Six
First bit
Second bit
Third bit
Fourth bit
Fifth bit
I am fully convinced that the second paragraph in this bit is the best thing I've ever written. I love it so much. If it were possible, I'd marry that paragraph.
Little Adam proved to be more of an asset than Peter had ever thought he would. Not only was he an effective worker who asked for no salary other than being allowed to read whatever took his fancy in the shop, but people passing the window in the streets took pity of the small child that had to work for a living. They went inside to ask him things, and when they found that he really did know what he was doing, they most often ended up buying something.
Adam had the uncanny ability to look at people and know what they were really after. Therefore could a woman who had gone in to find a cookbook and learn how to make pudding for her adult son, come out with a book on how to live life after passing fifty, go straight home and hit her spoiled son over the head with it. A shy boy who had come for a book on football, left with a smile and a book on jazz dancing, and went back to his room to practice in silence.
Adam knew what book would make a person happy. He was a strange and silent child, but he loved books just as much as Peter did, maybe even more. He also had an odd affection to people, when they didn’t bother his reading or came too close, and all customers left the bookshop with a feeling that they had just met a very special boy indeed, but they couldn’t remember what he had said or done that had been so special.
In any case, he was good for business.
Within six months of Adam staying at the bookshop after school, Peter was no longer in debt to anyone. He paid his bills with a song in his heart and gave the banker a bright smile as he signed his name on the check. The future was bright and shone like the sun, and Peter was so pleased that he even forgot about the knife and the book in his safe for weeks at the time.
Time passed.
When Adam turned thirteen he received a permanent job in the bookshop, with pay, for weekends and holidays. He accepted the money, but rarely spent them on anything. When Peter asked him about it, Adam replied that he saved the money for his parents, so that they would have it for a trip when they got old.
Adam often said precocious things like that.
On his fifteenth birthday, Adam received a raise, mostly because Peter didn’t know what to do with his money. Adam bought a basket of fruit for his father and a box of chocolates for his mother, and the rest of the money he put in the bank. They would do more good there than in his pocket, he reasoned.
Peter adored his peculiar little nephew (who wasn’t so little anymore, but Peter was very much like Anita in the aspect that he never ceased to see Adam as anything other than a very tall and pimply child), and he should since he did own a lot to him.
One day, Adam came to the bookstore with a wicker cage that had been carefully filled with soft blankets.
“What is that?” asked Peter curiously.
Adam grinned. “I bought her for you. I figured you’re a bit lonely when I leave work, so she’s here to give you some company.”
He opened the cage, and out tumbled a small grey kitten that meowed sadly and looked up at Peter with large yellow eyes.
“It’s a cat,” said Peter.
“It’s a kitten,” Adam corrected him. “She has no other place to go, so you take care of her now. Heaven knows that you don’t get much company. Say ‘thank you, Adam.’”
“Thank you, Adam,” repeated Peter with a tired smile. “I don’t know how to take care of a kitten, kid.”
“It’s good then, that she knows how to take care of herself. You don’t have to worry. All you have to do is to feed her and cuddle her, and you’ll have a nice companion for when I’ve gone home for the day.”
Peter had named the cat Wilhelmina, which meant ‘Desire to Protect,’ and he thought that was fitting for a mascot. That was however a very long name for a very small cat, so usually she was just Will. She decided that the bookshop was a worthy home for her, and mostly resided in the window where she could keep a close eye on any possible shoplifters. She developed quite a talent for catching them and attach herself to their legs while scratching and caterwauling like crazy. Having a watch-cat like that was indeed worth its weight in gold.
Peter was however concerned that Wilhelmina so often hissed at nothing but shadows, and occasionally pounced into the darkness of the second-hand part of the bookshop. It was as if she saw things that no human ever saw. Peter, who did know a thing or two about supernatural things, decided to not look into it. He was nervous enough about the two mysterious objects that he owned to worry about possible leprechauns in his shop.
