Mr. Linden's Library

To say that she regretted ever opening it was an understatement. He had warned her about the book, but now it was too late. The moment she opened it, she had become lost, forever to rot away in a fantasy world in which she had no place in. The book had consumed her, stolen her present and her future. Now more then anything she wished to return home; the life she left may not have been fantastic, but anything was better then the hell she was trapped in now.
~
         The hatch to the attic swung open, sending several layers of dust flying around the room. She covered her mouth with her shirt and crawled onto the couch by the window, settling in for the storm of dust to clear out. Several minutes past before she could inhale the stale air without the threat of losing a lung. Once she found if safe to breath she began rummaging through boxes and trunks of the more then crowded attic. Her grandmother had left her the remainder of her possessions after she had passed. The death wasn’t a tragedy, she was old and Dawn hadn’t known that much about her, other then the occasional visits she had been a complete stranger.
         She considered the responsibility of setting her grandmother’s last affairs in order more of a burden then an opportunity.  To her the boxes contained nothing more then the things of a women who had never bothered to care about her. She had planned to return the favor by trashing or pawning the majority of her items. She meticulously searched through the cases, looking for anything of value, the rest she carefully tossed into a black garbage bag.
         Minutes turned into hours and still the mess continued to grow, the once neat piles of crap had now escalated into mounds of unidentifiable, worthless objects. She checked her watch; barely able to comprehend that five hours had already passed, and began stacking half-empty boxes against the back wall. She set the last three cases into her grandmother’s section of the attic and took a few steps back to examine her work. While preparing to leave her dirt-filled prison she was sent sprawling on the floor by an antique rocking chair in the middle of the room.
         The impact of her weight against the floor wrecked havoc among the endless number of trunks leaning against the wall. Rows upon rows of people’s personal materials came crashing to the ground, black and white photos light up the air with their images, news paper clippings created a thin mat on the wooden floor and a sea of high-priced antiques buried her to the knee. She sat silently for several moments in fear of discovering a multitude of priceless objects destroyed by her clumsiness.
         She cursed and attempted her hand at getting up, but instead of her desired outcome she fell once more and crashed into the last row of standing trunks. She cursed again and began compiling things into random boxes, not bothering to figure out what went where. She went through her task absent mindedly, paying more attention to her long list of things to do then the generations of people’s memories in her hands. Between sorting through a stack of records she stumbled upon an unbelievably old leather-bound book.
         It called to her in a way that she had never experienced before. She surrendered complete control over her body, focusing only on her newfound obsession. Her fingers brushed the binding of the book, a thick curtain of dust remaining on her palms when she lifted them from the leather. She carefully opened the book, a serious of crackles radiating from the cover of stitching, the only noise throughout the whole room.
         The pages were strangely hard to turn, hinting that the antique was quite older then it seemed to lead on.  The edges of the pages were withered down and torn, beginning to yellow where the most damage had been done. The paper felt thin beneath her fingers, threatening to crumble with the amounted pressure at any moment. The print upon the pages captured her attention, refusing to surrender her. She arose from her position on the floor and dashed to the sofa underneath the windowsill, her eyes never skipping over a word.
         She pressed her back against the wall, sliding her knees up to her chest and setting the book to where she could see it. The words danced through her mind, her sub-conscious traveling to places that she’d always dreamed of, some scenes were fairly familiar while others were beyond her comprehension. The light slowly began to drain from the sky, turning from a brilliant blue, to a dashing orange, then to a soft pink just before becoming the darkest black.
         She set the book on the old maroon and gold rug resting beneath her feet; she tossed the book down with a thump, a small tornado of dirt acknowledging its presence. She shifted her legs to find a stiff spasm shooting from her toes to her hips. She moaned and stretched her arms to the ceiling, polishing her body into working condition again. She felt like a modern day version of the tin man, her joints requiring constant oiling and care.
         Reality slowly began to sink in again as she ingested the mess she had neglected to handle for the past several hours. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she envisioned the task ahead of her, she counted the hours upon hours it would take to change the room back into what it had once been before she had the misfortune to befall upon it. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, humming her favorite song to calm herself. Once her emotions were somewhat in check she opened her eyes, they immediately came into view of the book, it seemed to hold a light glow, calling to her in a way that she had never experienced before.
