Piles have started to form.

On the floor and the counter and the kitchen table.

I am deciding how to organize the stories on the shelves as I (finally) unpack the boxes and boxes and boxes of books.

By genre? By author? By size and heft? Should I give color blocking a try like the fancy people suggest?

As I attempt to decide, I touch each book.

Recall the memories of the ones I have read; a touchstone to worlds I have visited once, memories fuzzy like a half forgotten dream, the connection still strong and real.
I feel the vibration, the pulse, the promise of those whose ending is still unknown; a quiver of anticipation running down both of our spines, anxious to see how things turn out.

I stack them in tentative piles, sorting on instinct, by criteria I can not explain.

My husband peeks in at me over the top of the tower as we attempt to have breakfast together. I resist the urge to pile up more books and and become a municipality of one.

Old habits you see.

While other kids built forts of chairs and blankets; roared and attacked, I built a fortress of books, grew quiet and retreated.

Into Narnia and Wonderland and Oz.

Into the jungles of Kipling and the wilds of London.

Made friends and solved mysteries with Nancy and Trixie and Linda Craig.

I had a book with me always; a talisman to invite people in or ward people off depending on the person.

The pages became passports and made it easy to disappear.

A girl with a book is easy to overlook.

I warn my husband to be careful as his hasty setting down of a glass threatens to crumble my empire and bury me alive.

There are worse ways to go. This I know as……

I think of Poe.

Of Black Cats and Tell-Tale Hearts.

I think of the “fortunate ones,” of casks and wine.

I imagine that if bricks were books, I would willingly place the last one on my own; wall myself in and never be heard from again.