The clouds rumbled overhead as the sky darkened, cracking together like two cars going towards each other at ninety miles per hour. Vienna looked up, pulling her scarf tighter around her small neck as the wind picked up. Leaves scratched across the pavement, jumping up and down as the wind tossed them around. She paused for a moment, moving to the side of the busy sea of civilians on the street to open her bright red umbrella, letting it rest on her shoulder blade. Then she sipped her hot chocolate (which was almost too hot to drink, but it didn’t burn her tongue. It was the kind that singed your throat as you gulped it down, warming the pit of your stomach.)

                Stepping back into the robotic crowd, Vienna straightened her umbrella and breathed, sighing. She smiled as the puff of warm air turned white with winter’s touch. Icy rain began to drizzle, hitting her umbrella with tiny pops before dripping off the edges. Vienna lifted her umbrella higher over her shoulder length black hair, desperate to keep it dry as the clouds opened up more. Glancing up, she saw a heavy wooden sign that hung over black and white awnings. It was carved intricately with gold letters reading “The Gilded Pages”. That was her favorite part of the store; the golden sign. The front windows held a display of some of the rarer books she had found while working there, but no one ever seemed interested in the worn books that had histories of stories to tell.

                Now and then they had customers come in to buy a novel or two, but most of the time they were overstocked, the bookcases stacked to the brim with novels, hardback autobiographies, small paperbacks, and random history books sprinkled in the mix. Vienna turned to walk across the street, bringing her eyes back down to her path an instant before someone crashed into her, making her tumble backwards into a puddle of rain. Her hot chocolate spilled all down the front of her coat and her umbrella had fallen to the side as well, causing her to get properly drenched. The man hurried past her without an ounce of help, or apology.

                Vienna looked down at her coat, cursing under her muttering breath as she held the mug away from her body. “I just had this dry cleaned!” she yelled after him. A second later she heard tires screeching and a blaring noise that sounded like someone laying on their car horn. Her whole body went stiff, barely enabling her to move out of the way. Someone grabbed her arm and yanked her a few feet from the tires just as the car breezed by her, still honking. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she breathed. Vienna felt as if her lungs were about to collapse, and then she remembered that someone had helped her.

“Are you okay?” a deep voice asked her.

“Oh, thank you. I owe you my life,” she graciously thanked him as she stood up.

“Yeah, sure. I just saw you trip on the sidewalk, and then that car came out of nowhere.”

“I didn’t trip on the sidewalk, someone ran into me,” she corrected him, realizing last minute that her umbrella had flown away.

“There was no one on the crosswalk that I could see, except you, miss.”

Vienna stood there, dumbfounded as he walked away, carrying on with his business like nothing had happened. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the man nearly run her over.  She grumbled to herself as she walked up the steps to The Gilded Pages.

Safely under the awnings, she shrugged off her coat and shook it out, frowning. She furrowed her eyebrows at the chocolate mess running down the dark blue wool, making it darker in the spots it had soaked in. Vienna let out a sigh, knowing it was probably ruined, and she would have to wear it back home too. Draping it across her arm, she gathered her jet black hair that was now soaked, and wrung it out like a towel, letting the water fall to the sidewalk with a loud splash. Taking her keys from her book bag, she found the one with the mint green keycap and jammed it into the lock of the big black door. She turned it, unlocking it, before turning it back and yanking her keys out, pushing the door open with her body, causing a cluster of bells to jingle overhead.

Once inside, Vienna paused, breathing in the perfume of aged and new books alike. She then hung her coat up on the brass coat rack that stood to the side of the door, sadly remembering her favorite umbrella was gone. Flipping on a switch, she watched as the shop came to life. Golden light bulbs lit up the bookshelves, and cascaded down onto the tables in the middle of the store, piled high with various styles of books. Once she was done taking in the wonders of the shop, she flipped the chalkboard sign in the window around from the bold “closed” to the cursive “we’re open!”

Next, she set her book bag down on the dark wooden floor as she hopped on one foot, tugging her feet one by one out of her black rain boots. She set them on the floor next to the base of the coat rack and slipped on her flats. Grabbing her book bag, Vienna walked over to the front desk, placing her bag on one of the shelves underneath the countertop. She blew off the register, which was an antique as much as the rest of the store. It was brushed in silver that had faded over time, and was trimmed in swirly gold, making it just as wondrous as the rest of the store.

