5 Books For Eveline

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35

Checking Turnberry House, once again, gave Purdy nothing but a feeling of loss. No book. No memento, this time. Nothing but an ache in her heart. She knew she had to shoulder an equal amount of the blame for that loss, even if she had no control over her reticence to become close to people. That barrier, because of Briar, had started breaking down. She should thank the woman, not avoid her.

Yet, she did. As the days passed onwards, locations became ticked off the long list and the date of her operation hovering, she still failed to contact Briar. She hadn't seen her, either, and that made Purdy wonder if her former friend had given up the search altogether, or had already found that elusive fifth volume.

Neither of those options appealed to her and the inkling of a third possibility had begun to cross Purdy's mind. That Briar may have left Bishop's Fall. That she had returned to wherever she had spent the years between leaving the town and returning in time to find her copy of the first book. Purdy wondered if she had forced Briar to abandon the town. And her.

By now, Purdy calculated that she had only a few more days of searching left before she would exhaust the list and find out whether she had failed in her attempt to complete the quest for all five volumes. The only locations that remained were the passing, almost insignificant locations. The ones that the author had only mentioned as Eveline and Raya had moved on to more exciting destinations.

And a house. A house only mentioned once throughout the entire narrative. Sat at the edge of the town, almost exactly opposite end to the house where Purdy lived, that house belonged to an older couple that had died, within weeks of each other, of natural causes a month or two after Purdy had left the hospital. She knew their names, of course, but nothing about them. They had kept themselves to themselves and, once, that house had belonged to Raya's parents.

The elderly couple were not Raya's parents, however. The townsfolk, always in the know, had told Purdy the couple had bought it years ago, newcomers to the town who lived their own quiet lives. After their deaths, the house had become sold to someone else, but no-one seemed to know who owned it. The curtains always closed. The door never opened.

Purdy had passed by that house many times, recalling the one time, in the fourth volume, that Eveline had visited it. In a hurry to catch Raya before she left, Eveline had raced to the house, barging in, calling Raya's name and finally ending in Raya's empty bedroom, where she had fallen on to Raya's bed, in tears.

Eveline failed to catch Raya and that ending of the fourth volume had almost broken Purdy's heart, aching to read the fifth volume and hoping that everything turned out well. That Eveline and Raya would see each other again and their friendship would blossom once more. Purdy realised that that ending hurt even more, considering that she, too, had lost a friendship.

Purdy had loitered near the house, leaning over the fence into the garden, wondering if the author had left the book outside, somewhere. She had strolled around to the side, peeking through black-painted windows upon the single garage, hoping she could see inside through the flaking paint, but everything in the garage appeared dark. The doors always locked.

She didn't have the confidence to knock upon the door, unwilling to disturb someone she did not know. Assuming, of course, that anyone lived there. The usual gossipers, within Celia and Donovan's café, all swore they had not seen a single person enter or leave that house since the old couple had died.

She passed the house again, on her way back to her own house, after a long day scratching off yet more empty locations. With a glance, she bit her lip, fighting with herself to get the daunting task over and done with. Pass through the gate. Knock on the door and ask a perfect stranger if she could search their new home for a book that may, or may not, be hidden within. Of course it sounded ridiculous. Presumptuous and invasive. Yet, she needed to know. If only to mark off one more location from her list.