This is my first FanFic, and is just a quick start, but I intend to keep
going with it, so I hope it's ok.
Disclaimer: Any Shakespearean quotes are of course from Shakespeare, and there'll be basic fairy tale plots and classic characters, but maybe with a bit of a twist!
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There had been many a bad day in the life of Brigette Copeland. Her father had left on her seventh birthday. To be precise, exactly half an hour before her grandmother had phoned to inform them that she was eloping with a gentleman who sold tickets for a circus in Western Australia, and was departing for parts unknown. As her father's battered suitcase – containing, as it later turned out, the family's stock certificates and bank cards – had disappeared through the front door, her brother had flown his remote-controlled airplane into her cake.
Her boyfriend had decided that it wasn't her; it was him, on the same day that her grandmother had literally crashed back into her life. The man at the insurance company had commented that he didn't think anyone had ever driven through a garage door because an elderly woman on a unicycle suddenly rode, hooting, in front of them.
Having been coerced into performing in the school play, Brigette had been in the process of opening her mouth to say her single – but pivotal, of course – line in the play when she'd tripped over Ophelia, hurtled into Polonius, elbowed Hamlet in the nose and fallen into the first row of the audience. Not two hours later, she'd been rushed to the hospital with acute appendicitis. The only thing that she could be thankful for, as she was wheeled through the waiting room, was that Hamlet's eyes were so swollen that he didn't see her.
However, she could with perfect clarity and all honesty say that this was the single worst day of her life to date.
The only thing worse, she reflected with irritation, than finding herself locked in the storage room of Barnes' Book Chest, was finding that she was locked in the storage room of Barnes' Book Chest with Stanley Porter. It was her very first day of work at the store – work that she had been more than thrilled to get, because jobs were scarce in the small town, and jobs that didn't involve scraping curdled grease or swiping the barcodes of nine hundred packets of cigarettes for the nine hundred residents of Bailey's Crossing were near impossible to obtain. It was strange that she'd never noticed the bookstore on the outskirts of town before. Stranger still that on the day she'd entered the dim interior of the extremely atmospheric little shop they would have a position open. Actually, five positions. She stared around at her fellow inmates, rolling her eyes as they skated over Stanley.
Stanley Porter. More beautiful than the statue of David, twice as classically handsome and even colder to the core. With the brief exception of one drunken kiss at a high school graduation party – as to which, she still maintained that she had believed herself to be kissing the ice sculpture in the punch bowl – Brigette was one of the few girls around that wasn't a notch on Stanley's fantastically long belt. Stanley was one of those supremely irritating people that would probably glide through life on looks and charm alone, felling every second girl with one sexy, crooked smile. He wasn't from a wealthy background, far from it, but you would never know it by looking at him. Brigette wasn't sure how he afforded the clothes, the wine and the car surrounding his reclining leather seats, but she was fairly sure he hadn't earned it in a way that would make his mother proud. Currently seducing his way through a business degree, he was arrogant, selfish and lazy from his flint blue eyes to his expensive shoes, and a royal pain in the ass besides. Brigette didn't have a clue what he was doing applying for a job at a bookstore, especially taking into account the last piece of reading material – using the term loosely - she'd seen him with, and could only concede that this was the universe laughing squarely in her face.
She glanced over at her second co-worker, who caught her eye and sent her a bright, cheerful smile. Brigette couldn't help smiling back. Irene Miller's grin gave new meaning to the word 'infectious.' She was one of those few people in the world who don't hide behind some kind of artifice, and although she and Brigette had never been close friends, they'd known and liked each other since kindergarten. Irene's ex-boyfriend, teachers and mother all described her as "beautiful, bubbly and brainless," which Irene didn't seem to mind in the least. Brigette had never seen the exuberant blonde listless or bitchy – she really was one smiling, bouncing bubble. However, while she might never win the Nobel Prize, Irene often stunned the casual observer into silence by publicly indulging her penchant for Shakespeare. She'd devoured the plays since childhood, and, whether she understood them or not, could without fail produce an appropriate quote for every circumstance. She'd also had the misfortune of playing Ophelia in the production during which Brigette gave her memorable theatrical debut.
Camille Verey, a tall leggy brunette, was lounging on a desktop and trying to sit in a position where Stanley couldn't see down her blouse. Brigette didn't know Camille well. Despite the small size of their town, and even smaller size of the school they'd both attended, their paths hadn't crossed much. From what Brigette could tell, Camille was something of an over- achiever. A top athlete, brilliant student and computer whiz, she had always seemed nice enough, but somewhat aloof.
