Wrinkling her nose, the nameless bookstore’s only customer blew a thick coating of dust from the cover of an aging, yellow-paged volume before tracing a finger gently over the gilt, golden title etched into its sturdy cover: The Secret Garden. A small smile slid across pale pink lips, the glimmer of a reminiscent grin fading almost instantly, sure to make any observer unsure whether or not the change in expression had existed in at all, or if the ghost of a smile was merely a figment of the imagination. Leaning gingerly against one of the sturdy, oaken bookshelves, Charlotte propped the classic book in one hand, flipping open the cover and regarding the intricate, attractive art that spanned the initial inner pages. She compared the charming illustration to the generic innards of the books of her generation and sighed, shaking her head and clapping the book shut, not even bothering to look at the price. They didn’t make books like they used to. Hell, they didn’t make anything like they used to – ovens, cars, people – and the world was slowly dwindling into a sad, stale and uninteresting state.

Running a hand through her loose, auburn curls she turned to study the rest of the titles, stormy hazel eyes speeding across the aged bindings. She didn’t seem the type for a bookstore; she bore no earmarks of an avid reader and looked far more like a member of a trendy crowd of beautiful, party-loving socialites than a scourer of used book stores…but then again, who was to judge by appearances in this day and age? A tight, scoop-neck shirt of sage grin clung to her modest upper curves, its style relatively plain but somehow flattering, and over it was slung a worn, comfortable jean jacket with an array of colorful, mismatched patches chosen to look stylishly ‘vintage’. A remarkably leggy girl, she donned a pair of slim-cut black pants that flattered her 40’s-starlet-style lower half, and on her feet were slung a pair of ballet-slipper-esque flats, hinting at a European influence to her chosen attire. Her face was without make-up just as it was without expression but her more prominent features managed to accent themselves, her wide eyes startling and her full lips a natural, healthy shade of peach. But even the beautiful are not without the marks of misfortune, and, even in the terrible lighting, her right hand and arm bore the thick, uneven skin of a healed but once-painful burn.

Tucking the volume under one arm she grabbed at the small, black purse that hung at her side, digging through the numerous pockets and eventually fishing out a wad of crumpled bills whose denominations were indiscernible in the dim lighting of the ancient shop. Quite glad that she had any money at all – she’d been struggling financially for at least six months, and although naturally slender her collarbones jutted out slightly, making it obvious that she was constantly choosing between buying food and making rent – she dropped the book onto the polished counter, flattening out the bills absently as she peered around for the proprietor of the establishment, chuckling inwardly at the Hitchcock-esque situation – a dusty, fermenting shop without a readily available owner? It certainly smacked of Alfred.

She absently checked her watch before peering out at the darkening street, one brow quirked at the incredibly lax service -- she was the only customer, how busy could the employees be? It was only around six, but a storm had been predicted and it seemed for once the weatherman was right...but then again, if you forecast rain every day, the odds are that eventually a rainy day will pop up and you will end up correct. Sighing lightly, she peered at the feminine face of her timepiece once more, not at all worried about the time but merely milking a habit borne of boredom. In fact, she had no where to be at all, for she’d lost her job the week before that – she hadn’t been raised to work, and thus lacked some of the more important qualities...like reliability – and she was remarkably friendless...without ally or acquaintance...leaving her calendar dishearteningly blank.

Just as she was considering walking away with her intended purchase, a rustle from the back room caught her attention and she turned towards the half-open door to a cluttered office-slash-storeroom, its unadorned light fixture swinging from side to side and shifting the shadows in an illusory fashion. Just her luck, the guy was probably crazy. She had heard some curious tales about the shop owners on this particular street...perhaps she’d have an interesting encounter of her own.

What time is it?

Six.

…Click.

I don’t care.

…Click.

Then why did you ask?

I was just curious.

…Click.

Do you even know what day it is?

Yes.

…Click.

Month?

Maybe.

…Click.

Year?

What does it matter?

…Click.

It doesn’t.

…Click.

“Damn lighter.”

The words followed a final pointless flick of a well-practiced wrist. A shinning silver lighter, held between slender fingers, gave its final deathbound wail. It sounded so familiar to him, he thought, the sound of the small contraption as it was persistently jarred from final peace by a trivial habit. It reminded him of high heels on cement – running – in an equally useless bit of hopeful repetition.

With a single fluid motion, the shrouded figure returned the wasted device to his coat pocket. He would try again later. He always did. The damn thing had been broken for years.

Viktor pushed silently off the brick wall, falling perfectly into a lengthy stride. He merged seamlessly with the present as he stepped from the past – or was it just a dingy alleyway? The pristine white fedora that topped his head sat low, black satin band shimmering faintly in the storm-forged twilight, the brim casting emerald pools into yet deeper shadow.

The incessant clicking returned. Patent leather on the sidewalk. He adjusted his gait – faster, slower, faster, faster – he toyed with it.

