A chill was in the air, the kine were huddled in there layers hastily walking home from work, a quiet drink with a friend or that affair that has been going on for six months with little too no guilt. As night descended humanity moved towards the parts of San Francisco that held the lights and the masses, seeking the knowledge they were more protected as part of the pack.
Most business close before night truly takes hold leaving Luce with very few option regarding her book lore. Sure major chains stay open much later than night fall, but much like cheap retail stores that fill their racks with clothes from sweat shops over in Asia [the only art found in such stores would be the depression and desperation that is locked in each thread sprinkled with a Childs tear]. But the good places, the old places were hard to find and even harder to keep open.
Luce has been in San Francisco for perhaps a month and she would have to wait another until this store opened late enough for her to visit. Simply called "Hidden Gems" the book store does not have a very long history. Founded in 1950 the establishment has been trading in books and other tit bits for over 60 years. A Family business never leaving the hands of a blood relative it was currently run by a man called Simon Wallace. The great grandson of the founder George Wallace. Once a month on a Tuesday they stayed open till 9pm. It was a tradition set down by his father, the sailors of the time that would visit San Francisco ports usually left on a Wednesday morning so Tuesday was there last night to make arrangements on land. There were two types of Sailors, fuckers and readers. On the last night he tailored to the latter, though a few streets down did the former. The building is a simple two storey Victorian number, snuck away down an Alleyway that has seen better days, the only way Luce would know it was there by the aged worn and very worn Pub like sign that is placed at the end of the alleyway. In very faded writing it says "Hi d n Ge " The letters were missing though it was easy to fill in the gaps.
The alley way looked quite bright considering some she has passed, a few pipes further down hummed with steam and other such products creating a foggy atmosphere, very Victorian London.
The crisp change in the air, and dark-drenched streets, the damp fog. There are few enough leaves swirling about San Francico's streets, but the lengthening night is all she requires of the change of seasons. She will be grateful when daylight savings time ends, bringing her schedule one hour closer to Business Hours of the world at large.
It is somewhere north of 8, perhaps closer to 9 by the time she has crossed the bridge, parked the convertible she is slowly ruining for want of training in how to drive a proper standard shift, and hiked several blocks upward, through the old Victorian village of Lower Pacific Heights, past closed boutiques and dead-eyed antique shops. Past bars and pubs to serve the enclave caught open by the recession somewhere between run down and hip, pausing at the alley's mouth, pale blue eyes flickering over the sign before she starts down the alley.
The Toreador is dressed quietly for the evening. Jeans and buckled leather boots, a t-shirt from the 2001 Take Back the Night march in Tulsa, Oklahoma beneath a gray hoodie and old peacoat, a dusty olive, replete with two marching rows of brass buttons and epaulets that could have come straight from Napolean's uniform. As if she'd ever been in an army. As if such a fair thing could know anything of war.
She is breathing, necessary to the Masquerade, if not to the ordinary function of her body. And she is smoking, exhaling a cloud of dry gray smoke to merge with the London-like fog roiling down the street, which halos the brighter lights with oily rainbows and plays odd tricks on the ear. The cigarette goes sailing end over end to gutter in a convenient puddle. The creature adjusts the messenger bag slung over her narrow frame and heads down the alley, intent on the front door of the Hidden Gem.
The Hi d n Ge. This amuses her. The curve of a small entirely private smile ghosts across her mouth as she pushes open the door.
Tick TockThe front door was authentic, it was old it was worn and carried with it the look of aged wood, Luce would feel that if she ran her fingers over it, worn smooth from the elements and a constant use up until a few years ago. An old brass door handle greeted her and when she entered an old brass bell rings from over head. The air was dusty, rusty and a little musty, something were just so old they were fading away. The place seems to have no order, books are scattered over desks, bookshelves. Nothing looks new in here. Hung on the end of the bookshelves are other things. Some old World War II medals hang from some string a poor memory to whoever earned them and moved on. An old photograph showing the Golden Gate Bridge hangs up in black and White, the corners coloured brown from poor care, it's aging paper being kept from the suns light it would lose its darkness and be but a white piece.
