Chapter Four

She awoke, confused, in a cool, damp room. He sat, not quite smug looking, reading a newspaper just a few yards away.

“How are you feeling,” he offered.

“Fine, I’m always fine,” she snapped as she sat up and rummaged about her looking for her things.

“There, just under the table,” he paused before continuing as she grabbed her satchel and began looking for something within its depths. “I would offer you something, a glass of water, but, well…I’ve just never seen one of us faint quite like that, and stay unconscious for so long. Really, are you sure you are alright?”

“Yes”

“Well I guess I should explain myself a bit…if you like.” Bishop had always been good with people, at making them feel comfortable. He’d had a difficult life, and some under similar circumstances would have turned out bitter, cold, vowing to never give the world another chance. It seemed as if this woman was of this very mindset. Her clothes were dirty and torn and since she had awoken from her dreamlike slumber she’d worn a suspicious scowl around her mouth and a creased line between her eyes. But he could tell that she had once been beautiful and that she might be in this very moment were it not for her attitude towards this moment. But her beauty, or lack-there-of, was not a concern of his. Chiefly, he was concerned with gaining the trust of this woman, and with making sure she was, well, trustworthy herself.

He told her his full name, James Bishop. She seemed to flinch when he mentioned his first name, but seemed happy that he went only by Bishop. He told her that he used to work as a private investigator, before the war, and that he had lived mostly in London his whole life, and that like most of them, he had moved away for different lengths of time either to experience something new or to help remain under the radar of others. He said he had found the body that morning and had then contacted the police, but he left out the part about his moment of pathetic desperation when he had sat alone with the body.

He also mentioned having fought in the war, but spoke of it as if it were a distant, insignificant memory, as if the war hadn’t just ended, as if the war hadn’t been any big deal. And maybe it wasn’t, shouldn’t have been, for their kind. She softened at the mention of his fighting in the war, thinking of the fight she had fought with herself at that time, and of the help she had tried to give others. She looked at him as he spoke with a slightly softened scowl but not letting it go completely, not allowing herself to feel any of the emotional warmth that radiated from this man. She liked him, he was serious but kind, straightforward and impeccably clean. She wondered how she looked to him, with her dirty clothes and matted hair.

It was only at this moment that she looked around her, examining where she was. She thought it was probably an apartment, but couldn’t tell on what floor, red velvet curtains were drawn across all the windows. There were lots of windows. She sat, too, on a couch covered in red velvet. Bishop’s newspaper lay on the wooden coffee table between them and Bishop sat on one of two nicely crafted wooden chairs opposite the couch. If this was where he lived, and she gathered that it was, he must not have many guests. They would find this place unnerving, because though it held remnants of humanity, like the chairs for sitting, it held no warmth save for the red velvet, which was strangely cold. Aside from the few pieces of furniture, the room was quite sparse. No paintings, no pictures, no personal items of importance. Through a crack in a door to the left of where she sat, she eyed a wall covered floor to ceiling in books, his study she wondered?

He finished speaking and waited to see if she would offer information about herself. She said her name was Elizabeth and then asked about the girl who had been found. He said, “Well that’s a complicated issue you see, and I’m not sure if I should really get into it.” The phone rang and he stood slowly and walked into the room full of books. She heard him pick up the receiver. “Well yeah if that’s what you want…I know its been a while….Sure sure….Well I don’t think that’s necessarily the case….yeah….OK Bernie…..” He hung up the phone and walked back into the room where she sat. “Now I don’t really know your situation but I can see that you are still a bit shaken up. If only I could judge your health by the color in your face.” He laughed to himself the same laugh that had unconsciously drawn her to him in the first place. “I have to head out, would you like me to take you home on the way to where I am going? It would be my pleasure.”

Home, she thought. The only home she had was in her head, and it was barely there. “Actually I…” She began to say.

“You know what,” he interrupted, “How about you stay here for a bit. I shouldn’t be out long, and I haven’t properly gotten to know you yet.” The truth was that he didn’t think she had a home to go to and that he wasn’t sure if he could trust her enough to let her go, knowing what little she did about the dead body in the river. There wasn’t anything but books and furniture in his apartment, so she couldn’t get herself into trouble, and in a weird inexplicable way, he had the feeling she might end up being a help with this new case.

A feeling of relief came over her and she almost accidentally smiled. Before another word was said, Bishop turned, placed a hat upon his head, shimmied into his coat and walked through the study and then out through another door beyond that.

She gazed down at her hands which held the object she had rummaged through her purse for earlier. It was a stone the length of a newborn’s fist, the width of a newborn’s finger, polished from years of rubbing it when she felt nervous. Her aunt had given it to her when she was a child. It was her only possession from the other life. “It’s called a worry stone,” She had said. “When you are scared just rub it and it will absorb your worries and you will feel calm again.” The stone had absorbed more than its fair share of worries throughout its life. She lay back on the cool velvet couch and closed her eyes. She wished she could make herself faint again. It wasn’t so much as a faint as a denial of life, of thought, of vision. Sometimes she would just shut down and everything would go blank. She rested there pretending to be unconscious again, pretending that she was asleep and that she was dreaming. She thought again of James as she rubbed the small stone and she found herself hoping that Bishop would come back soon.