         The book urged her towards it, as if it wanted to close the distance between them. The sound of several feet shuffling below her sent her into a panic, the last thing she wanted was for someone to find the disaster she had wrought upon their attic. She darted over to the closed hatch and moved the wooden panels just enough to be able to peek into the second floor of the home. A group of friendly seniors passed each other in the hallway, two coming from the recreation section of the house and the others returning from the cafeteria.
         She watched their encounter for several minutes before sliding the wood back into place and returning to the book. Relief flooded through her as she found that it still remained exactly where she had left it, as she if expected it to have vanished completely if it left her sight, only to remain as a distant memory. She also felt complete terror as she discovered the book to be resting upon the end cover when she had recalled it lying on the front cover. She brushed the incident off as her lack of perception and committed herself to being more studious in observing her surroundings. Her eyes narrowed in on an inscribing scratched in spidery handwriting in right hand side of the leather.
         “Adabah Liagiba,” it read. She assumed the phrase to be Latin and took note of it in the back of her mind. She snatched her bag from the rocking chair, still sitting in the middle of the wreckage, and slung the strap across her chest. She clutched the book tightly to her chest and planned her escape with it. She knew it was too large to fit in her bag and just walking out with it certainly wouldn’t work either. She pondered her dilemma for quite a while before scurrying over to a box of her grandmother’s old clothes.
         Earlier she had noticed an unusually large army jacket tossed within the parade of ‘60s dresses, she looped her arms through the holes and lifted her hair from it’s dark green collar. She discovered a large pocket on the inside of the jacket, just large enough too fit the book snugly inside. She had never considered the possibility of theft before, but as she made the movements to steal her first object she didn’t experience one ounce of guilt. As twisted as it sounded it felt right to slip it into her pocket, hiding it away from the rest of the world, she felt as if some unknown source had wanted her to be there at that moment, to take the book with her and discover the meaning within its pages.
         She walked quickly out of the attic, stepping around things to create a quick and efficient path to the hatch. Her fingers scrapped against the edge of the wood, trying to pry the panel from the floor. Once open she climbed through a foot of space and hurried down rung by rung. She still didn’t feel guilty for what she had done, but a part of her wanted nothing more then to escape the attic and quit the residence permanently. She reached the last step and slowly backed away from the ladder, staring back up at the attic, she suddenly bumped into a large object of heavy mass behind her.
         She gave out a small scream and spun around to find that she had bumped into Mr. Linden, the caretaker and owner of the facility. “Mr. Linden! Oh, you startled me!” She sighed, covering her hand over her chest to slow the beat of her racing heart.
         “Dawn, how nice to see you. I’m so sorry to hear about your grandmother,” he apologized, his face contorting with sorrow, “I was very sad to see her go, a lovely women. I figured after her death I wouldn’t get to see you again.” Mr. Linden stood at least a foot taller than her; he had a deep brown color to his skin tone, dark circles surrounding his eyes and a thin layer of black hair atop his head.
         “Oh yeah, very sad, well I’m just here to collect her things and go. I’m coming back tomorrow, I sort of made a mess of the attic…” She laughed sheepishly, avoiding contact with his eyes.
         “No problem, I’m sure the other tenants won’t mind, they don’t spend much time in the attic as it is.”
         She laughed and touched the hard section of her coat where the book remained. “That is true. I really should be leaving now, I have class in the morning and I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”
         “Oh yes, I understand, see you tomorrow then,” he wished her goodbye then turned his back for a moment before calling her back, “Dawn?”
         “Yes?”
         “Before you’re grandmother passed she warned me about that book, just be cautious.”
His warning struck a blow deep in her gut, a deep fear spreading through her veins. She tried to speak, but no sound would come out. He left, but she continued to stare at his back, unable to move. She stroked the book again before sprinting through the exit doors to the safety of her car. Just before pulling out of the gate she saw the sign posted on the front edge of the lawn. The sign was white with gray lettering and read, “Mr. Linden’s Library: Collecting Old People Since 1963.” She smiled, Mr. Linden always had a refreshing sense of humor when it came to the Senior Citizens, that’s probably what attracted so many of the tenants to the house in the first place.
She arrived at her apartment a half an hour after leaving and parked around back near the fire escape ladder. The building had an elevator, but tonight she wanted nothing more then to avoid the constant swarm of people. The ladder wasn’t hard to navigate through, even though she did live on the seventh floor, she couldn’t count the number of times she had climbed up and down the ladder early in the morning, especially after a late night out.