-***-
Mr. Korp was not a leprechaun, and he would have been most cross if anyone had called him that to his face. Not that anyone would. Mr. Korp had a very strict face when it was visible, and he had a way of staring at you that would make anyone feel very uncomfortable. He had been staring at Peter that way on a few occasions, which always made the shopkeeper very nervous and caused him to look around twice to see if he was followed even when he went to the bathroom.
Mostly Mr. Korp kept to himself. He had a job, and he would do it to the bosses’ satisfaction, as best he could. He was supposed to make sure that White and his nephew didn’t do anything stupid, which he knew humans often did. Mr. Korp didn’t sleep, or eat, or even blink much, so he didn’t miss a lot.
He had the shape of a man in his mid-thirties, with even, dark hair that lay plastered to his head, divided into a razor straight parting down the middle. His eyes were grey and cold and noticed everything. He was impeccably dressed in a black suit and shoes that glinted dully in the darkness when lights fell just right.
That was, if you saw him. You very rarely did, and even then just as a shadow in the corner of the eye that was gone when you looked his way.
His boss, Mr. Duva, described Mr. Korp as “a proper youngling, ambitious and polite. He could go far, but he’s too distant. He really doesn’t like humans, and if you’re going to do this job then you have to let some things that they do slide. Maybe guarding these two will help him see what he’s meant to do.”
Mr. Duva, who was a very sympathetic person who thought that everybody had some usefulness and couldn’t be cold through and through, was unfortunately wrong.
Mr. Korp despised humans. He found them indecisive, random and dull, and the workers of the little bookshop were no different. But he did have a sense of duty, and he would guard them faithfully and without complaining for as long as the bosses wanted him to.
There were some things that he liked about humans though, or at least the feeling of not complete resentment that for Mr. Korp passed for liking something. One of these things was math. Math was absolute and final, and Mr. Korp liked those sorts of things. One and one could only become two, that was neat and proper and right.
As was, for some reason that Mr. Duva could not quite grasp, the subway. Mr. Korp preferred to leave his reports on the train, where he always sat on the same place and had the perfect view of one of his charges.
Adam White took the subway to school every morning, and of course he went home the very same way.
This very day, Adam was not on his way to either school, home or bookstore. He was going to Brimstone Park to read. He liked going to the park. It was, well, perhaps not peaceful with all the children running about near the paddling pool and the carousel, but it was a place where a lot of people went to relax and get some sunshine. So Adam went there too.
He got off the train at Park Station and strolled leisurely towards the green. It was a nice day, he was seventeen years old, and birds were singing. He whistled as he walked up to his favourite tree and spread out a small blanket underneath it. He sat down, leant back, cherishing the moment before taking out the book from his rucksack.
He skimmed the book mostly, since he had read it many times before, and soon he just sighed in contentment and stretched out underneath the tree. His eyes followed the carousel, which turned round and round, clinking out the same piano tune again and again. It was not a big carousel, it only had ten or so animals that you could sit on, but it was beautifully painted and even had some gold bits here and there. The largest seat was that of a carriage dragged by two horses, one black and one white. The carriage was dark blue with silver details, and in it at the moment sat a girl. She was smiling.
Adam’s heart skipped a beat. The girl. He recognized her. She was Janine Rosen, and she was in his class. Usually she sat giggling with her girlfriends about fashion or boys or similar uninteresting things. She was very pretty, with her blond hair perfectly coiffed and her make-up expertly applied. Adam had always seen her as a doll of plastic beauty, but lacking in anything that even remotely resembled a personality.
That was before now.
This morning, Janine hadn’t put on any make-up. She wasn’t wearing the tank tops and short skirts in pastel colours that Adam was used to see her in, but sensible jeans and a plain t-shirt. Her could hear her laugh, and it was a real, live laugh and not the giggles he so often heard in the corridors of his school.
He followed her with his eyes as Janine gracefully jumped out of the blue carriage and balanced her way over to the white horse. She climbed up until she sat there straddled on it, beaming like a princess and pretending to wave to her trusty subjects.
“Janie, let me!” a little boy called out from his place on the back of a turtle and raised his arms up to her. “I wanna ride the horse!”
