Mr. Linden was always a strange man with his strange and modest library only a couple buildings away from the corner of Maple and Main. The building had always been out of place beside Mrs. Mire’s Candies and Grooming Gabe’s Hair Salon.

     Mr. Linden himself was a quiet, balding old man with dull eyes, a round stomach, and square spectacles that sat low on the bridge of his nose. Every day he would hobble around his library with his cane in hand, putting away books or assisting the people who ever came in. Though he wasn’t much for socializing, he seemed generally friendly to those who met him.
     There were few people who came to the library frequently and it was highly surprising when Lizzy Strider found interest in the library. She was a sweet young woman with a fascination for reading and learning. Every day she would go to Mr. Linden’s library to read the books and talk to the old man and help him. She loved the little library and from the first day she found it she was overtaken by its charm.

     “Thank you for staying late to help me clean up, Lizzy,” Mr. Linden thanked her one night.
     “I’ve already told you, Mr. Linden, you don’t have to thank me for any of this,” she answered, dusting the bookshelves that he could not climb the ladder to reach.
“Even so, it is certainly generous of you to volunteer your time,” he replied. “I would like to show you something.”
Lizzy set down the feather duster and follow him to the back of the library. He had a study there with shelves of his own personal favorite books. These books were very special to him and she had been told to let no one himself touch them.
“I would like you to keep one of my books,” he said. “As payment for all your help, I ask you to please take one and cherish it like I would.”
Lizzy looked about the beautiful, leather-bound books with letters printed in gold, silver and copper.
     “Mr. Linden, I couldn’t take one of these,” she answered.
     “Of course you can,” he prompted her. “Now, go on. Take a look around and pick one.”
She examined the rows of neatly arranged books, reading the titles of them carefully but no matter how thoroughly she looked, only one book drew her eye. It was the color of oak tree bark with silver lettering that spelled out A Retelling of Classic Fairytales.
     “I’d like this one, please, Mr. Linden,” she said and showed him the book.
     “Oh dear,” he replied, looking at the book worriedly. “Very well, but I must warn you, do not read the first poem in that book or it will do you harm,” he warned.
     “What kind of harm?” she urged.
     “Do not worry child. Just remember to never read the poem on the first page."

     That night, Lizzy sat on her sister’s bed to read her a story. She opened the book and flipped past the poem to the first story, Cinderella.
     “Once upon a time,” Lizzy read aloud to her sister, “there was a man who had a beautiful daughter named Ella. His wife passed away when she was very young and he married another woman. When he was away, Ella missed him dearly. One day, a letter arrived, telling the news that her father had passed away due to a plague he had picked up on his travels.”
     “From that point forward, Ella’s stepmother and stepsisters forced Ella to do each and every chore of the house from morning to night. Ella had no warm bedroom so in the winter, she slepped next to the hearth. She woke with cinders in her hair and on her clothes. Her step-sisters laughed at her, teasing her and called her Cinder Ella. The name stuck as Cinderella.”
“One day, the step-sisters were invited to a royal ball. They bragged to Cinderella about her not being able to go. Once they were ready and left for the ball, Cinderella cried, longing to go to the palace until a woman appeared, claiming to be Cinderella’s fairy godmother,” Lizzy yawned. As she flipped to the next page and heard gentle breathing. Her sister had fallen asleep. She took a bookmark and put it inside the book’s spine before she went off to her own bedroom and fell asleep.

     Many nights were like this for Lizzy. She thanked Mr. Linden often and enjoyed reading about her favorite childhood fairytales. However, one night after over a year of having the book and reading its stories several times, Lizzy yearned for something new and to read the first page just to see what it said to fully complete her reading of the book.

     Lizzy laid in her bed at night after reading her sister to sleep. She lay with her blankets tucked over her and the book of fairytales resting on her arm. She read by lamplight on the fair summer’s night, a pleasant breeze blowing past the window. She had just started reading one of her favorite fairytales of the book, Sleeping Beauty, when her curiosity became too much and she slowly turned to the first page of the book. She looked at the poem, but when she’d tried to read it the letters had turned into unreadable symbols with no meaning.
She turned away and back to the page several times but the words stayed nothing but runes. With a sigh, she stopped her attempts and continued on to read the fairytale to herself.            “Maleficent cursed the child that on her sixteenth birthday she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. The last good fairy, who had not been able to grant her wish, charmed the curse so instead of dying, the princess would merely fall into a deep sleep in which only true love’s kiss could break her spell.”
Lizzy could not help but let out a yawn as she turned the page.      “The fairies raised Aurora in the forest until her sixteenth birthday, where they brought her back to the castle. The second the fairies left her alone, she was led to a hidden room with an old spindle. Entranced by dark magic, the princess pricked her finger and fell into a deep sleep, as did the rest of the land.” she yawned once more. “The castle tower she laid in grew overrun with roses and sharp thorns that kept anyone who found her castle from getting to her,” Lizzy said in a tired voice.      She began to feel sleepy, though she had not just a moment before. Her body relaxed into the bed and her hand went loose on the edge of the book, slipping down and dangled over the edge of the bed. Her eyes closed as her chest rose and fell slowly as she fell into a deep, unwaking sleep. He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late.
The book moved slightly as small, green vines grew suddenly from its internal spine, stretching over the page with a single, red rose slowly blooming on its surface.