When I was eight, I discovered a tattered-box full of old novels sitting in the garage.  I had no idea where they’d come from or how long they’d been sitting in that dusty corner.  What I did know, though, was that they intrigued me.  They looked antique—two neat stacks of ancient script, forbidden to all excluded from the “grown-up” elite.  I must have stood there for at least two full minutes, mentally turning each yellowed page, before actually getting down on my knees to look at the books.

I picked up the top book.  Its spine shifted and the faded leather of its front cover began to sag downward.  The cover was so dusty, and all I could see was a bit of the gold title shimmering beneath.  I scooted across the garage floor into the dim, yellow light coming in through a single window. With all the breath that I could muster, I blew at the dust, exposing a tarnished title beneath. The Secret Garden. 

With my index finger, I traced each letter of that title and imagined what sorts of adventures were beneath it.  The dust clung to the streams of dim light, and I felt like Bastian from The Neverending Story. At that moment, I must have felt as he did inside his school’s attic, sitting among the dust, running his fingertips over his book’s Orin. That thought was so majestic, so real that I, instantly, felt his fear.  The shadows became a little darker, the sunlight a little dimmer.  I was entirely alone.  It was just me and the adventure I knew was under that cover.  Curiosity swept through me and took with it any real fear.

I sat there, alone, for what must have been hours, and read the entire first chapter.  The pages were so fragile, so ancient—with each turn, they threatened to fall away from the grayed stitching.  I had never been so careful with an object and have not since.  The book filled my entire lap and its contents my imagination.  I became Mary, just as I had become Bastian. I felt her loneliness, her fear, her confusion.  I could identify with her selfishness, too.

At eight years old, I had no idea what cholera was or what that snake really looked like. It was all so foreign—the formal language of the book, the snooty, grandiose character of its Mary, the personal excitement of moving further into the story alongside her.  All of it, the entire experience was so utterly unknown, and yet I just knew that I was supposed to be there.  It was as if that dusty old box had been sitting there for years, aging and awaiting my arrival.



Scarletsage