Keeping Books and Secrets

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Substance, shape, and form aside; what makes us unique gives us reason to fear when we think others will not understand, but believe me when I tell you I will be the last to judge...

Jean-Claude: As morning would have it, Jean-Claude found himself back into the steady of his work. The shop on the corner of the main had become a haven for young and old alike, passing by the windows to admire the latest. In the long hours of the day the night was forgotten as the wire forms that held on the gowns were no longer eerie, though still void of face. It was in the lanterns of the night or the pale of the moon the reminder of what once was would chill the bone . This man had been under the skin of the natives, chilling their flesh, and raising thin hairs at the very sight of the shadowy figure from France. Winter Wolves had torn the streets apart, always in their wake he had remained causing rumors only to burn alive with the idea his hands were behind their madness. Over time his well mannered exterior and timely response had won him place here in the markets. With every seamstress busy, their hands moving over every stitch with the same delicacy he knew he had won. Here, he would raise fine young lady's well versed in French, as were all the books. This was routine, but not a passion, and constant reminders were chiming in the distance as the church bells would ring out the noon hour--God was watching, and for this he would turn away from the window to go over the room once more. (d

Janice: God looked down over the quaint street where the coutier crafted exquisite works of wearable art. It was here that designs that marked nothing of the present time struck ahead to where fashion was going. The beautiful, the avant guarde. What was passion but the very thing that drove us supressed by what was necessary, what allegedly fed the mouth but did nothing to sustain the soul? In the morning mists, tendrils of white cavorted with the pale same shade at the tips of her shoes. The packed road of a back alley gave way to the familar cobbled stones that signfied advancement, riches. Symbolism was everything. Wire frames mimicked human skeletons while the pages of emtpy book in the hand of a girl was a time of life not yet impressed upon. Virginity: white lace, white pages. The dress she wore was not so obvious, because it was a shade of berry that verged on being an inappropriate red had not the dye lot placed it just where it ought to be. From the window at noon, could he see that as morning ended, mid day brought The Angel? How fitting with church bells her hand would wrap upon the door. There's an angel at my door. Do I answer? (d)

Jean-Claude: Always did he question himself, unknown to the world he lived a separate life, and let small ventures into the unknown pull him back. The bells would have done, but the gentle tapping would weave stories upon silken strands. There had to be a passage for just this moment, where one struggled with the balance between good and evil, and had Angels call at just the right hour. His hopes had reached a height only the dawn could bring down, and what a glorious morning this had become. Julian stood to answer the door, but would be seated after Jean's hand came to still him. Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, The Raven. A gloved hand came to collect the door that separated the earth from the heavens, as he found himself grounded once again. "Madame Viscreed." No longer Miss, one might add he had it wrong, she was unwed, but as of late Janice earned the title. The wind swept through the shop,a futile attempt to sway him, but just as easy as it had opened the door would shut them away. What timing did she have indeed. "Of what do I owe the honor?" His books were not kept, at all..A strange habit for a Gentleman, but of what good did they do the likes of him? A window for the Underdark, the demon from the fires of hell, Jean-Claude was simply not here to live for the future--yet. (d

Janice: Questions received answers in a timely fashion when God was of a mind to play instant gratification games with his worshipers. She needn't wrap anymore than thrice. Three was the customary number: father, son, holy spirit. girl-child, adolescent, new woman. Hell, Purgatory, heaven. She waved at him with a shy curl of rabbit fur lined hands, the fingers held in doe skin. "Good day, Master Jean-Claude. I've come to balance your books..to which lore states you haven't any. Good day, Julian.." For the price of his service, Janet garnered him a smile while ignoring the fact his eyes were not discrete at hiding a keen admiration for the shape the straight lines had turned to. A softer, feminine frame was revealed as she hung her cloak upon the pegs, and pulled off her gloves to store in the inner pockets. "Master Laurence thought it would be a good service to lend..to which I agree...." He would only stop it if eye corner told him he was caught at the game? Was the blush from the cold, crisp air or from the notice? Was it the dress she'd worn, a courtier creation of Jean-Claude's that held the last of Carlotta's little decency fitting impression? Ah well, no amount of white silk at the neck could hide what God had created, no? (d)

