Chapter 20: The Stationery Room

Chapter 20: The Stationery Room

(Memento, June 7th, 2011)

As you wander through our strange and wonderful house, you will find many rooms of interest, all of which are fluid in their relative locations.

All but the Stationary Room.

It exists at the center of an imaginary line between the Master Bedroom and the Gatehouse, always maintaining equal distance from the two. So, to find and enter the room, you must know where the others are.

Its use is summarized in the Athenaeum records:

“The word is not only a descriptor for the nature of the room, but an indicative for what it contains. The Stationary Room is also the Room of Stationery.”

At the first viewing, the room seems somewhat small. A single desk sits in the center, facing the door. At its back is a window covered by heavy curtains, and all the walls, save for a large cabinet in the corner, are bookshelves.

Inside the desk is an infinite supply of papers, envelopes, inks, pens, and waxes.

It is the room where letters are written.

Only the Master of the House or those he gives permission can use it.36

36

The first mention in the text of Our Strange and Wonderful House of the House having an individual Master. The idea of certain rooms only being open to a specific individuals or those this individual permits was previously seen in The Jenny Everywhere Museum; one assumes the restriction on unauthorised entry into the Stationery Room was granted in the same manner, likely by the selfsame Architect. 44