'It was a dark and stormy night...'
Well actually it was quite a balmy summer evening but It certainly should have been dark and stormy. Catherine mused to herself as she finished pouring white powder in a neat circle on the freshly swept clearing floor.
A little under average height Catherine Holt was a pale, slightly overweight girl just edging into her twenties. Her clothes were filthy after sweeping the clearing free of leaves. Hooking her long black hair back behind her ear she paused stretching and rubbing the small of her back with her free hand.
"Next time I'll bring a bloody leaf blower."
*
Kneeling down she began to carefully pour more powder into complicated patterns referring to the blackened volume by her side. As she worked her way around the circle her thoughts drifted back to when she first found the book...
"What about this one Cathy?"
"Thirteen pink and fluffy love spells? We are looking for decent books Sue decent books on the craft don't have pink fluffy covers and they don't come with a free pen either."
Sue Jenkins was hopeless Catherine mused, at eighteen Sue had seemed so clued in about the occult she had her own set of tarot cards and she even knew about the healing power of crystals. Now nearing her twentieth birthday Catherine had long since decided her friend was beyond help.
Her hair dyed black to match her long painted fingernails,Sue wore a black velvet bodice with long medieval sleeves and a skirt of layered black cobweb lace. The effect should have looked exotic, but sue just managed look like a rather gothic shuttlecock. For two years Catherine and Sue had dreamed of travelling Europe and seeing the world and after two years of putting up with Sue college was over and they could barely scrape up enough money to visit a mouldy old second-hand bookshop.
"Are you even listening to me Cathy?"
"Sorry Sue" Catherine realised with a start she had been standing there completely ignoring Sue's continuing twittering.
"Look there's nothing here lets just go."
Sue's face fell
"But Cathy they have all the new Bronze Eagle Fox books in."
"The last time you read any of that rubbish you announced to the entire college that your name was now Willow Dolphin Song and you were going to live on a commune in New England."
"That's not fair Cathy." Her friend muttered lowering her eyes in embarrassment.
"Look I'm going stay here and read whatever you want."
Leaving Sue in the stacks Catherine made for the front of the shop, Mordred's Books was an ancient building, a creaking pile of extensions and extra wings seemingly bolted on at random and filled floor to ceiling with decaying shelves and musty books forming a maze of incomprehensible passages. After a few minutes scurrying through the maze Catherine realised she was lost.
"Sue! Sue! Can you hear me? Sod where is the dammed exit."
The stacks here were even closer together than in the rest of the shop, most of the books were old hardbacks in bad repair; their spines pocked with mould and covered in grime. Above her head a broken arrow sign dangled from its single remaining hook declaring to the world at large that the occult section was somewhere under her feet.
"Sue, damn it you are never about when I actually need you."
Seeing dim sunlight coming from an even narrower aisle Catherine turned sideways and began to squeeze down the narrow passage, she sidestepped over small piles of torn and ruined volumes scattered across the floor.
"They really need to clean back here, damn it Sue where the hell are you?"
The stack's turned abruptly, the light that was streaming into the passage was coming from a dirty skylight set above a narrow doorway.
'Well I've come this far.' Catherine thought to herself as she turned the door handle.
The room beyond the door was as immaculate as the passage behind it was filthy, the walls were panelled with rich golden brown wood, the tidy bookshelves built into the walls. A spotless heavy wood table matched perfectly the colour of the walls and several green leather upholstered recliners were scattered around it. All in all Catherine thought it looked like she had stepped right back into the nineteenth century.
"Can I help you my dear?" the voice was old but firm with a perfectly polite English accent.
"Who's there?"
"Oh I do apologise" with a gentle creak a handsome elderly gentleman raised himself from one of the leather recliners brushing his long white hair back over his shoulders. "Edward Mordred at your service my dear, a pleasure to meet you."
The old man was dressed in a simply gorgeous velvet suit of the darkest purple, his shirt was obviously silk with lace at the collar and cuffs, from the size of his shoulders it was obvious he had been powerfully built in youth.
"Do excuse my attire my dear I tend to dress more for how I feel than what is popular as I grow older, but then I see you yourself are something of an individual."
"I'm sorry." Catherine stammered quite at a loss for something to say to the curious gentleman, "I got lost in the stacks, I didn't mean to disturb you I'm just looking for the way out."
"Oh I'm sure you didn't mean to disturb me my dear so few people know I'm back here after all, but I rather believe in fate over luck my dear." The old man smiled warmly.
"Are you a pagan?" Catherine asked, the old man certainly looked odd enough to be an elderly pagan, perhaps he was an old hippy with all that long white hair.
"Oh I'm something of a student of the Occult my dear, a dabbler in things arcane. You have a bit of spark in you. I see it now. I have just the thing for you my dear." The old man went to the bookshelf behind him and pulled out a thick red book with gold lettering. "le Majick j'taime, a little love magic to enhance your life perhaps?"
'More bloody love spells' Catherine thought. "Sorry Sir Love spells don't interest me."
The old man frowned a moment, "tricky customer eh, well if love isn't for you how about the Mort's Grimiore? Talk to spirits raise the dead?" the old man lifted free a large black volume with silver writing.
'We tried to call up Sue's great grandmother last year all we managed to do was upset the neighbours' Catherine thought. "I don't want to play around with ghosts I want real magic not silly illusions."
For an instant the old mans expression turned solemn then his ready smile returned.