Jean-Claude: "A service to which I am happy to have." He spoke with his hand drawing away her cloak, assisting in any way he could. Carlotta held refuge here, for this he was certain, her soul remained and so when Julian was caught staring Jean would nearly cut him down with the ice of his stare. Notes in blood were formed in ideas across his head, on how to hide such objects of desire..but for the better of him he simply could not get it right. "Shall I pay you in credit? " He mused, admiring the hem of her gown. In truth he did need to learn more basic attire, simply designs that could survive more then one wear. Perhaps he would spend time with the Lady Eirian soon. To one knee he would fall before her, correcting where her boots had kicked up a fold to check the length once more. On days as this, when the skies were clear, and the sun a glorious light he had gone without for too long; he found he did not ache as bad. There was a returned youth to him, that pulled him back under the age of 40 where he truly belonged. Dressed down, would never fit the bill of any other on the Isle as still he looked well done, put together with great detail and eye for art. Yet, on days as this there would perhaps even be a few stray hairs he would not put back in place on raven strands of straight black. He would need to make her a place, his first thought as he joined her once again. "Julian, tea S'il vous plaît," He would call with the small wave of his hand, the lace of his sleeve having life of its own. "For Mon Ange..you look frozen." (d

Janice: "I'm pleased to hear it! It will make your earnings twice as effective, I promise, let alone be able to figure whom pays you money and whom in service. How one would keep it all in the head is staggering. You do not need that ache in your head." The blank book and the staggering process of thought that recorded every bit of detail in origin would supply the vessel to be the burden for him. Carlotta lived on in the white silk at the end of the sleeves, the white at the sweetheart line lest one think her beloved sweeting some 'tart'. No, gentry labeling aside, Carlotta considered Janice no less than the Lady the Halls were breeding her to be. Her memory was as sacred to Janice as any saint that had suffered trevail on behalf of Christ. "What are you doing.." she would ask as he troubled himself, knowing oft of his knee she reached out a hand to help him right again, "You shouldn't fret so. You are no lady'smaid, sir." A bit of the wet snow, to observe? Perhaps the last dust bits of Bolverk's shop to suggest she two had been busy at tasks that would have her at his vantage point? Tight, concise stitches. A woman's good hand! Carlotta had made a great deal of Janice's clothes until Jean-Claude came about, and even after offered insight into what a young lady needed to be both modesty, fashionable, and functional. What needed to be hemmed on this gown would no doubt be done by the girl in the evening. Women stitch, convent girls attack it as if it were a battle. "Thank you for the tea..yes, it is rather crisp outside. Credit would be wonderful, though I do not do it for pay necessarily." Bolverk had insisted on paying her, while she remarked it was a service provided for that which he gave to others. "But tell me where to settle the book, ink, and quill and straight to it I will go." He was at her ankle, with a dress and several skirts between them, but she found herself swallowing a strange feeling that would have made her face go a deeper shade than her dress were it not for the work at hand (d)

Jean-Claude: There was something undone about him, and one could even say he was rested. Yet with the worry of the life before him put at ease how could he not be a happier man? "Janice.." Her name leaving his lips like a sigh as he saw her seated, the very voice of reason coming from his chest. "I do hope you take payment. You must.." In a world he hated to return her to reality, "Always do you give, Mon Ange..but what is it you wish in return?" Her house. Her shop? She gave so easy, without return that innocence about her wondrous, and he would pity the day it would be stripped from her. If he could he would keep her under glass like one of his crazed experiments so that she could stay just that. Looking about the room it was so full already with displays and fixtures, and he knew the back no better. "Let us take our tea upstairs. I will clear you a place..do forgive the stairs." They were his constant struggle on bad days, but a victory on the right. The climb was easy though long, winding through the exterior of the three story lot, "Forgive me..my father had book keepers, I have not. What kind of space?" He would open his hand over the room ofglass, the small frames of a hundred windows that surrounded the structure. Before he it had been a glass artists shop, and for this he was very thankful; the natural light was often all of the sun he ever saw. Moving then without thought, he would close away the next set of stairs hidden along the wall that lead into his chambers, but more importantly the stairs that lead up to his lab. (d