When she reached her window the lock remained tightly shut from the inside, she shoved on it again, and then once more. She then resorted to slamming against the glass, hoping that someone inside would here her desperate pleas and spare her a trip back down to the lobby. Several minutes passed before she gave up and sat down on the staircase, laying her head against her knees and slamming her feet in frustration. She looked behind her once more and found the window to be fully open; she stared in surprise, as she had sensed no change around her. 
         “Hello?” She called, her voice quivered as she spoke. She twisted onto her knees and crawled to the open entrance, peeking her head into a room full of complete darkness. When no one answered she pushed off with her toes and fell headfirst. She entered with a graceful “oomph” and rolled to the door. The back of her skull hit the knob, cutting a small gash where the lock had been. She pressed her fingers against the fresh wound and slid her back against the door, trying to find some measure of comfort.
         She glanced around the room, holding her breath in fear of something, or someone coming out of the darkness to kill her. Her eyes were drawn to the book laying open three feet away from her. Chills spread down her back as the circumstances of her surrounding came into clear view. She didn’t believe in coincidences, but with everything that had happened lately she wanted to believe that sometimes random things just happened. She stretched her leg out and pushed the book within her seeing range. She flipped back a few pages and picked up where she had left off.
         “She touched her fingers against the mirror, a shallow pool of suspended water appearing where the mirror had been. She pulled back in surprise, looking back and forth between her hand and the mirror. She slid her arm through the water, fishing around in the pond, a sharp pain radiated from her elbow to her wrist. She tried to pull out, but something from inside the mirror pulled her in, sucking her into the wet world waiting on the other side.” Her eyes began to droop in exhaustion as she read page after page of the book, the words blurring into a mush of letters, she grabbed a pillow from her couch and settled on the floor, too tired to move a few feet to the comfort of her bed.
         She tossed the book onto her bed and stretched her legs out, quickly slipping into an unconscious dream world.
~
         She felt a small tug against her hair, the pull getting stronger as time continued. She rolled over a bed of twigs and swatted at the force of the tension. Her fingers brushed up against a mat of rough fur, her eyes snapping open in shock, small round eyes the only thing she saw, she screamed and scampered back. After her breathing returned to normal she noticed a harmless little deer watching her run away, it made no move to leave which surprised her more considering that every deer she’d ever come in contact with had fled from her presence.
         “Hey, hey there, it’s okay, you don’t have to be scared,” she spoke gently, crawling back toward the deer, holding her hand out in order to pet its back. The closer she came the farther back the deer walked, a twig broke under her knee, scaring the deer into retreat. “Wait!” she cried, she began to run after the deer, following it into a small, open meadow. The grass of the meadow was cut short; patches of wildflowers grew across the field, creating blankets of color and life.
         She stood completely frozen in awe, the field looked like something out of a fairytale and never in her life had she seen anything more beautiful. The deer remained statuesque in the middle of the pasture; it watched her for another moment before scurrying off into trees. She remained alone for as far as she could see, possibly farther. She shut her eyes and relied on her senses to give her details on her new fantasy world. She felt the wind blow through her hair, brushing up against her skin like a warm blanket. The only noises around her were the rush of a small stream and the occasional chirps of birds and small animals. From what she could tell the area around her was secluded, cut off from everything else.
         She felt trapped in a fantasy world that would never leave her alone; she pictured herself spinning around singing songs of love and peace in a white dress that would flow to her knees. She snapped back to her new reality and sauntered into the flowers. She moved slowly, brushing her hands through the top of the steams; the action sucked her into a deeply buried memory. When she was eleven she had moved to Kansas for a year with her aunt, she had worked on a wheat field and had invited her to stay for a while. The change had been difficult and had left her alone for the majority of each day so she spent her time wandering through the fields. Reading, dreaming, thinking.  Now she felt eleven again, so young, so lost, so alone.
         She paused for a moment among a small patch of yellow daisies; grabbing the base of the root a small thorn pricked the tip of her left index finger. She pressed her finger to her tongue, sucking away the small drop of blood, an overwhelming sensation of wooziness spread through her veins like wild fire. The meadow began to turn and spin around her; she felt a hard smack on the side of her head. Her eyes remained open, but her body became paralyzed. Her mind persuaded her to run, but her will evaded her and she succumbed to exhaustion. All she saw was green and tan roots until she heard the pitter patter of a single pair of feet. She strained her neck to see the oncoming visitor, but her muscles refused to respond, two feet stopped right before her.
