The stack of books in Lenore’s arms weighed her down so much that she stumbled with her steps as she moved to the next shelf. She glanced down at the small pile, sighing as she realized that the book she was going to put back was at the bottom. It took some effort to shift all the weight to one arm, but she managed to do so without dropping anything.
After returning six more books to the shelves, Lenore returned to the table she had been working at. Only two books remained, the two she had decided would be useful for her presentation. She began to idly flip through the book Edible Plants of North America, scrawling page numbers into her notebook upon seeing passages she found interesting. Once she had all the passages she wanted to read marked, she would go back and filter through again until narrowing it down to the passages she would actually read.
A backpack slammed down onto the opposite end of the table, and Lenore glanced up just in time to see a tall girl with dark purple hair march off. She didn’t seem particularly anxious or uneasy.
Lenore went back to reading her book and taking notes.
The girl came back a few minutes later, dropping a book on the table with a huff. Her chair scraped against the carpet when she pulled it out. She drummed her nails against the tabletop for a moment. The sound of the backpack slowly being unzipped, one tooth of the zipper at a time, grated on Lenore’s nerves.
Lenore flicked her eyes up to the girl. She was scratching the side of her convex nose as she pulled a laptop from her bag, muttering something unintelligible. Her tone was frustrated. She was definitely angry. She jabbed her fingers at her keyboard. The girl was quite pretty, with her shiny purple hair, blemish-free beige skin, and neatly pointed chin. It was hard to get a clear look at her eyes, though. Then again, maybe that was for the better.
Mushrooms, yes, it was better for Lenore to read about mushrooms than to keep watching the girl from across the table. It was hard to focus, though, when the girl kept tapping her nails against the table every second she wasn’t typing. Why’d she have to sit here? There were empty tables on the other side of the room.
Lenore took in a deep, steadying breath, savoring the scent of old paper as she flipped to her next page. She read through three more paragraphs about indigo milk caps. Clack. Clack. Clack. Nails against the table. Lenore gritted her teeth as she pushed through another paragraph, but she had to read it four times before she actually retained any of the information.
This frustrating ordeal actually continued on for nearly twenty more minutes before Lenore finally looked up from her book and said, “So sorry to bother you, but if you wouldn’t mind, you tapping your fingers is quite distracting, and I am trying to get some work done.”
The girl looked up, and her brown eyes latched onto Lenore. An angry male voice echoed around the room, speaking in a language Lenore didn’t know, but as his voice grew louder, Lenore’s chest tightened. Then, she was sitting at a desk in what looked like a high school classroom, staring at a graded test lined in red ink. She was a failure. The teacher held up the test, and the other kids started laughing. Wasn’t she just an idiot. Then, she was in an alleyway, standing over a mangled body. A man with his guts ripped out, spilling literal shit all over the ground. Her hands were covered in still-warm blood. She was falling, wind whipping past her as she stared down at her destination. The middle of the ocean, deep blue and green, swaying back and forth. She plunged beneath the surface, kicking and flapping her arms. She needed to reach the air above, but something latched around her ankle, the weight dragging her further and further down until there was no more light. She breathed the water in and choked. Then, finally, it was a face, clear as day. Too-big green eyes with purple bags under them. A mouth with an upper lip slightly bigger than the bottom. Ash-brown hair pushed back haphazardly. Her own face.
Lenore gasped and pulled out of the image. The sheer terror that the girl felt rippled along her spine, and Lenore spasmed. She had to take it, she had to. Lenore grabbed her knees, nails digging in painfully even through her jeans. As her body crumpled like it was a dirty napkin, she kept her eyes on the girl.
The strange girl was next to hyperventilating. Her breaths were sawing through her chest, each seemign to take a great amount of effort. She grabbed her laptop and shoved it into her bag without care, standing so abruptly she knocked the chair over. The thunk echoed through the quiet library, but she didn't pay it any mind as she ran out.
After a moment of her being gone, Lenore’s pain lessened, and she grabbed her own stuff, shoving it in her bag. She tried to keep her pace unrushed when inside the library, but once she stepped outside, she spun in a circle, searching for a flash of purple. She found it in the distance, purple hair and a green sweater, two blocks down.
The girl was on the phone when Lenore approached, speaking in that same language the man in her fears had been. Her terror hadn’t gone away in the slightest. Because it ripped holes into Lenore’s back, she stopped further away than she would have liked to. It was just close enough to be able to have a conversation, but it would be an extremely awkward one.
“Are you alright?” Lenore made sure her tone was gentle. She didn’t want to spook the girl anymore than she had.