Janice: He at once was the heir of casual demeanor and a simple baring that added to his presence, but detracted from his calm. It was as if with one quandry solved, he still had another to consider. Maybe it was the great question of how to spend the rest of his days above ground. Did some part of him still fathom that to see the sun through windows as akin to looking at it through dungeon bars? The parallel between the story of a persecuted, curious inventor and the girl of a strict French Catholic upbringing ran along the same lines. From one book to another Life wrote. Walls would be different. People, events, different. But the ultimate outcome the same. Be it for the good of the world or the good of self preservation each had been locked away. "I will take your offer. The times being calmer now, it's been noticed I will be in need of things that do not look so provincial. Also, I've grown, it seems." Up the stairs she followed dutiful, lifting only so much hem as was necessary for the ascent. What did she want out of life? She had not replied readily when he first issued the statement. "There is not much I require of others, just to be able to live. That is all. Just to live." The glass needed to expand or by sheer nature of oppression the pressure would crack it wrong. Didn't the butterfly's wings beat pretty in the air? "Just a table will be fine to start. If you haven't an office, do not worry. I can stack your books on a place of your choosing. ." Then she stood in thought, under the sunlight that stole her breath to see it pouring through so many windows. Only for a moment did she shield her eyes, before letting it wash across her face, down into her hair. "Mm..forgive me. I was distracted." (d)

Jean-Claude: All God's creatures could not live without the sun, and in moments as this he remembered why. Through death and decay he would have lead her had he not this shop, for his place of living was below. Under the streets of the Underdark he had started his business, of drugs. The puppet working for a master, Jean-Claude had spent his past life under the thumb of the pirate. From the belly of the ship, where he did his healing, to the caves of the water ways. He found God in this room. Her closed eyes would not witness the gentle touch of silk covered fingers to the golden ends of her hair. The smallest touch, to realize he was not in one of his dreams, would assure him that the light that radiated from her was in fact the sun. "Forgive me.." He whispered letting his hand fall away, and turning then to clear her a table. "I do not have an office, Madam, I simply have this room, through the door as you know my rest, and through that door--forbidden. I would advise you not come in the early hour, or the late." His hands folded behind his back as he spoke, walking towards her once again, "Peregrine sleeps where he lands, and I would save you the sight." Was that a joke? The pull of his lips would give meaning to it, as Pere was well known for not sleeping in anything but the light of either the moon or the sun. "I trust you to know by now I do have a life behind this facade, to which you can relate. Speak of nothing you hear, or write anything else other then what it takes to run a business." Janice of all knew well the inner workings of an order, that he himself was only learning, he would trust none other. If you need anything, ask my assistant if I am not here." Though often or not he would be. "And we will talk about payment over a meal, each day if we must." (d

Janice: She had the sun in incriments, on schedules timed by the likes of prayer bells or the schedule of her earlier time on the Isle. Unorthodox, open time was filled with servicable habit. She forgot that, if only spellbound in the sun drenched shimmer bouncing off the many panes of glass over her head, that time was becoming her own to do with it what she would. Order regulated the tempo of her life. Even disruption could be made to have a decorum, but a child's wonderment would always make it sweet. If she had but known he touched her hair...ah well. That was not why she was here. She opened her eyes, embarrased. "Oui, the table is fine, and I know not to go through the door there. I will come mid morning or early in the time of noon, or slightly after." Further instruction swore her to a secrecy that for all she remained mum. Ada kept her own. Bolverk kept his. Jean-Claude she knew to be no different than the pillars that kept heaven separate from earth. She lowered into a curtsy, "Oui, monsieur. All that concerns me will be the numbers in your books, and the nature of your lower sanctums if you would require such as the keeping of your shop. You have my word." Discretion was not alien. She served common tasks for an uncommon lot of people (d)

Jean-Claude: As his mind rolled from it's slumber in storms, he found that his heart beat heavy against his chest. This was her life he was watching her build on her own, she was opening up to the world, but more importantly he would get to see her everyday. "Sit with me?" He spoke out of the silence gesturing to one of the sofa's that lined the window. With a few steps he crossed the space to ease her back, and seat himself on the edge. "Janice.." He took a deep breath, only to remind himself she had opened first, it was time he started on his own. "I must make you promise that no matter what you may see, you will never speak of it. In my heart I know." His hand came to touch his chest before reaching out to touch her cheek, "Ma petite..You must know by now I care greatly for you, and for this I must be as honest as I can. There will be days when the doors are locked, and they must remain." Was a comfort with not having store hours. "Noises you may here, blood stains on the floor," Poor Julian was still getting over that, but it was his loyalty that kept him. His voice caught in his throat, silencing as his pale thin lips came to a close wondering over his next words at how they would sound, "I am not a sane man, but no matter how many times I have been called..I am not crazy." He knew his theory to be correct, he had known since his birth. "I do not keep books because this is not my first love," Nor his second. His features calmed moving with his thoughts to the silence of worry, and the dark nearly black of his eyes seemed to look out once again into the unknown, a place sometimes he felt most comfortable. "It is a passion..but not my own career, a hobby." He waved his hand, "I was simply tired of the feeling at any moment I would wake to the sound of angry villagers, with torches and pitch forks." He laughed nervously, his hand coming to cover his lips as he turned to lean against his knees. "It is the art of death, the human body, how it dies..is how someday it can be reborn. Or.." He would motion out the window of a passing carriage drawn by a horse, "How the body works to pull a weight that is close to it's own..could that power be harnessed? Many things a man of my stature should not have wondered, but Science..it is endless. Truly, one of life's greatest mysteries."(d

