The dusty shop smelled of a faint mold. The autumn afternoon sun filtered feebly through the windowpanes, hitting a glass eye that shone dully at Alice. She tried not to feel startled, feeling that the eyes of the lynx watched her as she moved about the shop. The sign hanging from the outside beckoned to her with its beautiful hand-lettered scroll design reading “Enins' Antiques” in weathered letters, a crumbling but beautiful red tapestry catching her attention in the display. Once inside she felt chilled despite the cloying heat. Alice thought to herself it was probably due to her revulsion of the fake expressions of the stuffed animals, frozen in their eternal positions the taxidermist imposed on them.

The shopkeeper had been talking while Alice half-listened, perusing a worn copy of the selected literary and philosophical writings of Philip K. Dick. A light-gray cat slept on a counter-top, fitfully twitching in its sleep. “People bring in their deceased pets,” he said slowly, shooing the lazy fly that was buzzing about his head, “and are happily surprised at the results. We carry a varied line of realistic glass eyes as you can see–-“ he said, gesturing to a Rottweiler who seemed to be snarling evilly at Alice, “that make the pet owner feel that their pet is still with them.”

Alice suppressed a shudder. “All I'm looking for is a birthday gift for a friend. Something unique and–-“ here she paused, saying half to herself, “something that will make her think of me when she sees it. Something that will make an impression.”

Alice was still feeling sensitive over the cold reaction from Lucy she'd gotten last week; she felt she had exposed too much of herself and been rejected because of it. Alice rarely let others get very close; when she did the inevitable rejection made her even more distant. But a dream she had the previous night had made her want to, for some reason she couldn't fathom, really want to continue the strange friendship in spite of everything. They'd been through a lot together in the past few months and Alice thought that if she didn't save this friendship she'd never be close to anyone again. Ever.

It was on her way home from the myriad of hopelessly homogeneous shops that she found this old store, on a side alley she hadn't seen before. She was spent and disappointed, and the shop seemed like her last hope. She thought to herself that if she walked into one more goddamn mall shop she'd strangle someone out of frustration, each one a cookie-cutter consumerist shadow of a million other stores. Alice wanted to show her affection by getting Lucy a truly unique gift, something that you couldn't just pick up at Ebay or Hot Topic.

He looked at her directly for the first time, one hand in the pocket of his frayed brown tweed jacket and the other scratching at his graying straight black hair, unaware that the fly had landed on the temple of his glasses. Alice could smell the faint aroma of pipe tobacco and whiskey as he spoke. “I've got costume jewelry, beautiful rare paintings, gemstones, exotic plants, antique bottles, rare collectors' books, occult supplies, fine furniture . . . “

She looked about at the glass cases that lined the shop along one wall, seeming to stretch back endlessly through dimly lit rooms. Some of the cases were filled with unidentifiable objects in glass jars; one held dried claws, feathers and bits of fur; another vials of liquids, powders and roots, the packets stamped with faded scripts: “Hamlin's Cholera Mixture”, “PILUL OPII” and “Chloroformum”; another held marbles of every conceivable color and size that seemed much too like actual eyeballs for comfort. Antique medical equipment including what looked to be trepanation tools, a spring lancet in a crumbling leather case, and an amputation hand-saw. A bathtub-worthy submarine model, nested wooden Russian dolls and a wind-up metal octopus. A crate full of oily gears in front of an immense grandfather clock. A painting of an old style operating theater half-hidden by a white coat draped over it. Mildewed tarot decks, incense and carved candles. Pendants of gold and tarnished silver. Ruby and emerald rings. A fainting sofa of stained red velvet. A huge stuffed alligator swam down at her from the high ceiling. A cracked silver mirror in a huge oval gilt frame caught Alice a glimpse of her own long straight-brown hair, thin fingers pressing the blue dragonfly that hung from her neck to her throat distractedly.

Alice picked at random a vial of a murky green liquid, stuffed with a cork and sealed with wax. She held it up, seeing in distortion a glint off a painted bottle, a faint whiff of anise and wormwood coming off it. Startled by a buzzing sound coming from behind her, Alice nearly dropped the tube. A carnivorous plant had caught a fly. It was trying helplessly to get away. Suddenly quite spooked, feeling that the shopkeeper could read her thoughts Alice turned to go. “That's alright, I don't think that–-“

”Wait. I think I might have something for you.” He tapped the side of his cheek with one finger, paused another few moments--“Yes.” Alice saw a reflection of her pale skin in his glasses as he looked at her. “What price range are you looking in? It has been a slow summer, so I've got some particularly interesting treasures I've been waiting to sell to the right person. One in particular might suit your friend.” Here he paused his already slow speech for effect, which was not lost on Alice, and lowered his voice. “But I won't show it to just anyone.”

“I don't care how much I spend, as long as it's the right gift. I mean, I've just about given up,” Alice pleaded. Then, softly, “It means a lot. This gesture.”

He gave her a pointed look, nodded almost to himself. “Come with me,” he said softly. “I have something that will unlock her heart to you.”

As he led her through the shop she noticed he walked with a slight limp, favoring the right foot. A faint ticking came from his trousers. The back rooms of the shop were long and narrow, like a series of shotgun houses stacked front to back. Alice might have felt creepy following this strange man if he weren't so like a favorite literature professor she'd enjoyed hearing lectures from a couple years back. Each room was wall to wall bookcases filled with volumes of foreign and arcane spines and overstuffed dark green leather chairs. After a few such rooms they came to the last room in which stood by itself a railing with a hole underneath it. A smell of damp rust and oysters drifted up from it as he descended, stirring the lazy air.