Janine sighed and snapped out of her princess dreams. She climbed down from the horse and, leaning against one of the carousel’s gold pillars for support, managed to pick up the boy and place him on the horse. As soon as he started to howl with delight, she smiled again and climbed up on the other horse. There she sat for the remaining ride, looking happier than Adam had ever seen her.
In that moment, he fell in love with her. He fell in love with her messy hair that hadn’t seen a comb that morning, and with her blissful face as she closed her eyes to feel the wind. He loved her tattered jeans and dirty sneakers, so real and so alive. That second, he saw a beauty in Janine that he hadn’t been aware of, a beauty that would never really fade in her. He saw that she was a person.
She noticed him staring, and her cheeks coloured. Maybe she recognized him, maybe she didn’t, but in any case she jumped off the carousel as it slowed down and called for the boy.
“Artie! It’s time to go home!”
Artie pouted and said something, probably begging her to stay just a little bit longer, but Janine shook her head. Her brother, for Artie must be her brother, sighed like a martyr, but took her outstretched hand. The siblings left the park, leaving Adam still staring at Janine as she disappeared.
-***-
Peter was thinking about many things at once. That always gave him a headache. First of all there was the issue of him buying a car or not. He didn’t really need a car, but it was a grown-up thing to do and he was without a doubt a grown-up now. It would look good. And besides, he was very fond of the idea of a sports car. A red one.
Then he also had to think about the knife and the book. The thought of those always snuck into his head, whether he liked it to or not. The knife called out to him again. It did that from time to time, most often when it wanted him to find something out. Peter had learned how the knife worked by now. He had written down everything he had learned about it and the Ironwings, and still it wanted to know more.
And then there was the last thing. The thing that he read about in the papers. The thing about a man murdering his daughter with a very strange-looking knife in a city not far away from this one. The papers showed a clear picture of the knife, which still had blood on it. Peter wouldn’t say that it was an exact copy of the one he kept in his safe, but it was most certainly of the same sort. It was shorter, more of a dagger really, and more compact than his own. The shaft was of the same type of dark wood, and the edge was sharp but thicker.
It had killed someone. There were no witnesses, but it was still quite certain that the little girl’s father had snapped, gone mad, and slit his daughter’s throat from side to side. There were pictures of them both in the paper. She was very sweet, probably around eight years old, and her father beamed proudly at the camera with his arm around her.
The man was in an institution now, where doctors and policemen questioned him as they waited for trial. It was apparent that he believed himself to be innocent, and that it had been the knife that had somehow “possessed” him to do it.
“Interesting,” mumbled Peter and scratched his nose thoughtfully. “So you’ve got a sibling, have you?”
He looked at his own knife. It was silent, but he could detect a faint sense of confusion coming from it.
“I suppose it’s logical, what with you coming from just one wing of a great one,” he continued. “It’s reasonable that there would be more of you. The question is just what I’m supposed to do about it.”
If they were more, that meant that more people were going to perish from it. They were so easily corrupted by its seducing voice, and they would end up insane or dead. If things went really badly, they would even become murderers.
‘They can’t control it like I can,’ thought Peter. ‘I’m different for some reason. I can stand against the one I already have, so if I get another one, I’ll be able to keep it safe so that no one else falls under whatever power it possesses.’
He nodded to himself and smiled in satisfaction. In his head he was already making plans.
‘I’ll leave the store for Adam. He can take care of it until I get back. At least for the weekends. He’s trustworthy.
I’ll take the train there. It’s the cheapest way, and I’ll be needing as much money as I can possibly get. But how can I get the knife when it’s evidence in a murder trial?’
Peter sighed with sudden frustration.
‘I’ll think of something. It doesn’t matter. Money can solve a lot of problems.’
He wasted no time. He got up from his desk and started packing.
-***-
When Adam showed up in the bookstore, he found his uncle run around like a crazy man, picking up books, standing there staring at them for a bit, and then putting them back in their shelves again.
On the floor, wide open and displaying random things like unmatching socks, scraps of paper, and a banana, stood a tattered suitcase. Next to it sat Wilhelmina, who was washing herself and occasionally throwing her master a look of worried carefulness.
