Chapter Ten
Vivien had argued violently with herself about when to go to the library. Her strongest instinct was to head straight there from her run. It wouldn't be open at 6 am but she could wait. The small voice of reason in her head quietly wondered how suspicious it would look to be standing outside the library for hours on its first day open. It would reek of desperation like wearing full make up at the gym.
She barely forced herself to go home, shower and head into work; her feet constantly fighting to go the wrong way. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on perspective) it was a busy day at the office. She had 4 booked clients, a consultation and two walk-ins. It wasn't until 1pm that she could lock her office door and slip away. At that point she gave into her more adolescent impulses and went from a speed walk to a dead run to cover the blocks between the hospital and library.
She stopped outside the newly opened building, the windows tall and sparkling as they admitted light into the formerly boarded space. The doors were closed but there was a cheerful "Now Open" sign hanging in the window, as well as a paper explaining the new management and their eagerness to get StoryBrooke's library back in peak condition. There was even a list for people to sign up and come do reading time with the town's children.
You don't have to go in. You don't have to find out everything that happened. Some questions are best unanswered. The needling voice of panic made sweat prick her palms when she gripped the door handle. What was worse: knowing something awful or not knowing at all? Vivien scowled at her own moment of trepidation and yanked the door open; hard enough that one of the papers in the window went flying into the street.
"Easy! It's a bit old and gets stuck but you don't have to be that rough!" A woman carrying a stack of books scolded but with a bit of laugh in her voice that took out the sting.
"Sorry, you want me to go get it?" Vivien glanced at the page that was already dancing away in a playful breeze, the kind that would be sure to have her playing tag for seven minutes or more.
"Nah, no worries. I can print another if I need to." The librarian shook her head and put her load of books on a table that was already piled high with books, loose pages and tools.
"You're the new management?" Lake wondered just how much innocuous conversation she needed to go through before she could get to her point without seeming overly eager. Don't attract attention. Be casual.
"Fancy phrase that means I have the key." The woman smiled again and waved a key ring to demonstrate her point. She had an accent of some sort, as though even her voice were as mellow and easy going as the rest of her. It was soothing but playful at the same time.
"So you must be Belle." Vivien had been able to tease only the smallest details out of Regina about her reasons for allowing the library to be reopened. She definitely knew the Mayor felt she had some wrongs to right. Right now Regina was mostly focused on not doing anything bad so it was interesting to see the occasional good act she was motivated to commit.
"Indeed I am! And you are?" Belle wiped the dust of the books from her hands and approached, striking out for a shake. Vivien had been trying to place the woman's face. It was familiar but from somewhere under the curse that even her mind didn't like to go.
"Vivien Lake." They shook hands, a flicker in Belle's expression suggesting that she also had some vague recollection of the PT that she couldn't place. The handshake went on a few seconds longer than it should have as they both tried to pinpoint each other.
"Right, so what brings you into StoryBrooke Library?" Belle finally gave up trying to identify Lake and moved on.
"I was hoping to find out a bit more about everyone. You know, maybe get a bit of backstory on some of these people I don't know?" Vivien had practiced the line in her head a dozen times, she still wasn't certain it sounded as convincing as she wanted.
"Good idea. Want to make sure you aren't accidentally hanging out with a witch, right?" Belle nodded and turned to lead her through the shelves.
"Actually I've met quite a few witches over at the Rabbit Hole and they seem nice enough." Vivien pointed out. Are all witches color coded? So far she'd met pink, green and white.
They went halfway through the shelves, up a spiral staircase into the second floor.
"Then who'd you have in mind?" Belle glanced over her shoulder. Vivien felt a surge of panic. She hadn't thought her cover story through far enough for that question.
"I wouldn't mind starting with my neighbors. Those two are far too nauseatingly attached to each other to not be a fairytale romance." Lake realized as she was speaking that it was true – they really were disgustingly romantic and it had been on the back of her mind.
"Right, well if they're in a story they're in this section. Know their names by any chance?" Belle led her to a massive cubicle of shelves, so large there was room for a 4-seater table in the middle. It was as if the curse knew that at some point people would come looking for information.
"Just his, Tom. Uh, Tom Lane I think." Vivien was struggling to take in the rows upon rows of books. There had to be more than a thousand in this section alone. How many fairytales could there be? Where would she find her own? Stupid question. You know the name. Her eyes flitted over the alphabetical rows, catching the letter she was looking for.
"Tom Lane, Tom Lane," Belle's eyes searched her internal bibliography, "Tom Lane – oh! Tam lin! Of course. I know him. And you're right, they have a really sweet story."
"Is it here?" Vivien couldn't resist the tug of curiosity. It was like derailing a freight train. Her other thoughts kept plummeting on at full speed but she herself had stepped off.
"Not that I've seen. But he was pretty well known in my kingdom. He was put under a curse to wander the forest and constantly change shape. The only way his wife could save him was to catch hold of him while he was a man and not let go as he ran through the woods changing form. Deer, wolf, lion, bear – you get the picture. I think she held on all night. Then when he finally changed back into a man it meant the curse was broken."
