Here we go, chapter six.
Y'all're gonna kill me fer the endin', but if yeh review a bunch I jest migh' be encouraged ter hurry wi' seven, if yeh know what I mean. ;)
Yes, that was me talking like Hagrid. Don't know why. Don't ask questions. Just read.
Chapter 6
"'Morning!" Kate called cheerfully. From down the hall, Tom waved.
Maybe it's just me, but he keeps getting more handsome every day, she thought to herself with a sigh. Him---beautiful, intelligent Tom---actively spending time with her? It was one of those things that you have to keep reminding yourself of, because it doesn't seem real, doesn't seem like it actually happened. But there he was, smiling and walking her to the lift, and she had to say to herself, yes, Kate, this is real.
The only thing that bothered her was, well, he didn't seem to be much of a romantic, not that most boys were. Even that was okay, but it made her worry. When they were going out to lunch or something, that hellishly annoying negative side would start to say, "you realize, he probably just thinks of you as a friend. Maybe even a little sister, and he's got to watch out for you. That's why he only takes you out for meals, that's why he never comes over, that's why he hasn't kissed you. Really, Kate, don't get your hopes up."
I can't help it, she argued. My hopes get themselves up. It's not my fault if I get my heart broken…but that won't happen, you hear me? Won't!
"Sleep well?" Tom asked when she yawned hugely. They stepped into the lift and he pulled shut the wrought-iron curtain.
"Damn bird kept me up all night," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I've tried putting a blanket over his picture, but that just seems to scare him."
Tom chuckled. "My poor Katie."
"Are you doing anything for lunch today?" Kate asked, before her nerves could get the better of her. "It'll be my treat this time."
"Sorry," Tom said, shaking his head. "I've got a lot to do for Professor Wyggy today. He wants me to find some genealogy records at the Russian Ministerial Connection. The place is a disaster, it could take all day."
"Oh," Kate said dejectedly. The lift reached the second floor, where her office was as assistant to the Tradeswizards Office. "Okay, then. I'll just see you later, I guess."
"Yup. 'Bye!"
She waved halfheartedly, watching Tom sink into the ground.
"Miss Gibbs!" called one of her bosses, a fat, balding man barely taller than her. Mr. Deidie was less than a gentleman, but all right, as long as he didn't come to work intoxicated (which he was wont to do once or twice a week). "Do you have those agreements of disclosure copied?"
"Right here, sir," she replied, pulling them out of one of the many folders she carried.
He flipped through them quickly. "Excellent, excellent. I've got the Brazilian Secretary of Commerce coming in at eleven, apparently there's been some nasty egg-smuggling going on, thirteen illegal dragons in the rainforest in the last month! Of course, people are trying to say they're natives, but really, a Swedish Short-Snout isn't what you might call local, unless it was on vacation for some warm weather, eh?" He laughed heartily.
Kate grinned. "No more local than a Chinese Fireball."
"Exactly!" He chuckled. "You're a funny one, Miss Gibbs. Now scoot, we've all got work to do." He waggled his hands at her. "Go on, scoot!"
The morning flew by in a whirl of owls and documents and Floo-powder conversations with different officials. By the time her lunch break came around, Kate was exhausted. She was sort of glad Tom hadn't been able to go to lunch with her, because of a certain snowy owl, who had decided to nest in her hair while she wrote the reply to his letter. She managed to brush it out as she walked down the street to her favorite café.
A massive building on the edge of the street caught her attention. Not because of its size---every other building on Whirl-A-Gig Avenue was an embassy, and therefore huge (with the exception of Canada's, which was run out of a tumbledown old greenhouse for some reason). The sign outside read Russian Ministerial Connection. Below that, in smaller wording: House of Records, floor B-13, Please Beware of the Pogrebin.
Would it be too forward to stop in and say hello? Kate asked herself. It's not like we're strangers, but he did say he was busy. . .too busy for lunch, but not necessarily too busy for a visit. I could bring him a biscuit. . .yes, that's what I'll do. . . .
