It was a quiet day in the library. There had been a lot of quiet days lately. Ever since Hector had moved to Japan it seemed like there were less and less people checking out books. The location seemed to be the biggest problem. The building was placed at the very edge of the cities liminal district. Where the liminal's usually stayed until they could go live with their homestays.

Three years ago governments around the world revealed the existence of extra species populations living beside humanity. Creatures of myth had suddenly become real and the humans as a species had been rocked by the revelation. Hector's own life had seen some changes but he had ended up fine in the end.

A friend had needed his help and he had moved to Japan to take care of him. When his friend had died he left Hector the only thing he had left, a musty old private library. It was the best gift he could have possibly gotten.

He spent his days cleaning and fixing up the old and tattered books. Some would have considered his work boring, but Hector couldn't have been more content. He only wished that more people would stop by. Books deserved to be read, and they wouldn't be if they were gathering dust on the shelf all day.

Suddenly the bell over the front door rang followed by…clopping. Hector looked up from the catalogue he had been updating to see something he never had before. It was a woman, with tan skin, brown hair and freckles. He had seen women before, but this one turned into a horse at the waist and was two meters tall. Her horse half was a chocolatey brown color, with a black tail that swished behind her. The library was at the edge of the liminal district but he realized that he had never seen one come in. And now there was a centaur girl in front of him.

Not wanting to be rude Hector kept his eyes off her horse half and gave her a polite nod. He would have smiled but the medical mask and sunglasses he wore would have made the gesture pointless. She gave an awkward smile back as she fidgeted in place. The poor girl seemed so nervous.

Hector decided to break the ice. "Welcome to Sable Library, may I help you?"

The centaur suddenly started shifting side to side before taking a deep breath and giving him a determined look. "I-I want to check out a book. A lot of books, medical books, please."

"Of course," Hector said standing up. "The medical section is right this way."

The girl looked at him slack jawed before following him. "You're actually letting me rent them out?"

"Of course," Hector said as he stopped in front of the medical section, "what was it that you needed again?"

"Oh, um, a book on anatomy and one on physiology. The most advanced you have." she said still a bit stunned. "Your fine with me being…" she gestured to her horse half.

Hector pulled her books of the shelf and carried them to the front desk as she followed. "Books don't care about the race of whoever opens them, and neither do I. Just follow the rules and you're free to come back anytime." He stamped the books and handed them to her. "This is medical school level literature, are you a student?"

She rubbed the back of her head and smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm in this country to get a medical degree. I'm not doing too well in my classes and the library at school won't lend them out to me so I've had to look through the local libraries for books to study."

"You haven't had any luck then with that I suppose."

She looked down sadly. "No, none of the ones I went to would let me check them out. Plus I kept getting stopped by security asking for my papers and where my host was. You wouldn't believe how many times I've had to pull out my student visa today."

"I can hardly imagine."

"I found this place by accident," she said taking the books. "Thanks for your help."

"Come back anytime, and good luck with your studies."

She smiled as she left and Hector got back to work. Over the next few days the centaur girl would return to keep checking out books. She was reading through them at an impressive rate. Hector learned that her name was Rosalyn and that she was a light weight class of centaur, they were also called racing centaurs.

This meant that she was smaller than other classes and more fragile, but way faster with a love for running. Most centaurs like her were trying to break into the medical profession, in order to better help their kind with the issues that came with their bodies being so prone to injury.

She asked why he constantly wore a black medical over his face, and he explained that it was to prevent any inhalation of dust when he was cleaning. This was true enough for the most part. Besides the details behind it didn't really matter anyway.

For a small time she was the only regular he had. Until one day he heard the bell ring, and when he looked up it wasn't Rosalyn like he was expecting. She was a regular looking woman, the only thing that marked her as a liminal was the fact that she had a single large dark brown eye dead center in her forehead. She had clothes that reminded Hector of a nun and regarded him with a cool stare.

"I am looking for books on Buddhism," she said flatly.

"They should be in the religion section, right this way."

