See: two floors, or just one floor with a mezzanine, if you count that sort of thing.  But anyway, two floors.  And the whole place is fancy as you please.  There’s the shelves, with all those carved and lacquered and filigreed little bits, looking like they’re gonna snap in to a thousand pieces if you sneeze wrong at ‘em.  Even the wood is fancy, who knew that wood could be that red, even before they did all the stuff to it?

And they make sure and have all the amenities, too.  Every fifth row of the stacks, there’s one of those tiny little round tables, you know, the tables that prove you’re too rich to have a dog or a toddler.  A little chair to go with, fancy little princess chairs that match the wood.  And every one of those little tables set up with a steaming pot of tea, row after row of ceramic teapots covered in little blue birds and flowers.  No cups, which is pretty funny.  It’s supposed to be a darjeeling, but you’d need to bring a thermos or something if you wanted to be sure.

Anyway, probably the stained glass that makes the biggest impression, at least at first.  No walls, no doors, just glass panel after glass panel.  Plus a few arches to walk through, obviously, it’s not like they sealed the place up or anything.  And not one of them with anything interesting, just the sky over and over again.  Day, night, day, night.  Cloudy, clear, rainy.  Moon full, moon thin, moon full again.  You can count them, all 365 windows.

It’s colorful at least, which is more than you can say for the books.  Black covers, all of ‘em.  Black leather, treated and soft and nice in your hands, but no titles, not even some kind of too-clever black-on-black thing like you’d expect.  The books are normal enough.  Cookbooks, science books, literature.  There’s a Moby Dick in there somewhere, if you’ve got the patience to find it.  No index, for obvious reasons.  Actually it would probably be funnier if there was one.

The deer is probably the most confusing part.  It’s always there.  A doe, dainty and delicate and pretty as you please, always picking its way between the stacks.  It doesn’t mind you going in, though it doesn’t startle easy neither.  Just a deer, I guess.  You know how it is.