In Lily’s Garden.

The Secret of the Voices Heard from the Attic

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Eve listened to the melody played by the man. Her long hair fell over one shoulder, and her gaze lingered on the man, lowering slightly as if she wanted to speak, as if words were forming on her lips. She took a small breath but closed her eyes, surrendering the thought.

For a moment, her black dress flickered to a deep purple. Reluctant to leave, Eve stalled in a way that seemed unlike her. Rising from the bed, she glanced at the man’s back in the mirror where he had once wrapped his hands around her neck. Her dress shimmered briefly in dark green before she began to walk, matching the pace of the melody.

Faster and faster.

The ink spread, resonating with the sound, echoing through some distant study.

Listening to the ink’s reverberation, Eve found herself unable to distinguish whether she was hearing sound or ink itself.

After realizing she was a translator, Christine decided to search for the origin of the sound. To Christine, if she could hear a sound, it must have substance. She recalled a day when a voice from her phone said, “The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a message…” The words echoed in her mind.

“Since phones have a way to store voices, people must have something similar. What could that be?”

Like a broken tape, the same sound looped since the time when prophecies were inscribed in temples. Some had even written down sounds as sheet music, recreating them from notes on a page. “If I could write down the melody after finishing the book, maybe I could record the rhythm of my own words. Would that be a sort of biological rhythm?” she pondered, searching for the right words.

“There’s a little time, a small space between us.”

“By expanding the bars of the music sheet to four pages, I could see where the fading sound connects. If I could transcribe the sheet music and give it to the translator, they could read it in multiple languages. Then, from the countless sheets, I could draw the missing notes.”

So, it was you. You were there all along.

I can understand now.

Nearly there. Almost joyful.

For the first time, she allowed herself to wonder:

A gray doll had once stolen a book from the horizontal city.

—The Book of the Translator’s Later Records (Christine’s Daily Notes, Euclid View Language Dictionary. Published by an unnamed university. Translated by C.H.)

In the horizontal city, the disappearance of this book began to empty bookshelves one by one, as if each vanished book had left a void in the libraries scattered across various cities.

A disaster.

She had sensed the existence of the university.

A disaster.

The books from the university were disappearing.

A disaster.

There were far too many books to write.