Taking her travel mug, Vienna swirled it around, feeling to see how much hot chocolate was left before gulping down the last bit. She then placed it under the counter next to her book bag. She looked around the shop, trying to decide what to organize and re-organize today. Vienna couldn’t help thinking that this was exactly the life she had dreamed of as a child – reading all day while the pouring rain made it cold and shadowy outside, making time seem like it was forever. This was where she could get away from the world’s problems (such as people trying to run you over; on foot and with a car.) This is where she could disappear into a novel for hours and not have to deal with the pressing problems in society. The phone rang, breaking her thoughts. It was an older phone, so it was the timeless “dur-ring... dur-ing”.

Picking up the corded phone, she answered with a polite greeting, “Hello, this is the Gilded Pages bookstore, how may I help you?”

“Yes, I’m looking for a Vienna Sutherland, is she there?” a man’s voice asked.

“This is her. May I ask whose calling?”

“Do you have a paper and pen near you?”

Vienna’s eyebrows knitted together, creating a confused expression. She grabbed a notepad and ballpoint pen that was laying out on the counter. “Yes, I have some paper.”

“Write this down – 135.5. Call me back when you find it.” The phone cut off.

“Hello? Sir?” There was no reply. “Huh, he hung up,” Vienna said to herself. She looked at the numbers he had her write down, trying to figure out what they meant, or what they were for. She decided to ignore it for now, and told herself if it was important he would call back. For now the shop was empty, and that would give her time to tidy up, and sort some books that weren’t in their places (either from customers not putting them back properly, or books that just hadn’t been sorted yet.) But first, she took three candles that were underneath the counter and Vienna set them on the top of the counter, taking a lighter that was on the shelf and lighting each one. A couple of them made a crackle pop sound as their wick was lighted.

A few moments later, you could smell the sweet mixture of their scents all the way in the back shelves. Picking up a few worn books that had tumbled off the shelf, Vienna wiped their faces off with her hand, inspecting the binding a moment to make sure it wasn’t damaged. Once she was satisfied, she put it back where it belonged, tracing her fingertips across the other books that were lined up like soldiers ready for battle.

She noticed a few of the books still had numbers printed on the bottom of their spine, most likely because they previously belonging to a library.  That’s when she had a realization: the number was from the Dewey Decimal System. Turning towards the old wooden table in the middle of the store, she gazed at the piles of books. There were small poem books, large photography books, some nonfiction self-help books, fantasy and YA novels all mixed into one large pile where some of the books were sliding off onto the floor. Vienna sat on the floor, crossing her legs before diving into the books. She stacked all the like genres together, examining each spine for numbers, but none of them had a one and a three as the first two digits.

She piled them on the floor, largest books on bottom to hold the weight of the stacks as she set more on top of them just moments later. She couldn’t figure out why she was so curious about the number. And why had the man given her such a specific number? How would he have known if it was in her shop or not? Maybe he was just called all the bookstores in the area trying to find one of whatever he was looking for.

As she reached for a book, a couple of books toppled to the side, revealing half of one’s spine. It was a dark blue leather bound book. A tall one, too, she realized as she moved some of the books off of it. It was old, and worn at the edges. Some people might have thought that it was a horrendous kind of book, but Vienna thought it was magnificent. She blew off the dusty cover of it, creating a swirl of miniscule particles that floated around her face. Vienna coughed, using her hand to whisk the dust away from her face.

Peering at the spine, her eyes brightened as a little cleaning revealed the indented numbers 135.5.

“For hundreds of years, mundane have catalogued the stars, putting them in groups called ‘constellations’ and attempted to label them based on their shape, and location in the atmosphere. The brightest of them, their leader, and several other of his consultants, have gained special names by the mundane.”

