The Word Cloud

I'm going to post up chapters of the main book I am working on here - I'm not so interested in editing critique quite yet, just more interested as to whether the story works or not.

It is written in long hand and then typed up, so it is quite a labourious affair right now; for some reason, I can't think as well when I type as when I write, so for the purposes of getting the story down, I am handwriting it.

The title is a working title, since I don't have a clue what to call it yet!

Chapter One

After searching for something for so long, why is it that as soon as you return to where you started, you begin to hear rumour of it surfacing once again, not ten miles from where you began all those years ago? 

It is somewhat frustrating how the Fates like to toy with me in this way...

o0o

2pm. 

The limbo time.

Lunch, now over; its remnants left festering on an ancient, badly scored table. The room that it inhabited only passed as a kitchen upon the simple merit that it contained a stained sink and a kettle. Lazy, early afternoon sun, wasted as it trickled lazily in through dusty windows, reaching down to caress the floor with sparkling fingers. Once upon a time, she would have been out there, enjoying the last of the summer days, shrieking upon the beach with friends as she tried to change from her shorts to her bathing costume under a threadbare towel before running barefoot over the shingle into cool, green water.

An irritating, insistent buzzing; a fly caught against the window pane, desperately seeking freedom, thwarted from its goal by the thin veneer of grime-frosted glass.

(Make friends, make friends, never, never break friends...)

She hardly ever saw any of them now; half of them could be dead for all she knew. Only a few kept in touch. She sighed. That was probably more her fault then theirs – the telephone, her teenage life line, had become nothing more than an annoyance as she had grown up; where once her heart had leapt at its siren call, it now sank at an evening ruined by other people's problems.

(Arguments... break ups... misery...)

Grinning ruefully at her own sense of drama, she turned the page of the cheap tabloid she had been reading, scanning a page full of fairy tales and mass genocide.

It took the tinkling of a bell to shatter the silence.

“Excuse me?”

Elizabeth pasted a smile upon her face as she glanced up. “How may I help you?”

Jeans. White t-shirt; not as crisp as it had been that morning, I'm willing to guess. Those sandals rock climbers like to wear. A camera on a string around his neck.

Tourist.

The man smiled a little hesitantly, showing a row of uneven, slightly yellowed teeth, making him look instantly older. “I'm looking for some kind of guide book...”

Elizabeth continued to smile in a practised, plastic way. “Oh, sorry... we don't sell those.”

Open your eyes and look around yourself; do we look like the kind of shop that sells guidebooks?

The tourist's face fell a little. “You don't? Oh. I thought, considering this is a bookshop and all...” he looked at her again hopefully, as if this alone would allow her to magically produce what he wanted.

“We're a specialist and second hand bookshop, so unless you want a guide from 1967...” she smiled again to soften what could easily be construed as the thinly-veiled insult it was meant to be. “You want Waterstones. Go to the end of the road, turn left, turn right, head for the big monument at the crossroads and look for the cathedral – it's opposite that.”

“Oh... well, thank you, any way.”

The bell rang again as he pulled the door open and left, after which Elizabeth fixed her attention back upon the newspaper with a sigh.

'MY 6-IN-A-BED-ROMP WITH FOOTIE FAVOURITES!'

She read the headline through narrowed eyes with a growing sense of disgust... and curiosity.

6?! Exactly how does one go about taking that lot on...

Looking up, Elizabeth spent a productive five minutes staring at the opposite wall, trying to work out the logistics of such an endeavour within the confines of her own head, before blinking rapidly and shaking her head in almost embarrassed bemusement.

Still, it would be nice to have some kind of claim to fame. 

As a child, she had been convinced she was going to be a world famous archaeologist. The female Indiana Jones: uncovering the wealth of lost civilisations; discovering secret, forbidden knowledge; exploring deep into the hidden corners of the world...

... Instead, she worked in a bookshop.

She had told herself, over and over, that it was a stop gap. Raise some funds; go back to university – do it correctly this time. Apply herself and not just spend all her time down the Student's Union or getting stoned back at her flat. No more excuses. 