After a quick stop in the café to buy a tin of cookies, Kate headed off down the street. It was crowded at this time of day, not so different from Diagon Alley back in England, except there were many more brightly-dressed people about. The Russian Ministerial Connection had a secondary entrance for those wanting to visit their sub-floors. The first room behind the large mahogany door was spacious and well-lit, but as Kate descended the stairs between floors B-1 and B-13 everything grew dim. The walls pressed in. Torches were extinguished.
God, what a desolate place, she thought. What a bad idea this was. . .I shouldn't have come. . . .
"Pogrebin!" she exclaimed, spinning around to face the small gray creature in her shadow. "You little. . . . Stupefy!"
The pogrebin squeaked and was sent rolling backwards a few feet.
"I can depress myself, thank you," Kate said, tucking her wand away.
A few more flights of stairs later, and she found herself facing a worn little door that read, in peeling letters, House of Records. She pushed it open.
Another staircase waited, much larger than the previous ones. It lead down from the door into a cavernous room, which was positively bursting with filing cabinets. Thousands upon thousands, she guessed, they reached to the top of the ceiling (which was easily thirty feet). Ten-foot-high ladders waited on sliders at the beginning of each row, three each, so someone could reach the very top cabinet if they wanted to. The room glowed faintly with the light reflected off of all the varnished wood.
"Oh, great," Kate sighed. For one thing, she didn't know how she was supposed to find Tom in all this, and for another, the place seemed positively empty. Her footsteps echoed as she walked timidly to the nearest row of cabinets.
Well, the worst they can do is throw me out, she reasoned, before bellowing, "TOM!"
"OY!" came a reply. She followed it eagerly a couple of rows down.
"If it's not Miss Katie Gibbs!" Tom said. He stood in the middle of one of the second-level ladders, holding a large file.
"This place is huge!" Kate exclaimed. You're a right master of the obvious, Kate.
"Tell me about it. I've been searching all day for this stupid stuff," Tom said. Putting one foot on either side of the ladder, he slid to the bottom, then rolled over to a first-level ladder and did the same. "What have you got there?"
She held out the tin. "I thought I'd bring you a snack."
He paused and looked at her. "You're amazing, Katie." Kate felt herself blush.
"You would never guess all this' underground," she said, to change the subject.
"Well, it's not," said Tom, munching a few of the cookies. "Just looks like it. Every magical country had at least one entrance to this place. Happens that Brazil's is in Russia's basement."
Kate nodded. She was still curious, but didn't feel like pressing him for information, so she let their conversation drift to small talk.
"Ahh, that hit the spot." Tom grinned and rubbed his stomach. "I've got to get back to work."
"Me too," said Kate, glancing at her watch. She still had half an hour.
He grasped her hand and gave it a firm shake. "See you later?"
"See you," she replied. He climbed back on the ladders, and she turned back to the stairs.
What the heck was that? A handshake and 'see you later?' she demanded as she trudged back up the steps. It seemed longer now that she wasn't full of nervous excitement. In fact, she was feeling so low that more than once she checked to make sure there wasn't another Pogrebin following her. There never was.
Because she still had so much time to kill, Kate decided to poke around the Ministerial Connection, which boasted a historic library on its ground floor. A young woman with long, shiny brown hair showed her the way. Maybe it was just her four-inch-heels, but this woman made Kate feel small (and therefore, worse).
Idly she fingered the spines of all the old books. Her mind was as far as possible from the goblin rebellions and witch-hunts featured there. She spent the rest of her lunch break thinking, what did he mean by that? Was he trying to tell me he just thinks of me as a friend? Should I keep trying? Should I give up? For goodness' sake, shaking hands is what you do with someone you just met, not someone you---you---
Whatever direction Kate's thoughts had, they lost at that moment. Because at that very second, who should enter by the main door, but Tom? She watched in sorrow as he crossed the busy lobby purposefully, and began chatting up the tall woman. No, there was no doubting it, he was talking animatedly, exaggeratedly waving his was as though to illustrate a point. The woman laughed and played with her hair. After a few minutes they left together, hand in hand.