— “History and Mythology of Stars”, by unknown

Vienna stared at the book on the counter, wondering if she should call the man back. She did find it after all. But it was such an ancient book, she was scared that if anyone touched it, it would fall apart in their hands. She grabbed a pair of leather gloves laying on the shelf underneath the counter and slipped them on, deciding that she would take a look herself before calling anyone.  Vienna took a rag and lightly dusted the book cover, revealing a silver emblem that was fixed in the middle, embellishing the blue leather. The emblem was a perfect circle; half of which was a silver crescent moon, connected to the circular border of the emblem. There was a sun connected just behind the moon, made in a beautiful gold, its sunrays crawling out to the edge of the circle border. It was one of the most beautiful books she had ever seen, and that was saying something, since she had seen a great deal of books in her short lifetime.

She dared to open the heavy cover, holding it lightly between her pointer finger and thumb. She blew off the top page, revealing elegantly large cursive print that read “History and Mythology of Stars”. The edges of the pages were also gilded the same color as the sign that hung outside her shop. There was no author name, just the title of the book. She wondered if the rest of the book was like this. If it was all handwritten this carefully. And she thought, whoever did this had to have been a patient perfectionist. It would be a marvelous find if it was. Vienna thought about putting it in the display window, how it would draw book collectors attention, but then decided to read more of it for herself before she decided where it was to go and how it was to be handled.

Vienna was interested, because she had always been intrigued by astronomy and stars. There was just always something fascinating about their bright essence in the sky, like jeweled diamonds placed atop black velvet. Vienna gently turned a page, noticing that they felt handmade and fragile. She wondered how the book had lasted this long without ripping or breaking. Even though some of the pages were coffee stained here and there, along with a scribble of letters that were most definitely not English, the book was in a very healthy condition considering the circumstances.

The first pages were covered in the same scribbling of letters and symbols. Vienna squinted her eyes, trying to see if she could recognize the language, but with no luck she turned to the next page. Up in the corner of that page, there was a sketch of the sun. Its sunrays were wavy, like the cover. It wasn’t like a child would draw them, with scribbled pointy spikes coming from a half circle. No, it was sketched and shaded delicately, inked over with a pen to give it a longer lasting effect.

Next, Vienna noticed a picture below the sun; a long exposed photograph of stars. There were thousands of them in the photograph, just glowing up in the sky, like a million souls that watched over the earth. Smoothing the corner of the photograph, she realized it must have been placed in there later on, as it was a newer looking photograph. Turning the page once again, her eyes scanned the first words in English. “Star guardians…” she mumbled to herself, her eyes skimming the page.

The handwriting that was written was scratched into the paper messily, as if the writer was in a great hurry. “Everyone has a star guardian...” she whispered, making out some more of the handwriting. She absentmindedly pulled up a stool from behind her, sitting down with her eyes still glued to the page. Vienna continued reading on, getting deeper and deeper in thought as she made out the scribbles of handwriting, her thoughts churning slowly as she read. Her nose began to itch, and her whole body flew to the side, bending over as a loud sneeze echoed in the storefront.

“Bless you,” a young man’s voice said, making Vienna jump and look up.

“God, you scared me! I didn’t hear the door ring,” she said, her heart beating faster than usual (most likely from the scare. She had had enough scares for one day).

“You’re welcome.” The man gave her a tight smile, slipping his hands into his coat pockets. He was wearing tinted sunglasses, and Vienna couldn’t figure out how, seeing as it was forty degrees outside and cloudy.

“May I help you?” Vienna asked.

“You never called me back about the number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re the man who called earlier. I was going to call you after I had found the book, but I didn’t get around to it.”

“Ah,” he murmured casually, looking at the book in front of Vienna. “That is it right there, is it not? I will take it home now, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, well, you see, I haven’t priced it yet, so it’s not for sale. And it was sold to me in a bundle of books, so I can’t just give it to you,” Vienna explained. She closed the book lightly and slid it underneath the counter, clasping her hands together on the countertop. “If you want, I can call you when I have it priced and for sale. That will be in a few days.”

The man grimaced, almost like it was a pain to hear that he wasn’t going to be able to take it with him the same day. “Are you sure there is no way I can buy it today? I will pay anything,” he said, attempting to make a deal with her.

“No, I am afraid not, as I said before. I can however call you when it goes on sale. I just need a name and a phone number.” She wondered how much this book was worth if he would pay anything for it. It made her want to keep it for herself just to have on display. Right then, the door rang, and a customer walked in. Probably a tourist from out of town. That was usually the case. “I’ll be right with you ma’am,” Vienna said, smiling. She turned back to the man, but he was gone.

