Chapter Two-- The Book

I step through the door of the curio shop that my friend Alice and I run together, and the little bell jangles. Shelves are full of strange, unique, and eccentric bits and baubles, herbs for the pagan practicioner, crystals and handmade wands, and other items that Alice found lord knows where. Some of my own prints hang on the walls. They don't sell very well.

“Alice's Wonderland” is painted in elegant, filigreed script on the glass door. I did the lettering and the illustration several years ago in glass paints, of a dark-haired, midnight-blue-and-black-frocked Lewis Carroll's Alice with dark and exotic makeup, black and blue striped armbands and tights, and black combat boots walking through a bizarre garden.

I look towards the checkout table that graces the center of the room and see that Violet is manning the station. Violet is eighteen years old, with spiky black hair tipped with vivid pink, pale with a light smattering of freckles over her face. She is pierced and tattooed, and her clothing makes her look like she stepped straight out of a goth club, all black corsetry, fingerless elbow-length gloves made of fishnet, and knee-high boots with what must be a dozen buckles. Violet is sarcastic, sassy, blunt, ridiculously compassionate and curiously wise for her age, and one of my favorite people in all the world, aside from maybe Alice, who is like a sister to me.

“Yo, Evie. What's up?” she says, as I approach the counter, sliding my bag across it and letting it drop down to the other side.

“Hey, Violet,” I say. “Not much. Where's Alice?”

“No clue. She said she had a meeting and ran off. You know how she is.”

I nod. “You want a break?”

“Sure.” She fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her pocket and slides off the stool. “Oh, hey, Alice got a new shipment in. She said you'd be able to catalog it and everything. Oh, and stuff fell off the shelves sometime in the night again.” She pauses. “I still think this place is haunted. You know, my mom sees all that shit. Says I do too, but I've never actually seen anything. I can feel the fuck out of it, though.” She blinks, suddenly aware of the double entendre of her words. “Um. That didn't come out quite right. Yeah, I need a smoke. Back in a few, Eve. Oh yeah, I made coffee.” I smile at her and nod my thanks. Violet doesn't like coffee. She puts a cigarette in her mouth and starts flicking her lighter as she walks towards the beaded curtain which hides the employee area and back door.

I follow her into the break room, making a beeline for the coffee. “Out the back door, Vi,” I remind her, as I search for my mug in the collection on the counter.

“I'm goin', I'm goin',” she mumbles around her cigarette, hefting open the door and struggling to scrape it open enough to squeeze through it. “Might help if we get this door fixed.”

“Working on it,” I call back, scooping sugar into my mug which has the words “Fuck Destiny” emblazoned across it in stark, black letters. “Got a call into a guy who can level it.”

She shoves the door closed, and I hear her holler back something which may have been “Awesome!”

I pour Coffeemate in my cup, fill it to the brim with the nectar of the gods, and go check the office for the shipment box. It takes a minute to find it; it's sort of hiding underneath Alice's desk. It's not very big, and only says “Alice's Wonderland” on a card taped to the top; I pick it up and carry it back to the register counter with me. I can enter it on the computer there.

Using a box cutter, I open the top of the box. It looks like only one thing is inside, wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. I tug it out, tearing away the tape and cushioning, revealing an old, leather-bound book. I open it, flipping through it carefully. Its pages are yellowed and brittle; I wonder how old it is.

There is a note in the box.

Alice,

Here is the manuscript detailing the events of the War. You will need this.

Strange. I peer at the lettering while slowly turning the pages. I can't read it, but I have the oddest sensation of being almost able to read it. There are elegant illustrations gracing the text, images of soaring, crystalline buildings, expansive forests, violet skies, and beautiful people with faces decorated by precious stones and elegant clothing that looks both medieval and strangely modern, that send the most curious shivers rolling up and down my spine. I turn the page, and see a beautifully rendered drawing...

Of me. Not the me that sits here right now behind the register, but the me that travels to fantastic worlds. The figure in the drawing has amethyst-colored eyes and a wild mop of silver hair threaded with gold, pale and petite and fierce like a jungle cat. She wears an almost sheer white dress that whips about her legs and bare feet, and is standing on a violet-grassed hilltop among frothy white flowers, her arms thrown out to either side, her head tilted back. It is like someone dipped into my subconscious and painted the dream I had a few nights ago.

This can't be me, my mind immediately tries to rationalize. For one thing, this book is old, obvious to even my untrained eye. I'm only twenty-five, definitely not old enough to be pictured in this book.

Something within me flares to life, and I compulsively slip the book, the note tucked away in the pages, in my bag, just as Violet comes back in. She sees the empty box, but doesn't seem to notice that I had just put the contents of the box in my bag.

“Oh,” she says. “That's not the shipment box.” She leans over the counter on tiptoe, grabbing it and looking at it. “Yeah, it was dropped off by messenger yesterday, though he was kinda a weird messenger. Must be privately employed. Oooh, Alice is gonna be pissed that you opened that; she acted like it was something really private.” She hands the box back to me. “The merchandise shipment is in the break room.”

“Why the hell did you put it in the break room?” I snap.

“Geeze, Evie. Calm the fuck down. I put it in there because Alice locked herself in her office for like three hours after that one came in.”

I look at the package; it hadn't been opened when I found it. I wonder if she had re-sealed it with the intent to pass it on to someone else, or maybe to keep it in a safe place.

“Sorry, Vi,” I say absently. “Hey, why don't you keep quiet about my opening this? I'll just seal it up again and stick it back in her office. That way we both avoid the Wrath of Alice.”

“Sounds good to me. I'd rather not get on her nasty side either. That gal is like ice when she gets pissed.” I nod; I've known Alice literally all my life, and she has been an absolute lifesaver, always being there for me when my family... did things. Giving me a place to live as soon as I was old enough to leave home, giving me a job. I've got my own little Victorian-style house now in this little Louisiana town, glad of my independence and liking my space, but Alice will always be the big sister I never had by blood. But Violet is right. Alice's temper is terrifying.

But then, so is mine.

I smile at Violet and say, “Tell me about it.”

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