The Strange Library

An unnamed boy visits his city library one afternoon to return two books. Wearing new leather shoes, a birthday present from his mother, he approaches the circulation desk, where an unfamiliar librarian directs him downstairs to Room 107. The boy is surprised to learn the library has a basement.

He descends a long flight of stairs and knocks on door 107. The knock echoes so ominously he wants to flee, but his mother raised him to wait when he knocks on a door. Inside, a small, bald old man covered in tiny black spots sits behind a desk, wearing thick glasses. When the boy says he wants to learn about tax collection in the Ottoman Empire, a topic that popped into his head on his way home from school, the old man seizes on the request with alarming enthusiasm. The boy tries to back out, but the old man accuses him of mocking the library. Too timid to refuse, the boy waits.

The old man returns with three thick, ancient volumes, each labeled "For Internal Use Only." He insists they must be read on-site. The boy protests that the library is closing and his mother will worry; ever since a big black dog bit him as a small child, his mother panics if he is even slightly late. The old man berates the boy until he agrees to stay for 30 minutes, then leads him through an inner door into a shadowy corridor.

The corridor forks again and again, forming a vast maze beneath the library. They reach a steel door marked "Reading Room." The old man unlocks it, but inside is total darkness. He intimidates the boy into entering, then locks the door behind them. They descend a long staircase in pitch blackness until a faint glow reveals the sheep man, a small, friendly figure dressed head to toe in sheepskin.

The sheep man is baffled that anyone has come to read. When he objects that the boy is only a child, the old man whips him across the face with a willow switch. The "Reading Room" is a jail cell. The old man orders the boy to memorize all three books cover to cover within a month, after which the boy will be examined and supposedly set free. When the boy protests, the old man whips the sheep man again and leaves.

The sheep man locks a ball and chain around the boy's ankle and promises three meals a day and doughnuts at three o'clock. When the boy asks what will truly happen after the month, the sheep man reluctantly confesses: The old man plans to saw open the boy's skull and eat his brains. Knowledge-packed brains, the sheep man explains, are a delicacy. The boy begs for help escaping, but the sheep man says his own punishment would be three days sealed in a jar with 10,000 hairy caterpillars. He claims this kind of thing goes on in libraries everywhere.

Left alone, the boy sobs. He worries about his mother, who tends to imagine the worst and spiral into crisis, and fears she will forget to feed his pet starling. At seven o'clock, a beautiful girl about his age arrives pushing a teacart of food. She has no voice; her vocal cords were destroyed when she was little. Through hand gestures, she tells the boy to stop crying and eat. She reassures him that the sheep man has a kind heart but is terrified of the old man, then places her hand on his and leaves.

Deciding that obedience is the best strategy, the boy begins reading The Diary of an Ottoman Tax Collector. He discovers he can understand the classical Turkish and memorize each page effortlessly. As he reads, he mentally becomes the tax collector Ibn Armut Hasir, walking the streets of Istanbul surrounded by the scents of fruit and tobacco. Hasir has a pet parakeet that reminds the boy of his own starling.

The sheep man later denies the girl's existence, insisting he himself brought the meal while the boy was sobbing in his sleep. Yet the next evening, the girl appears again. She explains that the sheep man has his own world and she has hers, and just because she does not exist in his world does not mean she does not exist at all. The boy tells her about the big black dog that bit him as a child: black, with a jewel-studded collar and green eyes.

The boy tells the girl he must escape because his mother is worried and his starling will starve. She asks to come with him and proposes that the sheep man join them. Later, the sheep man arrives with doughnuts. The boy suggests they could open a doughnut shop together, and the sheep man is moved by this vision of friendship.

As the night of the new moon approaches, the boy continues reading. In the story within the story, Hasir's young wife tells him the new moon will shape their destinies. The old man visits, praises the boy's progress, and responds cryptically when asked about the boy's mother and starling. After the old man leaves, the girl arrives, exhausted and nearly transparent; the boy can see the wall through her body. The new moon robs her of her strength. She tells the boy they cannot escape together, but she will join him later. She kisses him on the cheek and vanishes. The kiss transforms the boy's anxiety into something manageable. Shortly after, the sheep man returns, reporting that a girl told him about the escape.

At nine o'clock, the sheep man removes the ball and chain. They leave the cell, the boy barefoot because his shoes remain behind; the sheep man warns that retrieving them could wake the old man. He explains that the old man sleeps deeply during the new moon but is cunning; if struck with the willow switch, the sheep man becomes helpless, enslaved by some power in it.

They enter the maze. The sheep man navigates by licking the walls, pressing his ear to the floor, whispering to spiders on the ceiling, and spinning at intersections. Despite wrong turns, they gradually draw closer to the exit. Dawn approaches, and they race to reach the last door before daylight wakes the old man.

When the sheep man opens the final door, the old man is waiting inside Room 107, where the boy's ordeal began. Beside the old man sits the same big black dog with green eyes and a jewel-encrusted collar that bit the boy years ago. The boy's pet starling hangs bloody from the dog's teeth. The old man reveals he was never truly asleep. He sentences the sheep man to be fed to centipedes and the boy to be devoured alive by the dog, claiming the boy's brains for himself.

Then the starling begins to grow, swelling to the size of a chicken, then to a bull, forcing the dog's jaws apart and shattering its bones. The old man whips the bird with his switch, but the enormous creature pins him against the wall. The starling speaks in the girl's voice, telling the boy to run. She says she will follow later, but he must hurry or be lost forever. The boy grabs the sheep man's hand, and they race through the deserted library, force open a window, and sprint to a nearby park.

When the boy opens his eyes, the sheep man has vanished without a trace. He arrives home to find his mother waiting with breakfast. She asks nothing about his absence or his missing shoes, which is unlike her. Her profile seems darkened, as though shadows are gathering around her. The starling is gone; only the empty cage remains. He does not ask what happened.

The boy never visits the city library again. He knows he should report the hidden cell to protect other children, but the mere sight of the building at dusk paralyzes him. Thinking about his lost shoes leads him to memories of the sheep man and the voiceless girl. He questions whether they really existed. All he knows for certain is that he lost his shoes and his starling. His mother eventually dies of a mysterious illness, leaving him completely alone. He lies in the dark at two in the morning, thinking about the cell in the library basement and the depth of the darkness that surrounds him.