“Uncle?” said Adam kindly and stroke Wilhelmina over the head. “What are you going?”
Peter stopped in his pursuit and looked up in surprise. He smiled when he spotted his nephew.
“Oh Adam, you’re here,” he said. “Good, good.”
“Are you going on vacation or something?” asked Adam with a nod towards the suitcase.
“What? Oh, yes, yes. Just for a few days.” Peter spun around, frowning, gazing up at a bookshelf. “Maybe a week. Could you do me a favour and watch the bookstore while I’m gone?”
“Sure, no problem. Where are you going?”
Peter stood on his toes trying to get to a special book, and then gave up and went behind the counter for a bit, getting the footstool they used to reach up to the taller shelves in the store. He adjusted it carefully on the floor and stepped up on it.
“I figured I needed some fresh air,” he said vaguely. “Get out on the country for a bit. Maybe discover something new. Try yoga. What do I know?”
He smiled and patted the book he’d chosen. Adam squinted at the title.
“’Corruption in Law Enforcement’?”
“Just something to read on the train,” said his uncle cheerily. Then he frowned again. “What are you doing here, by the way? Weren’t you supposed to go read in the park today?”
Adam shrugged. “Well, yeah... And I sort of did, but then... something sort of happened.” He hesitated for a bit, and then continued. “Uncle Peter, what do you know about girls?”
Peter blinked. “Girls?” he repeated dumbly. “Just the gender in general or one particular representative?”
“Err, sort of the second one.” Adam coloured slightly. He didn’t often talk about these things. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t even interested him until twenty minutes ago.
“Oh, I see.” Peter nodded. “Is it... anyone I know?”
“I don’t think so. Her name is Janine, she’s in my class.”
Peter thought about it. “Janine, Janine... Blond hair? Likes to wear seven kinds of pink every day? Often hangs around a lot of very giggly friends?”
Adam looked surprised. “How did you know that?”
“This is a bookstore. We do get customers. She was in here a while ago to buy a book on horses or boyfriends or make-up or whatever trash girls reads nowadays...” He waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Anyway, she was with a group of girls and they were all laughing about something. A girl that pretty is very hard to forget.” He grinned at Adam. “I never thought she’d be your type, though. Too much goo in her face.”
“She wasn’t. I mean, she isn’t. I mean...” Adam groaned. “This is hard! She’s all different now! I mean, I saw her today, and it was like... BANG! That fast. She just had this light on her, I... don’t know if I can explain it. It was just that moment, when she smiled... She looked so happy.”
“People tend to look like that when they smile,” his uncle put in and patted him on the shoulder. “Ah, Adam, it was just a matter of time before this happened. Did you expect to live in exile for the rest of your life?”
“Not exactly. I was planning on become like you, as a matter of fact. I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend.”
Peter cleared his throat. “I have too high standards, that is all. I always end up disappointed. It’s not that I’ve never... and that is not the issue in any case!” He sighed. “You’re young, Adam. You should at least try it before deciding to become a hermit like myself. Talk to the girl.”
Adam began coughing violently. When he had gotten his breath back he stared incredulously at his uncle.
“I can’t talk to Janine Rosen!” he exclaimed. “Do you know how popular she is?! She’s prom queen! She has a boyfriend on the swim team! He’d smash me to a little wet stain on the sidewalk if he knew I had been talking to her.”
“Adam, Adam, Adam...” Peter shook his head. “When you get a little older it’ll get clearer for you. You’re a good kid. I’m sure Janine will see that, if you just give her a chance.” He smiled comfortingly and threw a glance at his watch. “Aw crap, I gotta run if I want to catch my train. Don’t forget to feed Will, will you?”
“I won’t. Have a great time getting fresh air and yoga.”
Peter gave his nephew a wide grin, and then he hurried out the door, his suitcase under one arm. Adam saw through the window how he jumped on to his bike and cycled away.
“Well then, Will, I suppose it’s just us now,” he said to the cat, who had been watching the scene, a little bit more calmly now that master Adam had showed up.
Wilhelmina meowed. She didn’t care much who fed her, just as long as it got done.
