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Luke - 11/3
Liesel has been in Darrow for just under a week. So far, she doesn't know exactly how she feels about it except that it's not home. For the first day she'd wandered the streets looking for Papa, but she knows she's not going to find him. She knew it then, too, but she had to look anyway. She doesn't like to think of the ruins of Himmel Street, of Papa's silver eyes closed forever and his accordion case cracked. Instead, she focuses on how he used to wink at her across the kitchen table, risking the wrath of Mama's wooden spoon. She remembers her first taste of champagne and the feeling of paint drying on her nose and Papa's smile, warm and like a blanket wrapped around her.
When they'd found her walking the streets, they'd put her in the Children's Home. Liesel has been forced into a new home before, but this is different. This time there's no new family, no room of her own, no basement to hide in. She sleeps in a dormitory with two other girls, and nobody reads with her when the nightmares come in the middle of the night. Back on Himmel Street she'd left Werner on the front steps of Grande Strauss, finally leaving her to sleep through the night. In Darrow he's returned to her, dead eyes and snow waking her up in a cold sweat each night.
The worst of it all is that she doesn't have her books. She misses The Whistler, she misses The Dream Carrier, she even misses The Gravedigger's Handbook. Worse yet is the loss of the books Max painstakingly wrote for her. She feels like she's let him down by losing them, though she has each of the pages imprinted on her memory and copied meticulously into her own book. Hers is the only one she has left, the words of her life written down in the little black book which she now keeps tucked under her pillow. She hasn't shown it to any of the other girls and she has no plans to. It's her secret, and one that she keeps well hidden.
Today, Liesel has snuck out of the Home. The afternoon is slipping away into evening when she passes the bookshop, and Liesel stops outside, her feet refusing to move. She can feel the itch in her fingers already, the need to feel the pages, run her hands over the covers, rake her nails along the spines on the shelves. She remembers the sound it used to make in Frau Hermann's library and she wants to hear it again, desperately. But she's too late, the shop is already closed, and even as she watches the light turns out from inside.
She could come back tomorrow. It would be easy enough. But this city stole her and Liesel has a mind to steal something back. It always made her feel better in the past, she thinks, and maybe that's exactly what she needs now. In this city there is more food than there ever was back home and so Rudy would say she has no need to steal anymore, but Liesel knows different. Here, she has no books.
Liesel darts to the side of the building, eyeing a window. It's not open like Frau Hermann's used to be, but she likes the challenge. She picks up a rock instead, weighs it in her hand, feeling the strength of it. Throwing it would be too loud, so she drags over a nearby rubbish can and clambers onto it. From here she can reach the window ledge, and Liesel takes her coat off, wraps the rock up in the fabric and knocks it against the window, quiet as she can. Her heart is in her throat but she revels in the thrill of it, finally feeling like she's taking control again. At first the window doesn't budge, but bolstered, she hits it again, and this time it smashes enough of a hole that she can reach one small hand through to the latch and swing the window open.
Grinning, Liesel kicks off her shoes in one practised move, and then drops down silently onto the floor. There are books everywhere and Liesel hardly knows where to start. Until she does. Biting her lip, she moves quickly to the nearest shelf, and then she lifts a hand and runs it over the spines, just like she remembered. Her fingers catch on one with a simple grey spine and she hovers over it before she tugs it out with careful fingers. Alice in Wonderland. Liesel runs her fingers over the cover, committing the title to memory with all of the others, and just as she's about to open it, a light flicks on and she freezes.
When they'd found her walking the streets, they'd put her in the Children's Home. Liesel has been forced into a new home before, but this is different. This time there's no new family, no room of her own, no basement to hide in. She sleeps in a dormitory with two other girls, and nobody reads with her when the nightmares come in the middle of the night. Back on Himmel Street she'd left Werner on the front steps of Grande Strauss, finally leaving her to sleep through the night. In Darrow he's returned to her, dead eyes and snow waking her up in a cold sweat each night.
