His resolve to go to the one place that any of these impostors to their own faces never went did not hurry him along. He crept along the edges of buildings, avoiding people whenever possible and generally lollygagging. With everything that had happened surely there'd be something awful waiting for him there as well. He couldn't think of anything but it would be there.
It was getting on evening with the sun starting to kiss the horizon when he finally got the nerve to approach the building.
Same heavy door that fought his pull.
The inside was the same dark, musty place he knew with piles of books.
So far so good.
His usual corner beckoned to him as a last bastion of something the same. He turned the corner.
There was the same librarian. He looked right at Clarke, the same sour look on his face this time, instead of a cursory glance, he stared.
“H-hello.”
“Hrmph.”
A few more seconds and the stare turned back to the librarian's papers, skritching out some notes.
Now what...
He didn't have anything and the only reason he'd come was because it was familiar. This place didn't seem to have been affected at all but he didn't have anything to do.
“Umm...”
He reached out, tapping on the desk. The ratling slowly lifted his head and cocked an eye at him but remained silent.
“Can I have a sheet of paper? And maybe a quill? Some ink?”
He'd get his thoughts straight first. Write down everything that had happened. A good place to start.
“Do you have any money?”
His voice was the same as it had always been, what he'd heard of it. It sounded nothing like he looked, each word pronounced precisely but not clipped, smoothly flowing into the next like molten gold.
He patted his pockets even though he already knew he didn't. Carrying money was a good way to lose it or spend it, which were sometimes the same thing. What little he did have was still at home.
“Oh...no.”
“Then no.”
Another little defeat but, combined with all the others, it was a bit heavier than it might have otherwise been.
“Please, I just...I need to put everything down. I need to write it while it's still fresh.”
He was pleading this time, tremble wavering in his voice. The ratling ignored him, writing his own notes this time.
“You don't know who I am, do you?”
The ratling paused and looked up. This wasn't the same “Do you know who I am!?” he'd heard over the years. There was devastation behind them, someone trying to hold everything back.
He looked at the boy, up and down, once.
“No. Should I?”
He rubbed his eyes, swiping away tears he didn't want. He'd never quite picked up on the 'boys don't cry' mentality the other boys had been raised to. He'd never cried enough for it to come up but he was far past his breaking point.
“My name is Clarke Script. My mother, Aggatha Script, used to come in here every day. Sit in that corner over there-”
He pointed a trembling finger at the familiar corner, ghosts of memory making him see her there.
“-and quietly work on her scribe work, copying books and important documents. Sometimes she'd yell at the air and scream like she was possessed but you never ran us away. I just...I needed to come somewhere. But you don't know me either...not like I expected you to...you'd just sit there and harumph all the time but...I just hoped you'd at least...just give me a bit of paper...”
The ratling sighed, rolling his head back in quick thought. He nodded once, decision made and reached over, grabbing Clarke's shoulder to get his attention.
“Well I'm not and if you're just going to stand there and cry you can do that outside where I don't have to listen.”
He came around the counter, dragging and jerking Clarke along to the exit when he began to panic. Clarke jerked back, digging his heels into the smooth stone and struggled to remain in the one place that hadn't forsaken him. He caught the door frame, digging his nails into the wood and his fingers aching as they pulled taut.
The ratling pushed him forward and jerked him out to unhook him, tossing him on his butt in the dirt. The door slammed shut behind and Clarke lay there looking up at the stars. He rubbed his eyes, warm blood smearing on his face.
He'd broken one of his fingernails on the door.
It took him a while to get out of the dirt, watching the sky turn darker and darker until he was just another bump in the road and he got up, at least far enough to go around the building and fall into the grass, leaning back against the old stone.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Sleep was the only escape he had right then and he took it.
--------------------
Clarke learned one of the truths of life. Sleeping outdoors was painful. His back hurt, his eyes felt heavy and crusted and a coating of dew had fallen upon him in the night that had him shivering.
Then there was the fact that he'd been awoken by someone kicking him in the calf. He looked up at the ratling. It was morning, the sun just below the horizon but ready to make its appearance any moment.
“Get up, Clarke.”
He growled and pulled his arms around himself in lieu of a blanket. His whole body was cold.
“Go away.”
“You're still on my property. And after you ran through town like a peeping tom on the sauce spitting out everyone's lives I don't think anyone would rush to your rescue. Now get up.”
He stood but kept his face firmly tucked into his chest.
“What do you want?”
“What does it matter? You have somewhere important to be?”
Clarke had no answer for that. He'd come up with no further plans in his dreams of reliving the abduction.
The ratling jerked him up and pushed him along, pointing him towards the library. He glared and the ratling hissed at him, giant front tooth jumping out from the fur rimmed mouth. He startled and hurried to the door. The rat locked it behind them.
“Now, have a seat. You can have a sausage if you want. Only one.”
At the counter was a small place setting, a few dishes of sausages, some biscuits, a little jar of honey and another of jam.
Raspberry.
The rat put a chair opposite the counter for Clarke and took his usual place behind it. Clarke's insides twisted up, growling. He hadn't eaten for almost a whole day and the hot sausages begged to be bitten into.
He did so.
“Alright, now tell me what happened with this supposed mother of yours.”