Life, for the sorting out of.

Not to be. Instead, she had been here for three years. Before that - call centres. Off licences. Local pubs. 

Hello. My name is Elizabeth Mabel Harrington, and I officially Suck At Life...

Again, the sharp, tinny ringing of the small brass bell that hung over the door to the shop rang out, heralding more customers – two of them, this time: a young princess clad in black and purple and her spiked haired, eye-linered suitor. 

Sauntering amongst the tomes and volumes, the girl - tall and willowy in appearance – ran a light finger over the spines of what Elizabeth took great pleasure in calling the self harm books - Astrology for the Modern Witch; the Healing Power of Crystals; the Pagan Secrets of Wicca - whilst her boyfriend trotted adoringly at her heels.

She flicked one perfectly dyed black lock over a thin shoulder and nodded to Elizabeth. “Have you got Kostrewski's 'Grimoire of the Night'?”

A sudden pang of hatred for this perfect specimen of everything she had wanted to be at nineteen assailed Elizabeth. In an attempt to mask this, she smiled and pushed her glasses up her nose. “To your right; three shelves down.”

Just give yourself ten years, love... ten years is all it takes. Things go south, jumpers all of a sudden become comfortable and one day you'll find yourself thinking that a night in front of the tele seems like a good idea and then there's no stopping it; it's all inexorably downhill from there...

With pity written across her perfectly sculpted face, the princess went back to her searching.

Flicking through the musty-smelling pages of the newspaper once again whilst occasionally glancing up to make sure the searching pair didn't take in on themselves to run off with anything, Elizabeth continued to daydream, this time making a shopping list in her head.

Bread... milk... onions... beer... tomatoes... chicken...

Her reverie was broken by the princess laying a book down upon the counter. She then withdrew a suitably studded purse from a suitably black handbag and flicked out a credit card between two perfectly manicured fingernails. 

“That'll be £31.99,” Elizabeth said as she slid the book into a paper bag and handed it over. 

“I'll also take these,” the princess added, placing down an amethyst pendent and some greetings cards with a very underfed yet curiously pneumatic vampire-chick on the front.

“In that case...” Elizabeth totted up the prices upon the back of the bag. “That's £46.97.”

Smiling sweetly, the princess nodded. “Thank you.”

“Must be interesting, working here,” chimed in the suitor, his poor attempts at growing a goatee now painfully apparent. “You've got some good books here. None of the other shops stock 'em.”

Her carefully constructed shop-assistant smile still plastered across her face, Elizabeth shrugged. “It's okay. We know that the bigger stores don't stock the more specialist stuff, so we make sure we do, alongside the second hand merchandise. Niche market, and all that.”

The suitor grinned as he picked up the princess' bag whilst Elizabeth ran her credit card through the little machine and completed her transaction before handing the card back, which was duly squirrelled away immediately.

“Well, thank you,” the princess smiled graciously and turned to leave.

“Bye,” Elizabeth returned absent mindedly as she re-focused her attention back onto her newspaper. “Thanks for stopping in. Come back soon.”

Again, the bell chimed, signalling their departure and silence reigned once more. 

Bill had told her it hadn't always been this way. He was once the sole purveyor of rare books in the town; if you wanted a first edition Austen, or something slightly more exotic, he was your go-to man. With the invention of the internet, however, all that changed. All of a sudden, once hard-to-get volumes became as easy as a simple click of a button, and William Meyer, proprietor of Meyer's Bookends, had found himself having to branch out a bit. Being the old hippy that he was, he had decided that he would cater to the slightly more-left-of-centre market, be it second hand or not, and, at the time considering herself slightly-left-of-centre, when she had seen the advert in the local newspaper, Elizabeth had applied for the job of shop assistant.

Just for a while, though. Just to get finds. Not a career, just a stepping stone. Just an excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse...

“Beth? You want a cuppa?”

She turned and nodded at the grizzled man standing in the doorway behind her, his ample beer belly hidden beneath an old AC/DC t-shirt, his fluffy, grey ponytail reaching halfway down his back.