It seems more like a market than a book store though old worn books were certainly the majority here. Behind the counter is an aging man. Perhaps mid to late forties, the gods had already made him silvered haired though had the good graces to ensure he was balding yet. He had a fleece on that looked worn with age the elbows rubbed down to the fabric with use. Luce could only imagine the ancient trousers he must be wearing behind that counter, or even how cheap his foot wear must be...oh the pure horror. [If she cares for such things, being of the scholarly type she might have hidden appreciation for such geek bookworm].
He looks up, a giant steel ring of keys in his hand. A pair of glasses hang around his neck. "Evening, I was just about to close..." He coughs faintly "I guess I can stay open for ten more minutes, looking for anything in particular." He had grown beyond the age where he looked at women like her like that. Perhaps he was married, perhaps he was gay. Luce was a stunning woman but he doesn't seem to notice.
Tick Tock[wasn't balding]
LuceNot every man does look at her like that. Luce's attraction is more sculptural than it is sexual. It lives in the symmetry of her features, the sharp cut of her cheekbones, the high, clear breadth of her brow. And so on. Her tall, narrow figure, which is more attractive to fashion designers than it is to redblooded men. The sort who love the pneumatic attractions of plasticized californians. The sort who want meat on their lover's bones.
Tonight she means to blend, as much as she ever can. She wears no make-up, the hood covers the crown of her head and casts a long shadow over her features. She tosses it back when the shopkeeper addresses her, flashes him the edge of an engaging little grin.
"Surely not so soon? I was sure you were open to nine, tonight." Beneath the layers of clothing, her narrow shoulders shrug upward, expressive of something on the spectrum from surrender to helplessness. Her voice is low, with an accent that sounds faintly, non-specifically foreign to American ears.
"I'm mostly the browsing, know-it-when I see it sort?" Pale eyes cut away from the older man, drifting over the oddlots and assortments of knicknacks and other goods, lingering on the spines of the old books. "Do you have any special collections? San Francisco poets from the 50s and 60s, maybe? The contemporaries of Ginsburg and Ferlingetti who never made it past chapbooks? Or history, if you've a strong collection. Right now I'm particularly interested in the Cathar heresy of the early middle ages and Mazdak the Younger, if you've any studies of the Persian Empire."
Tick Tock[Lets see if Luce is lucky shall we]
Dice: 1 d10 TN9 (8) ( fail )
Tick TockThe man looks to the young woman when she comments on the time. She could see the answer on his fact without it being mentioned in words. No one comes here anymore. Then Luce shows she is not just a pretty face, quotes to very different fields of study in but a few breaths. He was intrigued.
The man reaches down and puts on his glasses "It has been a day an age since someone came in that knew a thing or too..." He steps from behind his desk, Luce would note the man has a walking stick and a prosthetic leg as he approaches the woman. His trousers are a dark brown and he has no shoes just a pair of worn [but comfortable slippers]" I believe I might have a copy of the Dabest n-e Maz heb, English-language edition by David Shea and Anthony Troyer. I will tell you that the piece received very little praises as it was considered a flawed piece as the translators were not well versed. The original copy it was translated from..." He holds his walking stick in front of him and taps it on the floor twice as if to restart his cognitive functions. "It escapes me...my father was into theological studies...it may take me some time to dig it out if you were interested?"
There are three pins straight down the strap of the messenger bag. The topmost says This guitar kills fascists. -- Woody Guthrie. The middle pin is obscured by the curl of her hand over the strap. The bottommost says Dumbledore's Army in Gryffindor colors. Her pale gaze flickers down as he emerges from behind the counter, taking in both the wooden leg and the walking stick silently, then returns to his face.
Another flash of a grin, quick and genuine enough to spark a warmer light in her gaze. She shifts minutely aside to give him room to lead forward. "I would be. I can't claim that I'm an expert, or even an educated amateur. But I'd love to pick it up. Flawed translation or no, you have to start somewhere. Mind if I browse while you search it out? I don't suppose you have any first editions, here, have you? I'm too hard on books, but my grandfather's a collector. If something's in my budget I'll pick him up a surprise from time to time."
