Vienna Waits for You

Untitled part

"Cassandra?" Jacob muttered as he caught a glimpse of the woman eying the staircase that lead to the famous observation point in the tower. He rolled his eyes, trust her to follow him to Vienna. But as he got closer to her, he took her in more clearly and stopped, confused.

This was wrong, she was wrong. Or she wasn't Cassandra after all. The clothes were wrong. He'd left Cassandra in the old Annex wearing one of her usual flouncy patterned dresses and bright colorful tights. This woman was wearing a parka (appropriate for the Austrian weather) and skinny jeans. He'd only seen Cassandra wear pants on one occasion and even then he wasn't entirely sure they belonged to her. On her head was a wool cap and the hair that he could see falling out of it, while it was the same color as Cassandra's, seemed shorter and straighter. She might have even been a little taller than his co-worker. The features though were alarmingly similar. So unless Cassandra had drastically changed her look and hair in the last twenty minutes . . . .

Or he was in a parallel universe. Which at one point he would have dismissed but you never knew. But he was quite certain that the only other dimension that the Back Door (in normal operation) could access beyond his own was the one that the Library existed in. Nothing odd had happened when he went through and his phone . . .he looked again . . .his phone was operating normally.

So whoever the woman was, she wasn't Cassandra.

He should have ignored her, but he saw she kept walking over to the stairs, looking up and then backing away. It seemed to be annoying the ticket taker greatly and even some of the other tourists. He'd planned on climbing the stairs himself, so he went over and paid the small fee to enter.

The woman was standing at the bottom of the stairs, clutching a ticket so tightly that it had already become frayed. She gulped and backed up, right into Stone's chest.

"Whoa there, darlin'," he said straightening her out before asking her if she was alright in German. She blinked at him, with those stunning eyes he'd admired on Cassandra, before blushing.

"Um, English is fine, more than fine. I can't speak German, I'm Canadian and I can barely speak high school French any more. You're American, right? I mean you sounded . . . . I'm sorry, I ran right into you and here I am babbling like an idiot."

Absolutely not Cassandra then. Jacob relaxed. "It's fine, really. Can I ask you a question?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

"What are you doin'? You keep looking at the stairs but not going up. You have a ticket."

She sighed, looking sheepish. "I'm really scared of heights and I thought maybe I could handle those stairs. But I don't think I can."

He nodded. "That makes sense. How about this? I'll go up with you. I'll stay right behind you, so you can lean on me if you get scared and you won't fall."

The woman bit her lip. "You'd do that?"

"Sure, why not? I'm going up."

"Well, I mean you're a stranger and . . . ."

He held out his hand. "Jacob Stone, ma'am."

She giggled and shook his hand. "Lindy Booth. So I guess you're not a stranger now."

Slowly but surely they climbed the steps, probably annoying people behind them but Jacob didn't care. All he cared about was helping the woman in front of him get up the stairs. Why, he wasn't sure. Maybe because she reminded him of his best friend or maybe because he was a sucker for a woman in distress. Or maybe it was just because he'd taken his job to help people and he certainly was helping Lindy and without magic, monsters or someone trying to kill him. No running either, Cassandra would laugh when he told her about this adventure later.