The girl swung around and nearly dropped her phone when she saw who was standing there. “You!”
“I’m sorry if I did anything to offend you back there. I just want to make sure you’re okay, and I’m trying to understand what happened.”
“Stay away from me!” The girl backed up a step. She held herself so tensely, knees slightly bent, arms straight at her side with fingers curled into claw-like structures.
“I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you think.”
“You take one step closer, and I’ll—”
“There’s no need for that. I just want to know what happened.” Lenore’s own muscles were starting to tense as she saw just how volatile the girl was. Maybe she couldn’t fix this.
“I don’t have to explain myself to a nightmare,” the girl spat, her face contorting.
Lenore reeled back as if the words had taken physical form and struck her. She hadn’t been expecting the girl to use such a term. It took her a moment to regather her thoughts. “I’m not sure why you’re so—”
“Don’t even try it. I know exactly what you are.”
There was an even longer pause as Lenore processed this. The terror demanding her attention kept clawing at her. Play with me. Ruin her. It would be so easy. It would ease all the pain. She wouldn’t feel the tingling and spasming for months. “I just want to understand what’s going on.”
“Fuck off!” The girl took off running down the street, turning the next corner.
Lenore didn’t bother following, but she let out a hiss between her teeth. She reached a hand up to rub between her shoulders, but the knot wouldn’t go away. Well, this would be a problem. She looked back at where the girl had been, truly not knowing how to explain what happened. Never had someone reacted that strongly just by the sight of her, and normally she could at least somewhat smooth things over. What was wrong with that girl?
The girl couldn’t have been human. She absolutely couldn’t be. Lenore hadn’t met many other non-humans, but she knew that most humans didn’t fear killing someone with their bare hands. Either the girl wasn’t human, or she was a very disturbed one. Both were possibilities, in theory.
Deciding to walk home, Lenore zipped up her coat and marched off in the opposite direction from the girl. The cool air slowly soothed the ache in her back, and with each step, it got easier to resist the temptation to turn around and hunt the girl down. Even if Lenore had wanted to hunt her, she didn’t know if that was a fight she could win. It was better this way all around. She didn’t need their fear. Already, the part of her that raged was calmer.
Frankly, Lenore’s apartment building was the kind of place that suburban moms told their kids to walk past quickly. The whole building smelled of cat piss, cigarettes, and weed on its best days. For a few months, it had smelled like raw sewage after a pipe in the basement had leaked. That had been downright awful. The carpeting on the stairs used to be grey, and it still was at the edges, but each step’s center was stained brown from years of built up grime.
When Lenore had first moved into her apartment, she had scrubbed the walls by hand three times. The rag kept coming away yellowy brown. Even though Lenore had scrubbed until the rag came away clean, the walls still smelled like cigarette smoke and were stained yellow. The carpet had burn marks in it, but the landlord made it a point to have it professionally cleaned before a new tenant moved in. It was a small mercy.
Lenore stepped into her apartment and locked the door behind her, using the knob lock, deadbolt, and bar lock. She set her bag on the floor before kicking her shoes off and lining them up neatly along the wall. Her kitchen was tiny and cramped with only two drawers and three empty cabinet spaces, but the sink and fridge worked. The stovetop and oven worked about forty percent of the time. Lenore mostly relied on the guarantee that her microwave would never betray her.
Today seemed to be a day the oven wasn’t going to work. Lenore flicked the switch to turn it back off and resigned herself to eating canned soup heated in the microwave. She had to eat something before work, after all. Thankfully, her presentation was technically done. She had just wanted to add some extra sources to make sure everything was alright.
After eating, Lenore glanced at her watch. She still had about an hour before she absolutely had to get ready. She lowered herself to the floor with her legs crossed and closed her eyes. Lenore reached out to see if anyone was asleep. Ms. Cratcher in apartment 3C was dreaming about playing with her childhood dog. Cute. The baby downstairs was having those dreams that babies did, flashing colors and blurry faces. Freddy, the tabby cat in 2A, was chasing after a fly, batting at it in the air.
The urge was there to sour all those dreams. Have Ms. Cratcher relive her dog’s death. Wake up the baby with some frustrated murmurs and unpleasant flashes of opposing colors. Make it so Freddy never catches the fly and repeatedly falls and stumbles while trying to do so.
Lenore opened her eyes and rose to get ready for work. This early in the evening, not much was going on yet. She put on the standard black button-up and pants that she and Damon both wore. Hopefully, the rest of the evening would be uneventful as well, but there never was a dull moment at work.
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