He returned her nod before shuffling off, only to return a few minutes later with a steaming mug of hot, sweet tea and an opened packet of Hobnobs. 

“Much business?”

Elizabeth accepted her mug gratefully and she blew upon it before taking a sip. “A few people in – mainly tourists looking for guidebooks.” She gave Bill a shrewd look. “You really should stock some, you know...”

The older man waved his hand dismissively at her. “Naa... not when I'm getting more business from the 'net. Little goldmine, that. Got some Italian interested in that Lawrence collection – looks like I'll be able to name my price with him.”

Elizabeth nodded, impressed. “Sounds good. Any news on that Petrovna?”

Grimacing slightly as he took a sip from his own mug, Bill shook his head. “Nope. Bugger to get hold of, that one... I'm wondering if we're chasing ghosts, to be honest. Can't be more than a couple of copies left in the country.”
 
“So that dealership in London was a dead end?”

“Dead, fake end,” Bill spat back. “Bastard wanted eight hundred for it, until I told him was was a print, and a recent one at that. You should've seen his face... talk about a slapped arse.” He grinned a little evilly through a trimmed grey beard. “Probably thought he could fool the country bumpkin – little did he know, fucking idiot.”

Elizabeth took another sip from her mug with a grin. Good Old Bill – if there was one constant in this life, it had to be his own sense of self confidence. “So where now?”

“In talks with some geezer from France – we'll see what he has to say. If it's another fake, I'm going to have to tell Rodriguez it's a no-go. If I can't get hold of it, no bugger will.” He took a slurp of his tea, draining the mug. “You all right to hold the fort for a bit if I have to go to Paris?”

“Paris? That's a bit posh, isn't it?” Elizabeth felt a small stab of jealousy; Paris was one place Daniel had promised to take her, but had never made good. 

(And probably never will...)

“Don't you believe it, love: a cesspool, that's what that place is. A cesspool full of snakes trying to rip me off.” He set his mug down upon a nearby shelf with a bang. “Right then. I'm off – got some negotiating to do.” He nodded to her before ducking through the door behind her, sweeping away the dusty beaded curtain he had installed some twenty years previously. Elizabeth listened to the heavy tread of his boots as he climbed the stairs to his living quarters above the shop before silence reined again.

The afternoon dragged on. In a desperate bid to kill time, she emptied shelves and dusted a little, all the while watching the clock creep closer to five o' clock and closing time. In all honesty, she was unsure as to why she looked forward to this time; after all, all she had to look forward to was an empty flat complete with dinner for one, her only companions the television and a bottle of wine. 

4pm. Only another hour to go. Would she ring him tonight? Or not bother? 

(Why bother?)

The bell rang again, a violent, harsh sound that shattered her musings, catching her momentarily off guard. Plastering her practised smile once again upon her face, she made her way back to the desk – it made the punters nervous to have the shop assistant wandering amongst the shelves, Bill always claimed – and stood by the cash register like a sentry guarding his post.

The man who entered the shop was tall and displayed none of the hesitation that usually plagued potential customers upon entering the silent fug of the shop. Despite the heat, he wore somewhat old fashioned yet well-tailored suit, which was at odds with the modern-looking pair of sunglasses perched upon his long nose. He spent a mere moment glancing at the shelves before striding with an easy confidence towards the desk where she stood, affording Elizabeth a mere moment to assess his phenotype and run it against the catalogue of customer stereotypes she had filed in her head. 

He ticked none of the boxes.

“I wonder if you could help me.” No querulous introductory question, just a straightforward enquiry, spoken as a statement of fact. “I am looking for something rather specific and I have been led to believe that this might be the place to help me.” He didn't smile, but afforded her a scrutinous look that made Elizabeth raise her hand to touch the side of her cheek in a self conscious manner. Realising what she was about to do, she snatched her hand away, forced it into her lap and shrugged a little helplessly, hating herself for being cowed by a total stranger yet also unsure how to answer him. In reply, the stranger, obviously noticing her lack of reply and the lengthening silence between them, raised an eyebrow as if that would compel her to speak.