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Second bit
Third bit
Fourth bit
Fifth bit
I am fully convinced that the second paragraph in this bit is the best thing I've ever written. I love it so much. If it were possible, I'd marry that paragraph.
Little Adam proved to be more of an asset than Peter had ever thought he would. Not only was he an effective worker who asked for no salary other than being allowed to read whatever took his fancy in the shop, but people passing the window in the streets took pity of the small child that had to work for a living. They went inside to ask him things, and when they found that he really did know what he was doing, they most often ended up buying something.
Adam had the uncanny ability to look at people and know what they were really after. Therefore could a woman who had gone in to find a cookbook and learn how to make pudding for her adult son, come out with a book on how to live life after passing fifty, go straight home and hit her spoiled son over the head with it. A shy boy who had come for a book on football, left with a smile and a book on jazz dancing, and went back to his room to practice in silence.
Adam knew what book would make a person happy. He was a strange and silent child, but he loved books just as much as Peter did, maybe even more. He also had an odd affection to people, when they didn’t bother his reading or came too close, and all customers left the bookshop with a feeling that they had just met a very special boy indeed, but they couldn’t remember what he had said or done that had been so special.
In any case, he was good for business.
Within six months of Adam staying at the bookshop after school, Peter was no longer in debt to anyone. He paid his bills with a song in his heart and gave the banker a bright smile as he signed his name on the check. The future was bright and shone like the sun, and Peter was so pleased that he even forgot about the knife and the book in his safe for weeks at the time.
Time passed.
When Adam turned thirteen he received a permanent job in the bookshop, with pay, for weekends and holidays. He accepted the money, but rarely spent them on anything. When Peter asked him about it, Adam replied that he saved the money for his parents, so that they would have it for a trip when they got old.
Adam often said precocious things like that.
On his fifteenth birthday, Adam received a raise, mostly because Peter didn’t know what to do with his money. Adam bought a basket of fruit for his father and a box of chocolates for his mother, and the rest of the money he put in the bank. They would do more good there than in his pocket, he reasoned.
Peter adored his peculiar little nephew (who wasn’t so little anymore, but Peter was very much like Anita in the aspect that he never ceased to see Adam as anything other than a very tall and pimply child), and he should since he did own a lot to him.
One day, Adam came to the bookstore with a wicker cage that had been carefully filled with soft blankets.
“What is that?” asked Peter curiously.
Adam grinned. “I bought her for you. I figured you’re a bit lonely when I leave work, so she’s here to give you some company.”
He opened the cage, and out tumbled a small grey kitten that meowed sadly and looked up at Peter with large yellow eyes.
“It’s a cat,” said Peter.
“It’s a kitten,” Adam corrected him. “She has no other place to go, so you take care of her now. Heaven knows that you don’t get much company. Say ‘thank you, Adam.’”
“Thank you, Adam,” repeated Peter with a tired smile. “I don’t know how to take care of a kitten, kid.”
“It’s good then, that she knows how to take care of herself. You don’t have to worry. All you have to do is to feed her and cuddle her, and you’ll have a nice companion for when I’ve gone home for the day.”
Peter had named the cat Wilhelmina, which meant ‘Desire to Protect,’ and he thought that was fitting for a mascot. That was however a very long name for a very small cat, so usually she was just Will. She decided that the bookshop was a worthy home for her, and mostly resided in the window where she could keep a close eye on any possible shoplifters. She developed quite a talent for catching them and attach herself to their legs while scratching and caterwauling like crazy. Having a watch-cat like that was indeed worth its weight in gold.
Peter was however concerned that Wilhelmina so often hissed at nothing but shadows, and occasionally pounced into the darkness of the second-hand part of the bookshop. It was as if she saw things that no human ever saw. Peter, who did know a thing or two about supernatural things, decided to not look into it. He was nervous enough about the two mysterious objects that he owned to worry about possible leprechauns in his shop.
-***-
Mr. Korp was not a leprechaun, and he would have been most cross if anyone had called him that to his face. Not that anyone would. Mr. Korp had a very strict face when it was visible, and he had a way of staring at you that would make anyone feel very uncomfortable. He had been staring at Peter that way on a few occasions, which always made the shopkeeper very nervous and caused him to look around twice to see if he was followed even when he went to the bathroom.
