Calling it Home #2
But I missed some lines while thinking, and I can’t for the life of me catch up.
“And when you do go, you really should… The—the… Those legs? Give them a try! My mother’s work-friend was raving.”
It’s starting to get to me how he scratches his coat. Grating.
I turn back to the shelf while scratching my hair for any relief from the sound of his coat. If I place this next one right, she may even be less disappointed in me for taking so long on the first.
“He hasn’t been interested in reading the non-necromancy stuff recently. It just doesn’t cause that same sort of… chest feeling?”
“The ‘music.’” Mistress Vincenza drums her fingers on the shelf.
“Yeah, like that. He always turns on the radio to sing along.” He grabs something off the top left of the shelf.
“Enjoy yourself.” She mechanically turns her head back to me. “What are you doing?”
“Sh-shelving?” I guiltily take my hand off the book I put in.
The man leaves to some corner of the store.
“Don’t. I need to be watching you until you actually understand what you’re doing.”
“Sorry, Mistress.”
“You have a favorite word,” she muses with a hollow voice. “Was this the only book?”
“Yes… Mistress.”
I can try, I can be given chances, and I’ll still fail. Always.
“This is why I can’t let you shelve on your own.” She waves her hands across the entire row. “You placed the book correctly between dot twelve and dot twenty, but those books were misshelved.”
“Oh.”
“The patrons never know how to put them back correctly.” She grabs a clump of four books and sets them back in the cart, rearranging the last one somewhere into the middle of the long collection.
“Shelve again from the new leftmost book. Check the three books to the left and the three books to the right to make sure you’re not building on a misshelved section. ”
I nod and comply. My check for the surrounding books comes up fine, but that only makes me anxious as it’s a lot harder to show that I checked when there’s nothing to grab or pull.
And I could be wrong! There’s a lot of numbers, and they blur together very easily.
“Do you see something out of place?” she prods at me.
“No.”
“Continue, then.”
“That one’s way out of place—wrong section.” Mistress Vincenza grabs a book off the shelf. “This will need to be checked in before it’s shelved, in case it was marked as missing.”
I subtly check my watch. 6:23.
Long and exhausting, or long and boring. Which one is it? I guess neither is so bad when the worst injury I can carry to bed is a papercut.
“You look like you’re about to fall over.” She leans close and stares into my eyes. “You’re not on anything, are you?”
“No! Absolutely not, Mistress.” I’m just always told that I look like I am.
And maybe it’s been a while since I’ve had water.
“Either way, sit down at the desk.” She grabs the cart. “I’ll organize in the back. If anyone tries to disturb you, tell them that the parlour opens at seven.”
“But—someone just came in.”
“Piero can come in early. Tell him I’m in the back if he needs me.”
Excessive nodding.
“And, note, keep your arms bent when you move the cart.” She leaves.
Just leaves.
No one’s coming in. It’s fine.
It’s great.
It’s gone to 7:02, and it’s not great. I’m bored out of my mind sitting here and completely alert. I stare at the wall clock for it to go faster, but it denies me this undue kindness.
7:04.
If someone asks me something, I’ll go to the back. Sure. I’ll excuse myself. Say it’s my first day. Just grovel and hope they understand—hope Mistress Vincenza understands.
Two women in dark red dresses enter the store, dropping some books on the counter.
I throw up a quick smile and announce, “hello! Welcome.”
“Hey there, sweety. Just returning these two.” The woman with a cigarette lung leaves with her partner, not waiting for any confirmation.
I guess I have an excuse to search for my mistress now. Maybe she won’t yell at me.
I pick up both the books… Oh, smut. I didn’t realize we—I just recognized two smut novels by their titles alone.
I’m fucked.
Anyway, I do manage to eventually stop gawking and bring the books with me into the back. Which is locked. And I don’t actually enter. And I knock at the door until she comes and helps me out from the situation.
“You’re still here?” The same aged woman appears from the door, her eyes set on my books. “That’ll help with figuring out your patron.”
“Wha—No! I’m returning them! I’m not…” My cheeks disobediently turn a warm red.