         The figure towered above her, standing as still as a statue. A mumble of words formed in her mouth, a scream rising in her throat, but she lacked the strength to push the air past her vocal cords. The only sound that came out was a heavy sigh. Unable to do anything else she waited for the stranger to make the first move. Minutes passes and nothing happened, her sense of hearing began to go first, the noise around her turning into a constant stream of static then fading into nothing. Her eyesight failed her second, the colors started to turn to black and white, then just black. Last of all her mind went, at first all she could do was lay still, think and wait, but as time continued to pass thoughts became increasingly more difficult to make sense of. Eventually she stopped trying and slipped into a deep state of heavily sedated sleep.
~
         The shackles felt cold against her wrists; they were chained tight to her arms, restraining her to a small area of her dank prison. She hadn’t seen her captures yet, but she heard their whispers. They taunted her all hours of the day; whether she was awake or asleep they tormented her into a constant state of suffering.
         “Hello?” she called, her voice hoarse from her lack of water, “Please! Anyone!” The voices would cease to speak for a few moments after that, but they always returned to torture her. After a while she abandoned all hope, reverting to whimpering and short periods of hysterical crying.
         Hour after hour passed and time meshed into an invisible net. She lacked the will to fight anymore, exhaustion washing through her veins. Her body drooped against her restraints, her eyelids becoming heavier and more difficult to open. Eventually she gave up, welcoming the change that sleep would bring.
She couldn’t comprehend how much time she passed since she had fallen asleep, but she was suddenly awoken from her light-state of unconscious dreaming when a cold liquid bleed its way through her lips. She choked at first, but quickly adjusted, gulping up the small goblet of water. The women carrying the cup backed away, bending over low, when she arrived at the exit of the cave she kissed the forehead of a small statue. The statue was of a woman; roughly a foot tall and rested on a small shelve that jutted out from the wall. She squinted her eyes, attempting to gather any more details on the figurine, but a thin film of dust rested on her eyes.
Another women wearing a black robe strutted towards her, pausing just a few inches from her face. From farther away she seemed to be no threat, but from a closer view she was fuming with overwhelming waves of terror. “What is your name, child?” She interrogated, the smell of her minty breath wafting into her face.
“Dawn,” she stated, trying to put a small amount of space between herself and her captor.
“Dawn. What is your surname, dawn?”
“Habada,” she answered. She had decided the moment they shackled her to the wall that she would comply to whatever it is they wanted.
The women was silent, glancing around at the rest of the women in the room, some nodded in approval, while others just stared. Dawn did the same and took stock of the women holding her hostage. Most of the women seemed to look the same in a sense, they had dark brown hair, Plain-Jane faces and were all wearing matching dark robes. One specific women caught her attention, she was hiding out of sight in the corner, she seemed more reserved then the rest, from what she could make of the women she could feel that she wasn’t comfortable with holding another human being as a “torture toy.” The women started at the floor, her mouth twisted into a grim expression. Surprisingly, even though Dawn was the one chained to the wall she felt sympathy for the women; it was obvious that she didn’t belong here, that she was different from the rest of them. On the other hand, that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Dawn endured a brief interrogation, the questions were basic, mostly harmless, things such as where she had come from, why she was there and how she had got there, most of the questions she had no answer too, but they didn’t believe her even when she was telling the truth. Three of the five women left the room, sparing a few seconds to worship at the statue. The leader of the women remained and the one that Dawn had noticed still hid in the corner as well.
         “Minerva, you will take the first guard shift. Abigail will come to relieve you from her post in three hours,” she instructed, then exited the room.
         The night passed dully, she drifted in and out of consciousness, never dreaming, just floating in a pit of darkness. Hours passed, although she couldn’t tell how many, when her shackles rattled, arousing her from her troublesome slumber. She searched the room for the new presence that she felt around her, in the beginning all she could see was a black void of nothingness, then her eyes narrowed down on a strange combination of tan and black bustling at her side. The image became clear and she saw a nervous and panicked Abigail rattling a large black key into her wrist chains.
         Dawn moaned, trying to fully awaken from her drowsy state. “Shush,” Abigail cautioned, pausing to sprint towards the exit. She peaked around the corner then returned to her post at Dawn’s side. “There’s not a lot of time to explain, but I beg of you to be quiet.”
         Dawn nodded, confused and scared enough to comply with her requests. Abigail released one of her chains, then the others. Being free from her imprisonment had a bittersweet tang to it that she hadn’t expected. On one had she was glad to be free of the shackles, but with everything that was happening she was scared of the events to come. Abigail quickly snatched a small brown sack invisibly hiding in the corner and slung it over her shoulder. She grabbed Dawn’s hand and that two rushed from the cave. The hallways outside were dark and wet, just as the prison had been. There were many forks and turns in the intricate system that kept Dawn guessing what lied around every bend.
