The wind was still the following morning, but Edward hardly paid any attention to it. His back ached a little from where he'd struck it on the glider crash, and a light bruise had erupted along his ribs. The canvas he'd purloined from Lord Hawthorne's storage room now rested in a heap on the ground next to the shed, alongside the smashed frame of what was meant to have been his first serviceable model. "Meant to" being the operative term.
He knelt next to the wreckage, grinding his jaw. The wings, stiff and precise once, now hung limply. A broken wooden girder protruded at an uncomfortable angle, like a snapped arm. The rear mounting—a plain hinge joint he'd made himself—had failed utterly.
He combed his hair with his fingers. You couldn't achieve this with harder dreaming. There was something wrong with the points of contact. Too weak. Too uneven pressure on one side. He required more reinforcement or a different material.
But all he had was wood. Wood, and canvas, and obstinacy.
He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in the grass, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The villagers weren't exactly swarming with craftsmen who'd be willing to share resources for some teenage flying fantasy. And he didn't have spare coin either.
"Waste of a whole week," he growled.
Nevertheless, he wasn't prepared to give up yet. Not yet. There had to be something more—some clue, some design, some approach someone had attempted previously. Perhaps not here, but somewhere.
That was when he recalled the old library.
It wasn't spoken of very often. Most people hardly noticed it was there, wedged between the chapel and the long-abandoned candle shop. But Edward had walked by it a couple of times when he had gone to deliver scrap for his mom. It had sat there as long as he had—silent, dusty, and always vacant.
By noon, he stood before its weathered door, a satchel across his chest and grime on his boots. He lingered. The sign over the door was askew, and the windows so filled with grime one could hardly determine if there were even books within.
He slowly pushed the door open.
It groaned like a protest, ringing out into the silence. Inside, there was the scent of yellowed parchment and candle wax. Shelves stretched in high, packed rows, filled with books, scrolls, and a delicate film of dust. Light crept through a single high window above the front desk, barely enough to trap the motes in the air.
Behind the desk was a figure—still, gaunt, wrapped in a brown cloak as if the building itself was attempting to cultivate a librarian out of old material and darkness. She didn't glance up. Just turned a page in the book she was reading.
Edward cleared his throat. "Uh, hello."
The figure glanced up for a moment. Her eyes were grey—quiet and unreadable. She nodded once, then looked back down at her book.
"I'm, uh, looking for anything on. mechanics. Gliders. Flight."
A pause. Then, without speaking, the librarian rose, crossed the room with quick, soft steps, and vanished into the maze of shelves.
Edward waited. He scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly unsure if he was meant to follow.
In a few minutes, she came back, arms loaded with three books. One was a treatise on the anatomy of birds. The second was a history of castle siege engines. The third was a collection of theories of magical transportation—not helpful for a boy without magic, but he liked the sentiment.
"Thanks," he told her.
She didn't respond, just nodded once more and went back to her seat behind the desk.
Edward sat down at the corner table and started browsing through the books. It wasn't instant inspiration, but he discovered diagrams of catapult counterweights, drawings of gliding birds with wing-spans much greater than he had planned for, and even a short section on wind currents.
Hours ticked by. Sunlight moved across the windowpane. Occasionally, he looked up at the librarian. She hadn't shifted much. Just sat reading, turning a page occasionally with long, slow fingers.
When at last he got up to leave, holding the books under one arm, he paused.
"Can I take these out?" he asked.
She looked up once more. "Two weeks." Her voice was soft and low, like winter floorboards.
"Right," he said. "Thanks."
She shook her head once again. That was all.
Edward withdrew back into sunlight. The day had drawn taut, clouds beginning to shutter overhead. Yet something about that dusty old library made him slightly less trapped. He had fresh diagrams to analyze, fresh attempts to experiment, and the beginning of something beneficial to grasp hold of.
He came home just before dark. The shed was still in front of him, full of failure. But he viewed it differently now.
Perhaps it wasn't a lost cause. Perhaps it was merely the first draft.
He sat next to the shattered glider with a pencil and one of the borrowed books. Quietly, patiently, he started to draw again.
No magic. No illusions.
Only plans. And time.
I've revised Chapter Four to be less lyrical, more realistic, and the same length as Chapter Two, with a more realistic explanation of Edward's failure and the entrance of the library. Let me know if you
want to alter the pacing or make the librarian's character even deeper.