• Chapter Three – Gar Am An

    Bree’s journey brought her to a beautiful marble doorway. Chiseled across the top of the doorway were the words “Gar Am An”.

    “This must be it,” she thought, noticing the strange words at the top. “Should I knock or just enter?”

    After thinking for a few moments, she decided to knock on the marble doorframe (her mother always told her to knock before entering a room). “Who’s there?” called a sweet female voice from inside. “Is that you again, Rob?”

    “No, I’m Bree,” she called. “Rob said I might like to visit, so here I am.”
    “Of course,” sighed the voice. “Come in then.”

    Bree stepped into the room however she had a bit of difficulty standing upright. The walls were not so tall, but they were made of a very strange stone painted thousands of colors. The colors refused to stay still, choosing instead to twist and curl and mix between each other until Bree was quite dizzy from watching. The floor was made of the same stone and the patterns danced and glimmered in the light. The result was very disorienting, making the room seem never ending and always changing in shape. At the same time, Bree thought that it was more beautiful than anything she had ever seen and stared at the endless colors until her eyes ached.

    “You haven’t got very good manners, have you? Don’t you know that you’re supposed to look at people when you talk to them?”

    Bree looked up, startled and a little annoyed at this scolding. Standing before her was a woman. She wore a large cape which flowed all the way to the ground. Like the walls and floor, the cape was a rainbow of moving colors. It was odd. There was something about the woman that reminded her of Rob and somehow, the woman seemed much taller than she really probably was.

    “Are you Garaman?” she asked.

    “No, I’m Gar Am An,” said the woman, carefully saying each word. “What did you say your name was?”

    “I am Bree,” said Bree. “And I was told by –”

    “Stop right there!” said Gar suddenly, holding up her hand. “First, I must give you a title.”

    “A what?”

    “A name for you to go by here in the Library. You can’t go around with such a strange name.”

    “My name isn’t strange,” said Bree. “Not nearly as much as the ones here.”

    “That, my dear, is a matter of opinion. But if you want to get into that argument, find a Philosophy book to debate with. As for me, I must insist on giving you a title. Think of it as…a nickname!”

    “Bree is my nickname,” she said. “I don’t see how it could be made any shorter.”

    “Size has nothing to do with this my dear. What if I called you Reeb? Would that be a suitable title?”

    Bree laughed at that. “How do you get ‘Reeb’ from ‘Bree’?” she giggled.

    “Quite easily!” said Gar. “First you must take the ‘R’ and move it to the front. Then you take the two ‘E’s in the back and move them between the ‘R’ and the ‘B’. Thus, ‘Reeb’. Do you understand?”

    “That’s not a nickname,” said Bree. “That’s mixing up the letters. My tutor told me about that, but I forget what it’s called.”

    “‘Mixing up the letters’ as you call it – such a clumsy way of putting it – is my very job young lady,” said Gar sharply. “It’s in my official title you see: Ana Gram.”

    “If your name is ‘Ana’ then why are you also called Garm An An?” asked Bree, still unable to remember the name correctly.

    Gar sighed. “First of all, you don’t have to call me by my full name all of the time. Just call me ‘Gar’ and you ought to be able to remember it much more easily, correct?”

    “Yes, of course,” said Bree.

    “Second of all, in this Library, the Staff have two names. Their proper names and their private names. The proper names are their titles. Ana Gram is mine. Rob told you his title, didn’t he?”

    “I don’t believe he did…” said Bree, thinking back.

    “I can’t believe he didn’t. He never forgets to mention it. Think back,” urged Gar. “Chances are, you know the answer but you simply can’t recognize it.”

    “I’m sorry, no,” said Bree. “Can’t you please tell me it and I can see if I remember it or not?”

    Gar looked a bit disappointed. “His title,” she said, “Is the Bookkeeper. Rob Eke Poke is his private name, just as Gar Am An is mine. Our private names are what we most often go by amongst ourselves. I assume that Rob has told you his job as Bookkeeper?” asked Gar.

    “Yes,” said Bree.

    “Well,” said Gar, “My job is more constructive. It is the manipulation of words. Mixing letters, as you put it,” added Gar, looking a bit disgusted at the phrasing. “For example, I invented all of the private names of the Staff. Do you understand so far?”

    “I think so,” said Bree

    “It is through me that new sentences and words are invented.

    “So you just make new words out of old?” asked Bree.

    “Exactly,” said Gar, sounding pleased. “Just try me. Give me a word.”

    Bree thought hard for a word. “Difficult…” she murmured aloud.

    “Lucid Tiff,” said Gar promptly. “Another word, harder please.”

    “Hydraulic,” offered Bree, thinking back to the hardest word she could remember on her vocabulary lists.

    “Liar Duchy. Try a whole phrase.”

    “Give me time!” cried Bree, feeling a bit rushed.

    “Eve Gimme It. You see? That’s my job”

    “It doesn’t seem like a very hard job,” said Bree.

    “So it would seem! But I’d like to see you try it.”

    “May I?” asked Bree eagerly. “It sounds like fun.”