Mostly Mr. Korp kept to himself. He had a job, and he would do it to the bosses’ satisfaction, as best he could. He was supposed to make sure that White and his nephew didn’t do anything stupid, which he knew humans often did. Mr. Korp didn’t sleep, or eat, or even blink much, so he didn’t miss a lot.
He had the shape of a man in his mid-thirties, with even, dark hair that lay plastered to his head, divided into a razor straight parting down the middle. His eyes were grey and cold and noticed everything. He was impeccably dressed in a black suit and shoes that glinted dully in the darkness when lights fell just right.
That was, if you saw him. You very rarely did, and even then just as a shadow in the corner of the eye that was gone when you looked his way.
His boss, Mr. Duva, described Mr. Korp as “a proper youngling, ambitious and polite. He could go far, but he’s too distant. He really doesn’t like humans, and if you’re going to do this job then you have to let some things that they do slide. Maybe guarding these two will help him see what he’s meant to do.”
Mr. Duva, who was a very sympathetic person who thought that everybody had some usefulness and couldn’t be cold through and through, was unfortunately wrong.
Mr. Korp despised humans. He found them indecisive, random and dull, and the workers of the little bookshop were no different. But he did have a sense of duty, and he would guard them faithfully and without complaining for as long as the bosses wanted him to.
There were some things that he liked about humans though, or at least the feeling of not complete resentment that for Mr. Korp passed for liking something. One of these things was math. Math was absolute and final, and Mr. Korp liked those sorts of things. One and one could only become two, that was neat and proper and right.
As was, for some reason that Mr. Duva could not quite grasp, the subway. Mr. Korp preferred to leave his reports on the train, where he always sat on the same place and had the perfect view of one of his charges.
Adam White took the subway to school every morning, and of course he went home the very same way.
This very day, Adam was not on his way to either school, home or bookstore. He was going to Brimstone Park to read. He liked going to the park. It was, well, perhaps not peaceful with all the children running about near the paddling pool and the carousel, but it was a place where a lot of people went to relax and get some sunshine. So Adam went there too.
He got off the train at Park Station and strolled leisurely towards the green. It was a nice day, he was seventeen years old, and birds were singing. He whistled as he walked up to his favourite tree and spread out a small blanket underneath it. He sat down, leant back, cherishing the moment before taking out the book from his rucksack.
He skimmed the book mostly, since he had read it many times before, and soon he just sighed in contentment and stretched out underneath the tree. His eyes followed the carousel, which turned round and round, clinking out the same piano tune again and again. It was not a big carousel, it only had ten or so animals that you could sit on, but it was beautifully painted and even had some gold bits here and there. The largest seat was that of a carriage dragged by two horses, one black and one white. The carriage was dark blue with silver details, and in it at the moment sat a girl. She was smiling.
Adam’s heart skipped a beat. The girl. He recognized her. She was Janine Rosen, and she was in his class. Usually she sat giggling with her girlfriends about fashion or boys or similar uninteresting things. She was very pretty, with her blond hair perfectly coiffed and her make-up expertly applied. Adam had always seen her as a doll of plastic beauty, but lacking in anything that even remotely resembled a personality.
That was before now.
This morning, Janine hadn’t put on any make-up. She wasn’t wearing the tank tops and short skirts in pastel colours that Adam was used to see her in, but sensible jeans and a plain t-shirt. Her could hear her laugh, and it was a real, live laugh and not the giggles he so often heard in the corridors of his school.
He followed her with his eyes as Janine gracefully jumped out of the blue carriage and balanced her way over to the white horse. She climbed up until she sat there straddled on it, beaming like a princess and pretending to wave to her trusty subjects.
“Janie, let me!” a little boy called out from his place on the back of a turtle and raised his arms up to her. “I wanna ride the horse!”
