The Book
The room was very dark, lit by only a few lamps, but the orange light was obscured by feathered dresses hanging from the high shelves, casting odd shadows over the rest of the souvenirs. Marcus had never seen the crafts and art of his father’s tribe before.
In Marcus’s mind, the Cowlitz were nothing but murderers disguised in feathers. The gift shop showed him a different side of their culture which he had never known or wanted to find out about, but in the shop, everything was on display right from the start. He felt overwhelmed by it. It was with great hesitation that he continued walking.
The walls were cluttered with overcrowded shelves filled with decorated baskets, stones, totem poles, peace pipes and weapons. Marcus walked further into the shop, and felt as though the space between the shelves shrunk, becoming narrower with every step he took. Marcus felt compelled to keep walking; the items on the shelves were fascinating. As he approached the far wall, he noticed that there was no last shelf on the left hand side. He hadn’t realized how big the store was. He halted for a while and dried the last tears while looking at some drawings that were pinned up on the dry wall.
They were Indian, paying respect to nature in every detail. He saw a lifelike drawing of an eagle sitting on a woman’s shoulder, another one portraying a flowing river, continuing to become an ear deafening waterfall at the hands of gravity. A third drawing showed Indian horses, prancing and galloping in the woods, free of saddles or riders.
“Find anything you like?” an old, ragged voice found its way through the left hand shelf. Marcus had almost forgotten where he was, it didn’t feel like he was standing in a shop. These drawings were more likely to belong in a museum.
“Yes, these drawings are amazing, sir,” Marcus managed to put words to his discovery.
“They’re not that good; most of them are just sketches,” said the old, hunched man as he stepped into the light behind the shelf which was cut off, and stood next to Marcus.
“You drew these, sir?” Marcus was even more amazed; surprised even.
“Yes, indeed, I did. This one, for example; I drew that yesterday when I was drunk,” the man pointed to a drawing pinned up right in front of Marcus’s eyes, and chuckled. On the thin paper, sketched with pencil, was a lake, with a big house right in front of it. On the terrace of the house, Marcus could vaguely make out two people.
“It’s beautiful. Who are the people in it?” Marcus was intrigued by the man who radiated wisdom in some odd way that he had never encountered before. The white haired, wrinkly, smiling man looked at Marcus, but soon the smile was replaced by a neutral, gray old face, and the voice was coarser than it had been just a few moments earlier:
“They can be whoever you want. Are you going to buy it or not? You’re wasting my time, kid.” Marcus wasn't surprised; he knew this shop was too good to be true. The keeper was Cowlitz after all. The man kept staring at Marcus with an expectant frown on his face. Marcus looked at the man, and then at the drawings. The freedom and love that had been put into those works of art didn’t reflect in the man’s eyes. Although the drawings were two-dimensional, they managed to display more life and compassion than the animated man who claimed to have drawn them. Marcus doubted very much that the old shopkeeper was the artist; he seemed to be too obsessed with money to spend time creating art.
“I’m just browsing, thank you,” Marcus tried to act like a rational human being, though every impulse in his system was telling him to pick up one of the totem poles on the shelves behind him and shove it into the old man’s face. The man grunted, turned and disappeared behind the left hand shelf again. Marcus started walking towards the door. He could see the man walking next to him behind the shelf, but passed him after only a few steps. In his aggravated state, Marcus accidentally bumped into one of the totem poles sticking out from under the shelves, which caused a loud chain reaction to occur.
The totem rolled to the side, causing the bottom shelf to collapse under the weight of the books resting on it. A cloud of dust followed the noise of wood breaking. One of the books that seemed to have been long forgotten landed with a thump in the aisle. Marcus turned, and caught a glimpse of the thick, leather bound book. He could hear the old man’s desperate, dragging steps, trying to hurry from his aisle to the one that Marcus was standing in, whilst yelling something in the lines of “You break, you buy!”
Marcus recognized the symbol etched onto the cover. In the middle of it was a gem of some sort, glowing in a bright yellow color. Marcus heard that the man was just about to round the corner of the left shelf, just like his mother had rounded the corner at Helens Street five minutes earlier.
Ten seconds later.
Marcus was raised by his mother not to steal, but he convinced himself that what the old man had tried to do was the same thing. Those drawings weren’t really his, and neither was the book that Marcus had pinched under his arm. He was jogging home, just in case the old man would turn out to be a 70-year old sprinter. After a few minutes, he arrived at their red little house. Marcus put the book in his backpack while walking across the driveway and zipped it shut. He walked in through the front door, and ran straight up the stairs to his room. He closed the door behind him. His heart was racing from the jog and he was short of breath. He sat down by his desk and dragged his backpack with him. He opened the backpack, revealing the book. It was dusty.
The glowing orb in the middle of the symbol was brighter than it had been in the shop, and seemed to glow more intensely as Marcus blew off the dust. The leather was worn and dark, and as he opened the book, he felt the quality of the yellowed pages; thin as air and soft as silk. Marcus noticed something odd; all the pages were empty. Not a single word was written or printed onto them. A few of them had been torn out. All this left Marcus confused. Why would a book with such a captivating cover be empty?
He slammed the book shut, examining the front cover. The book looked ancient, except for the illuminated gem in the middle of the symbol, glowing in a way that he had never seen anything else glow before. The geometry of the engraving was simple but aesthetically beautiful. Where had he seen the shape before? Was it in math class during that last test that he failed? Or was it in his geography book? Marcus began unpacking his backpack, bringing out every schoolbook he had onto the table. He started looking through them, one at a time, muttering and mumbling as he went along. He wasn’t a good reader, so it took him some time to find what he was looking for. On a scribbled page in his History book, he had written a short, sarcastic note:
“Professor Adams loves Incan symbols…”
It was followed by a quick sketch of the exact same shape that was glowing on the cover of the stolen book. Marcus remembered the part of the lecture when he had written the note. Professor Adams had told them about archeologists finding that very same symbol in different variations on all kinds of objects throughout history, some over 4000 years old. He couldn’t remember why the symbol was so special, or what it was called. Marcus looked at all the books and wrinkly pages on his desk.
“What a mess,” he said out loud.
He could hear the front door open and his best friend, Dog running up the stairs. Marcus put away the mysterious book and walked to the door to allow Dog to come in before he began scratching the door to shreds. Dog was a Dalmatian, a gift from Marcus’s father. Shortly after he had found out that Jane had become pregnant, Jim had bought the dog to watch over their expanding family. Dog was getting old, but there was a spark in his eyes. Marcus knew that he would stay with him for a long time to come. His mother walked up the stairs, and soon she was standing in Marcus’s room. She looked surprised.
“Home already? You hungry,” Marcus wasn’t sure if she was asking or insisting.
“I’m starving,” he replied and decided to let the book be until the next day. He would bring it to school; hopefully Professor Adams could shed some light over it.
It seems that the other reviewers have pointed out any errors with the actual story, so I'll just get on with some grammatical nit-picks ^^
Maybe if you rewrote it with something along the lines of:
