Threads of Emerald

Ropes of Fate: Chapter 26

The alley was suffocating in the midday sun, the stone walls trapping the sun and baking the piss and dirt and reek of sweat and sex.

I was almost gagging as I stepped into the bookshop, the chiming of the bell now so familiar and soothing to me.

Rowena Morwenna would have answers.

The bookshop seemed darker than before, the books piled high in the window blocking out the rays of sun that baked the alley.

I didn't spy her here, not as an older woman with grey hair and wrinkled skin, nor as an impossibly beautiful young woman with crimson hair.

Instead, a remarkably boring faced man stood behind the wooden desk. The watery light from the low-hanging oil lamps that hung haphazardly in the centre of the room quickly washing over his features, then retreating as if even they had grown bored of him.

The man looked so boring, it was as if he willed the world not to remember his lifeless cheeks, his slightly bent nose, his thin lips and wisps of grey hair that sat atop the pale skin of his bald head.

"Are you looking for answers, Miss?", well, his voice was certainly not boring, I thought as I tried to steady my breathing and become a portrait of nonchalance as I strode over to the worn desk. It sounded like metal grating against metal, unnervingly deep and scratchy, but surprisingly steady and lulling. As if his voice alone could have you spreading your deepest secrets for fear of what lurked beneath it.

"Yes", I willed steel into my veins, slowly rebuilding that ice veil that had snapped when Rupert's callused fingers trailed over my skin, not what I needed to think about now.

"I'm looking for a book with a symbol on it", realising I should have brought some ink and parchment, I nervously eyed the small square scrap of peach coloured paper and the splotches of ink atop it.

"Would you like to draw it for me?", I wasn't particularly good at drawing, especially from memory. I'd worn a velvet-blue cloak that was pinned to the light blue material of my tunic, covering my right arm completely from view.

The old man reached for the piece of paper and pulled out a pretty silver pen from a rickety drawer of the desk.

"Where's the other woman who was here last time?", the old man surveyed my green and silver eyes, the brown length of my hair that the buttery light did not touch, before he answered.

"You must be mistaken Miss. I am the only person that works at this bookshop. It's been that way for forty years, and it hasn't changed", but a glimmer of doubt flashed in the man's smoky grey ears, and even a tinge of fear that added a bit of life to his plain face.

"Oh, it must have been a different bookshop. I visit so many, they all blur into one!", I tried to steady my voice, nothing more than over-enthused book lover who spent her time smelling of ink and parchment and other worldly adventures.

I finished drawing, trying to mirror the triangle and tree that lay inked to my forearm. Hands slightly shaky, I passed the piece to the man.

I expected him to recoil in terror, for that fear to spark something greater and him to usher me from the shop, claiming dark magic and dodgy dealings and marks of Azuria.

Instead, he studied it as if it was nothing more than a list with items he needed to order, Bread, Butter, Paper.

"Wait here, I'll see what I can find", the old man gestured to the crumpled leather chair that a person seemed to have abandoned before it reached the desk, sitting on legs engraved with a golden hawk a few metres away.

I should have sat down. It would draw less attention, particularly because my leg would not stop jittering, my leather boots thudding against the scratched wooden floorboards.