Lastly, Brigette's gaze fell on the fifth new staff member at Barnes. He was new in town, at least, she'd never seen him before today. She didn't think natural curiosity was the reason that her eyes kept going back to him though. From the moment that they had first seen each other by the historical section of the bookstore that morning, she'd felt a strange connection with him, like invisible fibres tugging them together. He was tall, but not particularly good-looking. However, even if he'd walked down the street beside Stanley, Brigette would have been willing to bet that most eyes would be drawn to the quietly good-looking Michael Readman. He was dark, like the walking ego preening near him, but that was where the similarities ended. Although his features were uneven and his face more rugged than pretty, his brown eyes were rich and bottomless and twinkling, as if he was always laughing at some inner joke. The corners of his mouth were perpetually turned up, and he seemed ready to break into a smile at the slightest provocation, as indeed he did. In the few short hours that they had known each other, there hadn't been a huge amount to smile about, and yet, the mesmerizing dimple in his left cheek rarely disappeared from sight...
...Brigette mentally shook herself. Well, really! If she didn't know better, she'd swear that she was developing a knee-shaking, eye-widening, jaw- locking crush. And Brigette Copeland did not get crushes. Well, there had been that one on that darn fine-looking postman when she was eight or so, but other than that...no.
So, here they were. While an uninformed person might wonder at how five seemingly intelligent young people could have, by the end of their first day of work, locked themselves in the world's mustiest storage room, it was really quite simple. Or rather, mind-numbingly stupid. And all Stanley's fault, of course. Before Mr. Hopkins, the tiny slightly unusual owner of the store had left them – apparently for five minutes, although he hadn't yet returned, and that was over five hours ago – he'd taken care to mention that the lock on the storage room door was faulty and that if they were to go in there, they should be careful not to shut the door behind them. Clear, concise instructions. However, Stanley being the lazy sod that he was, he had been the last to join them in the downstairs room to help sort boxes of old books. And because Stanley was...well...Stanley, five hours later, they were all still trapped in a room that smelled of dust, nasty "manly cologne" and something that Brigette very much suspected had come out of a cat. Every time that Brigette looked around the storage room, it looked smaller. She wasn't claustrophobic, thank goodness, but suffering from Stanley-phobia was bad enough. Unfortunately, tempting though it might be to whack him over the head with a dictionary that looked as if it might have been the original prototype next time that he pinched her ass, she was trapped in an enclosed space with three witnesses.
Although Stanley had made a sketchy attempt to do some work for about fifteen seconds, the rest of them had valiantly battled on amidst the dust clouds for a further two hours, before giving up and flopping onto various cartons, antique pieces of furniture, or piles of yellowing books.
"Do you think he's actually coming back?" Camille asked, somehow managing to still look unruffled, despite the oppressive mugginess of the room.
Brigette shrugged. "It's been five hours. And since everyone says that there's no one to miss them until Monday at least, if he doesn't come back, we'll be in here all weekend."
Stanley blinked and sat up, "No way, man. I have a date tonight."
"Well, maybe if you'd been listening to Mr. Hopkins, and hadn't shut the damn door, we could all get off to our dates tonight," Camille told him coldly.
Stanley twisted back to look up at her, "You have a date tonight?" he queried, making no attempt to cover his skepticism. "Shut up, Stanley," Camille returned, without any venom.
Looking over at her, Brigette wondered if Camille ever lost her temper. After six hours in this glorified cupboard, Brigette was tired and dusty and thirsty and hungry, and if Stanley winked at her one more time, she was going to take her pencil and... But Camille continued to remain serene and untroubled. It should have been reassuring under the circumstances; it was better than having a hysterical person to deal with, but for some reason it was starting to irritate Brigette. And she was beginning to have the horrible feeling that if anyone was going to get hysterical, it would be her. She glanced over at Michael instinctively and met his gaze. He was watching her, his eyes gentle, and she inexplicably felt better when she saw his smile.
Something was digging into her hip. A book. Surprise, surprise. She was sitting on a heap of them, after all. Making a rueful face, she reached beneath her back and began tugging at the offending object.
"Well, at least there's plenty to read!" Irene said, brightly. She still looked cheerful and optimistic, and the faintly worried look on her face enhanced her overall cuteness, and made her look vaguely like something out of a Beatrix Potter novel.
"Reading!" snorted Stanley derisively, "There's only one thing I planned to get into tonight, and it wasn't a good book." He chuckled at his own wit. The others simultaneously rolled their eyes.
"Am I the only one who finds this shop a little creepy?" Camille asked, looking around at them, "Like we're on the set of a bad horror movie, or something?"