“Excuse me, ma’am, did you see a man leave? I didn’t catch his name,” Vienna mumbled, looking around to see if he had wandered.

“There was no one here when I came in. Looked like you were talking to yourself like an old town kook,” the women muttered. Vienna frowned as the lady left. She probably wasn’t even interested in buying a book; probably more interested in criticizing her instead. Turning her wrist over, she looked at the time on her sterling silver watch. It read twelve o’ four, which meant it was lunch break for her. She couldn’t believe how time had flown while she was so deep into reading the book she had found. And then those crazy people came in. Boy, was this the weirdest day ever. Vienna grabbed her book bag, packing the History and Mythology of Stars book, as well as her mug so she could get a refill at the café. Slinging it over her shoulder, Vienna started towards the door, kicking off her flats midway. She yanked on her rain boots, reluctantly pulled on her stained coat, and wrapped a scarf around her head to at least keep her hair somewhat dry.

As she slipped out the door, she switched the chalkboard sign back to the bold written ‘closed’. Vienna flicked off the light switch, gazing at the shop as all the bulbs dimmed simultaneously, like an orchestrated event. All the bookshelves went dark as well as the stained glass lamps on the side tables set around the shop. Her thin lips turned up in a smile as she stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling the door closed behind her and turning the key.

Finally, after walking a couple of blocks, Vienna turned right, heading down a narrow little hallway between two brick buildings. She liked to think of it as her secret path, kind of like in novels where there’s a secret entrance to the main character’s hideout. Ivy crept up the sides of the walls, curling its way through the cracks in the cement like rock climbers securing themselves with clips in tiny crevices. The green life form had made its way to the tops of the buildings over time, eventually jumping back and forth over the tops, making a beautiful canopy of leaves and in the spring, little lilac colored blossoms.

Vienna gazed up, a ray of sunlight hitting her hazel eyes for the first time that day. It looked like it had made its way through the thick clouds, breaking its rays into sections. The ivy canopy made the light hit different sides of the hallway, making leaf shaped shadows and patterns. Vienna always thought it was something like an author would describe in a book, with great detail and care, making sure that it sounded like a secret world of its own, which it was. To her at least.

Shaking her head clear, she laughed at herself for dreaming up such things, but then again, she lived in a world of books, and books had all kinds of stories and fantasies. Finally, she came to the end of her little hallway, only to be smacked in the face with a wet paper whipping around in the wind. Peeling it off the bridge of her nose, she captured it between her fingers, holding to it tightly even though the wind tried to grab the corners and yank it away once more. The ink was runny from getting drenched in the rain, but she could still make out the words: “See the Stars!” It was an ad for a planetarium exhibit.

She folded it up with a few quick finger movements and slipped it into her coat pocket. Then she continued to cross the street to the little café that was her usual lunch stop. Vienna couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that had happened today.  She had avoided many unfortunate events in her life since being in the foster care system after her parents died an unpleasant death in a house fire. But, since she was so young at the time, she thankfully didn’t remember much of the event, except she was the only living survivor. Vienna had overcome a lot of obstacles in her young lifetime, but moved past the grief and sadness of losing her whole family by burying herself in the fictional world of books. This is where her passion for reading and collecting books began at a very young age.

Finally, Vienna came back to the real world, pulling open the heavy glass doors to the café. Percy’s Café had a warm, home like feeling. She knew that this was most likely the reason why she kept going there day after day. The staff knew her pretty well, too, and she always let them know when she got new books in. They were the kind of people who would come over just to see how you’re doing, and end up buying something from your shop just because you are friends. As soon as the heavy glass doors parted, the aroma of strong coffee and fresh lemon pound cake entered her nose, making a smile spread across her lips. Her hands went to her head and she unwrapped the scarf she had put on earlier, folding it up and stuffing it into her book bag.

Percy’s was a perfect sized coffee shop on the corner of the main street. It got a lot of customers, but most of them got their lunch to-go, so there was always plenty of room for Vienna to sit down a bit and enjoy her own lunch. Large glass windows in the front of Percy’s let you peek in to see the small environment. On the windows, there were large letters printed in white typography, designed whimsically to advertise some of the goods the café made.