         They kept up a nice pace of a steady jog, still moving as quiet as possible. They paused every few seconds to monitor for noise or oncoming people, the majority of the time they were alone, but occasionally they would hear a group of women making their way through the halls. When this occurred Dawn and Abigail would scamper into a hidden corner, pressing themselves against the walls, hoping to be veiled within the shadows. After several minutes of running and hiding Abigail lead her to a rounded dead-end at the end of a narrow hallway. Abigail tapped the rock, searching for something unknown to Dawn. She pressed on a little space near the middle of the structure and whispered to the cold stone. Her voice was too low for Dawn to hear, but she suspected it of being Latin or another language completely foreign to her. The back wall began to rearrange itself, creating a small space that grew larger as the wall moved.
         The hole grew into a small door, then a large entrance. While everything was changing around them the two women snuck through the crevice and out into a large wooded area. They moved a short distance deeper into the forest, away from their small escape of the sanctuary. Dawn remained quiet, too frightened to say something. Abigail said nothing more then was necessary, she told her what to do, what not to do, when to be quiet, when to pause. She was patient with Dawn, never angry or frustrated, she kept her head, even when it seemed impossible.
         Once they were deeply concealed in the vegetation Abigail stopped moving and stripped from her road revealing a modern looking black tank top and brown and green cargo pants. The attire surprised Dawn, considering how natural they would seem in her world, although they were not usual for this twisted version of a fantasy world.
         Dawn could feel her courage working up inside of her, ready to burst through her mouth in a vomit of questions. She had too many of them to ask all at once, so she settled for demanding instead of an interrogation. “Tell me what’s going on, now.” Her voice remained steady, calm and persuasive.
         “Later, for now it remains too dangerous.” She profiled the surroundings around them, a fierceness radiating in her eyes that softened immediately after returning her eyes to Dawn. She became frustrated, but the thought of remaining alone in the night kept her in constant motion. The moved through the forest, hiding behind trees and crouching in the bushes when any threat would arise. They walked for several hours, only pausing when Dawn needed the break, although Abigail never seemed to take a moment to breath for herself. After much time had passed they began to slow down, Abigail seemed more hesitant now, searching through one area, then moving onto the next.
         After several failed attempts at locating her desired target she wandered into a small, open meadow. It seemed familiar to Dawn, something she might have seen once, but had now faded into a distant memory. “I think I’ve been here before…” she commented, unsure of herself.
         “This is where we picked you up,” Abigail reassured her.
         “Picked me up? Is that just you’re nice way of saying kidnapping?”
         “Dawn, you must understand that there have been others before you. Many, many others. There isn’t enough time now to explain, later you’ll understand.” Dawn refused to speak to her, too angry to say another word. “When you get back I want you to go once more to the book, read it. Promise me you will?”
         “I promise.” She was softened by her words. She meant what she said and she felt Abigail’s words deeply imbedding themselves into her heart. “When I get back?” she clarified.
         Abigail gathered Dawn into her arms, breathing into her hair. “Goodbye, Dawn.” She pushed her shoulders roughly back, sending Dawn flying to the ground. Just before she could feel the impact of the ground Dawn found herself tumbling on the wooden floor of her apartment. Her head hid the doorknob, a strong sense of Déjà vu overpowering her. More then anything Dawn was startled, she was also relieved and extremely confused.
         Every part of her body hurt, her wrists throbbed, her head ached, her body experienced a sharp soreness and she was completely covered in dirt and filth. But none of those things seemed to matter to her, all she wanted was answers; and there was only once place she would receive what she was searching for.
         The book lay open near her, she scooped up the pile of old leather and flipped to the very few back pages. She nestled into the soft cushions of her couch, engulfing the still wet lettering scrawled into a very short letter addressed to her. The words touched her heart as she read them, and suddenly things didn’t seem to be so bad.
         “Dear Dawn,” it read, “I’m sorry that you had to leave like that. I wish I had more time to explain everything to you, but knowing the truth at this point would do more damage then it would good. I know you’re confused, but you’re strong and I see the same spirit in you that was once in me. I know you’ll get through this. You’ll need some answers and all in due time they will reveal themselves. Be patient and always remain open to what they have to tell you. I love you.
         Always,
                   Abigail Habada.”