in her ear until everything fell apart.

“Carrying secrets is exhausting work. I know this from experience. The burden seems bearable at first, but as time goes on, it increases in weight.”

“It’s true. All the money, all the power—none of it compares to a good book. A book gives you everything. It gives you a window into other souls, other worlds. The world is a door. Books are the key.”

It was just a clock. It did not know or understand.

The noise of the conversations below swirled all the way to the ceiling, smashing against the books.

Bathed in clinical illumination, the staircase began to offer up its secrets.

The nights reached into the days with long fingers, dragging back time.

It smelled faintly of dust, but this was a fine, storied dust, gently trapped in velvets, resting like new snow on mirrors.

A silence fell between them for a moment, filled with the remains of Ellie’s fear.