Coming to a sudden stop, the man allowed a smirk to take hold of his features as the silence took hold of the deserted locale. Pausing for a moment, his head tilted slightly to the side, as if to take in some distant echo from the past – or was it just coming from the bookshop down the street? He remained for a moment after returning to the present. The tingle of the diffused sunlight on his skin causing a bit of elation to rise through him – it was such a rare thing, to be reminded of what little life he had left. However, it was not only his flesh that burned, but, in the still of the moment, he felt the hunger spark anew as well.

Slinging the white coat he carried over his shoulder once more, he set off. Black pinstripe slacks giving off a faint rustle of protest, equally dark silk clinging to his torso for the ride as he began to move.

Three shops, two, one, and then he was there. He didn’t know why it had caught his attention, the sound of a book being dropped on a counter, that is. However, as he passed it by, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Images flashed momentarily through his mind. A woman. The woman. No other woman.

He closed his eyes tightly, giving his head a quick shake, as if to expel the visions by force. She loved that book. The Secret Garden.

Opening his eyes, he nodded slowly. Someone was about to buy a copy of that book. He wanted it. He was hungry. It called to him. She called to him. It wasn’t often that two such beautiful birds flew so close.

Without another thought, he opened the creaking door, the blinds making the usual racket that one expects when they enter such a reclusive shop. He closed it as silently as he could before turning to take in the scene before him, straightening himself as he scanned the room, coming to rest finally upon the polished counter.

Images flashed.

A woman?

The woman.

Blinking, Charlotte moved forward, taking the grimy, unpolished doorknob in her hand and easing the door open, its rusted hinges grating noisily, a sound eerie and alien in the silent shop. Nothing moved. The desk was piled with papers in no obvious state of organization and the antique wooden office chair sat lopsidedly on its perch while stacks of unsorted books cluttered the other half of the closet-sized room. Shrugging, Charlotte pushed the door closed – its progress hindered by the corrosion of its aged hinges – and saw as it slid to a stop a small piece of paper tacked to its front. ‘Be back in twenty minutes. Leave money on counter,’ it read, post-scripted by an illegibly artistic scribble that must have passed for the proprietor’s signature. How very quaint. Shaking her head, quite in awe of the absentee owner’s naiveté, she brought her bills close to her eyes in an attempt to weed out the appropriate amount in the unfavorable light. Satisfied that she was holding four ones and not four tens, she turned back towards the counter.

“Damnit.” The curse was not an exclamation, despite the surprise that propelled it, slipping from her lips as she took in the figure that stood before the door. Somehow, she’d been so caught up in expecting find something terrible in the deserted office that she’d turned her senses off to her surroundings and been completely oblivious to the man’s entrance. It was odd, as she’d long ago distanced herself from her once-vivid imagination, quite convinced that dreams would get her no where, and the fact that it had overtaken her so completely just now unnerved her to an unpleasant end. Shaking her head to clear away the annoying thrum of fright, she managed a small, charmingly lopsided smile, half-apologetic for the unpleasant greeting and her use of unbecoming vocabulary.

“You startled me,” she explained with a slight chuckle – the noise rusty and foreign, making it obvious her laugh was long unused – and turned to place her money on the counter, her eyes flashing regretfully as she noted that buying a book had reduced the crumpled wad of cash to half its original size.

Plucking up the book, her gaze lingered on its charming cover. It had been a year and a half since her father had died, two years since she’d left her home and at least a painful eight since she’d allowed her father to read her a story. The Secret Garden had been a favorite, a classic; he’d read with emotive vigor and enthralling portrayals of characters that had made her mother – a floundering actress – quite jealous. Her father had been everything, and even while she’d regretted and disowned him the feeling had lurked in the pit of her stomach that she had been making a terrible, selfish and stubborn mistake.

As her thoughts crashed jarringly back into the present, her dark, hazel gaze skittered over the man, his odd attire finally registering. Even the destitute Charlotte was wary to wander Elm Street, if only to maintain some guise of respectability, and so the debonairly dressed stranger provided an odd clash of cultures. Something about him tugged at the back of her mind, a place in her psyche left untouched by her unfulfilling, monotonous life. Something about him smacked uncannily of her father, of her past, of herself and her head swam.

Charlotte was a cynical girl; she believed in nothing but the concrete…

…but something had suddenly stitched her present to a mysterious, waiting future.

Silence.

It seemed appropriate, as he watched her – that odd silence that often overtakes a pair of individuals who find their minds on things other than each other, while, in reality, the correlation is so deeply intertwined between the visage of the companion and the flash of memory that follows that both seem so completely unrelated.

He knew what it was though, however. Even if her own bits of obfuscating insight were nothing but jumbled puzzle pieces, he knew.

A woman.

The woman.

“I apologize.” A slender hand rose up, silently removing the hat from his and placing it over his chest. He bowed his head slightly, perfectly in synch with the previous, yet horribly out of time with the current times.