LucePerception + Alertness
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Tick Tock"Go ahead, have a look around, I am sure there a first of something in here..." He says with a light hearted chuckle as he moves down the book shelves that formed isles his walking stick making an echo as it hits the wooden floor beneath them as if trying to place where it might be. He disappears from view thought she can still hear him.
Meanwhile in a shop with over a hundred things around her. Luce finds her attentions wandering towards a shelf, high off the floor. It is covered with old clothes, some kind of flag and an old marching drum, leftovers of an era gone by [and it smells like it] but she sees something glint. Whatever was under there was small but it seemed to play with the light as if it was calling out for someone to save it from a dreary existence. At this angle she cannot make it out, was it a ring, a coin?
"Brilliant," the creature returns, watching his multipartite shadow move against the worn wooden floor, the dusty old counters, the overstuffed shelves. She pauses as he disappears from view, breathing in the familiar scent of dust and paper, leather and slowly disintegrating glue. Cuts a glance back toward the murky little display window, opacified by the glare of the interior lights. There is just her reflection, pale against the darker background of books sinking to an impressionistic obscurity around her.
Shifting the messenger bag from the front of her body to rest against her back hip, she follows a meandering trail through the shop. Haphazard, browsing as she said she would, long fingers running over the dusty spines, the faded gold lettering when that glint of something on the top shelf catches her eye.
She is such a fine thing, there is something bird-like, animal about the intensity of her sudden interest. She trusts her eye, that native instinct, and crosses the store, a cool, thoughtful frown turning the corners of her shapely mouth just downward. That frown lingers in her brow as she reaches upward, peeling away the layers of flag and drum, old uniforms, a sailor's hat if she can reach them, tall and long-limbed as she is. If not, she searches out a stepladder for the same purpose, burrowing through the dross to find the glint of gold.
Tick TockShe may have to go on her toes but she can reach it, before she can see it and her hands touch it she knows she has found something special. When she brings it out she finds a Clockwork cog. No bigger than a nickel. It fits perfectly in her hand and feels slightly warm to the touch. Her eyes might open and sparkle as she runs a finger over it and Luce can almost hear the pendulum swinging, the gears shifting the chimes of some magnificent master piece of a clock design, made by hand not some production knock off.
The gear looked simple to the eye but her touch showed it's true layers. Thin lines wove around the inside forming into a pattern that eyes couldn't see. It shone, a timeless object in a place out of time. Her other hand may come over it so she can feel it from both sides, the pattern mimicked on the other. Something you need to be told are art and yet something are just art. It might bring a tear to her eye to think what this must have come from, how beautiful it must of be. The chimes, the moon dials, the pendulum swinging. Clocks have been status symbols for years, a grandfather clock was seen as the centre of a house and coming from Europe Luce would know the pain and time that went into making a clock. Years thrown away in the pursuit of tracking the single second of a single day. The artists that made them sometimes went mad from the smallest flaw in their design sent insane from the failure going into oblivion with the sound of the ticking clock they could not finish. She can feel those years now held between her palms, just one very small piece of a much larger design. It must have been beautiful, her mind's eye racing to picture it, to put the gear in place and build the structure around it to imagine it in place.
She wants it, she wants it so very bad
LuceTip-toes, then, her feet arching high in the leather boots, stretching to nip the little cog from its nest of dusty detritus. She is considerate enough of store owners - of bookstore owners, at the least - that she intends to push the drum and uniform, the waterfall of an old cotton skirt, all the rest of the hoard back into whatever order they had been in before she disturbed them.
Except that her attention is snagged by the warm feel of the cog in her hand, snared enough that she forgets the almost unconscious rhythm of breathing to which she has trained her dead body, the discipline a predator requires for concealment in plain sight. See: breathless and still, she runs the pad of her thumb over the planes of the pieces, the marks left by the maker, the handwork, the old oily sheen that catches the light in a rainbow patina when she turns it just so. No tears, not precisely, but the mesmerized fascination of a hooded cobra charmed by a song.
If she had a heart to beat, it would be hammering against the cage of her chest. Instead, she is suffused with desire so immediate and unrelenting that she can taste warm blood in the back of her mouth. Unseeing, thoughtless, she turns the piece over in her hand and wanders back toward the front counter, plucking a few volumes at random to add to whatever the shopkeeper finds for her in the back. To justify his once-monthly night hours with a solid sale.
