N I C H O L A S

The weeks went by, and yet nobody seemed able to forget the incidents of that October night; of the police cars parked outside the dormitory building, of John Carter in handcuffs, and the police dragging him away as he yelled that he was innocent.

Every newspaper in the city had written about it; the music teacher who had murdered one of his students at Berrington University, pushing her off her window and making it look like it was a suicide. This was pretty much the only thing people knew, the rest of the details nothing but a haze of rumors and made-up stories.

As October gave its place to November, more and more students started buying the Scriptores paper, because they all knew that the five editors of the paper had something to do with the arrest of John Carter. And so, they bought their paper every week, in hopes of finding a new detail hidden somewhere in there.

Nicholas heard somewhere that John Carter's first hearing was taking place in a week, and a part of him was glad they hadn't been asked to be present at the court yet.

     After Carter had been arrested, Nicholas could feel a heavy burden being lifted off his shoulders, and he wanted to spend the rest of his year in peace, catching up with his studies and, if he got the chance, ask out a certain girl with pale eyes and long blonde hair.

He had been practicing what he wanted to tell Eve all day, but he still felt slightly nervous as he walked up toward her dorm on that beautiful Saturday morning, inviting her to go to his favorite museum together, and his joy was unimaginable when she said yes.

The weather was wonderful for taking a walk around town, but the museum was so far that they had to take cab. Nicholas had come to this museum many times before, because art could always fill the void inside him.

    It thrilled him to walk amongst the wide marble halls with their high ceilings and tall windows, because when he looked around him, he would not only see paintings or sculptures; but he could also see the artists that had once sat behind these arts for months, pouring their hearts and souls upon the canvas, or carving out the angels from the hard stones.

"Oh, look at this one!" Eve rushed toward one of the paintings of an angelic woman, her chest bare and her wings wide with splendor. "She looks so... free."

"This other one is one of my favorites," said Nicholas, moving a little further down and pointing up at a painting, which showed a woman laying down in a pond, surrounded by water lilies and flowers.

Eve smiled as she observed the painting, her eyes devouring it in both awe and agony. "Sometimes I wish I'd been a woman in a painting... life would've been much easier that way. Being human is hard." She let out a small chuckle, watching the painting dreamily.

Eve then glanced at Nicholas as they stood side-by-side, facing the painting. There was a playful glimmer in her eyes as she smiled at him. The very same smile that could enflame desire and peace in him by turn.

Wordlessly, Eve raised her hand for him to take, never for a second letting her gaze wander away from his eyes as he held onto her hand. With that, she led the way down the hall, their hands laced together as they absorbed the sea of art around them.

They soon reached the section where the sculptures had been displayed; a room full of fallen angels, of nameless heroes, of Greek Gods who were cursed to live their eternity in this hall.

"Is it just me, or does that one look a bit like you?" Nicholas said jokingly, pointing at the sculpture of a girl who was sitting on a what looked like a rock, her long hair falling behind her and her hands up in the air in a graceful manner.

"Absolutely not." She laughed, shaking her head.

"I'm serious!" said Nicholas, even though he, too, was laughing.

"Well, maybe if I held my arms up like her..." Eve raised her hands into the air as though she was performing ballet, and threw her head back so that her long hair would fall behind her just like the sculpture.

Nicholas chuckled. "See? I can't tell which is which anymore."

Eve rolled her eyes playfully, dropping her hands.

"Wait, I have an idea!" he suddenly said, putting down his bag and opening it to take something out of it. It was a camera. He then held up the tiny camera in Eve's direction. "Do the pose again."

She giggled and blushed, but raised her arms and threw her head back again so Nicholas could take her picture in front of the sculpture.

"Okay, your turn," she said, walking toward him and snatching the camera out of his hands with a mischievous grin.

"Hmm, let me see..." Nicholas rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he looked around the hall, searching for a good sculpture to imitate. "How about that one?"

Eve let out a laughter when she saw that he was pointing at the sculpture of a Greek hero who was fiercely holding out a sword with one hand and a shield with the other.

