The Periods of Being

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXV

The hallways are bare of any presence of the living. The house is well-kept— too well-kept— for any creaks in the floorboards, allowing Olive to glide down the halls and down the staircase. She holds her robe closed at her chest with one hand and uses her other one to glide on the staircase railing. The air is dark around her and she tries her best to use muscle memory to lead her to her destination. The library.

    Stationery could be found with the flick of her wrist by pulling the velvet rope in her room and requesting it from Julie— or anyone that could come to help her. She could be sitting in her room now, waiting for the paper to arrive, and then writing down the lingering mess of thoughts in her head. Instead, she finds herself feeling like she has to find the stationary by herself. The request for paper to write a letter to Freya feels personal and would be wrong to have someone else touch the paper before she does, and then the postal man.

    Her foot dips down further than she intends for it, and her thoughts come to halt, believing that she is about to fall down the stairs. Her foot lands on a plush floor. Even with the soft comfort of not actually falling, she doesn't let off her grip on the railing. She steps with her left foot and expects herself to fall, but it is meant with the same fate.

    You've reached the bottom of the stairs, her feet tell her like they are her body's chauffeur.

    She sighs in relief, and her heartbeat slows down to a regular count. She bows her head done and catches her breath before she continues. The library is a straight shot after the stairs. The only problem that she now faces is finding the door. She takes a few steady steps forward and she clings onto her robe as shivers creep up her spine when her bare feet reach the wooden flooring. She clears the distance between her and a possible wall, but when her outreach hand feels a doorknob, her heart rejoices.

    You've reached the library, her mind tells her. Now open the door before someone sees you!

    The doorknob clicks in submission as she turns it, opening the door. She slides in through the tiniest crack she can make for herself, worried that if she opens the door too far that it will creak and reveal her position. Her position to whom? She wonders with a huff once she is beyond the door. She leans her back on the closed door and lets the grip of her robe become mere fingertips on the fabric than a handhold of the fabric.

    Her eyes adjust in the room and she fumbles her way to where she knows stationary sits in a drawer. Mark used to write all his business inquires here, so paper is destined to be in the familiar drawer.

    Her mind is too set on the search for the paper in the desk on the other side of the way, that her eyes drift over the alive fire crackling in the fireplace and a dark figure on the couch.

    She opens the drawer and starts to rummage through it. Her back arches as she searches and her robe falls open at the freedom from her grasp of it. When her fingertips faintly touch a blank, pure stack of paper, her ears perk up to the sound of shuffling behind her. She stands up straight and clings to her robe. She turns sharply to see a figure behind her. A gasp holds in her throat and before she can scream to alarm the servants of an intruder, the mystery figure finds their voice.

    "Olive?"

    The voice is familiar. It's Neil. Her heart drops back to its normal resting place rather than in her throat, but her grasp on her robe, making sure it is closed at her chest.

    "Neil?"

    Her eyes adjust with the help of the light coming from the fire in the background. Neil, like Olive, is dressed in his nightclothes. He wears a matching stripe button-up with long pants. He looks comfortable, relaxed even, but his blotchy eyes tell her otherwise. She is about to question him about his presence in the library when he beats her to it.