"Nope," Michael agreed, "and when I came to the town with my dad last month to look around before we moved, I swear I don't remember this place. But we must have driven past it, and it looks like it's about a hundred years old, at least."
Irene shivered. "Ok, you're all giving me the creeps now. Please, can someone read out loud or something? I'm sure I saw a volume of..."
"Not Shakespeare!" everyone chorused in unison.
Irene frowned at them, "No appreciation of art, that's all. Be not afraid of greatness," she quoted.
"It's going to be a long night," Camille groaned, flopping back onto the desk.
Michael flipped through some of the bound volumes scattered haphazardly around Stanley's 'work' area.
"They all seem to be mostly old textbooks and bound historical documents," he commented. Brigette finally worked the book that was bruising her side free, and held it up.
"Hey, fairy tales!" she said, "I haven't read a fairy tale for ages."
Irene shrugged. "Why not? It ain't Shakespeare, but it's better than listening to Stanley whining. Go ahead."
"Hey..." Stanley's petulant tones were cut off short as Brigette opened the ancient book.
A sharp breeze blew past her face and swirled around the features of the others.
"That's weird," said Camille, "There's no window in here..."
"That's weird too," said Brigette, "The pages are blank."
"Annoying," said Irene, "I wanted hear onnnnnnnnnne,"
Brigette stared at her in confusion. She could still see Irene's mobile mouth moving, but the words were coming out so slowly that each syllable was elongated. She blinked as her body took on a curious weightlessness. Irene's blonde hair, the blue chips of Stanley's eyes, Camille's face and Michael's dimple blended into a blur as the room became a swirling techni- coloured vortex. There was no time to be afraid or shocked or amazed. With the effect of a rocket blasting into space, Brigette felt a hum in her ears that fast became a whine and then she was moving, spinning, flying. She could see her own hands, but they seemed to be far away from her face and traveling out of sight. The high-pitched sound in her ears reached an almost unbearable tone, only to suddenly drop away, the silence surprising in its intensity. Gleeful laughter and eerie cackling filled the sound gap, and she felt herself lifting and spinning up, up, up and she was being carried along and then she was falling. Colours were flying past her, blurred, and voices danced and sang around her head. And then she hit solid ground, and the turbulent sensations halted, and the quiet and the black were almost tangible.
Disclaimer: Any Shakespearean quotes are of course from Shakespeare, and there'll be basic fairy tale plots and classic characters, but maybe with a bit of a twist!
*************************************************************
There had been many a bad day in the life of Brigette Copeland. Her father had left on her seventh birthday. To be precise, exactly half an hour before her grandmother had phoned to inform them that she was eloping with a gentleman who sold tickets for a circus in Western Australia, and was departing for parts unknown. As her father's battered suitcase – containing, as it later turned out, the family's stock certificates and bank cards – had disappeared through the front door, her brother had flown his remote-controlled airplane into her cake.
Her boyfriend had decided that it wasn't her; it was him, on the same day that her grandmother had literally crashed back into her life. The man at the insurance company had commented that he didn't think anyone had ever driven through a garage door because an elderly woman on a unicycle suddenly rode, hooting, in front of them.
Having been coerced into performing in the school play, Brigette had been in the process of opening her mouth to say her single – but pivotal, of course – line in the play when she'd tripped over Ophelia, hurtled into Polonius, elbowed Hamlet in the nose and fallen into the first row of the audience. Not two hours later, she'd been rushed to the hospital with acute appendicitis. The only thing that she could be thankful for, as she was wheeled through the waiting room, was that Hamlet's eyes were so swollen that he didn't see her.
However, she could with perfect clarity and all honesty say that this was the single worst day of her life to date.
The only thing worse, she reflected with irritation, than finding herself locked in the storage room of Barnes' Book Chest, was finding that she was locked in the storage room of Barnes' Book Chest with Stanley Porter. It was her very first day of work at the store – work that she had been more than thrilled to get, because jobs were scarce in the small town, and jobs that didn't involve scraping curdled grease or swiping the barcodes of nine hundred packets of cigarettes for the nine hundred residents of Bailey's Crossing were near impossible to obtain. It was strange that she'd never noticed the bookstore on the outskirts of town before. Stranger still that on the day she'd entered the dim interior of the extremely atmospheric little shop they would have a position open. Actually, five positions. She stared around at her fellow inmates, rolling her eyes as they skated over Stanley.