Janine sighed and snapped out of her princess dreams. She climbed down from the horse and, leaning against one of the carousel’s gold pillars for support, managed to pick up the boy and place him on the horse. As soon as he started to howl with delight, she smiled again and climbed up on the other horse. There she sat for the remaining ride, looking happier than Adam had ever seen her.
In that moment, he fell in love with her. He fell in love with her messy hair that hadn’t seen a comb that morning, and with her blissful face as she closed her eyes to feel the wind. He loved her tattered jeans and dirty sneakers, so real and so alive. That second, he saw a beauty in Janine that he hadn’t been aware of, a beauty that would never really fade in her. He saw that she was a person.
She noticed him staring, and her cheeks coloured. Maybe she recognized him, maybe she didn’t, but in any case she jumped off the carousel as it slowed down and called for the boy.
“Artie! It’s time to go home!”
Artie pouted and said something, probably begging her to stay just a little bit longer, but Janine shook her head. Her brother, for Artie must be her brother, sighed like a martyr, but took her outstretched hand. The siblings left the park, leaving Adam still staring at Janine as she disappeared.
-***-
Peter was thinking about many things at once. That always gave him a headache. First of all there was the issue of him buying a car or not. He didn’t really need a car, but it was a grown-up thing to do and he was without a doubt a grown-up now. It would look good. And besides, he was very fond of the idea of a sports car. A red one.
Then he also had to think about the knife and the book. The thought of those always snuck into his head, whether he liked it to or not. The knife called out to him again. It did that from time to time, most often when it wanted him to find something out. Peter had learned how the knife worked by now. He had written down everything he had learned about it and the Ironwings, and still it wanted to know more.
And then there was the last thing. The thing that he read about in the papers. The thing about a man murdering his daughter with a very strange-looking knife in a city not far away from this one. The papers showed a clear picture of the knife, which still had blood on it. Peter wouldn’t say that it was an exact copy of the one he kept in his safe, but it was most certainly of the same sort. It was shorter, more of a dagger really, and more compact than his own. The shaft was of the same type of dark wood, and the edge was sharp but thicker.
It had killed someone. There were no witnesses, but it was still quite certain that the little girl’s father had snapped, gone mad, and slit his daughter’s throat from side to side. There were pictures of them both in the paper. She was very sweet, probably around eight years old, and her father beamed proudly at the camera with his arm around her.
The man was in an institution now, where doctors and policemen questioned him as they waited for trial. It was apparent that he believed himself to be innocent, and that it had been the knife that had somehow “possessed” him to do it.
“Interesting,” mumbled Peter and scratched his nose thoughtfully. “So you’ve got a sibling, have you?”
He looked at his own knife. It was silent, but he could detect a faint sense of confusion coming from it.
“I suppose it’s logical, what with you coming from just one wing of a great one,” he continued. “It’s reasonable that there would be more of you. The question is just what I’m supposed to do about it.”
If they were more, that meant that more people were going to perish from it. They were so easily corrupted by its seducing voice, and they would end up insane or dead. If things went really badly, they would even become murderers.
‘They can’t control it like I can,’ thought Peter. ‘I’m different for some reason. I can stand against the one I already have, so if I get another one, I’ll be able to keep it safe so that no one else falls under whatever power it possesses.’
He nodded to himself and smiled in satisfaction. In his head he was already making plans.
‘I’ll leave the store for Adam. He can take care of it until I get back. At least for the weekends. He’s trustworthy.
I’ll take the train there. It’s the cheapest way, and I’ll be needing as much money as I can possibly get. But how can I get the knife when it’s evidence in a murder trial?’
Peter sighed with sudden frustration.
‘I’ll think of something. It doesn’t matter. Money can solve a lot of problems.’
He wasted no time. He got up from his desk and started packing.
-***-
When Adam showed up in the bookstore, he found his uncle run around like a crazy man, picking up books, standing there staring at them for a bit, and then putting them back in their shelves again.
On the floor, wide open and displaying random things like unmatching socks, scraps of paper, and a banana, stood a tattered suitcase. Next to it sat Wilhelmina, who was washing herself and occasionally throwing her master a look of worried carefulness.
