The Word Cloud

Jeez, this takes a long time to type up...

I am hoping the ending of this chapter isn't too cheesy - I am aiming for tense, but am worried I have over-cooked it a bit. Still also fighting those dreaded passive phrases and overuse of 'ing' words!

Chapter 3

As the summer waned, Elizabeth all but forgot those two fateful days in July. Sitting in the shop, she watched as the leaves on the poplar trees opposite paled, turned yellow and then begin to fall as autumn fought for dominance and slowly won. 

Business was steady: nothing to write home about, but enough to keep her in employment. Bill eventually gave up sourcing the Petrovna, but he didn't seem to mind; his ever-expanding web of contacts and customers upon the internet meant that, for him at least, the shop was nothing more than a curio – a relic of a time gone by, kept alive for the sake of posterity rather than solvency. 

Flicking through the paper, Elizabeth was careful to hide the employment pages, with their shameful rings of red ink around interesting prospects. She tried to fool herself; she wasn't looking for a new job, just seeing what was out there, keeping herself abreast of the market and all that jazz, whilst a treacherous part of her mind kept ticking away, counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds until her big Three-Oh, which was only six months away.

Six months. If anyone told her that they had a six month holiday, she'd have called them a jammy bastard and secretly hated them for it. In those circumstances, it felt a long time. But now, six months felt hideously short, especially when compared to the decade it was a part of.

In six month's time, I'll be same age my mother was when I was seven...

The thought rose unbidden and in its wake left a curious ache. It was an ache she had been feeling – and denying – for some time; an ache that spoke of yearning and emptiness and, strangely, of loss. 

It didn't help that Daniel rarely came home, even for weekends. He told her during the course of one telephone call that he had taken on a new project and was needed 'just in case something went wrong'... Yes. Of course. A project. A project that left lingering traces of perfume upon his clothes. She recognised it because she had once wandered into Army and Navy, smiled sweetly at the orange woman behind the counter and had been deigned – with a grimace, of course – important enough for a puff. She found the cloud of fragrance that had peppered her face far too sweet and cloying for her taste and so didn't bother treating herself to a bottle, but Daniel, who had smelled her upon her arrival back at the flat, had been enraptured, commenting upon her pleasant it was. Flattered by his sudden attention, she had then allowed herself to be shepherded into their bedroom; if only she had known then what she guessed now.

A cloud, heavy and black, drifted in front of the watery sun, plunging the street into a premature dusk. On the roof opposite, a magpie rasped in protest. 

She often wondered who the wearer of that perfume was and whether is was before or after she had worn it and he had reacted so strongly. Elizabeth knew she existed; the breathlessly answered telephone calls, the mysterious lack of libido upon his visits home, the hair grip she had found in the foot-well of his car – it all added up to one thing. The strangest thing, though, was that it didn't really bother her that much... that he was slipping away from her, through her fingers like a carefully cupped hand tries to prevent the water encased within from draining away elicited nothing more than a slight twinge in her stomach. He was withdrawing from her life, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Far above the shop the cloud shifted, a great contraction that gave birth to a million young. The sudden rain pounded the pavement, painting it a sullen grey. Elizabeth watched as a woman ran past the window, her hand firmly clasped around that of a small girl no older than four. The little girl stumbled and almost fell, but the woman caught her before she could fall. They then continued to hurry on until they turned the corner. 

Elizabeth swallowed hard and shoved the newspaper into her handbag. She turned her attention to the shop; grey plumes of dust had begun to settle once again upon the shelves. With a sigh, she padded through the beaded curtain that led to the back room and gathered up a duster and a cannister of furniture polish. 

She sprayed the polish directly on to the cloth and stroked the shelves until the dust was cleared, treating them with far more respect that she ever would her own possessions. The monotony of her task distracted her from her own mind, aided by the rhythmic beating of the rain against the window as it begged her to bid it welcome. 

The shop bell clanged, and Elizabeth jumped and held in a little scream of surprise as a hooded figure clutching a box shuffled towards her. 

“OOo, sorry dearie – didn't mean to scare you!” the figure exclaimed as it wobbled closer to her, shedding raindrops onto the wooden floor. They were absorbed immediately, as if the floorboards remembered the thirst they once had when they were mighty trees. Elizabeth straightened up as the figure pitched forwards a little, and reached for the box it was carrying.

“It's okay,” she replied and took the box from grateful hands.“I just wasn't really expecting anyone in this rain.”

“I know, I know... dreadful weather. Came up all sudden, like! If I'd have known, I'd have not bothered.” 

 Its burden now shed, the figure lowered it hood, revealing an old woman. Her age showed in the lines of her face, her bent frame, the smell of lavender and stale smoke that clung to her. After setting the box down upon the desk, Elizabeth then drew out one of the rarely used – discounting herself, of course – easy chairs from the corner of the shop and indicated to the elderly lady that she should sit for a while and catch her breath.

