Dawn reached Velgrimor like a timid caress, brushing first against the gothic spires of the
Central Cathedral before descending along the red brick facades that had witnessed four
centuries of history. The morning mist rose from the canals with a reverent slowness, as if the
air itself needed time to wake. The metallic sound of the bells of Saint Adrian cut through the
silence at seven in the morning, and with it, the city began to breathe.
Velgrimor was a city that seemed to exist outside of time. Its cobblestone streets wound
between ancient buildings whose tilted walls cast deep shadows even at noon. The canals
divided the city into sectors connected by stone bridges where tourists stopped to photograph
the perfect reflection of medieval structures in the still water. It was the kind of place where
every corner held a story, where every old facade had seen entire generations be born, grow,
love, and vanish.
But Vel wasn't thinking about history when she woke that morning. She wasn't thinking about
the architectural beauty that surrounded her life or the charm that drew thousands of visitors
each year. She was thinking, as she did every morning, about how her body ached from the
cold that seeped through the cracks of the poorly sealed window.
Her room was on the third floor of Hotel Margot, though calling it a hotel was generous. It
was more of a boarding house with tiny rooms rented by the week to people who, like her,
lived on the margins. The room measured barely three meters by four. A single bed pushed
against the wall, a narrow wardrobe of splintered wood, a broken-backed chair that served as
a nightstand, and a tiny sink in the corner where the water ran cold no matter how long you
let it flow.
The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, shared by the eight tenants on the floor. Vel had
long ago memorized the exact times when it was empty. Six thirty in the morning, before the
fish seller on the first floor woke up. Two in the afternoon, when the elderly woman in the
next room took her nap. Eleven at night, after the university student at the end of the hall
returned from his shift.
But what made that room hers, what transformed it from a simple rented space into
something resembling a home, were the walls.
Every inch of vertical space was covered with images of the cosmos. They weren't posters
bought from stores. Vel had never had the money for that. They were pages carefully torn
from old scientific magazines she found in the library's discard section. They were low-quality
prints she made when Mrs. Margriet wasn't looking, using paper others had left in the printer.
They were newspaper clippings taped up with cheap adhesive tape that yellowed over time.
There was an image of the Eagle Nebula, those pillars of gas and dust where new stars were
born, in impossible colors of green and orange that looked painted by an abstract artist. There
was a detailed map of the solar system with orbits traced in perfect concentric circles. There
were grainy photographs of Jupiter with its Great Red Spot, of Saturn with its majestic rings,
of the Martian surface with its deep canyons and extinct volcanoes.
And above the bed, directly where her eyes rested every night before sleep, was an image of
the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. A photograph showing a tiny piece of the night sky, no larger
than a grain of sand held at arm's length, containing more than ten thousand galaxies. Each
point of light in that image was not a star but an entire galaxy with billions of stars of its own.
Vel had memorized the description that came with that image. These galaxies were so far
away that their light had traveled more than thirteen billion years to reach us. What we see is
not how they are now, but how they were when the universe was young.
That idea fascinated her in a way she couldn't explain with words. Looking up was looking
back in time. The stars she saw each night were ghosts, luminous echoes of suns that had
perhaps died centuries ago but whose light kept traveling through the void, finally reaching
the eyes of a young woman in a small city who would probably never leave this planet.
Vel got up slowly, feeling her bones protest against the thin mattress. She rubbed her arms to
generate warmth. The air in the room was cold enough that her breath formed small clouds of
vapor. It was already October, and Velgrimor was bracing for a winter that promised to be
harsh.
She approached the sink and turned on the faucet. The water came out freezing, as always.
She splashed her face with quick movements, shaking off the lethargy of sleep. She looked at
herself in the small rusted mirror. Her blue eyes stared back with that mixture of exhaustion
and determination that had become her default expression. Her red hair fell tangled over her
shoulders. The freckles on her cheeks seemed more pronounced under the pale light coming
through the window.
She didn't like looking at herself in the mirror for too long. Not out of vanity or lack of it, but
because she always ended up searching for traces of her parents in her own face. The blue
eyes, whose were they? The red hair, where did it come from? The freckles, were they
inherited from someone who once held her as a baby? These questions had no answers, and
searching for them only reopened wounds she had learned to keep closed.
She turned away from the mirror before the thoughts could deepen further. She dressed in the
same jeans as always, washed so many times the original blue had faded to a washed-out gray.
A white thermal shirt with a small hole in the hem that still served its purpose. A dark green
wool sweater she had bought secondhand that smelled faintly of mothballs but kept her
warm. Her sneakers had once been white, now more of an undefined shade between beige
and gray, with worn soles but still functional.
