The Blood King's Love

Fifteen

I realize I've kind of left Theo behind, and when I turn I see that he hasn't followed me. I try to trace my steps back to the entrance, but come to another realization that I've completely lost myself in excitement that I wasn't even paying attention to where I was going. Suddenly I feel like a huge idiot, carrying around a foot-tall pile of books in my arms, limping around in my huge merchant clothes. I keep walking, trying to think of a way to find the boy without whispering or using my voice, until I hear a voice from behind me. 

"Well, it's been a long time since I've had a young lady in my store."

I whirl around in shock. It's an old man--must be seventy or eighty--at the end of the aisle, with long, grey hair tied into a pony tail, wearing a kimono-like tunic with sandals and a cane in his hand. He's shorter than I am, and his wrinkles sag down his face. 

Did he recognize me? Is my disguise too obvious? Is my figure showing? Did anyone else notice me like this? What is he going to do? My racing thoughts are cut off when I take a closer look at him. His eyes are staring blankly, not at me, not making eye contact with me, but straight ahead. His black iris's are hollow.

He takes a few steps towards me, waving his cane in front of him to make sure there's no obstacles in his path. "Now, now, my lady," he chuckles. "I know I'm an ugly old man, but I assure I'm not going to harm you in the slightest."

Then I realize. "You're blind," I say bluntly. 

He lets out a big laugh. "Ho ho ho, you must be observant! Either that or I'm making myself look too obvious." His joke is subtle and not that clever but it sends him into a laughing fit. His laughter has a strange rhythm to it, and I can't hold back my smile. Now that I've relaxed a bit, I ask, "How could you tell I was a girl?" 

The old man lets out a sigh. "When you've been blind for as long as I have, you have to train your other senses." He points to his ear. "Your footsteps are particularly light, and you have a slight limp in your walk."

"That's incredible," I say genuinely. I've never met a visually impaired person before. What I would give to sit down and talk to this man about his life. He seems to be quite the character. But I can't get off track.

"Do you work here, sir?" 

He places the books he had under his arm onto the shelf in front of him after patting down the area with his hands. "Yes, I do. I'm the owner of this place. What, you think a blind man can't run a book store?" He laughs again. 

I lower my scarf from my mouth a little so he can hear better. "Well, sir, if you can hear footsteps that well, would you be able to tell me if you heard the footsteps of a little boy around here? He's my...my brother, and I got so enamored with your book collection that I left him behind in the store."

"Hmm." After a momentary pause, he turns around and motions with his cane for me to follow him, which I do. "I'm know I heard something of the sort," the old man says. Every word he says has some sort of resonance, and sentences slowly but surely waltz their way out of his mouth. "But I thought I was hearing things. I don't get much traffic down here like I did decades ago, and usually when I do get customers they have old, slow, heavy feet." 

We take a couple turns when I hear "Lady!" 

It's coming from a few aisles forward, and I run ahead to find a little Theo, hidden under a pile of fallen books with his scarf-mask disheveled, the groceries I gave him earlier have fallen out of their bags and onto the dusty, wooden floor. 

I scold him, describe the scene to the store owner, and once I help my "brother" out of the pile of books, we both straighten out the scene. The kid explains that, while he was trying to look for me, he started looking for a smart book that I'd like, and ended up picking out a book from a tall stack that fell on top of him, so tall that the amount of books covered him. Apparently neither I nor the old man heard it, since I was too busy engrossed in book-finding and he was assuming he'd heard things.