The four or five books are piled on the counter. Impulsive in her distraction, she adds the old drum she pulled down to find the cog. She means to slip the piece back onto the counter with the rest of the things she has selected, but cannot quite put it down. The impulse to trace its history is far too strong.
LuceSelf-control!
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Tick Tock[Per & Alertness, whats that in your hand]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8, 8) ( fail )
Tick TockShe was made breathless, the way she was now. Unmoving save for her fingers over that precious piece. Her hands may wander, like a teenager that wants to buy a pornography magazine she picks up lots of other tit bits and things as if what she really wanted was a sin that she would be looked down on. Or perhaps she would steal it, take it from this place, liberate it surely it wants to be free. She cannot put it down, she wants its secrets.
She doesn't even notice him until he is back in front of her and puts down a worn blue book and his cane is placed at the side of the desk with a 'knock' "Second edition am afraid." He looks to the books she has piled up. His eyes glancing to the spine and none of them in relation to the subject matters she brought up. Still a sale is a sale.
He stands before the un breathing woman that looked like she had passed into another world. He starts inputting prices into the old register, the group of books in front of her don't go over $50 dollars, the Second edition Dabest gets run through at $40, the drum $40 also...
What will he charge for her main piece, $100, $1000, $10,000 right now she pay it or steal it perhaps flee with her supernatural speed, or take him here and now overload him with her presence or just drink him dry. She waits motionless, all organs dead her eyes in wonderment and horror. What if it wasn't for sale, what if it was a prized family piece.
"$130 bucks miss, but I don't have a bag big enough for the drum."
He starts to bag up the bags, he hasn't noticed it, he hasn't stopped her.
Conscience
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6) ( fail )
LuceThere is a moment where she's poised, alert, watching him as he opens the books, cracks the stiff spines, searches out the prices and writes them up on a bill of sale, or pecks them out on an old-fashioned cash register. Breathless, and still as a wood in cool hour of darkest night when the nightthings have slunk back into their burrows, and even the robins are not yet awaken, to herald the first hint of dawn in the sky.
The moment passes. With a supple twinge that does not quite darken her heart so much as it challenges her, as she palms the unnoticed cog, sliding her pale hands down to shift the bag foward. "Brought my own bag," lifting the bulk of the bag slung across her body with a knee by way of gesture. Reaching down to unlatch the clasps and pull it open. She fishes a smaller clutch from inside, dropping the cog quietly into the bottom of the bag when her hand is conveniently out of sight, fishing out that clutch. Then snaps open the clutch to count out the money, cash, onto the counter.
"Though I suppose - " she concedes, more engaging somehow now that the cog is surely hers. Remembering the subtle piece sof the masquerade. A quick, ironic twist of her mouth. What the hell was she thinking when she picked up the drum? She doesn't run an ironically nostalgic chain restaurant, nor a marching band. "It's a bit too small for the drum. No worries, I'm not parked far. Thanks - " the last as he finishes bagging the books, and she reaches to take the handles, settling the quarter, the quintet of books into the messenger bag.
Then, impulsive, she pulls out a small business card, pushes it toward him over the counter along with the cash. It says, simply, in clear letters,
L. Stillwell.
510-555-8712
"I travel a good bit, so I may not be back to browse for a while, but if you get something interesting in, give me a call?"
Tick TockThe drum was a bit too much. Desire and want will do that to someone. Even now as she smiles and pulls it all together she feels she has dishonoured the piece by leaving it in the bottom of her bag, it should be on display, no.... it should be turned into a necklace and worn for all to see, for what better to mark the ageless, the timeless than a beautiful bit of mortal time itself. The irony would be most amusing...
She pays him and he stops loading the books into a plastic bag as he takes each one out and places them in her bag. He looks to the drum then back to her. Who knows why she needs the drum there are some crazy kids out there nowadays. She pulls out a business card and he slides up his glasses to look at it as he takes the money and places it in the register. His head tilts to the side "I'll keep an eye out for you, but first editions are hard to find and expensive if I find any I'll be sure to need a deposit first. You understand Miss Stillwell."