Oh, Great Ring. She’s going to set me up with a Ringborn. Sexually, to gain their patronization. I didn’t even think about that part of the employment. I haven’t really began to think I would actually do magic, especially with how tenuously she even let’s me exist here.
“Don’t flare up, yet. The embarrassing questions won’t start for a week.” She shuts the hallway door and takes over the front desk. “Come here.”
A little unspoken compliance.
She throws out two keys from her pocket. “For the backroom and the hallway, given that you’re apparently staying.”
“Was I not, before?”
She ignores me. “Checking in is easy. Open it up, record the date returned, and sign it.”
I guess it feels easy.
“Now, we have a paper log for each book in order.” She pulls out a file cabinet full of papers. “Organized the exact same as the shelves. Fill those out too.”
I swear that I used to have muscle tone. It was just in me. And clearly, I’m working something as I search through a thousand papers, but they still feel like a wet noodley pasta. Such as noodles, I guess. They’re not really, like, fragile. Just sedated from the stress.
It’s starting to dawn on me.
Every day for the rest of my employment.
This is not an exceptional moment. My reaction, maybe, but not the action. I’ll repeat this a thousand times if things go my way. And I guess that’s fine. I’ll find my way into liking it.
I survived eighteen years living in the Silkflats, and things were never this easy there.
“Okay, good. Sit down and take a moment to breathe.”
I already was, quite loudly. But sitting down isn’t going to make it worse.
“Really, please, just… You’re very overwhelming with how you express your stress.”
“I am? Sorry. I meant—“
“Shut it,” she grinds. “It’s… tiring, and not the best for you either. Just sit.”
“I’m sorry.” I straighten up and stay still.
Just some forty minutes now, and I’ll have some food. A couple slices of waffles and I’ll be up for the day! Enjoyable. Human.
The passing of time feels… hollow, here. It is a parlour for necromancers, so I guess it makes sense, but eternity feels almost grabbable—just eternity, not change. Change is slower than all of infinite time can give.
“Did the spiderweb grow?” I ask with a mild terror.
That gaze like I’m an idiot…
The door’s opened to a mess of teenage giggling.
“Sad place,” Lucia waxes with a crescent smile and glimmering, golden eyes. Her dress is laced with jewelry as dough is laced with flour. A disco effect of waving reflections follows on the floor wherever she moves.
Her boyfriend, a little less… interesting, asks, “is that your bitch?”
I raise my hand in a little wave. “Hey.”
“We brought waffles!” Lucia looks up at Mistress Vincenza before averting her eyes. “Can she go on break or something?”
“Only by my allowance, and for the sake of her health, I’ll give her one.” She waves me off callously. “Return when you’re less frightened.”
I put on a grateful smile. “Yes. Mistress! Where are we allowed to eat?”
She tilts her head. “You want to eat in here? Go to the… Piero is taking up the good armchair, but there’s some others behind the bookshelves.”
Lucia grabs me and pulls me away. “Okay, thanks!”
“I’ll be back,” I assure.
I almost think she looks disappointed.
Lucia hides us into a soft corner, a borghetto of shelves and furniture with just a quarter opening. “That crone hired you?”
“Yes. I think it may be in contract? I didn’t sign anything, but I verbally agreed.”
“Catie, you’re insane.” She hops onto the bigger of the two armchairs, taking her boyfriend with her. “We can smoke in here, right?”
“She asked me if I did, so I don’t think so.” I drift over the rug to a—By the Ring, these are some well cushioned furniture.
“She’s melting.”
“Catie? Catie! You’re eating waffles! Stop sleeping!”
I let myself fall between the gaps in reality that bind me to the stresses and knots of these mortal organs. “I don’t wanna.”
“Catie, they’re going cold, and I wanna gossip. Stop it.”
Someone snaps vaguely at me.
Little feelings and places erupt in my ears. But I don’t want to go back there. I want to be here, the most convenient point of refuge my star fearing soul could wander into. I had forgotten, for a moment, about how safe this all was—not because it’s secure, but because I can lose it.
I can lose it and fall to the reason I feel unsafe.
But I can stay here and count the waffles. I can make a point to try.