Contractor: Chapter - 19

Stupid copy paste functions and clip art

I don’t know why it had taken me so long to find my way to the library. It was the first door I’d seen opened at the den and it was possibly the most familiar place to me within the den. The smell of printed pages, aged binding glue, and a light sprinkling of dust made me feel at home in a place I don’t think I could ever call my home. Everything at the den was so different. There were no computers, but I had people I could talk to. I could still write, but it wasn’t just for fun anymore. What had been my easy going, albeit boring, and lazy normal life had turned into something I had always secretly hoped for but never really wanted. Then again, that probably goes for most secret desires.

The library seemed endless. There were rows upon rows of books, old and new, all organized in no particular order that I could discern. It was the perfect place to lose myself, to try and forget for at least one small moment. The Old Man had dropped a responsibility on my shoulders at the party, I had to deal with something that scared possibly the most powerful person on the face of the earth, and he’d left it to me… to do on my own. I wanted nothing more than to sink into the pages of a book and find myself in a completely different world. There had to be better worlds, better stories, but I had ended up in this one.

"I was wondering when I'd see you around here." Amy had crept up behind me. I was honestly startled and a little uneasy. I'd wandered into the library without permission after all. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you Al. I didn't think that you would spook so easy."

"I didn't... you didn't... I'm fine. I just didn't know if I was allowed in here."

"Don't worry about it, you're not even in the dangerous section, daddy Death keeps all the dark secrets in the very back where innocent little Hope is too lazy to go." I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, if you're looking for anything... non-fiction, I'd check the back." Amy picked a book off the shelf behind me and walked away. I peeked down the aisle after her but she was already gone. It struck me as odd because she hadn’t been carrying a light source, which meant that either she could see in the dark or she’d been wandering… or lost.

I picked my lantern up off the floor where I’d left it and lifted it above my head to illuminate what I could. The room was narrow with two columns of bookshelves going down the middle and more lining the walls. The light was nowhere near powerful enough to illuminate the back of the room, I could only see three shelves down and the silhouette of a fourth. I was already two rows in but something told me there couldn’t be that many more to go, this was a private collection after all.

What must have been fifty rows and five desks later I hit the “non-fiction” section. At least that’s what it looked like. The books were bigger, the dust was thicker, and the titles started to vary in language more. I could vaguely understand the ones in languages that used an English alphabet, but those only made up a small portion of the books. It also looked like a lot of the "non-fiction" was handwritten instead of printed. I brushed my hand along a row of thin unmarked volumes that looked nearly identical. The shelf was almost completely covered with them. Out of curiosity I pulled one down and opened it to the first page, fully aware that curiosity could kill me in any number of ways in this situation.

   Grateful I had not been utterly obliterated by a mere line of text, I turned the page. The text continued in English characters but I couldn’t read the language. It looked like Spanish or French, maybe Italian. They all looked the same to me. I only ever learned to speak and write in English, so I wouldn’t know. The text could tell me something though, Death had written this. It was his spidery nearly illegible handwriting. I skimmed further down the shelf and pulled out another volume.

Again the text was in a language I couldn’t read but it was still Death’s hand writing all the way through. I pulled out the next volume. It looked slightly different than the last one, less ratty, almost like it was still fresh contrary to what the layer of dust on it would suggest. There was no date or location on the first page and the text on the subsequent pages was all numbers. Every line of every page was filled with a date, a colon, and another number typically below ten. Every thirty or so lines was a total of the numbers. The only explanation that came to mind was that it was a ledger. Whether it counted souls collected, contracts written, or trees hugged, I couldn’t tell. I could only guess it was work related and Death’s work was grim. I cringed as the pun crossed my mind.

I put the volumes back in the exact place I’d taken them from, careful to position them just right. There was a gap between the last two though and I couldn’t remember the direction the last one had been leaning when I’d picked it up. I set it leaning right and brushed some dust from the surrounding volumes onto it. It was unlikely I would fool anyone into thinking I hadn’t touched them, not for a long time at least. I doubted anyone would come looking though, with the amount of dust covering the shelves and the sheer size of the library it was likely no one would look at that particular shelf for over a decade.

Anxiety and paranoia were beginning to reach the active portion of my mind as I walked further down the aisles of bookshelves. With every row I passed my own footsteps sounded louder to me and the sound of my own breathing seemed to fill the room and echo off the walls. I found myself looking over my shoulder constantly until I finally stopped next to a desk piled precariously high with thick tomes. It had taken far too long for me to realize how bad of an idea it had been to venture this far into the library. Amy had tricked me, well not really tricked me, she had nothing to gain from me coming back here, but she’d tempted me and I’d caved so easily. I was angrier at myself more than anything and I would have been embarrassed if anyone caught sight of me. Fortunately it seemed that Death could only sense disturbances in the weight distribution of his favorite chair. I turned around, lantern in hand, and walked back to the safety of the fiction section.

The trek back felt much shorter than the one in. Whether it was because I had been counting shelves on the way in or because I was walking faster on the way back didn’t really matter to me. I was just glad to feel safer. As I reached the door I hesitated and looked back thoughtfully. I had come in for more than one reason. I hadn’t found anything out about the mirror, but I still wanted something to kill the time. I hadn’t read a good book in what felt like forever, however I was hesitant to touch anything else on any of the shelves, despite seeing familiar titles as close as the first shelf.

“If you are looking for a good read now that you have a different perspective on life, A Tale of Two Cities draws a stunning parallel to the world mortals see and the horrific world of death that we deal in. I find I sympathize with some of the struggles of one caught between them.” I had been crept up on, yet again, only this time it was Death creeping up on me. I’d thought that I had gotten used to it, but after my recent foray into his more personal territory his appearance made me jump. "Had he not written it before meeting me, I would say that old Charles had some more realistic subtext.

“You knew Charles Dickens?” My recovery was sped up by my interest.

“I had a short stint in what you might call normal society after it had been suggested to me that souls of more influential people would prove more valuable. It was complete hogwash, but I got gained several connections that inevitably led me to find interest in dear old Charlie. That was before he was well read of course, I have always been fond of his writing, everything seemed to have a purpose and unfold just as he wanted it. I approached him and eventually came to know him fairly well, unfortunately for him he came to know me equally so.”

“You didn’t contract him did you?”

“No, there was some debate about it, but I let him pass by to whatever comes next. I almost wish I had chosen the contrary after I found some of his unfinished manuscripts.”

“Huh, I never really got into classical literature. Apart from reading it for school assignments, I haven’t really touched it.” Death’s expression went dark for a second. “Nothing wrong with it though, it’s just not the same kind of action I’m used to.”

“Second shelf, halfway down and second to last.” He nodded to the second shelf.

“Would it be too much to ask what you’re checking out?” I hummed as I scanned the shelf.

“My intention is to check in, actually. I need to review some of my records, a real bore, but sadly fiction cannot tell me what I need to know.”