There was a goddess in the library. She sat on a pile of velvet cushions reading her book. The goddess did not look up when I came in. If I hadn't known, I would've thought that she was a statue.

The library belonged to my Uncle Theodore. He was a very strange man, but the bombs were dropping all over Europe and now over London. Mother had to send me to him. I didn't wanted to go. She was all I had left. Father was in the war and we didn't know if he would ever come back. I hadn't seen him for months. "Hush now, darling. It'll all be fine." She said. Mother was a very pretty thing. Her large brown eyes made you want to trust her and tell her your darkest secrets and her auburn hair was curled into thick coils that she pinned to the latest styles. She used to laugh and when she did, it was the sound of joy itself-a gurgling, unbarred, tumbling laughter. Now she hardly did anymore. So when she smiled at me at the train station, I was prepared to do anything.

It’ll all be all fine.

I clung on to those words like they were my lifeline as we rolled into endless landscapes of green.

Mrs Fielder was the one who greeted me at the station. How ironic! The whole situation was turning out like one of the old novels I used to read on the window seat back home. But I begrudges her nothing. She was nothing but kind and held my 10 year old hand in her veined wrought ones as we battled ourselves out of the crowd. Before I'd left, Mother gently explained that Uncle Theodore lived alone in the family manor with a gardner and the housekeeper and he wouldn't be used to children running around amok up the banisters. "Behave yourself. I'm warning you. I've got my eyes on you no matter how far off you may be from me." Pursing her lips she set to the task of buttoning up my coat. That quote of hers stayed with me.

Mrs Fielder gave out that sort of aura of a grandmother. She was glad of the new addition to the household, I could tell. Life must be a bore in that cold drafty place. They got into a motorcar that was being driven by a freckled young man. "Larry, meet Glen. He's the gardner." She sniffed her nose in a way that suggested a great disapproval. The lad chose to ignore it, instead he smiled and greeted me in a thickly Welsh accented voice. "Please to meet you." The ride in the motorcar was anything but pleasant.

But this wasn't about Glen. Oh no. Rather, this was about the goddess who was as beautiful and incomprehensible as the enigma.

"Who are you, little one?" Her bright green eyes notice him for the first time as he took a bold step forward. Her long red gold locks that fell to her toes was flicked impatiently aside as she studied him. Glen felt a blush burn his cheeks. Quickly, he used his hand to smooth down his wiry black locks and straightened his shirt that clung to his slight body. "I won't eat you, you know." She smiled. In that moment, he saw her beauty come out in full force. "I enjoy a good Bronte, Austen and a full dose of the Bard. But I do not harm young fledglings." Pausing a moment, she tilted her head in a fashion that young ladies grew out once they discovered boys and God knows what. Glen couldn't help the skip in his heart beat when she did that. Slowly, but gracefully, she closed her book and laid it on top of a pile of thicker volumes. With a swift motion, she slid off her cushions and gently landed on her feet. Her dress of curious ever changing shades of blue and green rustled as she moved towards him.

"What is your name?"

"Glen."

"Glen." She rolled the name around in her mouth. Smiling. " Hello Glen. Would you like a good book?" He nodded furiously. It was strange. The effect that she was having on him was the same feeling that he felt when mother smiled. He was prepared to jump the cliffs if it was her wish.

He followed her like a silent shadow as she perused the shelves with her eyes. Never touching any of the spines, green orbs lingering only for awhile on their titles and then moving on to another tome.

"Aha!" She reached and a leather bound volume fell quietly into her palm. "Here." She handed it to him. There was a new feeling. A sense of foreboding. 'No! Don't touch it! Please. You musn't!!'

"But I want to..."

'Please, Glen... Don't.' The voice pleaded with him.

"I want to..." And his pale fingers dusted the soft surface of the leather. Dreamily, he opened the book and watched in amazement as colours and images surged up into the sky before coming back and gripping him.

'I told you.'

"Silence." The goddess said. Sighing ever so slightly, she returned the book back to it's perch. She hated it when someone disturbed her reading.

Labels: Short stories