It worked.

“Uh, well, yes...” she stuttered, feeling a little off balance and nervous all of a sudden. It depends what you want...”

It was the stranger's turn to pause with a smile that could be construed as slightly condescending. 

“I am looking for something that has been considered lost for some time.” He paused again, as if suddenly reluctant to reveal his desire. He glanced about himself again, his attention this time firmly upon the outside world. After pursing his thin lips, he refocused upon Elizabeth. “It is called the Crimen Inritus.” Again he paused, this time studying her face minutely, as if looking for a reaction. When he found nothing other than small, pink roses flourishing upon Elizabeth's cheeks, he carried on. “It is, obviously, rare and it has escaped me quite a few times.”

With a curious sense of being out of her depth, Elizabeth reached under the desk for the current Oxford Catalogue and prepared to flick through the well thumbed pages, all the while trying to sound professional. “I have to admit I've never heard of it, but that doesn't mean I can't find it.” She opened the book and began rifling through the pages, searching for the correct place in the index. “Now how do you spell it?”

A cool, well manicured hand stopped her.

“I seriously doubt you will find what I am looking for in that guide.” He gave her significant look, peering over his sunglasses, his grey eyes steady, holding hers with ease. 

Elizabeth swallowed hard, a twinge of panic setting in as the roses upon her cheeks bloomed to a full blush that crawled up the sides of her neck and threatened to lay siege to her entire face.

If he noticed her obvious discomfiture, the stranger said nothing as he continued to speak. “The volume is seventeenth century in age, but was reprinted in the mid eighteen hundreds. Either version would do, although I would obviously prefer an original rather than a reprint.” At this, he smiled again, exposing a line of even, white teeth, leaving Elizabeth feeling inexplicably like a fly caught in a particularly treacherous web. 

“I know this is a lot to ask,” the stranger continued, “but I have spent a lot of time trying to track this volume down, and all of my research points to it being near this location.” He brought forth a battered piece of paper from the pocket of his buttoned waistcoat. “A man named James Penderson was the last person known to own a copy in this country – albeit possibly one of the reprints – and he lived not far from here, in Barnham.” He gave her another significant look. “After this, the trail grows cold.”

“And what of the other copies?” Despite knowing that she should be the one informing the customer, Elizabeth couldn't help herself.

“They are in the collections of other connoisseurs,” he answered guardedly.

“And they won't sell?” she asked, taking note of his sudden defensiveness. 

“No, they will not.” There was an air of finality to his answer that fed a rather perverse curiosity in Elizabeth.

“Well, in that case, I'm not quite sure how you think we can help you. I mean, Bill's pretty adept at convincing people to sell if he is be able to track another copy, but by your own admission, that seems unlikely, so...” she trailed off and shrugged again, feeling a trifle silly as the stranger before her straightened up and regarded her wordlessly.

“I see.” He spoke again after a long pause, his demeanour composed and a little chilly. 

“Would you like us to enquire?”

The stranger paused, taking time to pull off his sunglasses and tuck them into his breast pocket. “Of... course. That would be a great help.” He the fixed her with another piercing look. “Although I doubt you will succeed where I have failed.” He gave Elizabeth another long look as if sizing her up before he spoke again. “But maybe a little bit of feminine charm may succeed where I have failed...” He flashed her a charming smile again and she felt a strange fluttering sensation crawl the length of her spine, causing her to suppress a shiver. “In the meantime, however, I shall continue my research. Thank you very much for your help. Good day.” 

He turned to leave.  

“Uh, sir! Sorry, but you haven't given me any way of getting hold of you – if I do have any luck, I'll need to be able to get in touch...” Elizabeth called after his retreating figure, realising that even if she did manage to uncover this coveted tome she would need to contact him.

He turned slightly so the he did not face her; nevertheless, Elizabeth caught the edge of a wry smile. “Don't worry about that – if you are successful, I will know.”

And with that cryptic remark, he left, leaving Elizabeth feeling oddly flustered; due to this, she did not realise that upon his departure, the bell above the shop door didn't so much as stir with his passing.