Vienna turned towards the counter, waving at the shop owner. “Good afternoon, Percy,” she greeted, stepping up to the glass case that held all of the freshly baked goods. Knowing him, he had probably spent all morning making them for the afternoon rush. In the glass case, there were elegant white plates set at different levels, to hold chocolate cake, blueberry muffins, cream cheese brownies, and monster cookies.

Vienna continued her light chat with Percy before ordering her usual lunch. After having Percy refill her travel mug, she walked over to one of the empty tables. The small circular table was made out of a dark wood and stained so it was shiny and protected. She pulled out the flyer she had caught in the street earlier, unfolding it and smoothing it out on the table. It was partly dried, but most of it was still soggy. It read “Planetarium exhibit, this Friday, 8pm. – See the stars!” There was a picture of stars printed behind the text that had blurred from the rain, and an address below the info.

Footfalls suddenly flowed into the café and as someone passed with a long coat, the paper blew off of Vienna’s table, the force of the coat dragging the paper in the wind it had created. “Oh, wait!” she called out, jogging after the paper as it slid across the shiny wood floors. She watched as the man in the coat picked it up with gloved fingers, scanning over it before turning back to her and holding it out.

Vienna looked at him as a smirk made its way onto his face, and she realized that she recognized the sunglasses he was wearing. She took the paper from his hands, putting it safely into her coat pocket so it wouldn’t blow away again. “You’re the man who called about that book in my shop, weren’t you?”

He just nodded.

“Were you following me?” Vienna’s voice rose, cracking as her anxiety built in the pit of her stomach. In that moment she decided that she had read too many mystery novels.

The man stuffed his hands in his pockets like he had at her shop. “Why would you say that? I came here for lunch and you just happened to be here.”

“You never gave me your name and phone number. How am I supposed to contact you?” Vienna asked, glancing over at Percy who was wiping down tables in the background, looking in her direction with a creasing forehead. Vienna tried to shake off her thoughts. This guy only wanted a book he’d been looking for, she told herself.

He replied bluntly, “You’ll see me around.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Right then, Percy walked up behind her, putting his large hand on her shoulder, making her jump. “Vienna, is someone bothering you?”

“Yeah, this guy right here,” she said, relieved to have some backup.

But all she got from Percy was an even more confused look before he said, “there’s nobody there.”

Vienna sighed deeply with frustration as she noticed Percy had disappeared like a ghost that was haunting her. She would’ve told Percy that she was not the town kook like people might have thought, and that she was just having the worst day of her life since her childhood tragedy, but she didn’t think anybody would believe her if that one guy kept pulling stunts like this.

Walking back to her table, she noticed that her food had been delivered while she was getting back her flyer, but it was already cooling off, and checking her watch again, she realized that her lunch break was pretty much over. It was already twelve forty eight, and she had to get back to The Gilded Pages with enough time to open back up (not that it would matter, because she never had any customers anyways). She had Percy put her lunch in a to-go box, and thanked him for not thinking she was completely crazy. Making sure History and Mythology of Stars was still in her book bag, she grabbed her things and waved goodbye to Percy, heading out the door and down the sidewalk.

By the time she got back to the shop, people were still clustered along the sidewalks, on their way to lunch. Even with the sun out from behind the clouds, there was still a chill in the wind that made you ache for a warm fire. As Vienna walked up the steps to The Gilded Pages, she took out her keys and started to unlock the door, when she realized that the door was cracked open already. Vienna was positively sure that she had locked it that morning, so it hadn’t to have been her that left it open. Instead of going through the movements of turning on the lights, and taking off her coat in one fluid motion, she took out her phone, dialing 911; her finger hovering above the call button. Her black hair shifted against her back as she pushed the door open with her foot.

                Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing unturned, or broken. She stepped across the threshold of the door, scared that if anyone was in her shop, they would hear her heart beating from across the room and know that she was coming. Calm down Vienna, calm down, she told herself, taking a slow deep breath. She set her book bag down, walking behind the counter to check if the money in the register was still there. It was. However, all her papers from beneath the counter were scattered on the floor, and her book logs were shoved to the side, as if someone was looking for something.

                The book.