She sat down, smiled gratefully and pointed with a crooked finger towards the burden she had been bearing. “I dunno whether any of that lot is any good for you,” she said. “But my husband died recently, God rest 'is soul, and left an attic load of old books. Since most of the old book shops're gone now, I figured you might find some use for'em.” She looked hopefully at Elizabeth.

“I see. Well, lets take a look...” Elizabeth answered, feeling something within her stomach sink. She knew exactly why the old woman had chosen here to off load her late husband's crap (and she had no doubt that is was crap); none of the charity shops offered money, whereas the old books shops, when they were still in business, used to hand over a few notes for their trouble.

It was clear after picking up the top-most book that they weren't in the greatest of conditions. They had probably been in the attic for some time now, and their yellowed pages were decorated with the literary equivalent of liver spots. Still, as she rifled through the hoard, Elizabeth could see that all was not lost – a couple of nice leather-bound hardbacks were amongst the decaying paperbacks, and if there was one thing an amateur book collector liked, it was an old leather-bound hardback. 

Lips pursed, she lay the books out in regimented rows – paperbacks on the left, hardbacks on the right – upon the table and glanced up to meet the hopeful eyes of the crone opposite. Sighing inwardly, she smiled again; although she knew Bill would give her hell for it, there was no way she was going to disappoint an elderly woman for the sake of a few pounds, especially with winter waiting in the wings.

“Well...” she repeated, calculating a reasonable offer in her head. “I suppose I could offer you forty quid for the lot.”

The old woman narrowed her eyes briefly, forcing Elizabeth to justify her reasoning, and said nothing.

“There are some pretty good titles here, but they haven't been stored in the best of places, Mrs...”

“Penderson,” she snapped.

“Mrs. Penders-” She stopped.

“Penderson,” the woman repeated, slightly slower, as if Elizabeth had suddenly developed some kind of mental problem. 

“Sorry, I... sorry.” Elizabeth shook her head and grinned sheepishly. “Where was I?”

“You were telling me these books ain't been kept in the best place,” Mrs Penderson prompted, all pretence of being a genial little old lady now dropped as her tone grew hard. 

“Yes... of course. Indeed, the damp has got to a lot of them, meaning we'd only be able to charge a few pence for them.”

“And the hardbacks?”

“They too are slightly damaged by damp, which decreases their value, but luckily, such books have more appeal.” She gave Mrs. Penderson a significant look. “Although by 'more appeal', I don't mean 'universal appeal'.”

Mrs Penderson snorted and muttered into her teeth. “Well, I suppose forty quid is better than a kick up the bum.” 

Feeling a little wretched that she had just essentially out-bargained a pensioner, Elizabeth reached round, took the small locked box that Bill used for such purposes and counted out two twenty pound notes. She handed them over and the old woman snatched them from her hands with a dexterity that belied her advanced years and squirrelled them quickly into her handbag. Without another word, she nodded curtly, pulled her hood over her head once again and stepped out into the rain. 

Elizabeth watched her scurry up the sodden road, the tinkling of the shop's bell ringing in her ears, until she disappeared out of sight. 

Now that she was alone again, she turned her attention to the damp-spotted box and liberated the remaining books one by one from their incarceration. As suspected, most of them were pulp paperbacks – Howard, Fleming, Wheatley – and she placed them with their kin upon the table, ready to price them up if it was deemed worth it.

She delved her hands deeper, exploring the guts of the box and emptied handfuls of musty paper onto the counter like a mortician preparing a corpse. A few more paperbacks were extricated, but they were tattered and fragmentary, sad remnants of the printed word, scraps for the bookworms and other parasites that devoured dead literature. Elizabeth paused in her labour and ran a hand over her lightly perspiring forehead; quite how that seemingly frail old woman had managed to cart this disputed treasure trove of damp paper around to the shop in the first place, she would never know. Finally, the last scraps at the bottom were reached – mainly disintegrating dust-jackets from books long lost – and grasping the last, moth-eaten fragment from the depths, she pulled it forth. 

Above her, a huge crash of thunder caused the shop bell to dance.

It was the tissue-like texture of the paper, so unlike the heavy grain of its brethren, that made her stop. She almost consigned it to the floor, along with the rest of the rejects, instead, she lifted it to eye level and smoothed out the crumpled inset and read.

The typeface was archaic and, being largely written in Latin, indecipherable. However, as her eyes slid over the page, she felt an indefinable chill sweep through her; swallowing hard, she fought to maintain her composure as she read the title over and over again.

The Crimen Inritus.

Almost as if it was on an ancient newsreel, the title flickered in an out of focus, forcing her to seek the refuge of the floor. She had almost forgotten her encounters last summer, her mind scabbing over their conversations and their requests almost as if to protect her. Now that it was n her hands, the scab was torn free from the half-healed wound in her memory, pouring forth a torrent of pristine recollection. 