    “You may try,” said Gar. “I cannot give you permission to succeed or not. That, my dear, is entirely up to you. Try this one: green.”

    Bree thought hard. Try as she might though, the words kept slipping around in her head and she couldn’t keep track of them all. “I can’t,” she confessed.

    “Poor dear. Let me give you an easier one: mistletoe.”

    “That’s even harder!” cried Bree. “It’s much longer and has more letters.”

    “That makes it so much easier,” explained Gar. “The more letters, the more choices there are. My job has no ‘correct’ answers. I make what I can and take what I like. For example, ‘green’ can only give you two answers, ‘Genre’ and ‘Erg En’. ‘Mistletoe’ on the other hand can give you hundreds of choices. In my job, I figure out what those hundreds of choices are and decide which ones are the best. Isn’t that grand?”

    “I think it sounds puzzling,” said Bree, who was still trying to figure out ‘mistletoe’ and starting to get a headache.

    “You’ve only just started,” said Gar sympathetically. “I’ve spent my whole existence doing this. It was why I am on the Staff.”

    “Who else is on the Staff, besides you and Rob and Torque?” asked Bree curiously.

    “Few,” came a familiar voice behind her.

    Bree turned. “Rob!” she cried happily.

    “Hello, little Bree,” said Rob. “You’ve met Gar, have you?”

    “Hello Rob,” said Gar with a smile. “You’ve finally decided to show your face.

    “I see you’ve been giving away all of our secrets.”

    “Was that all supposed to be a secret?” asked Bree anxiously. “I’m sorry! If it was, I didn’t know –”

    “It’s alright,” laughed Rob. “If it mattered, I wouldn’t have let you go see Gar in the first place. No more harm in speaking to her than to any of the books.”

    “Oh really?” asked Gar with a sly smile.

    “I met a book on my way here,” said Bree, suddenly remembering. “It was very interesting.”

    “All of the books here are interesting little Reeb,” said Gar.
    “Ah, so Reeb’s her name?” asked Rob.

    “What kind of book did you talk to?” asked Gar.

    Bree was confused by so many questions and comments and wasn’t sure which one to answer first, so she decided to answer none of them. “All I meant,” she said, “Was that I never expected them to really look like people, alive like that.”

    “All books begin here, so there’s still life in them,” said Rob. “The words are powerful enough to bring them to life you see.”

    “I had no idea that words were that strong,” commented Bree.

    “They are,” said Rob. “Just think of all of the things that must happen in your world, because of words. And those words – no offense to them of course – are old, second-hand words. The words here are fresh and much stronger. Because of that, the books are real. Alice in Wonderland, The Taming of the Shrew, Robin Hood, The Once and Future King, and millions and millions of others, all talking and enjoying themselves.”

    “Excuse me,” interrupted Bree, “But those books you named just now? They are all in the libraries in my world. You said that they were all written here, but then how were they written where I came from also?”

    “A very good question, young Reeb,” said Rob. “And I believe you’ve heard the answer already.”

    “I did? I don’t think I did…” said Bree, searching her memory. “No, I don’t believe I ever did,” she finished firmly.

    “Such a stubborn girl. Of course you heard the answer already, even if you didn’t realize it.

    “That’s what Gar told me,” said Bree, a bit stung.

    “It’s true too. Now, can you remember it?”

    Bree thought for a few minutes without success. “No, I can’t,” she sighed.

    “I told you before: People gather here to read and learn from our texts. Usually it’s a very quick visit. If the author is particularly clever or talented though, they might come again and again and delve deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the Library. Only then can they truly learn from the texts and bring back real masterpieces.”

    Bree was amazed at this. “Any author could come here?” she asked. “So…all of the writers who made my school books came here as well?”

    “Factual books like those for math and science only skim the surface of what the Library has to offer,” said Bream. “Those who come deepest do so as they search for creativity and originality.”

    “If they’re taking works from here though, it’s not very original, is it?” pointed out Bree.

    “Ah, but they can’t bring back anything they weren’t looking for. There are a billion ideas and stories in this Library. But unless you were to come searching for a specific one, you wouldn’t remember anything.”

    Bree thought about this for a second. “I suppose that makes sense…” she said slowly, although she couldn’t understand how a person could forget something so fantastic. “And I don’t think that was very nice!” she added suddenly.

    “What wasn’t nice?”

    “Acting like I was an idiot for not pulling an answer out of an old conversation like that! You should have known I wouldn’t have remembered.”

    “Miss Reeb, conversations are the crowning glory of words,” said Rob. “The words are priceless gems and the Library is the ultimate treasure chamber for them. No words are or should ever be wasted here. Keep all conversations close to mind, for you never know when an answer will come up unexpectedly. And if you must forget, do not forget that last bit of advice.”

    Bree was about to ask how she could pick and choose exactly what she forgot, however before she could get the words out there was the sound of arguing in the hallway outside.

    “By iambic pentameter, can’t he keep still for a second?” muttered Rob furious, striding from the room. Gar followed looking cross as well leaving Bree, who did not want to be left behind, to bring up the rear.