Janice: The sun-drenched world of her inner thoughts dispated to pay heed to the lessons of the present time. The new, unfolding world would grant her a proximity to a man whom had always piqued her curiosity from the moment he had called to deliver her the book that to this day chronicled her life on the island. "Of course I will sit." Without hesitation she did so, did he venture that in what he'd tell her she'd turn pale as a ghost and run screaming? A touch of hand to face arrested her heart before the absence allowed it to move again. She folded her hands together and looked to the side of herself, where he sat, while he spoke to her. She blended into the shadows of the room to be only the essence of his inner thought he spoke with, so keen were the girl's ears and quiet the lips. She was but a bird on his windowsill, a bit of dust on the ledge creeping in for an entry that wasn't wanted, only a part of how life figured. She shut her eyes as he spoke of 'blood on the floor,' 'closed doors'...his voice became Jacob's telling her where she was not to go in the moments she began to keep his shop for him. The world 'papa' was so close to being uttered! Was it disgust he read? No, only the resurgence of memory. A memory that was as pivotal in changing her life as the moment she'd seen Claramae or Alendra's faces. She breathed in, exhaling too soft to be heard. : Just as she thought he might revile him for all he said, her voice articulated her thoughts. "I was suspecting it was something of a sort, or something to do with a secretive science. If I may not use your title now? Jean-Claude, Papa sent me to the cloister only after I had seen the drawings in his books, and connected too many things. He thought it would spare me some harm. I think his greater harm was in pretending for the sake of Mama or myself that it was finished. Maybe he rolls over, they all do, Elusha, Papa, and Mama, of what I do now. Given the circumstance, I am glad you told me. It is nice to be told things. Even in the order there are locked doors or means of signaling distance. You aren't judged..by me..ever, for your knowledge. We are all given gifts and meanings to understand, only God knows. So, perhaps it makes sense that a Jew-blooded Catholic whom minds books and letters for an Order of spies would be the one to keep the books for a genius precious little would understand. I have no intention of forcing myself through any doors, or peering. On that, Jacob cured me. No doubt I would probably grow weak-stomached,and whom wants to deal with a maiden at a time like that?" She chuckled with loose ends, looking up to the sun before looking over to him. She chewed on her lip, before looking out at nothing imparticular. "I know you care, Jean-Claude, or you would not all you had done for me. I..have never had the chance to properly thank you, for..for helping me. For listening to me, and allowing things to merely be in a time when nothing was..just..thank you." She nodded, letting her fingers creep over to hold on to his. (d)

Jean-Claude: He could promise one thing, the blood was never his save for the bit shed by Rivnor. He listened to her as he always did, accepting everything with faith. For a man so devoted to God, it was hard to think him an evil mastermind. Though so many of them did. The fires in Paris that cold winter would never be forgotten, and it was because of this he kept so quiet. Even now sitting in the armed sofa he wished he could take back what was said. On that December, he did not mourn his loss, but the families that lost on his account. Many people died in that fire, students, fathers, daughters; all for their one bit of discovery. It was in moments like this when he wished to reach out, he didn't. Another time, somewhere down the road he would feel it safe enough to take upstairs, and get her hands dirty in something other then ink. She undressed his name, calling on the more intimate part and so too would he, "Janice You have no reason to thank me..I did it for selfish reasons." He admitted curling her hand in his, "I could not watch you fall." Angel go get your wings. "Non..not before you learned to fly." He smiled a warm smile, feeling his chest give in to the light touch of her hand, and the realization that she was as free as the air they breathed. Finally. "But..come. I do not wish to keep you all day." He pulled his hand from hers to rise, "Not when you have such duties to fill." (d