Vivien waited for the 'true love's kiss' punch line that always seemed to come at the end of these stories, but Belle was obviously done.
"I like that one. I don't buy into a lot of these fairytale stories about good and evil or true love but that one I like. It's about loyalty." Lake admitted, thinking over the simplicity of the story and its message. Even in flowery language or rhyming poetry it would still be a very basic concept; one anyone could apply.
"Is that what you gather?" Belle cocked her head on one side.
"Sure. We have to be loyal to the people we care about. Even when they're going through hard times; they may change, even frighten us. But if we stick with them we'll have the reward of seeing them come back to themselves, or even emerge as something better. I like that." Vivien nodded, just now noticing the pensive look in Belle's face.
"You know I hadn't ever really thought of it like that. You're right. You know, I needed to hear that. There's someone I care a lot about and he's been going through a tough time. I know he's trying to change and I think I should stand by him to help." Belle bit her lip a little, looking at her hands. When her head tilted forward some of her hair fell into her face.
Suddenly - in the darker light and in that pose – Vivien knew exactly where she'd seen Belle before. The psych lock down. She didn't get pulled down there very often. People on tranquilizers seldom hurt themselves in padded cells. Vivien could remember walking into the tiny room, could still remember the sick feeling she had when she felt the various strained neck muscles and skewed vertebrae. More than anything, she could remember the feeling of the skin that had been rubbed raw by a ligature around her throat.
"I think you could probably do a lot of good." Lake imagined her voice was as choked as Belle's had been when the orderlies cut her down. If that had been the girl's cursed life, no wonder Regina felt the need to make amends.
"Anyway, I won't be closing until six. Help yourself to whatever you like." Belle's face turned upwards again and her eyes were bright and happy, her smile unguarded. She still didn't remember who Vivien was or how they'd met. The physical therapist truly hoped she never would.
After the librarian had left, her feet clanging a receding gait down the stairs, Vivien allowed herself to move towards the books. Each and every book on every massive bookshelf represented dozens of lives, possibly hundreds. Vivien ran her hands over the rough bindings. Not just the title characters, the heroes, heroines, villains and accomplices. Every story had the innocents, the unnamed masses who plodded along with their lives in complete ignorance to the fact that some epic was unfolding around them. They were the ones swept away by natural disasters, paralyzed by royal edicts, exploited by curses or joyful in the happy endings. They were unknown and unimportant but how many of them were here?
Her questing fingers inevitably grazed the edges of a name she knew. Why had she been foolish enough to think there would only be one? Folk tales and fairytales all came in multiple versions and forms, none of them completely right. Why had she expected her own world to be treated any differently? She ran her fingers over the embossed letters on the aged spines. Seven different books. All of them bore names she knew. Mostly they carried only one name because that was all they needed. Really – what story wasn't identified by a single character? Someone I've never even met. She clenched her jaw to hold back a bitter laugh.
She couldn't just pull those books. If Belle comes up and just sees me with these she'll figure it out. Vivien grabbed two or three books from every shelf. Wonderland, Oz, Narnia, Middle-Earth, Fantastica, Atlantis, Neverland; every world she could find joined a growing stack on the table. Literary quantum geography. Sitting down at the table, a barricade of books erected around her on all sides, Vivien pulled the first book of her world towards herself and began to read.
Regina strode quickly up the sidewalk. The phone call had sounded urgent. Far worse than anything she'd ever expected to hear in the woman's voice. The concern had drawn her eyebrows together into a grim line of worry and clouded her mind with anxiety. She didn't even notice the people who crossed the street to stay out of her path. She didn't notice Geppetto jogging towards her from up the street. He intercepted her a few feet from the doors to the library, breathless and desperate.
"Regina, please! My son, have you-" he beseeched her.
"Not now, tinkerer." Regina snapped and moved to step around him. Spry for a man his age, Geppetto danced backwards and stayed blocking her path. He was about to try again when the noise of groaning wood distracted them both. The barrel planter on the sidewalk was trembling. The soil shivered and suddenly a half dozen shoots erupted. The petals unfolded into brilliant color, despite the time of year and time of day. Then, apparently unsatisfied by such achievements, the flowers rose from the dirt on roots like spider legs and crawled to the ground. Both people watched the tiny, agricultural evolution in spell-bound silence.
When the flowers had vanished – no doubt to go scare the shit out of some bees – Regina turned back to the toymaker. A single arched eyebrow dared him to continue to stand in her way. He quickly stepped aside, instinctively knowing something more urgent was going on. Pinocchio had been missing since the curse broke. Another day wouldn't hurt.
Inside the library Regina spotted Belle and Ruby urgently rushing back and forth with armloads of books, getting them to safer areas. The drinking fountain had turned into a waterfall, running up. Books shot from one side of the library to the other, or spun in place, or climbed down from the shelves and walked across the floor. Some of the books were losing words from their pages, all of them floating into air and arranging themselves alphabetically according to the orders of a very bossy dictionary.
