On a drizzly Tuesday, the town library smelled like paper and warm lemon tea. Nora liked the Quiet Corner best. It had a round green rug, a sleepy clock, and a tall reading lamp with a golden shade that made the pages look like sunshine. Nora was six, with pockets full of small treasures. Today she had a purple button, two leaves shaped like hearts, and a shiny marble that looked like a tiny planet. She tiptoed to the low shelf where the big picture books lived and ran her fingers along their soft, clothy spines. "Ahem," said someone, very politely. Nora looked around. The library was quiet. She could hear the rain making tick-tick sounds on the window. "Down here," the voice said. "A bit to the left. No, your other left." Nora bent and peered between two books. A narrow ribbon with red stripes was peeking out like a cat's tail. The ribbon wriggled. "Excuse me. My name is Ribbon. I keep places. I would very much like to keep your place, if you have one." Nora blinked. "Are you... talking?" "Most certainly," said Ribbon, sounding pleased. "But only in the Quiet Corner. We try not to bother the chapter books. They get fussy." At that, the tall lamp gave a soft hum and brightened, as if nodding. "I'm Luma," the lamp said, its golden shade glowing warmer. "I watch over pages." Something rolled out from the shelf and clinked against Nora's shoe. It was a pencil with a chewed eraser and a jaunty cap sticker near the top. "Name's Scribbles," it announced. "I write things down. Sometimes I draw hats." Nora's mouth made a perfect O. She looked from Luma to Ribbon to Scribbles. "I didn't know the library could do this," she whispered. "Not everyone hears us," Luma said kindly. "But you carry a tiny planet in your pocket, and that usually means a good listener." Nora touched her marble and smiled. "What are you keeping a place for, Ribbon?" Ribbon fluttered and pointed towards a very big, very green book on the lowest shelf. The title was written in shiny letters: The Book of Little Doors. "We... we have a bit of a problem,". Ribbon said, lowering her voice. "The pages are going... quiet." She shivered like a leaf. "Words slipping away like snowflakes on your sleeve." "Going blank," Scribbles explained, tapping his point gently on the carpet. "And that's no good for anyone who likes stories. Which you do." Nora hugged her arms. The idea of a book losing its words made her feel like she had forgotten her name. "Will you help?" Luma asked. Her light hummed softly, like a cat purring. "You are gentle with pages. And brave enough to listen." Nora nodded right away. "Yes. What should I do?" "Open to the place I'm keeping," Ribbon said. "I've been holding it, but I'm not very strong." Nora slid the big green book onto the rug and sat cross-legged. It was heavy, but friendly. Ribbon slipped neatly between the pages and led Nora to the middle. Luma angled her glow. Scribbles scooted close. On the open page, there was a picture of a tiny door painted on a stone wall. The door had a knob the size of a pea and a keyhole shaped like a little eye. Around the picture, words marched in neat lines, but some of them were fading, turning the colour of milk and then the colour of air. Nora leaned in. She could just hear a faint sound, like wind in a bottle. "Do you hear that?" "We do," said Luma. "It started this morning." Scribbles wagged his eraser. "The words on the left side went first. 'T' and 'h' and 'e' got slippery. Then 'door' looked tired. Then 'open' took a nap." Ribbon gave a small, worried wiggle. "Luma thinks the door wants something." Nora studied the picture. The little door looked almost real. If she squinted, she could see the grain of the wood and a scratch that curled like a smile. The keyhole seemed a bit darker than the rest. It made her think of a wink. "The title says Little Doors," Nora said. "Maybe it needs a key." "We've checked all the keys the library has," Luma said. "Skeleton keys, brass keys, even a piano key, though that was a bit silly. None of them fit a picture." Nora looked at her pocket treasures. Leaves, buttons, marble. None of them were keys. "Sometimes," Scribbles said, "keys aren't keys. Sometimes they are dots on i's. Sometimes they are the ends of sentences." "The dot!" Ribbon jumped. "The little round stop! The page was missing a dot after a line. I felt it slide away like a tear." Nora scanned the page. There was a sentence that read, The small door was waiting. It was missing its dot at the end. The space after the last letter looked empty and lonely. "Where did it go?" Nora asked. "We don't know," said Luma. "The dot rolled off before we could blink." Nora thought of her marble. Round things liked to roll. "Maybe it fell," she said. She bent low, cheek almost on the page, eyes level with the words. The keyhole in the picture seemed to glow a very tiny bit. It made her heart hop. Scribbles wiggled toward the edge of the page. "Careful," he said. "I slipped earlier and drew a hat on a goose by accident." Nora looked under the book, then under her knee. No dot. She checked between the pages nearby. Nothing. "Ahem," said the sleepy clock on the shelf. It had not said anything all morning. Its hands twitched to a secret time. "Perhaps your small round friend can lend a hand." Nora took out her shiny marble and held it up. It caught Luma's light and made little suns on the page. "You want me to try this?" "It isn't the right size," Ribbon said, thoughtful. "But maybe it can show us where the dot rolled." Nora placed the marble on the white space after the sentence. It hummed in her fingers, very softly, like a bee thinking about flowers. Then it started to roll all by itself, slow as a snail at first, then a tiny bit faster. It made a gentle chink-chink sound as it crossed over the printed letters. Luma dimmed, then brightened, following. Scribbles scooted along, squeaking over the rug. Ribbon held on to the edge of the page like a flag in the wind. The marble rolled toward the picture of the door. When it reached the painted doorstep, it didn't stop. It tipped, it dipped, and- It sank into the picture like a raindrop into a puddle. Nora gasped. The marble was half in, half out, as if the paper was water. The keyhole in the picture shivered. A warm breath puffed from the page and tickled Nora's nose. "Oh," whispered Ribbon. "It's awake." "Back a smidge," Luma warned, her light flickering with excitement. "Give it room." The marble gave one last wiggle and slipped all the way inside the picture. The keyhole glowed. A tiny, shiny dot rolled into place and settled in the centre, like an eye finding its pupil. From somewhere on the other side of the page, there came a sound. It was the sound of a very small knob turning. Nora's heart beat bumble-bee fast. She reached out without thinking and rested one finger on the painted doorknob. It felt warm, like a sun-warmed pebble. "Should we-" Nora began. The knob turned again, all on its own. The line where the little door met the little wall got thinner and thinner until a hairline crack of golden light shone through. Something softly tapped from the other side. Once. Twice. Then a third time, a little louder, as if it knew they were there. Scribbles gulped. "That's our cue," he whispered. Luma's glow gathered, bright and brave. Ribbon held her breath. The tiny door in the picture trembled, the golden crack widening, and the knob began to turn the other way....