escritoireazul

Chapter 2: The Weight of Paper

“Follow the thorns.” The voice comes from nowhere and from everywhere. Strain as she might, she hears nothing else, and those few words tell her nothing about the speaker. Young, brash, austere, hedonistic – she has no idea of the nature of the one she is here to see, and that is unusual.

For a moment more she lingers, looking around the tiny room. Flowers are crowded everywhere. Near the door they are familiar, but farther in, the pieces she glimpses through the other bouquets, are petals with hues so intense as to be unbelievable. She cannot imagine the process that so saturated them with dye.

Something catches her attention, a quick flash at the corner of her eye, and she turns. On the floor is a sliver of something shiny. She creeps closer and bends to look without touching – that is a lesson she learned early and learned well. It is a piece of brass, nevercold by the heat she can feel when she peels off one dove gray glove and holds her bare hand above it. It narrows into a point, and she realizes that, roughly, it looks like the long, wicked thorns she has seen in pictures of flowers from the surface.

There’s another tucked a foot away, and another after that, and that’s when she finally notices the path through the flowers, twisting into the room. From the outside, this is but a small shop, but already she thinks, perhaps, there is more to it than she has seen.

The rustle of the paper flowers is loud as she moves, and Lucinda feels caught in the press of them. Each on its own is light, but all together, there is an unexpected weight. Somewhere beyond this strange path is the voice that called out and, perhaps, the fortuneteller. Behind her, the door, and the end to this strange little whim that has so taken her by surprise.

Lucinda draws herself up and takes a deep breath.

If you follow the path of thorns, go to Chapter 3. If you have no use for fortunetellers, go to Chapter 9.