XIX
The library
Manchester
Maxwell Hollerford's residence
Rose bumps into Master Franklin not long after Max storms out the house and into the garden to join April. Master Franklin looks furious for a long moment but the second he sees Rose sneaking across the corridor, he suddenly becomes sly and tries to find out what she is up to.
However Rose only asks if she may have a look through their library. She insists that she only wants to read some poetry to pass the time. It comes to her surprise when Master Franklin orders her to follow him.
They walk through the hallway on the ground floor to the house. There are many different doors to either side of the corridor and Rose wonders what each room is for. They stop at the door at the very end of the corridor and Rose is suddenly reminded of the orphanage when she walked down the corridor to the bathroom.
Master Franklin pulls out a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. The door swings inwards slowly to reveal a very large and dark room filled with many bookshelves. It is their own personal library. Master Franklin takes one step into the library and picks up the oil lamp that sits on the little corner table right by the door. He lights the lamp before passing it to Rose.
"You might want to use this." He says.
"Thanks," Rose mutters before she takes hold of the base of the lamp firmly. "I can take it from here, sir."
"Yes of course." Master Franklin stands to the side and allows Rose to pass him into the library. He watches her for a moment as she slowly makes her way across to the bookcases before turning and leaving.
When the door closes, she turns to look back. She is fully alone and free to roam.
Rose knows that the house Max and Master Franklin lives in is large but it seems larger than she expected. Down this street all the houses are terraced, all linked together on either side of the road. But they seem far bigger on the inside than they do on the out.
The library is rather gothic with the large black bookcases filled with many different hardback, dusty books. There are many different black iron candelabras standing around the library. Some are filled with candles and some have none, but none of the candles are lit.
Rose walks across the creaking floorboards as she searches the shelves. Yet for a long time she cannot find exactly what she is looking for. All the books she does find are history and scientific books. Some are medical books but most are books Rose guessed Max read when he was training to become a biologist.
But then Rose finds a little section of the library she didn't notice before.
It is in the far corner of the library and is closed off with an iron gate. Rose guesses that what she is looking for is probably in this restricted section. Once she reaches the gate, she quickly glances around the library to make sure that Master Franklin or any of the other servants have not snuck in behind her to spy. She then draws out a paper clip and flattens it out before sticking it into the lock on the gate. In times like this, Rose is thankful Terry taught her a while ago how to unlock a lock with a paper clip. Terry said it was always a useful thing to know. She knew the Doctor wouldn't always be there to help with his sonic screwdriver.
"Aha!" Rose calls aloud when the lock clicks. She pulls open the iron gate before stepping in between the two bookcases. With one hand clutching onto the oil lamp, she inspects the spines of the books.
Just as she has suspected the restricted section is filled with books way out of their times. There are many books about space and discoveries about the universe that will not be discovered until at least the twentieth century. One shelf is filled with fairy tales and just out of curiosity, Rose flicks through one of the fairy tale books to see if the nursery rhyme Jack Gruntler recited to them before the battle in Antarctica is written inside.
But it isn't. The closest is Oranges and Lemons.
Rose closes the book with a sigh before putting it back up on the shelf, knowing that they are as far from that parallel world as they can get. Opening the book she has a little hope that she might find the nursery rhyme. She thinks that she could rip out the page and give it to April, just so she could still hold onto something from that life. But of course in the real world, that particular rhyme is non-existent.
But then she comes across a book entitled Manchester's Spiritual History. Rose does not think twice before she pulls it off the shelf and flicks through the old tea stained pages.
The book covers hundreds of years in the city's history and more or less dates back to the time when man first put pen to paper. Rose flicks through the different spiritual folk tales that have been spoken amongst the citizens of Manchester. Most of them cover little stories including the spirit of an old man roaming the roads around the river after drowning himself. There is talk of many different haunted houses and some of the recent stories are trying to prove that the factories are also haunted.
It is about a third into the book that Rose finds the story of the girl in the mirror. On one side of the page is a very realistic sketch of the girl wearing her night dress, her long black hair draped over her shoulders, her fringe falling into her eyes and her mouth sewn shut with black thread. The sketch gives Rose the shivers. It is so realistic Rose can feel her cold, intriguing eyes staring right at her through the yellowing page.
Beside the sketch are many different stories about how people have come across the girl in the mirror and they all start in the bathroom in the orphanage. Every story of the girl is more or less the same, stating that once seen in that bathroom mirror you will always see her behind you in every reflection. She's harmless but she will never leave you alone.
Rose shudders and wonders if it is the girl in the mirror she can always sense over her shoulder. Yet all the stories say that although she is harmless she is still feared immensely and that is mainly down to her image and the unknown reason of why her spirit is first found in the orphanage's bathroom mirror. Rose knows the story about her past and how she was killed that bathroom, yet it does make her wonder why her spirit was transferred to reflections.
She turns the page and finds that there is one last story about meeting the girl in the mirror. The handwriting on the page is messy and some of the words are smudged as if it has been scribbled on the page urgently. Rose tries to understand the words through the smudges but is able to quickly make out that the writing is informing the reader about incidents of people going missing after seeing this girl.
This panics Rose as she struggles on to read through the smudges. But the passage only explains that the girl in the mirror is lonely and in need of a friend. However this has created danger for those that have seen this girl because they are at risk of being pulled into the reflections with her. Rose thinks about the time in the orphanage's bathroom and how every time she looked away, the girl had edged closer to her. If she hadn't left, would the girl have captured her then?
The story of the girl in the mirror has become a folk tale like many of the other ghost stories in the book and because Rose knows that this story is true, then the other ghost stories must also be true. Manchester is filled with different spirits from hundreds of years ago and the Devil is bringing them back to haunt the city.
Rose starts to wonder if the spirit in the Tardis April briefly mentioned about is also in the book, but April hasn't exactly explained much about it so Rose is unable to find anything about that particular spirit in the book.
A chill runs down Rose's spine and she suddenly feels like she is being watched.
The oil lamp flickers slightly in the cool air around her. Then closing the book, Rose places it back on its place on the shelf and leaves the restricted section. She has found what she has been looking for, now it is a good time for her to leave. But as soon as she leaves the restricted section, she finds Master Franklin standing patiently by the door Rose entered the library through.
Master Franklin forces a smile when he sees her. "Ah there you are!" He muses. "I was just about to check up on you."
Rose glares at Master Franklin. He speaks as if she has been searching the library for hours or so, but she knows that she hasn't been there any longer than twenty minutes. Master Franklin looks eagerly at her, wanting her to leave and she does so. Carrying the oil lamp, Rose walks across the library and leaves through the doorway and back through the dark corridor.
She does not once look back but she listens out for Master Franklin to close the door behind him. She hears the sound of the key turning in the lock.
Rose continues to walk.
There is one thing for sure. Master Franklin has suddenly become paranoid over her finding something he does not want her to find.