Stanley Porter. More beautiful than the statue of David, twice as classically handsome and even colder to the core. With the brief exception of one drunken kiss at a high school graduation party – as to which, she still maintained that she had believed herself to be kissing the ice sculpture in the punch bowl – Brigette was one of the few girls around that wasn't a notch on Stanley's fantastically long belt. Stanley was one of those supremely irritating people that would probably glide through life on looks and charm alone, felling every second girl with one sexy, crooked smile. He wasn't from a wealthy background, far from it, but you would never know it by looking at him. Brigette wasn't sure how he afforded the clothes, the wine and the car surrounding his reclining leather seats, but she was fairly sure he hadn't earned it in a way that would make his mother proud. Currently seducing his way through a business degree, he was arrogant, selfish and lazy from his flint blue eyes to his expensive shoes, and a royal pain in the ass besides. Brigette didn't have a clue what he was doing applying for a job at a bookstore, especially taking into account the last piece of reading material – using the term loosely - she'd seen him with, and could only concede that this was the universe laughing squarely in her face.
She glanced over at her second co-worker, who caught her eye and sent her a bright, cheerful smile. Brigette couldn't help smiling back. Irene Miller's grin gave new meaning to the word 'infectious.' She was one of those few people in the world who don't hide behind some kind of artifice, and although she and Brigette had never been close friends, they'd known and liked each other since kindergarten. Irene's ex-boyfriend, teachers and mother all described her as "beautiful, bubbly and brainless," which Irene didn't seem to mind in the least. Brigette had never seen the exuberant blonde listless or bitchy – she really was one smiling, bouncing bubble. However, while she might never win the Nobel Prize, Irene often stunned the casual observer into silence by publicly indulging her penchant for Shakespeare. She'd devoured the plays since childhood, and, whether she understood them or not, could without fail produce an appropriate quote for every circumstance. She'd also had the misfortune of playing Ophelia in the production during which Brigette gave her memorable theatrical debut.
Camille Verey, a tall leggy brunette, was lounging on a desktop and trying to sit in a position where Stanley couldn't see down her blouse. Brigette didn't know Camille well. Despite the small size of their town, and even smaller size of the school they'd both attended, their paths hadn't crossed much. From what Brigette could tell, Camille was something of an over- achiever. A top athlete, brilliant student and computer whiz, she had always seemed nice enough, but somewhat aloof.
Lastly, Brigette's gaze fell on the fifth new staff member at Barnes. He was new in town, at least, she'd never seen him before today. She didn't think natural curiosity was the reason that her eyes kept going back to him though. From the moment that they had first seen each other by the historical section of the bookstore that morning, she'd felt a strange connection with him, like invisible fibres tugging them together. He was tall, but not particularly good-looking. However, even if he'd walked down the street beside Stanley, Brigette would have been willing to bet that most eyes would be drawn to the quietly good-looking Michael Readman. He was dark, like the walking ego preening near him, but that was where the similarities ended. Although his features were uneven and his face more rugged than pretty, his brown eyes were rich and bottomless and twinkling, as if he was always laughing at some inner joke. The corners of his mouth were perpetually turned up, and he seemed ready to break into a smile at the slightest provocation, as indeed he did. In the few short hours that they had known each other, there hadn't been a huge amount to smile about, and yet, the mesmerizing dimple in his left cheek rarely disappeared from sight...
...Brigette mentally shook herself. Well, really! If she didn't know better, she'd swear that she was developing a knee-shaking, eye-widening, jaw- locking crush. And Brigette Copeland did not get crushes. Well, there had been that one on that darn fine-looking postman when she was eight or so, but other than that...no.
So, here they were. While an uninformed person might wonder at how five seemingly intelligent young people could have, by the end of their first day of work, locked themselves in the world's mustiest storage room, it was really quite simple. Or rather, mind-numbingly stupid. And all Stanley's fault, of course. Before Mr. Hopkins, the tiny slightly unusual owner of the store had left them – apparently for five minutes, although he hadn't yet returned, and that was over five hours ago – he'd taken care to mention that the lock on the storage room door was faulty and that if they were to go in there, they should be careful not to shut the door behind them. Clear, concise instructions. However, Stanley being the lazy sod that he was, he had been the last to join them in the downstairs room to help sort boxes of old books. And because Stanley was...well...Stanley, five hours later, they were all still trapped in a room that smelled of dust, nasty "manly cologne" and something that Brigette very much suspected had come out of a cat. Every time that Brigette looked around the storage room, it looked smaller. She wasn't claustrophobic, thank goodness, but suffering from Stanley-phobia was bad enough. Unfortunately, tempting though it might be to whack him over the head with a dictionary that looked as if it might have been the original prototype next time that he pinched her ass, she was trapped in an enclosed space with three witnesses.