He picks back up the walking stick and then takes old of that large ring of keys as he moves to escort the lady from the premises and can finally lock up with a profit for once.
Luce"I do, of course. And some of them will be beyond my modest means, I've no doubt. Do keep in touch, though? I was lucky to catch you tonight." While he comes around the counter, she closes the old messenger bag, truly heavy with the weight of the books. Heavy enough that the strap digs firmly into her shoulders, cuts across her narrow torso, distorting the logo of that Take Back the Night march t-shirt until it is unreadable, a Rorschach test, purple ink on white cotton, no more.
Her things all packed up, she hefts the drum, mind running quietly on two levels. The pleasantries to be exchanged with the aging shopkeeper, the glowing warmth of the piece at the bottom of her bag. On some level, her obsession with the workings of it clicks against the back of her mind, not a warning but a curiosity. Who was the maker? The Van Gogh of clockwork? Were she still human she would feel her excitement in the physicality of her body. Instead, she just has the racing movement of a nimble mind in the dead and lovely shell.
Ahh, she flashes him a quick, winsome smile, catches sight of their reflections in the dark windows leading to the alley as she shadows him toward the door, remembering the jingle of keys, the quiet music of his feet shuffling across the warm floorboards, making conversation as he lets her out and closes down. "There aren't many real bookstores left. I'll grant you we're lucky to have City Lights in town, but even they have the feel of a Barnes and Nobles, sometimes. Expansive, expensive. Easy to get lost in?
"But sterile, somehow. Curated rather than accumulated, if you know what I mean? Or rather, not even curated. Created by a statistical algorithm in some marketing executive laptop." He lets her out, and she steps out into the dark alley, swinging the awkward frame of the drum through the doorway, tucking it against her narrow hip as she jogs down the front stairs to the pavement. "So keep me in mind, yeah? And thanks for staying open. Ten more minutes."
Tick TockHe leads her to the door, his steps slower than hers even with that addition weight she is carrying, the bag over her shoulders the drum held in her arms fingers gripped lightly around it. This talks of more elegant times, or a simpler time. He listens to her words he takes his glasses off as an aging hand runs through his silver hair. He could join in this conversation, express what he was told it was like in the roaring 30's, through to the 50's [A time she may have lived anyway?]. But too many words can muddle the meaning, can spoil the impact that a few offer.
"Time is the fire in which we burn.... Good night miss, safe journey." He closes the door behind the nimble woman and she can hear those keys turning the lock pin, once. Then another, and one more. The sign is left out, chained from this angle as it was.
So Luce found herself, with four books she didn't need, a drum set that would most likely break upon any impact that she had no real purpose for unless she wished to join a band. She had one book that was relevant to her and her field of study but all that paled to what was in her bag. It was the piece of a far greater puzzle, such a beautiful taunt to her rose sensibilities.
LucePer + Empathy
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 1 )
Tick Tock[Was it a hidden meaning, or was he just trying to end the conversation to get her out of the shop....coincidence verses cause. In this case Luce would have to state coincidence]
LuceThe books she does not mind. What does not interest her tonight could well interest next year, or ten years on. The drum, though. That earns a another grimace as soon as she's embraced by the alley's shadows. "That's an - " a sharper flicker of her pale gaze across the old man's tired features, like trying to read a primer in a new alphabet in a foreign tongue. Her sharpened attention lingers a half-minute longer than is strictly necessary for the dance of human conversation, for the comfort of human sensbilities, then sheers away. Coincidence. "interesting way of putting it."
She finishes lightly. "Night, and thanks again." Just before the door shuts behind him.
while the heavy brass locks click home in the antique wooden door, she turns and walks back down the alleyway, her gait distorted by the odd burden of the drum, the bag heavy with books against her thigh, thudding with each long stride. The fog around her muffles the sound of her footsteps on pavement, but there's nothing stealthy about her. Just before she reaches the street proper, she stops, pauses, balancing books and drum to search through the depths of the bag and find the cog again. Palming it, she slides her only free hand into the pocket of her coat. Thumb moving meditatively over the piece as she walks the last few blocks to her car, a singular figure, silent except for her footsteps, striding swift down the shadowed street.