#noctellewrites

Lucille, the ever-so-lively, charismatic yet cherished librarian of our town. A quiet little place the world seemed to have forgotten, for better or for worse. The streets are usually empty, even the kids sometimes feel lifeless. That’s just what this town is: silence.

Being born here is a sentence. No matter how great you are, the world will never hear about you. And in all honesty… I was comfortable with that. I never questioned it, never challenged the natural order of things.

But then she arrived.

It was probably the biggest event this town had seen in decades. She came in with tons of luggage, all of it bursting with books, colorful clothes, and scarves, she always wore scarves. She was a walking contradiction to everything I thought was permanent. She smiled so big, like she’d never been told to shrink herself.

She moved into the old library, the one that had been abandoned ever since Miss Jay passed. They found Miss Jay with a cigarette in one hand and a newspaper in the other. She lived exactly how she wanted, all the way to the end.

No one expected anything from Lucille.

The kids mocked her colorful dresses and old leather boots. The women gossiped, saying how they pitied such a young, beautiful woman wasting her life in a place like this.

"She’s going to waste her youth and charm here… poor girl."

The men either ogled her or ignored her completely.

Lucille was no one, and yet she caused such a stir.

And me? I thought she was perfect.

She was everything I wasn’t, and I admired that.

The first thing she did was renovate the library. With her own two hands. She left the doors wide open to let the paint dry, and I watched her from afar every day as I did my usual paper route. She’d always ask for a paper, and I never charged her. She didn’t even know it cost anything.

She didn’t care about the news. She cut out pictures and made little paper figurines for the kids, who, slowly, began to warm up to her.

They called her the crazy librarian, but still… they started visiting.

She opened the library to the very last ray of sunshine, and reopened it again at the first one. At first, no one cared.

Then the kids came, drawn by candy and stories on the carpet outside.

Then the women came. Romance novels for the dreamers, cookbooks for the mothers, a book club for anyone who wanted to speak.

Then the men. Fiction and adventure for those men who grew up too fast, and manuals for those trying to impress someone.

Then the elderly. Not for the silence, but for the peace. A peace that comforted, not suffocated.

And me?

She lured me in just by being herself.

One day, she invited me in. We talked. She recommended books. She smiled like I mattered.

Nobody had ever shown interest in me before. Not really.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just the paperboy anymore.

She became my daily route. My ritual. My comfort.

And one day, I asked her:

"Why do you always wear those old leather boots? Aren’t they too heavy for someone like you? I could get you new ones — Miss Smith makes the best shoes in town. She did mine and I’ve worked in them for years."

She looked at my shoes, then at her boots, and smiled.

“Your shoes are meant to walk around town,”

she said softly.

“My boots are meant to walk around the world.”

I thought she meant she walked a lot inside the library. It made sense. I almost never saw her sit.

I shrugged it off.

Three days later, I passed by the library.

It was closed.

The doors that had always been open, shut.

People knocked for days. No one answered.

Eventually, we forced the doors open. Everything was in its place.

Except Lucille.

She had taken her things. Her colorful clothes were gone. But the books? The books remained.

While everyone else buzzed with theories, I went to her desk. There sat one of the newspapers I’d delivered. Beside it: her favorite book.

Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne.

That was it.

Everything hit me like a storm.

She was never meant to stay.

That’s what the boots were for. Unlike me, unlike my shoes, Lucille was always meant to keep walking. To leave pieces of herself in every town she touched. And I…

I held the book to my chest and finally understood.

She left behind no letters. Only the weight of her absence, tucked carefully between the pages of every book she ever touched.

The world moved on. With or without her.

But I couldn’t.

Still, the townspeople rallied. Instead of hiring a new librarian, we took shifts. The library lived on. The town had color now. Noise. Joy.

And I wasn’t the same paperboy anymore.

I quit the job. Bought a good horse. Spent the last of my savings on a pair of strong leather boots from Miss Smith, boots meant to walk the world.

This chapter may have ended. But I’m not ready to close the book.

Not yet. There are still many more pages left to read.

Want to read the full story? I post chapters early on Wattpad. Come sit with me there 🌙📖 → [https://www.wattpad.com/user/NoctelleThorne]

Hiiii, my name is Noctelle Thorne. I just started my writing career and I do really hope you guys like my writings. you can also found me in Reddit, Wattpad, Substack even. all under the same name

thank you so much for reading this piece, if you guys like it I could write a second part for it or more. have a great day! :)