The silence in the library was so loud I did not notice his feathery steps walking down the aisle until he was towering over me, his long cotton candy beard almost touching the floor.

“You must be Rhea,” he said in the kind of soft, husky voice you’d expect from Carl Fredricksen, the grumpiest most hilariously adorable old man Pixar had ever created.

“And you must be Gandalf, nice to meet you.” Although I meant it as a joke, he did not smile. Instead the right corner of his mouth upturned so slightly that if I hadn’t been marveling at the grandeur of his facial hair, I might have not noticed. With a kind of peace I had never sensed, he remained completely still blinking down at me.

“How do you know my name?” I asked, my eyes still fixed on the pages of the book that sat wide open on my crisscrossed legs. I folded down the corner of the page and flipped to the next. After a minute’s worth of silence, I looked up only to see dust flying from the shelf behind me and a stone-colored hardcover seconds before it slammed onto my face.

“Excuse me!? That was completely uncalled for!” I huffed and puffed as I slammed the book I was reading shut, uncrossed my legs, and stood up to pat the dust off my jeans. This time I saw both corners of his mouth twitch right as he turned away, his face moving perfectly in sync with his body.

“Are you not going to apologize?” I whined as I scrambled to put the books back into the shelf and follow him onto the candle-lit hall. He was quick on his feet for a man his age.

“Start with the books on aisle 125 of the left wing, bottom right shelf. When you’re done come find me. There are bookmarks in the drawers at the end of the hall, don’t let me catch you dog-earing pages ever again.”

“You could have at least picked a paperback!” I yelled after him as I rubbed my forehead, but he had already turned the corner and was out of earshot.

After 72 hours of which only two were spent eating and showering, I finally walked into his office, all six books in my hands. I slammed them on his desk and dropped onto a surprisingly comfortable rocking chair facing the window.

“So, are you God or something?” I asked.

“I did not expect you to finish them in such a short amount of time.” His eyes were still trained on the desk and his fountain pen had not lifted from the page since the moment I walked in.

“Well, I did.”

“Read them again.”

My silence seemed to surprise him because after a few minutes I heard the creaking of metal on hardwood floors as he turned in his writing stool.

“I’m meditating, you should try it sometime” I replied to his piercing stare, which I could feel through my closed eyelids.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered almost imperceptibly. He must have noticed the dark purple bruise gracing my already acne-scarred face.

“I bruise easily,” I whispered back, a calmness I had not possessed two days ago deepening my voice. In one swift movement I jumped up, grabbed the books and stomped down the stairs to the main floor of the library, the rocking chair creaking behind me.

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