Ignoring the looks they received from the other visitors around them, Nicholas stood in front of the sculpture and pretended to be strong and fearless hero as she took his picture.

They went on and on, imitating the art as they laughed, and Nicholas couldn't help but to smile each time he saw her expression light up in joy. He loved standing close to her. Her face was as heavenly as a ray of sunshine, and she smelled like poetry in a bottle.

***

After leaving the museum, Nicholas and Eve decided to take a walk around town, their hands still interwound as they aimlessly strolled down the streets. But long minutes had already passed before Nicholas realized that the sky above them was slowly darkening, even though dusk was hours away.

"I think it's going to rain," he said, looking up at the grey clouds gathering above them, hiding away the sun.

"We should probably find a cab," Eve suggested, and Nicholas nodded in agreement. But no matter how long they waited, no cab came to sight, and soon, they began to feel little drops of rain falling over them.

     It didn't take long until the rain began to pour heavily, soaking them from head to toe, while the others around them in the sidewalk opened their umbrellas and went along their way.

Eve couldn't help but to laugh. "What do we do now?"

Nicholas looked around him, searching for a coffee shop or perhaps a pub they could take shelter in, but all he saw was a small store a bit further down the sidewalk, situated between two old crooked buildings.

     The store was built of red bricks, its door and window frames made of black steel. A sign hung on top of its door with peeling gold letters over it that simply read: BOOKS.

"C'mon. Let's go in there," said Nicholas, and so the two of them ran toward the narrow and shabby bookstore.

As soon as they opened the door, a bell announced their presence. The man behind the counter lowered the newspaper he was reading and gave them a small nod in welcome, before raising the paper again and hiding his face behind it.

     The bookstore was an odd place; it had no shelves on its walls, and instead, dozens of secondhand books were piled on top of each other all over the store. A classical music was playing from a gramophone in the right corner, and the place smelled like coffee, old books, and everlasting rain.

Nicholas walked through the store with Eve, looking through the old books and picking up a few one of them to read their first pages. But it was one book in particular that grabbed Nicholas's attention as he was passing it by.

The book's cover was a sketch of a tall cherry blossom tree, hanging at the edge of a high cliff, and yet standing there gracefully and without fear of falling.

     It was not the book's cover, but its title that had captured Nicholas's interest. It read,

NEVERMORE
A Novel by W.H. Elmore

Nicholas was sure he had heard that name before, perhaps in one of his classes. It seemed oddly familiar to him.

"Eve," Nicholas called out to the girl, who was now on the other side of the store, observing the old books. "Have you ever heard of this book?"

Eve walked back to him and took a closer look at the book. "Oh, yes. Professor Myers mentioned it once, a few weeks ago. He was talking about the authors who had only published one book in their lifetime, and despite their success, they never wrote another one."

"And what did Myers say about ..." Nicholas glanced down at the author's name again, "W.H. Elmore?"

"Elmore had written this book after the war, in 1946. But after that, he completely disappeared. There are rumors saying that he died. But the thing about him is that they never found his body."

"I see..." Nicholas muttered, opening the book to see what it was about, but there was something written on its first page that took him by surprise. It read,

Property of Walter Horace Elmore

"Woah! This edition belonged to the author himself!" Nicholas whispered to Eve excitedly, his eyes wide.

He then turned his head to look over at the store's owner, saying loudly, "Excuse me. How much for this?"

The man lowered his newspaper to glance over at the book Nicholas was holding, examining its size with narrowed eyes. "Six shillings," he said, returning back to reading.

Nicholas looked back at Eve, speaking in a quiet tone so only she could hear him, "I don't think the store's owner knows this belonged to the author, otherwise he would've given a higher price."

"Are you going to buy it, then?"

"Definitely! I'm sure Professor Myers would be surprised if I showed this to him. Besides, I've been looking for a new book to read, and this looks good enough." Nicholas shrugged carelessly, having no idea that this same book was going to change the course of his life forever.