Although Stanley had made a sketchy attempt to do some work for about fifteen seconds, the rest of them had valiantly battled on amidst the dust clouds for a further two hours, before giving up and flopping onto various cartons, antique pieces of furniture, or piles of yellowing books.
"Do you think he's actually coming back?" Camille asked, somehow managing to still look unruffled, despite the oppressive mugginess of the room.
Brigette shrugged. "It's been five hours. And since everyone says that there's no one to miss them until Monday at least, if he doesn't come back, we'll be in here all weekend."
Stanley blinked and sat up, "No way, man. I have a date tonight."
"Well, maybe if you'd been listening to Mr. Hopkins, and hadn't shut the damn door, we could all get off to our dates tonight," Camille told him coldly.
Stanley twisted back to look up at her, "You have a date tonight?" he queried, making no attempt to cover his skepticism. "Shut up, Stanley," Camille returned, without any venom.
Looking over at her, Brigette wondered if Camille ever lost her temper. After six hours in this glorified cupboard, Brigette was tired and dusty and thirsty and hungry, and if Stanley winked at her one more time, she was going to take her pencil and... But Camille continued to remain serene and untroubled. It should have been reassuring under the circumstances; it was better than having a hysterical person to deal with, but for some reason it was starting to irritate Brigette. And she was beginning to have the horrible feeling that if anyone was going to get hysterical, it would be her. She glanced over at Michael instinctively and met his gaze. He was watching her, his eyes gentle, and she inexplicably felt better when she saw his smile.
Something was digging into her hip. A book. Surprise, surprise. She was sitting on a heap of them, after all. Making a rueful face, she reached beneath her back and began tugging at the offending object.
"Well, at least there's plenty to read!" Irene said, brightly. She still looked cheerful and optimistic, and the faintly worried look on her face enhanced her overall cuteness, and made her look vaguely like something out of a Beatrix Potter novel.
"Reading!" snorted Stanley derisively, "There's only one thing I planned to get into tonight, and it wasn't a good book." He chuckled at his own wit. The others simultaneously rolled their eyes.
"Am I the only one who finds this shop a little creepy?" Camille asked, looking around at them, "Like we're on the set of a bad horror movie, or something?"
"Nope," Michael agreed, "and when I came to the town with my dad last month to look around before we moved, I swear I don't remember this place. But we must have driven past it, and it looks like it's about a hundred years old, at least."
Irene shivered. "Ok, you're all giving me the creeps now. Please, can someone read out loud or something? I'm sure I saw a volume of..."
"Not Shakespeare!" everyone chorused in unison.
Irene frowned at them, "No appreciation of art, that's all. Be not afraid of greatness," she quoted.
"It's going to be a long night," Camille groaned, flopping back onto the desk.
Michael flipped through some of the bound volumes scattered haphazardly around Stanley's 'work' area.
"They all seem to be mostly old textbooks and bound historical documents," he commented. Brigette finally worked the book that was bruising her side free, and held it up.
"Hey, fairy tales!" she said, "I haven't read a fairy tale for ages."
Irene shrugged. "Why not? It ain't Shakespeare, but it's better than listening to Stanley whining. Go ahead."
"Hey..." Stanley's petulant tones were cut off short as Brigette opened the ancient book.
A sharp breeze blew past her face and swirled around the features of the others.
"That's weird," said Camille, "There's no window in here..."
"That's weird too," said Brigette, "The pages are blank."
"Annoying," said Irene, "I wanted hear onnnnnnnnnne,"
Brigette stared at her in confusion. She could still see Irene's mobile mouth moving, but the words were coming out so slowly that each syllable was elongated. She blinked as her body took on a curious weightlessness. Irene's blonde hair, the blue chips of Stanley's eyes, Camille's face and Michael's dimple blended into a blur as the room became a swirling techni- coloured vortex. There was no time to be afraid or shocked or amazed. With the effect of a rocket blasting into space, Brigette felt a hum in her ears that fast became a whine and then she was moving, spinning, flying. She could see her own hands, but they seemed to be far away from her face and traveling out of sight. The high-pitched sound in her ears reached an almost unbearable tone, only to suddenly drop away, the silence surprising in its intensity. Gleeful laughter and eerie cackling filled the sound gap, and she felt herself lifting and spinning up, up, up and she was being carried along and then she was falling. Colours were flying past her, blurred, and voices danced and sang around her head. And then she hit solid ground, and the turbulent sensations halted, and the quiet and the black were almost tangible.