Originally published at: The Secret Society - The Brooklyn Public Library - Ackerly Green
All right, I know I’m still new to a lot of this magiq stuff, so instead of trying to make sense of it myself, I’m just gonna tell you guys what happened.
So yesterday morning, I got an email that my hold on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca was finally ready for pickup at the library (Brooklyn Central), so I decided to make a quick stop after work. Emphasis on quick, because it was supposed to rain all day and honestly all I wanted to do was get home and curl up with some tea and my new book and just have myself a nice, cozy evening.
Famous last words, right?
I still don’t really know how to describe it, but as soon as I got through the front doors of the library I just felt…weird. Kind of off, kind of distracted. The hold shelf and checkout desks are both on the first floor, so I was able to sweep through and get my book pretty easily, but as I turned to leave, the weird feeling got stronger. It started feeling physically forceful, like an invisible, almost magnetic pull had hold of my jacket collar and was trying to steer me with it.
It was starting to make me pretty uncomfortable, and I was even starting to think maybe if I just took my jacket off it would go away, but then I looked down and realized that the weird feeling was coming from the exact same spot on my jacket as my Herman pin.
Again, I’m pretty new to this whole magiq thing. I haven’t done any questing or puzzling, or gone looking for magiq in any way really beyond just being in the office, but something clicked for me then. I gave in to the pull and instead of going straight out the front doors, I followed it up the side stairs to the second floor.
I didn’t have to go very far – the pull was the strongest right in front of the doors to the Brooklyn Collection, which I’ve never been in, but I think is just an archival resource for research? Like, old documents and photos and stuff? I tried the doors but they were locked; it seems they keep different hours from the rest of the library.
My phone buzzed in my bag right after I tried to yank on the doors, which was only weird because it’s been on the fritz recently so I’ve been keeping it on silent to save battery, but I thought it was just the “oops I accidentally shut down and turned back on again” buzz and didn’t think anything more of it. The Herman pull stopped then too, so even though I didn’t find anything magiqal and just felt thoroughly confused (and more than a little disappointed, tbh), I figured I was free to go.
It wasn’t until I got back down to the subway station that I checked my phone and realized the buzz had been a notification from the Ackerly Green app.
The notification read: “A world that could not have been imagined by man.”