Penderson. James Penderson. The last known owner of the book. This book. The book they, whoever they were, sought. The Crimen Inritus.

With a trembling hand, she flicked through a few of the pages, hoping to at least get the gist of what the tome was about, but it was all nonsense to her. Her fledgeling excitement was soon squashed by an overwhelming sense of disappointment; she didn't have a hope in hell of understanding anything that was written within. The lines were dense and the main body of the text seemed to be written by hand in a language Elizabeth inexplicably recognised, but could not read. One thing she was certain; it wasn't Latin. None of the characters made any sense and they consisted mainly of letters full of looping swirls and curves. She continued to turn page after page of incomprehensible nonsense and felt her disappointment metamorphose into frustrated anger. 

Another rumble, as violent as before, interrupted her thoughts, breaking her concentration. Elizabeth glanced to a sky that was now black. Almost as if waiting for her attention, the rain intensified to the point where she could not make out individual raindrops, just a sheer sheet of water battering the shop window. Surprised at the sudden violence of the storm, she stood up and watched as a lone fork of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the deluge for a split second, burning trails into her retina. Clutching the ancient manuscript, she counted slowly, an old habit from her childhood. Upon reaching eight, there was another, even louder grumble of thunder. 

As if in a daze, she approached the shop door, the manuscript still clasped tightly to her breast, like a babe in arms. Another flash of lightning. She counted again. 

Seven.

She watched as the rain turned to hail, the little globes of ice bouncing off the tarmac. Again, a flash. Again, she counted.

Six.

The air around her grew heavy, and she was forced to blink in a futile attempt at banishing the pressure that was building to almost painful heights behind her eyes.

Flash.

Count.

Five.

She gave a little scream as the roll of thunder shook the shop, causing the bell above the door to clang. She held her breath, waiting for the next streak, which came almost instantaneously. 

Again, she counted.

Four.

Swallowing hard, her heart fluttered within the confines of her throat as she laid a hand upon the latch of the shop door.

Flash.

Three.

With a blinking fizz, the lights failed and plunged the room into darkness. She froze, her breathing quick and shallow. All the lights in the street had failed; with a trembling hand, she quickly latched the door and turned the shop sign to closed. 

Flash.

This time, the thunder was almost instantaneous.

She scurried away and ducked down at the back of the shop, behind one of the ancient free-standing bookshelves. Peering through the gap between two books, she watched the window with staring eyes. 

The rain now pounded down with the intensity of a drum-roll. The next flash of lightning and crash of thunder were as one, momentarily filling the world with unbearably bright light and deafening sound. 

Outside, momentarily illuminated, was a large, black sedan car.

Elizabeth stuffed her knuckles into her mouth and bit back another scream; from the black shadow that was the car, another, darker shade stepped out and made its way to the window. 

The lightning and thunder struck again, throwing light upon the face that peered in. Even from her distant position, she could see leathery skin and dark glasses; could feel the touch of his clammy hand upon hers; could hear the oozing quality of his voice. Something deep within her churned unpleasantly, and she fought down the urge to back away and huddle into the corner, positive that despite her hiding, he was looking directly at her.

She continued to watch as he raised a gloved hand to shield the rain away from his face. The incessant flashes of lightning took on a strobe-like quality, making his movements jerky as he walked towards the door. The handle rattled as he tried it, the bell suspended above tinkling in protest. 

Something slid down Elizabeth's cheek; a tear, born of fearful uncertainty, her never-blinking eyes fixated upon the figure outside the door. For a moment, it was if they were staring at each other; again she was sure he knew she was there and that at any moment, his hand would burst through the glass. 

Instead, he glanced to the parked sedan and hobbled back to its side before opening the door and sliding back within its Stygian depths. With the storm still raging above, the car pulled away from the kerb, its lights off, and drove sedately away until is disappeared into the murk. 

Elizabeth maintained her position, dashing away the tears that now coursed down her cheeks with a shaking hand, terrified that they would return. Instead, the storm abated and finally passed overhead, until all that was left was the occasional petulant grumble, now barely audible. One by one, the streetlamps relit, only to turn themselves off again as the day reasserted itself, and opposite the magpie began squawking again, mocking her for her lack of backbone. 

She still clutched the Crimen Inritus to her as she crept out from behind the bookshelf and dared to tiptoe her way to the window, fully expecting for the stranger to suddenly appear on the other side of the glass. Nothing happened. The rain petered out and the clouds began to break up, allowing the sun to show itself once again and at last Elizabeth's heart finally climbed down from her throat and began to calm down. She hesitated for a second before unlocking the door, but sis not dare to step outside; craning her neck, she studied the road, her eyes darting this way and that, trying to pick out any trace of the sedan or the stranger as the magpie continued to snigger at her. 

The road was empty.