It called.

She called.

His gaze caught hold of the book that the woman (the woman) held close. Again, the complex collaboration of their meeting sent his thoughts spinning. It hurt - the small scar on his palm. It burned. He fought to avoid the reflexive clenching of his fist, to avoid crushing the hat he held, ironically, over his heart.

A young man.

Marry me?

A young woman.

Oui!

A storm.

Viktor visibly flinched as the rain began to pour down. His breath would have been ragged if he hadn’t been weaned off the bad habit of breathing all together by sixty-three years of undeath. He watched, as her own reaction seemed to match; thoughts jarred forcefully back into the present.

Emerald flashed from ivory, though the darkness of the location allowed such subtle oddities a fragile mask. The man’s eyes locked on her for a moment, as they both emerged into the company of each other. It was only a second before he spoke again, however, when is it ever that time flows consistently through the sea of memories that constantly sloshes about within the empty spaces where logic and intellect don’t dare to dwell?

He devoured her every aspect – mannerisms, accent, curves – nothing escaped him in that portion of a moment. And while, in that ravaging sea, in the dark places of his thoughts, he felt hope rise in him, he had been pulled far enough back into reality that such a feeling was quickly snared and dragged, kicking and screaming, by such foul culprits as reason and truth. There would be no sound of foot and street.

Coincidence. Fantasy. Dream. Delusion.

“I’d like to buy that book from you.”

One brow arched high at the stranger’s intoxicating finesse as the world took one last, defiant tilt before settling beneath her feet. He was like something from a film, out of place in the forgotten bookstore…on the unkempt street, in the flawed town, in the disgraceful nation stuck haphazardly onto the damned spinning sphere they called home. He didn’t belong…somehow he was above it all. And yet, she didn’t question, didn’t eye him with suspicion…it never occurred to her.

Forcing the disconcerting flights of fancy from her mind, her gaze flicked to the dingy window, dark eyes reflecting the increasing tumult showcased by the peeling window frame like a distraught painting, the coating of filth on the glass giving the sight a surreal glaze. The storm had arrived like the stranger, slipping in quietly beneath her notice and then suddenly enthralling her for no apparent reason. She’d seen hundreds of storms in her lifetime, but this one caught her attention.

And it wasn’t just the culture shock of his attire that threw her.

She should have left, then and there, before gracing him with another glance she should have made a beeline for the door and out into the street, storm or no storm, pneumonia was better than losing all the independent ground she’d gained…but something held her there, drew her gaze away from the window and back to the man to seal her fate. Perhaps it was her unhealthy emotional need to search for someone on whom to depend, perhaps it was the sickening thought of stepping into the street and back into her uneventful, meaningless existence…

He wanted to buy the book? She blinked, the gilded letters searing into her chest as she held the book tightly to her, an anchor, a treasure. Pulling it away she held it before her, nostalgia tearing at her and thick memories adding weight to the precious tome in her hands.

And the question fell from her lips before she could smother it, a rude, blunt inquiry that elicited a ‘none of your business’ response from her own common sense as she heard her own smooth alto resound the unadorned inquiry in her beloved language -- “Pourquoi?”

…why this book, stranger?

…why today?

…why this life, world?

…why me?

…why this book, stranger?

…why this book, ma Belle?

…why today?

…why this life, after death?

…why you?

…why this book, ma Belle?

His gaze answered unasked questions with equally trivial inquisitions.

Why?

He smiled. Simply and without yet a word in response, the hand, which burned so deeply, replaced the hat atop his head. He smiled. He existed, here between the worlds – here beyond mere words. And yet, it was that single syllable, that pointless expansion of a single, meaningless letter, that stopped him dead (alive?) in his tracks. He smiled.

Why?

She was standing there, oblivious, asking why. He smiled. It summed up the last few minutes in nearly perfect detail. This woman, who stepped out of his dreams as he stepped into her nightmares, had obliviously captured the essence of the moment. Or was it the other way around, perhaps? Her dream and his nightmare? He smiled.

And now he stood, between woman and door, her pulse singing within her veins. He could hear the song. He could hear her song. He could hear her song. Broadway – that voice, her voice, hervoice. Cruel shadows danced within his mind. One moment they waltzed to heavenly melodies, and the next they tormented with bloody moans. Were they one in the same – the song of an angelic choir and the agonized scream of a murdered bride? Perhaps the answer…silence…sanctuary lay hidden away within this woman’s tender flesh. He smiled.

The gears shifted and, with a soft movement, he stepped to the side, pushing the L-shaped doorknob down, allowing the wooden portal to screech in its typical banshee fashion. A tinge of foreshadowing? A smattering of flashback? He smiled.

“Join me, ma Cherie?”

[ ooc: I'm sorry! <3 I'll reply as soon as I get home! (see away message) ]