"Now this is impressive." Regina smiled appreciatively.
"Don't just stand there! Go stop her!" Belle yelled, rescuing more books from the water fountain spray.
Regina walked up the stairwell – which was barely recognizable – and felt her nerves tingling as she drew closer to the massive magic source. The books upstairs were even more volatile, flying in predatory formations, circling protectively around a single point of calm. Vivien had her head on her arms on the table. She might've even been asleep.
"I told you! One more step and I start snapping spines!" the shouted threat belied her wakefulness.
"A terrifying threat for a librarian, I'm sure." Regina smirked. That brought Lake's head up in a whiplash movement. The books that swished through the air slowed and parted enough to allow the Mayor to step into the eye of the storm. The table was strewn with books. A cursory glance threw up no useful conclusions. She could tell though, from the look in Vivien's haggard eyes that the cause of everything was somewhere here in these pages.
"What are you doing here?" She rose up a little straighter in her chair, like a child embarrassed at having been caught napping in class.
"Belle isn't overly fond of her library being turned into a magical arcade. She called Ruby and Ruby – against her better judgment as she said – called me." Regina casually circled the table, keeping her eyes on Lake but also scanning more of the titles of the books.
"Why?" there was a dazed look on her face. She didn't seem to be entirely in the room, in the moment. Her mind was far away and only making occasional contact with its host.
"Vivien, you're generating a magical field I felt all the way back at my office. There are books on viticulture taking root downstairs and growing vines up the stairwell. I saw an omnibus trying to eat smaller paperbacks. I don't think it would be overreaching to assume that you are upset." Regina sat down in a chair beside Vivien. She was slowly coming back into herself. The protective flocks of books were circling less aggressively now, hovering more slowly above them.
"They got it all wrong." Vivien mumbled, staring back at the books in front of her but not actually seeing those pages.
"They always do. Did you find what you were after?" Regina reached out to rest a sympathetic hand on Lake's arm.
"Yes. No. I don't know!" Vivien's voice suddenly flared with temper, "I found what I wanted but it's all wrong! The names, the people, the deeds! They got them all jumbled together and I'm not me but when I am I'm doing the wrong things and then someone else is me doing the right ones!"
The distraught woman was on her feet, a violent sweep of her arm clearing the table of books. Regina got to her feet just as fast. She could feel the magic building with the rise in pitch of her anger. Magic was all about emotion and there was enough here to blow up three blocks worth of StoryBrooke.
The noise had drawn Ruby and Belle halfway up the stairs, just enough to peek in and watch the chaos.
"They got her wrong! They got him wrong! I still don't know how I got here or if I have to go back!" with every exasperated gesture the books become more frenzied. The windows were rattling now. Nearby trees were erupting in leaves budding, going green, changing to the brilliant colors of fall and then exploding like fireworks. If anybody was in the street they'd be getting quite a show.
"Regina! Do something!" the quiet voice of Belle whispered, pleading. Ruby's eyes echoed the message but with more concern for Vivien than the books.
"Vivien-," The mayor tried to walk closer to Lake, both hands extended to soothe and placate.
"I don't even know if I want to go back anymore. Even if I can! I can't do this. I can't do this anymore! I want out of the deal! I want out!" Vivien was charging magic, nothing Regina recognized but it was in both hands and her every sense told her that it was a suicide spell - something so powerful it would destroy the user and everyone nearby. Of all the times to have sworn off magic. Regina scowled. She took a quick step forward and struck.
She'd only ever thrown a punch a handful of times, in moments when her emotions were too turbulent to be controlled. This time it was all control. The precision, power and timing executed with perfect discipline. Her aim was exact and Vivien crumpled to the table, knocked out. The books all fell to the ground with her, not a single page even stirring as the magical discharge swept out of the room like a breeze.
"How hard did you hit her?!" Ruby came running up, kneeling to check Vivien's pulse.
"As hard as necessary," Regina flexed her throbbing fist, "Now, will you please help me take her home? I don't think she's entirely well and shouldn't be left unsupervised."
"Where does she live?" Ruby didn't even argue, just lifted Vivien off the ground in both arms. The Mayor's eyebrow twitched slightly in surprise. Being part wolf obviously came with more advantages than most people recognized. That certainly makes it easier. She hadn't been looking forward to the attention they would garner trying to drunk-walk Lake out to the street between the two of them.
"I don't know. We'll take her to my home." The mayor had never before realized that she had no clue about Lake's life outside her profession and their limited interactions.
"I don't know if I like that idea, Regina." Ruby growled, baring fangs.
"You would prefer she be in the center of town when she wakes up in a bad mood?" Regina cocked an eyebrow and gestured to the devastated library. They could hear Belle cursing loudly downstairs as she cleaned up the havoc. The waitress obviously was contemplating just what that same amount of magic might do at the Inn, where there were many more things sharp and deadly.
"Alright. Your place. You're driving." Ruby easily shifted Lake's deadweight to hang over her shoulder and then marched down the stairs.