it was a beautiful device all glossy black and chrome metal keys of ivory the letters most frequently used worn utterly away and the rest faded to dim outlines mere scratches the suggestion of letters only it was a beautiful device it fit the hands fit the fingertips laid to cool keys which when pressed offered a satisfying clack and imprinted their clean black letters on the cream-white pages an indelible mark like a scar an eternal change like the whittling away of a mountain she remembers sitting on her father 's lap tapping out her earliest fantasies the girl and the fairy queen fluttering high over the palace of rose bushes and she staring so intently poking with one extended finger first at this letter than the next watching it all come together on the page like some arcane magic like deciphering a code something which none might know but she .