Clarke slowed mid-bite. He managed another angry look.
“The more interesting I find what you have to say the more likely I am to feed you.”
He'd finished his sausage and let his eyes wander to the honey, the biscuits. The ratling took a new plate from under the counter, skillet cakes, and ate the one off the top whole. His cheeks puffed out from shoving the whole thing in his face at once.
Clarke reached out and had his hand slapped away.
“Talk.”
The ratling sprayed bits of them when he commanded.
So he did. The men, the exploding through the ceiling, his mother and her hand chopped off. His throat closed thinking of how agonizing it must have been and he rubbed his wrist.
The ratling took several sheets of paper and captured each word, speed keeping him at every syllable Clarke began, even writing when he changed a word. It didn't take long for Clarke to recount the whole thing.
“Mmm hmm. I see.”
The rat pushed a few pancakes off onto Clarke's plate and reached into his coat. Clarke watched the piece of dark fabric he pulled out, unfolded and laid flat on the counter. He choked when the rat reached into it through what should have been the wood counter and pulled out a book.
It was old and beaten, the pages a little rough on the edges as he flipped through.
Clarke kept eating, his eyes on the hole and wishing dearly to touch it.
Magic...so he is a weird hermit...
He slammed the book closed and startled Clarke out of his thoughts of reaching over to feel the thing.
“So your mother's name was Aggatha?”
“YES! You remember her!?”
He leapt up, leaning across the table.
“No. But I have notes about her from almost recently. I write down the people I see every day and reading those notes showed her in here every single day as well as a boy named Clarke. That's you.”
He stopped to eat a biscuit. This insane note taking spy had just proven Clarke existed! That his whole life was not some made up lie!
“I happened to come across them last night when I heard all the non-sense you'd been shouting around town. For whatever reason my notes on her were not destroyed by whatever spell was cast, either by your mother or her abductors. Amnesia magic most likely.”
He patted the black pit still sitting on top of the table.
“I'd wager it has something to do with the space inside this portable hole here. Don't know the magic behind it so I can only guess.”
Hope blossomed inside Clarke, growing like wild fields after rain. Twinty went on.
“And I inspected the house you claimed to live at. Some unpleasant traps laid there, written into some stones buried in the floor. Magical.”
Clarke choked down the last of his pancake, his excitement fighting with his hunger until he was finally able to speak again.
“So you can help me find her! Or tell me who they were! Or...Or convince the rest of the town that I'm not crazy and that I belong here and I'm not some outsider!”
The ratling chuckled and started clearing the dishes, taking the food from out of the starving boy's sight.
“I'm not helping you do anything. I just don't like it when I don't know what's going on and now I do so our business is officially completed. It was, admittedly, interesting but since they weren't after me and my interests I don't really care.”
Clarke's face twisted, shock, rage, despair all mashing together so that the rat actually laughed again at how awful it looked. Clarke was on his feet, arm cocking back to shut that ugly rat face up. The air was suddenly all gritty bits that filled his eyes and Clarke stumbled back, the chair tripping him up. A furry arm wrapped his neck and he was drug across the floor kicking and screeching.
Out the door and into the dirt again.
He rubbed at his eyes and he could tell the rat had thrown sand into them, the grit scraping under his eyelid as he rapidly blinked and made it worse.
“Now I don't know who took your mother and just because I know that some foul magic was afoot doesn't mean I care. And if I can beat you up then you don't have a chance in hunting down some clandestine secret group and rescuing your mother like some storybook hero. Your life has been destroyed. Go find a new one.”
The door slammed shut and Clarke really understood how alone in the world he was. The tears came blessedly, washing out the sand and he lay in the middle of the road crying everything out, the memories of things no one believed any longer, the pain of being left alone in the world so completely that even memories were taken.
Tears slowed to a trickle and snuffling to the occasional hiccup. With no one to help and nothing left to destroy his life any more thoroughly than it had been already, he walked home with no longer any fear of what might be waiting for him there.
Maybe they'll come back for me. It'd be better than this.
The door was wide open, a few stray leaves blowing across the floor and a new hole in the roof where Wade senior had been thrown through it. It was his first time really noticing the carvings he'd seen everyday but never really paid any mind. He'd stepped on them a hundred times before and very carefully tapped on foot in the center.
Nothing. No explosion of magic, no trip up into the air.
His mother had known they'd need protection one day but how in the world had she gotten her hands on something like this? And protection from what? And why?
Was she a wizard?
He'd never seen her with a spell book or do any magic of any kind. Wizards didn't need spell books all the time but he'd never seen a single scrap of paper with so much as a sigil.
She'd kept a large chest next to a desk, thick wood and firm padlock keeping safe papers for work and expensive books.
The lock was popped open with nary a scratch, whether the abductors or the rat was impossible to say, and the contents emptied. He checked through the rest of the house but everything from quills and ink to papers and books were missing. He did find a bag of copper coins and a few silver pieces hidden in the kitchen behind the loose stone in the floor.
So that was it. A little money and a place to sleep that he might or might not end up kidnapped from.
He sat back against the wall, empty inside and slowly filling up with calmer thoughts and deep breaths.
What can I do? What can I actually do?
And slowly he began to think and grow ideas inside his tired mind.