Spoiler
I went ahead a made a club for Dead Broke for anyone that is interested in me rabbiting on about the story when I'm tired and sleep-deprived. If it ends up just being me talking to myself, I'll still end up having fun. Being easily amused has its benefits!
Chapter 2
The sun was out in force that afternoon, it hung high in the sky on its diurnal shift keeping a tight watch over all that occurred below. Hannah squinted as she raised her eyes to meet it, more out of habit than anything else; the light did not sting her eyes, nor burn out rings in her vision like a lit cigarette as it used to.
When she tried very hard she could remember what it felt like, to have the sun’s warmth prick at your skin. It would be nice on a day like this, Hannah mused, as she wandered down the streets, weaving between the absent minded pedestrians. In the busy to-and-fro of people she passed unnoticed, well, except for one small child that clutched tightly to his mother’s fingers, staring up at Hannah as they waited to cross at the lights. She had pulled a face to try and scare him but he’d only laughed and clapped his hands together in a fit of glee.
“Little bugger,” she muttered as she hurried on.
The ratio of tourists to residents climbed to uncomfortable levels as Hannah approached the market and soon she was surrounded by bum-bags, burnt skin, and conversations made up of words that she couldn’t recognise. They’d come for the musicals, to see the bright shimmering lights of the city, to buy some tacky souvenirs to give the folks back home. The market had been built in an open square in the centre of it all. It was the furthest thing from practical Hannah could have imagined, and why it had been formed in such a place she did not know.
What she did know, however, was that it was very amusing to see groups of sightseers approach the square to take photos of the plinths and statues when only one of their party privy to the hustle and bustle of the stalls and the un-dead. The looks on their faces when they realised that they were the only ones seeing the heaving crowds, shouting traders, and snarling hell-hounds never failed to illicit a giggle, not even from Ruby and her Victorian sensibilities.
“Excuse me,” Hannah stopped to ask a young man, his large beard and horned helmet were both rather charming but she did her best to keep her eyes on his face, and not on the somewhat scarred battle-axe he was wielding in one arm, “do you know where the book-stop is today?”
He muttered low, in a deep Nordic accent, and waved his hand in the direction of a rather proud looking lion statue, concentration centred elsewhere. Then, without warning, he took off into a flock of pigeons, hatchet swinging above his head with a roar. It was only after the birds had scattered into the air that Hannah saw the young girl running back to her parents’ arms, screaming blue murder.
A surprising number of people could see them, the already-dead, although it was children that always seemed to be more perceptive of the things hiding in the closet or under the bed. Once they reached a certain age, people became very good at convincing themselves that it was only a tree scratching at the window, or a pair of cats fighting each other the last slice of pizza that they’d found in some battered box on the streets. Hannah had been very good at convincing herself too, but it was a little hard to tell yourself that there weren’t things that went bump in the night when you yourself were one of them.
There was a brief round of applause from the crowd, and the ghost took a short bow.
The market was a heavy mix of people that had died both at, and in, different ages. Most of them tended to stick to the dress of their period, more for the comfort and for the memories than as any kind of fashion statement. Having only been dead for some scant four years, Hannah didn’t really seem to be all that different from the throng of tourists that milled around the square, passing through the stalls and patrons without a moment’s glance.
And, as a result of this, Hannah found it somewhat difficult to attract the attention of the trader sat behind the bookstore, who seemed to insist in staring straight to the other side of her no matter how intently she frowned at him.
“Hello?” she said, and there was a long moment where he adjusted his focus and raised his face to meet her eyes. This was followed by another long moment in which he took the time to register the fact that yes she was looking at him, not through him, and at him quite angrily at that.
“I am sorry my dear,” he said with a slow, tired, tone, “I didn’t notice you there.”
Hannah forced a smile, reminding herself that this was exactly the kind of time to keep her tongue in check and that she didn’t really need to owe Ruby any more money than she already did, before producing a rather crumpled shopping list.
“I was wondering if you had any of these books in stock,” she asked, and handed him the dog-eared scrap of paper, “I know that in particular my friend is quite desperate for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the trader hummed as he ran a finger down the list, mentally checking off each title as he came to it.
“Some of these books aren’t available yet, or at least not here in any case. I know that we at least have your Zombies. Give me a moment to see what else we have,” he turned away and began to rummage through the piles of books which surrounded him. While he was running a finger down one particular pile of books, muttering each title as he came to it, a tourist passed straight though him. The tradesman waved a hand in front of his face and spluttered, as it warding off a fly.
A few moments later and he had returned with a stout pile of books. Some hardback, some paper, but mostly the former which worried Hannah as she began to think back to the already sorry state of Ruby’s bookcase.
“That’ll be £50,” he said, eyes suddenly brightening.
Hannah did her very best to keep smiling but it wasn’t particularly easy when all she felt was dismay. When Ruby had produced her long list of requirements, she had paired this with a long list of the curses and swears that she had heard slip from between Hannah’s lips over the past few days, and began to tally up how much she owed for each one.
“But how about we say we round it down, and you just foot the bill for the books,” Ruby had grinned, and Hannah had begun to think she’d have been better off risking it on the streets, no matter how delicious her soul might hypothetically be.
Alas,a deal was a deal, and this left her faced with her current challenge– how to pay for that many books with the measly £13 (and 40 pence) that she had to her name?
“Are you looking for any other kind of payment? I mean, other than cash?” She asked, tentatively.
He looked at her for a moment and then smacked his lips together, a smile teasing at the corners of his lips.
“What do you have to offer?”
Hannah looked him over. He was old, in both senses of the word. The wire-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down his nose weren’t there out of necessity, but out of habit; he’d had them a long time and had grown too used to feeling them tipped on his face than to bear to part with them. His hair was thatching, something that would have taken mere moments to return to its once useful state, but there it was all the same in its combed over glory. Add to that the fact that he would at first glance have appeared to have stepped straight out of some high-production Tudor period drama, and Hannah was sure that she had the perfect thing to pay off the rest of her bill.
“Give me your hands,” she said with a smile.
He did so.
Hannah closed her eyes, and remembered. It was behind her now, the sun. Lower in the sky too, but she could still imagine its heat pricking at the back of her neck. She let that feeling spread all over her: the warmth of its rays, that sickly feeling that occurs just before the skin begins to burn, the way that it felt when paired with a cool breeze. Instead of money, she gave him the sunshine.
“Oh, now that was nice,” he said as he withdrew his hands, “yes, yes that will do nicely.” He was looking through her again, but this time to the golden globe which was now slipping down the skyline. “It’s been centuries since I had last felt that, I had forgotten all about it.”
“Much obliged,” Hannah said with a smile, gathering up the books in her arms, waving farewell and making her way back through the crowds.
There was a family taking pictures by one of the plinths, German from the sounds of it. Hannah paused between the mother and father and pulled a wicked grin for the shot before half-skipping back home in content.
They looked at the photos later, upon their return to Germany, and complained to each other in angry voices about the rude young woman who had invaded their family portrait in the city. The youngest daughter was the only one that never complained, and the only one that wanted to keep the picture, even asking for a print-out. She found herself staring at it over and over again, wondering why she was the only one in her family that seemed to notice that the woman with the pile of books had a body that stopped half-way down.
I'm afraid I'm gonna have to hit you with the "describe more!" hammer again. Ever so sorry about that!
You already got some good reviews on those chapters, and Charlie's already given you a great one here, but I had to comment.
