Lily Sinclair (wickedsister) wrote in marchenlogs, @ 2012-01-12 09:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | bluebeard, wicked stepsister |
WHO: Lily + OPEN [to all and sundry; multiple replies welcome - we'll just assume each thread happens after the one before it]
WHAT: Reading
WHERE: Old Coat Books
WHEN: Early this evening
After a long day at work (too many proposals and not enough time to finish and of them, an inability to get AutoCAD to behave, getting harassed by an intern who couldn't figure out the filing), Lily was ready to detox. Really, she was ready to hole up in her room and never come out again, but since that wasn't an option, she needed something better. A nearly empty bank account (she really had needed that diamond ring) meant going out to dinner at that new Indian restaurant was out of the question (another evening of reheated Chinese awaited her). So she needed a substitute.
Scoping out the lobby was easy enough, huddled against the glass doors as she finished her third cigarette. As it grew later, people emptied out of the stores on the first floor, and her attention shifted to the used bookstore. It was as good a place as any, with enough hiding places for tucking into, and so she flicked the butt of her cigarette away, not caring where it landed. She shivered as she entered the burning heat of the building, tucking her lighter in her back pocket. A coat. She always forgot a coat.
She ducked into the store as quietly as possible, wincing at the bell. But no one was at the front to greet her or, thank God, ask if she needed help finding anything. Picking an aisle at random, she set her fingers against the spines of the books at waist level and began to walk, closing her eyes to feel the textures of their covers. Leather, leather, cloth, cloth, cloth, leather, paper, wrinkled paper. She wrinkled her nose, jerking her hand away from the feeling of the paper, and she opened her eyes to consider the books in front of her. After a moment, she grabbed two thick books. They had to have at least eight hundred pages a piece, thick and heavy things, one both in leather and the other a rough linen. Those she took to the very back of the store where there was a small table and leather chair, and she curled in the chair, her legs tucked under her, with one of the books in her lap.
Opening the first slowly, listening to the spine creak, she made a quiet noise of approval. The stale, musty smell of old paper wafted from the pages, and she turned her attention to them. They were smooth, the paper like wax under her fingers, the typesetting old and antiquated. She skimmed over the page without reading anything, noticing only the stranger words like soporific and coruscating. Her lips and tongue formed the words though she didn't say them (if someone was in one of the other aisles nearby and heard, she would die of mortification), but she liked the way they tugged at her mouth.
With a heavy sigh, she sank into the chair, her shoulders rolling forward as she slouched. She draped herself across the arm of the chair, resting her cheek on her arm as she curled around the book, turning the page with idle fingers.