“A spiral staircase.” Alice stopped at its edge, peering down into faint light, heart in her throat. In more than a fear of heights she felt vertigo and gripped the flaking iron railing tightly; she could not see the end of the stairs from the top. She wondered why she was doing this. People always leading her, and she always following because what else was she to do? If she stayed behind she would be abandoned in the relative “safety” of the known, empty-handed. Which was more scary?

Alice followed. Her foot hit a pebble on the first step and she could hear it bouncing down, down, down but not stop. His voice came to her as if from some distance: “Mind your steps”. Under her small weight the whole staircase shimmied with each movement. Slowly, slowly she felt each step with her foot.

Her dark painted nails bit at the rough iron of the rail at each step. Clockwise and down, down into the bowels of the earth. It was too dark to make much of the close round walls embracing the staircase so she tried to make out what she could of the top of the shopkeepers head below. No luck.

After several minutes of staring intently at her boots in order not to trip, Alice had not noticed that she was on the last step until she was there. Looking up, she could gradually make out the basement as her eyes adjusted to the light. The staircase was smack in the middle of an immense room. The ceiling, painted a soft grayish blue, gave her the sensation of being at the bottom of an Olympic-sized pool, except that the room was a large oval, about 75 feet in diameter. The ceiling reached at least 30 feet overhead.

The shopkeeper was headed towards the only other objects besides the staircase that was in the room: a seven foot diameter patch of ornamental grass, some shrubs and a tiny tree that looked like an oak but was less than five feet tall, all growing directly from the sandy floor.

Alice ignored him after a seconds glance to stare at the walls. They were painted in an elaborate mural. The lifelike scene continued over every inch of the far walls. With her right hand on the staircase she spun slowly around it, amazed at the detail of the scenes around her. Aloud, murmuring as she moved-- “Twelve o'clock, an ocean expanse. I can even imagine that little boat moving in the waves! Two o'clock, a beautiful city of old houses, courtyards and clock towers. 5 o'clock, a racetrack surrounded by a green meadow. It's all so wonderful, I've never seen anything like it! Six pm and a huge mansion on a cliff, with a pretty little garden. Beyond that a magical city in the clouds, and a, and a—ohh!” She stopped and let go of the railing. Where 10 pm should be was an emptiness. The wall stopped and in its place was nothing. The artist, it seemed, had attempted to paint a black hole and succeeded. Alice did not understand it but it made her afraid. It wasn't painted black, it was just not there. An abyss.

It was no wonder the light was so watery and weak in here, this thing on the wall would suck it up, and what light there was created undefined reflections that made it look ghastly. She looked away, afraid that it would draw her into it.

She walked slowly towards the greenery, intentionally blocking her vision from the abomination to her left. The light, feeble as it was, seemed to emanate from the small patch of lushness. Alice could just make out a faint roaring, as if the ocean of the mural was real. The shopkeeper was bent close to the tree. “Damn,” he said aloud, his hand coursing over a damp patch of moss. “It was just here the other day.” He stepped closer and knelt down, feeling beneath dead leaves. His forearm was now half buried, and as Alice blinked he seemed to be taken in by the foliage. He was gone.

It was impossible! The few straggly plants were barely small enough to hide a child, never mind an adult. She slowly approached the plants, getting annoyed. “I don't think this game you're playing is very funny. I have no time for this! Where the fuck are you?” She peered into the plants, noticing a sticky-sweet flowery scent which made her queasy. He wasn't there.

Some fuzzy grasses, red flowers, a prickly succulent; where was that sound coming from? Should she get the hell out of there? Stay to figure out what the shopkeeper was up to? She plopped ungracefully on the moss, long skirts about her, and lit a cigarette.

Taking a deep drag, lost in her thoughts, she was startled by a rustling coming from the plants.

“You shouldn't smoke, it's baaaaad for you,” a rude British voice admonished her. Alice was prepared for just about anything at this point, but was nevertheless surprised to see a large pale-gray cat sitting next to her, at least twice the size of any house cat that Alice had ever seen. More surprised when he spoke to her. “Curious now, are we?” He stared at her, as only cats can, an intense unblinking stare which seemed to take her breath away.

“The cat from the store. But you look so much bigger!" A talking cat. “What the fuck,” she said, half to herself.

“And you shouldn't curse so. Deplorable manners, I do say.” He looked at her for a second, and proceeded to lick his fur.

"I, I . . . “ Alice stammered. “I was just, I was just expecting the shopkeeper and . . . I'm sorry. About the cursing. What, I mean, who are, um . . .“

"Yes, I'm Enin's cat. Names Jack, Captain Jack." He put his paw up towards her, but she was so stunned she just stared at him, mouth slack. "Hrm. Well it looks like it's nap-time again, nameless one." With this he evaporated slowly like an ether.

Still in shock Alice watched Jack disappear as the light dimmed. The light dissipated so quickly that before she realized it it was completely dark.

Pitch black.


“What's happening?” Loneliness, pure and desperate black. Black of color, deprivation of senses. A cold that was more than temperature, a deep bite to bone, blood in veins slowing for fear of being seen.

Abandoned again. Heavy heart of hollow steel, wanting filling, in the midst of so many painful memories. Alice felt no one would ever love her again. Ugly inside. Could anyone tell from looking at her? If she wasn't beautiful, who would want her? But Lucy said she was beautiful and still didn't want her the way Alice wanted her. Not aloneness but loneliness.

All at once Alice felt the source of the black as if it were sentient and staring at her, unseen yet seeing. “The Darkness has a source,” she said aloud.

“Emptiness,” said a voice. The sound reverberated within her, surrounded her. Alice thought that it came from the direction of the abyss in the mural, though she could no longer see it.

Alice imagined gossamer wings brushing her shoulder and shivered.

(This story is the first chapter of a book I'm currently writing.)

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