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Some nights, she wondered how there was so much gum and trash hidden inside of the library. Going through the aisles and reading areas, she would find pieces of gum on all sorts of things. There were lots underneath the tables, and even some inside shelves. She had no idea who would do such a thing, and how they could lack such decency and respect towards the library. Some nights it felt like she was the only worker of the Trollberg library, as nobody else stayed past sunset to maintain the place. But, even so, she felt happy with it. She was the keeper of the books, one of the only few that enjoyed the quiet and stillness of the library after dark.
The moon sat high, shining its silver light through the windows. The drudgery of cleaning continued, with more gum to scrape off of the old wooden furniture of the library, and little pieces of trash here and there. She had kept going until she had reached her personal desk; her eyes scanned it for any signs of vandalism.
"Good." She said. "Otherwise, someone would be in need of a reprimand."
Kaisa sat down, taking a short break. From her desk, she had a clear view of almost everything in the library. When she was still a young witch in training, she never imagined that she'd be the one sitting behind the desk, she was so used to being the mysterious child who checked out more books than they could carry every day. She smiled at the memory of it, and then a thought crossed her mind.
"Right... There's still my cabinets that I need to clean out soon."
She reached underneath her desk, opening up a cabinet full of her old possessions that she didn't have a better place to keep. There were a few books inside there, ranging from instructional tomes of basic spells she memorized, to old anthologies of bedtime stories that used to be read to her. As she continued rummaging through the cabinet, she found some board game pieces as well (much to her surprise). Kaisa then reached her hand in further, pulling out an old picture of her and her master.
She gasped as she stared at it, slowly wiping the dust away with her fingers. Kaisa smiled warmly at the photo.
Inside the photo was a very young Kaisa, no taller than her master's leg at the time. Even though it was a little hard to spot herself in the photo (She took up so little space in it), she could still tell how excited she was at the time.
"Such a wide smile." She giggled, and then examined the younger Pilqvist.
Her master had much less gray hairs back then, and she was a bit taller as well. She also didn't need to wear glasses yet either, but that would change as they aged.
While she felt happy to look at the old photo again, she couldn't stop herself from feeling guilty. She felt as if she wanted to go into the photo, to the time back then, and apologize to her master.
Kaisa sighed. "I'm sorry that I didn't become an enchanter, or an alchemist..." She said staring at the photo. "It's not that I was bad at the practical applications of magic, it's just... I..." Kaisa shrugged, not knowing how she would explain it in person. "I suppose I just didn't really like any of it enough..."
Already, she could feel the disappointment coming from herself. It was always that secret shame of hers that she carried, that instead of wanting to be a witch of legendary caliber, she would rather be keeper of the books. Even though Pilqvist always told her that it was okay, and that she would accept Kaisa no matter what she wanted to become, Kaisa insisted that it wasn't.
But, how could she have helped it? How could it have gone differently in any way, when her childhood was spent in a wonderful place with so many books...
'That's right.' She thought. 'How could it have?"
She set the photo aside, and began to remember the home of her childhood. Most of the time, she spent her days inside of Pilqvist's home, and she remembered that there were all sorts of things inside, like the bookshelf in the corner that was enchanted to always smell of honey and syrup, and the little chest underneath her bed that was home to all of her favorite bedtime stories that Pilqvist read to her. But, there was something about her mind's image that she couldn't put a word to, something that she didn't understand very well - her master's love.
Kaisa was never good at understanding these emotions. Emotions weren't like books, she couldn't just open her mind up and absorb and process the contents. Emotions were confusing, emotions existed in a strange space that she could not comprehend well.
For a moment, she closed her eyes and she thought.
'Emotions, and love... It's... Love is... When you call her mum on accident... It's the smell of roasted maple from the fireplace... And the feeling of her voice getting heavier and heavier as she reads you a story to sleep...'
As Kaisa opened her eyes again, she wiped away the tears that she didn't know she cried.