Chapter 1: China Sorrows
China Sorrows runs her fingers over the spines of Skulduggery's books, automatically counting up numbers in her head. Numbers flash across her brain, big numbers, but they don't really matter. Her hand falls limply to her side. She'd waited so long for him to leave, so she could get her hands on these books, but now he was gone, she didn't want them. She smiles a small smile to herself. She could just picture him saying, "reverse psychology," and could just imagine his old smile, not his new skeletal one, flashing across his face.
She turns and faces the room again. It was just the same as when she'd last seen it, but also completely different. "I'm going to walk back," she calls to her assistant.
"Very well, Miss Sorrows, I'll drive the car back." He turns and leaves the room.
China looks over the room once more. The numbers don't flash across her brain any more; just images of a flat full of people laughing, years and years ago. She leaves.
She's closed the Library for a week. No one was coming; the books are to be left untouched. Now she is sitting in her sitting room, hands on her lap, neatly folded. All her furniture has been repaired, since she'd had to destroy it in the first place.
No one is coming.
China Sorrows sits alone in her flat with her hands folded neatly on her lap. China Sorrows never cries; she battles on.
But never say never, as the saying went.
She sits alone in her flat with her hands folded neatly on her lap. Then she sits alone with her hands held roughly on her lap.
China Sorrows never cries.
China Sorrows sits alone in her flat with her hands holding her face and cries.