Kate didn't even bother to think about what she was going to do. She knew it was stupid, probably the wrong choice. Either way, she knew she was going to follow them, and that is exactly what she did.
"Damn the rainforest," Kate muttered. "Damn the bugs. Damn the vines, damn the roots. . . ."
The longer Kate walked, the more angry she became. This was her first trip into the rainforest, but nothing was beautiful or interesting, it all existed only to irritate her. Besides, it'd been over an hour of walking, and she was running out of things to damn.
Ahead about ten yards walked Tom and the woman. They hadn't spoken the entire time, but their footfalls made so much noise that Kate had no fear of them noticing her.
"You were wondering, and there's your proof," said her negative side. "She's got to be at least 25. He could pass for a 25-year-old any time he wanted to. People see you do magic and say, 'aren't you breaking the Decree for Underage Wizardry?' It's not his fault he wants a woman, not a little girl."
Kate sank down on a log to rest. That pesky voice was right. And now she would be two hours late back to work. . .she should just start back now, before anyone found out how much of a fool she'd made out of herself. . . .
In a moment she realized she was crying. Big, fat tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving salty trails behind. She didn't try to stop, in fact, it felt oddly good to cry. To just left all her pains go in little pearly beads. . . .
If Tom doesn't like me, so be it. I've gotten this far without him. I can sure as hell keep going. She stood up and wiped her eyes, feeling stronger, thanks to her new affirmation. No more cynicism, she told herself upon realizing her feet were soaked. She was standing in a puddle.
A very large puddle.
Which seemed to be looking up at her.
Kate leaned a closer. Yes, those were definitely eyes, but what were they attached to? A head, a reptilian head---she now began to believe it was dead, it hadn't blinked or moved a smidge---its body must be under that twisted mass of green and black. . . .
Unless it was that twisted mass of green and black. . . .
"Oh, God."
She gave a start, then tried to move more slowly. What was it about snakes? Were they the sort where if you held still, they couldn't see you? Or was it better to put as much distance between you and them as possible? Kate wouldn't have minded a yard, she was practically stepping on it as she was. . . .
The snake blinked. It was very much alive. And very much three times her size.
Kate gave up being still. She reached for her wand.
With an impossible amount of force, the snake hurtled itself up at her, snapping its jaws. She shouted the first spell that came to mind. "Stupefy!"
For one terrible second the snake hovered above her, dazed.
Then it fell.
Then everything began to happen rapidly. She tumbled backwards---it was on her shoulders---she banged her elbow, and her wand flew out of reach---the snake was calm, it knew what to do---besides, it was hungry---
Kate felt the slick, muscular coils sliding around her neck and middle. It was impossible to stand, all of its weight was on her upper body, pinning her down. There was nothing to do but struggle. She gave it her best, beating her weak fists against its scaly skin, rolling side-to-side, anything to make its job of killing her more difficult. She screamed, one of those screams you just can't put into letters: high, shrill, pulse-stopping.
NO! I am NOT going to die like this! I am NOT going to be food for some stupid WORM!
She screamed again and again, but after each time she found it harder to inhale. White spots danced in her eyes, as darkness grew around their corners. She couldn't feel her arms. Couldn't feel anything. All she could do was hear---hear the calls of the birds, the rustle of leaves, the drip, drip of water from the snake as it hissed. . . .
The world seemed to be moving slowly, turning, Kate could feel it now. If this is dying. . .it hurts like hell, she thought. Her head felt like it was exploding, everything was too bright, she willfully closed her eyes. . . .
You win.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I promise that's not the end of the story!!! I've got at least 3 more chapters to write before I can resolve everything. :)
Please review. See, I asked nicely. That means you have to. ^_~