The woman took as many books as she could carry out the door. She kept returning throughout the week. Giving Hector simple requests, saying no more and no less, before leaving. He learned from Rosalyn that she had to have a part of the one eyed monks. They were Monoeyes who had converted to Buddhism during their time in the human world. They were infamous for judgmental and harsh personalities, but Hector couldn't understand why. Until one day the one eyed monk walked up to his desk with an annoyed look on her face. Her single eye intensifying the stare more than any human could have delivered it.

"This book is faulty.' She said placing it on the counter.

Hector stopped his filing and gave it a look over. True to her word there were pages actually missing, looking as if they had been torn out. Hector was at a loss, who could have done this? "I apologize, this is strange. You are the only one who has touched these books."

"Is that an accusation?" She asked, her one eye narrowing in suspicion.

Hector just shook his head. "No, just that it doesn't make sense that the pages are gone like this. I haven't seen anyone come in or out of that section."

His explanation seemed to calm the woman down, her stare softening and becoming more focused. "I do not think that I am the only one who has been to that section."

"What do you mean?"

He followed her to the section of the library where the books were and pointed to some parts of the carpeted floor. "There are tracks leading to the back of the library."

He couldn't see anything but she explained that as a mooneye she had advanced eyesight that could see that sort of thing, like a nearly invisible dust trail leading away. With her help they followed the trail to the back storage room.

"This is where the tracks end," she said looking around confused. But Hector realized that the room wasn't a dead end.

"They must have gone this way," he said as he pulled down a step ladder that led into the attic. He told his companion to stay behind. He didn't want her exposed to all the dust and lint in the air up in the attic.

He headed up and turned on the small light hanging from the ceiling. The attic was a musty old place he cleaned as often as he could, but still ended up being completely filthy whenever he came back. Tarps covered various pieces of stored furniture and created a small maze to walk through. Hector made his way through not seeing anything too out of the ordinary. That was until he stumbled upon a small opening between some tables and a column of chairs stacked in the corner.

It was small, and he wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for a small draft that came through. He had to duck and squeeze himself through until he made it to the other side. There he saw how a small area had been cleared. It bathed in the light coming from an open window above it. This explained why the place kept getting so dirty. But what really drew his attention was the diorama sitting in the center of the area.

It was…the library. A small perfectly crafted version of the library. As he leaned to examine he realized that it was paper mache. It seemed to have been glued together using a mixture of water, some glue and…silk? They almost looked like spider webs.

A shuffle nearby brought his attention to some shadows nearby. There in the shadows several points of shined in the dark. Hector walked over and knelt in from of the area and saw that there was a small figure in hiding, seemingly eyeing him warily as he approached.

"Hello," he said calmly, "who are you?" No response, the shining points receded a bit. He decided he needed to take a different approach. "Did you make this?" He said gesturing to the diorama, "It's very good." The points seemed to perk up and come a bit forward. "But it's made of books you've harmed, and that is not right. We will need to talk about it."

Suddenly the eyes looked down, seemingly in shame, and Hector backed up a bit so the figure could come into the light. He didn't expect what he saw next. It was a small girl, dirty, thin and wearing a tattered tarp for clothing. Her bottom half was that of a black and white spider. She had around eight eyes from what he could see as her matted dirty grey hair shifted as a breeze came in the through the window and caused her to shiver.

'M'sorry," she said sincerely with a downcast look. "I didn't wanna hurt books. I just like making things."

Hector felt a great weight on his heart as he looked at the small child. "Have you been living up here, child?"

She nodded and gestured over to a pile of supplies and hunted prey in the corner. Hector realized that she might have been there for months and he hadn't noticed. She must have been suffering for so long.

He couldn't bear seeing a child in pain. He held a hand out to her. "Come, let us find you something warmer to wear, and some food to eat."

Her eyes filled with hope. But her hand flinched back as she reached out to grab his. Dread and anxiety filled her features and Hector was suddenly frightened that she might make a run for it. He slowly reached up and pulled down his medical mask, revealing his face in full before smiling softly. "Come now, everything is going to be alright."

The gesture seemed to calm her down. She reached out and gently took his hand, and together the two left the attic.