“Uncle?” said Adam kindly and stroke Wilhelmina over the head. “What are you going?”
Peter stopped in his pursuit and looked up in surprise. He smiled when he spotted his nephew.
“Oh Adam, you’re here,” he said. “Good, good.”
“Are you going on vacation or something?” asked Adam with a nod towards the suitcase.
“What? Oh, yes, yes. Just for a few days.” Peter spun around, frowning, gazing up at a bookshelf. “Maybe a week. Could you do me a favour and watch the bookstore while I’m gone?”
“Sure, no problem. Where are you going?”
Peter stood on his toes trying to get to a special book, and then gave up and went behind the counter for a bit, getting the footstool they used to reach up to the taller shelves in the store. He adjusted it carefully on the floor and stepped up on it.
“I figured I needed some fresh air,” he said vaguely. “Get out on the country for a bit. Maybe discover something new. Try yoga. What do I know?”
He smiled and patted the book he’d chosen. Adam squinted at the title.
“’Corruption in Law Enforcement’?”
“Just something to read on the train,” said his uncle cheerily. Then he frowned again. “What are you doing here, by the way? Weren’t you supposed to go read in the park today?”
Adam shrugged. “Well, yeah... And I sort of did, but then... something sort of happened.” He hesitated for a bit, and then continued. “Uncle Peter, what do you know about girls?”
Peter blinked. “Girls?” he repeated dumbly. “Just the gender in general or one particular representative?”
“Err, sort of the second one.” Adam coloured slightly. He didn’t often talk about these things. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t even interested him until twenty minutes ago.
“Oh, I see.” Peter nodded. “Is it... anyone I know?”
“I don’t think so. Her name is Janine, she’s in my class.”
Peter thought about it. “Janine, Janine... Blond hair? Likes to wear seven kinds of pink every day? Often hangs around a lot of very giggly friends?”
Adam looked surprised. “How did you know that?”
“This is a bookstore. We do get customers. She was in here a while ago to buy a book on horses or boyfriends or make-up or whatever trash girls reads nowadays...” He waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Anyway, she was with a group of girls and they were all laughing about something. A girl that pretty is very hard to forget.” He grinned at Adam. “I never thought she’d be your type, though. Too much goo in her face.”
“She wasn’t. I mean, she isn’t. I mean...” Adam groaned. “This is hard! She’s all different now! I mean, I saw her today, and it was like... BANG! That fast. She just had this light on her, I... don’t know if I can explain it. It was just that moment, when she smiled... She looked so happy.”
“People tend to look like that when they smile,” his uncle put in and patted him on the shoulder. “Ah, Adam, it was just a matter of time before this happened. Did you expect to live in exile for the rest of your life?”
“Not exactly. I was planning on become like you, as a matter of fact. I’ve never seen you with a girlfriend.”
Peter cleared his throat. “I have too high standards, that is all. I always end up disappointed. It’s not that I’ve never... and that is not the issue in any case!” He sighed. “You’re young, Adam. You should at least try it before deciding to become a hermit like myself. Talk to the girl.”
Adam began coughing violently. When he had gotten his breath back he stared incredulously at his uncle.
“I can’t talk to Janine Rosen!” he exclaimed. “Do you know how popular she is?! She’s prom queen! She has a boyfriend on the swim team! He’d smash me to a little wet stain on the sidewalk if he knew I had been talking to her.”
“Adam, Adam, Adam...” Peter shook his head. “When you get a little older it’ll get clearer for you. You’re a good kid. I’m sure Janine will see that, if you just give her a chance.” He smiled comfortingly and threw a glance at his watch. “Aw crap, I gotta run if I want to catch my train. Don’t forget to feed Will, will you?”
“I won’t. Have a great time getting fresh air and yoga.”
Peter gave his nephew a wide grin, and then he hurried out the door, his suitcase under one arm. Adam saw through the window how he jumped on to his bike and cycled away.
“Well then, Will, I suppose it’s just us now,” he said to the cat, who had been watching the scene, a little bit more calmly now that master Adam had showed up.
Wilhelmina meowed. She didn’t care much who fed her, just as long as it got done.
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