She brushed her hair with her fingers, pulling it into a simple ponytail. She didn't wear
makeup. She never had. Partly because she couldn't afford it, partly because she had never
learned how to apply it, but mostly because she didn't see the point. She wasn't trying to
impress anyone. She wasn't looking to draw attention. She just wanted to get through the day
without being bothered, and that required being unnoticed, not beautiful.
Although the truth was that Vel was naturally beautiful in a way she couldn't entirely hide, no
matter how hard she tried. She had the kind of beauty that made people turn to look at her on
the street without knowing exactly why. A combination of delicate features, expressive eyes,
and that ethereal quality some people have who seem not to fully belong to the earthly world.
But Vel never saw it when she looked in the mirror. She only saw a young woman trying to
survive another day.
It was seven twenty when she left her room. The hallway was silent, the other doors closed.
She went down the wooden stairs that creaked with every step, holding the worn railing for
balance. The hotel lobby was empty at this hour. The manager, a middle-aged man who
always smelled of tobacco and coffee, didn't even look up from his newspaper as she passed.
The front door opened with a metallic screech, and the cold morning air struck her like a slap.
Vel inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with that damp air that smelled of canal water and freshly
baked bread from the bakery on the corner. The sky was clear, a pale blue that promised a
sunny though cold day.
The streets of Velgrimor were beginning to wake. Shopkeepers opened their stores, raising the
metal shutters with that distinctive sound that echoed between the old buildings. The first
tourists were already walking with cameras hanging from their necks, consulting maps on
their phones. The locals moved with purpose, knowing every shortcut, every side street that
would get them to their destinations faster.
Vel walked along Mill Street, so named because two hundred years ago there had been a
windmill on the north corner that was now just a stone base children used for playing. She
passed Van Der Berg's bakery, where Mr. Van Der Berg was placing trays of freshly baked
croissants in the display window. The aroma was so intense that Vel felt her stomach contract
with hunger, reminding her that her last meal had been yesterday at two in the afternoon.
"Good morning, Vel," the baker greeted her with his characteristic accent, raising his hand in
a friendly gesture.
"Good morning, Mr. Van Der Berg," Vel replied with a brief but genuine smile. She didn't stop
to chat. She never did. But she always returned greetings because being rude required more
energy than she had available.
She continued walking, crossing the Bridge of Flowers, so named because in spring the
railings filled with planters of tulips in every color. Now, in October, the planters were empty,
just dark soil waiting for the next season. From the center of the bridge, Vel could see the
perfect reflection of the old houses in the canal water. A pair of swans swam lazily near the
shore, indifferent to her presence.
The Velgrimor Municipal Library was housed in a building that had originally been the
mansion of a textile merchant in the seventeenth century. It was a three-story structure with a
red brick facade and arched windows with leaded glass that created patterns of colored light
when the sun passed through them. The main entrance had two columns framing a solid
wooden door with intricate carvings of mythological scenes that time had softened but not
erased.
Vel arrived at eight forty in the morning. The library opened at nine, but Mrs. Margriet always
arrived half an hour early to prepare everything, and Vel had developed the habit of arriving
early too. She knocked on the side door, the service entrance that employees used, and
waited.
A few seconds later, the door opened to reveal Mrs. Margriet Vandenberg, director of the
municipal library for twenty-three years. She was a sixty-two-year-old woman with gray hair
gathered in an impeccable bun, gold-framed glasses resting on the bridge of her nose, and a
way of moving that spoke of decades of order and routine. She wore, as always, a high
collared blouse and a knee-length skirt, sober colors, impeccable presentation.
"Punctual as always, Vel," said Mrs. Margriet with a small but warm smile. Her voice had that
authoritative tone that came from years of giving quiet orders among silent shelves, but there
was a softness underneath, a kindness that not many people took the time to notice.
"Good morning, Mrs. Margriet," Vel replied, stepping into the service corridor that smelled of
wood polish and old paper.
"A new shipment arrived today from the central library," Margriet commented as they walked
toward the lending area. "Some science texts I think will interest you. I left them in your
section."
Vel felt a flash of excitement that she quickly suppressed. She didn't want to seem too
enthusiastic. She didn't want anyone to notice how much those books meant to her. But Mrs.
Margriet probably already knew. They had been working together for almost two years, and
although Vel never spoke about her personal life, there were things that didn't need to be said
with words.
"Thank you, Mrs. Margriet," Vel said softly, with a sincerity she rarely showed.
The director simply nodded and continued on her way to her second-floor office, leaving Vel
in the comfortable silence of the empty library.