The worst of it all is that she doesn't have her books. She misses The Whistler, she misses The Dream Carrier, she even misses The Gravedigger's Handbook. Worse yet is the loss of the books Max painstakingly wrote for her. She feels like she's let him down by losing them, though she has each of the pages imprinted on her memory and copied meticulously into her own book. Hers is the only one she has left, the words of her life written down in the little black book which she now keeps tucked under her pillow. She hasn't shown it to any of the other girls and she has no plans to. It's her secret, and one that she keeps well hidden.
Today, Liesel has snuck out of the Home. The afternoon is slipping away into evening when she passes the bookshop, and Liesel stops outside, her feet refusing to move. She can feel the itch in her fingers already, the need to feel the pages, run her hands over the covers, rake her nails along the spines on the shelves. She remembers the sound it used to make in Frau Hermann's library and she wants to hear it again, desperately. But she's too late, the shop is already closed, and even as she watches the light turns out from inside.
She could come back tomorrow. It would be easy enough. But this city stole her and Liesel has a mind to steal something back. It always made her feel better in the past, she thinks, and maybe that's exactly what she needs now. In this city there is more food than there ever was back home and so Rudy would say she has no need to steal anymore, but Liesel knows different. Here, she has no books.
Liesel darts to the side of the building, eyeing a window. It's not open like Frau Hermann's used to be, but she likes the challenge. She picks up a rock instead, weighs it in her hand, feeling the strength of it. Throwing it would be too loud, so she drags over a nearby rubbish can and clambers onto it. From here she can reach the window ledge, and Liesel takes her coat off, wraps the rock up in the fabric and knocks it against the window, quiet as she can. Her heart is in her throat but she revels in the thrill of it, finally feeling like she's taking control again. At first the window doesn't budge, but bolstered, she hits it again, and this time it smashes enough of a hole that she can reach one small hand through to the latch and swing the window open.
Grinning, Liesel kicks off her shoes in one practised move, and then drops down silently onto the floor. There are books everywhere and Liesel hardly knows where to start. Until she does. Biting her lip, she moves quickly to the nearest shelf, and then she lifts a hand and runs it over the spines, just like she remembered. Her fingers catch on one with a simple grey spine and she hovers over it before she tugs it out with careful fingers. Alice in Wonderland. Liesel runs her fingers over the cover, committing the title to memory with all of the others, and just as she's about to open it, a light flicks on and she freezes.
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When the soft chirping alerts Luke to the break in downstairs, he and Reid are washing dishes, and Luke glances toward the door that leads down into the store. A quick inhale indicates the person inside the store is human, nothing supernatural, and small by the sound of it of the light footsteps that cross the store. He touches Reid's shoulder, tells him not to worry, then heads for the door to see just what's going on downstairs.
She's at one of the shelves. Luke has rare and expensive editions of books in the store, but she's nowhere near them, nowhere near the register, the safe, or the collection of expensive weapons he has locks in a display case under the counter. She's hasn't come for anything of monetary value and although a quick glance at the window proves she's broken it in order to get in -- and now he'll have to replace it for the third time in the past six months -- he's not particularly worried about her being here.
"That's a good choice," he says as if she hasn't just broken into the store after hours, nodding toward the book she has in her hands. One of Clary's favourites.
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Still, she stands still and turns to look at him, her eyes a little wide but determined. He has kind eyes, she thinks. Like Papa's.
She glances down at the book in her hands at his approval, her fingers stretched over the title. It already sounds wonderful and she hasn't read a single page, and now she might not get to at all. She flexes her socked feet on the floor and looks back over at him without moving an inch.
"Have you read it?" she asks, her voice smaller than she might have liked.
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Her accent is German, a language Luke speaks relatively well. While he isn't fluent, not like he is with Latin, he knows enough that he would be able to carry on a conversation, but he doesn't start speaking to her in German. Not yet. Right now he needs to figure out what he's going to do next.
Another person might call the police, but he doesn't see any reason to. She isn't here to steal anything more than a book, she isn't a threat to him or to his family upstairs, and more than anything, she looks as if she just wants somewhere or something familiar. It's a feeling Luke knows well enough, having sought out any place that reminded him of Idris after he'd left, spending hours in museums just so he could look at the ancient weapons inside their cases.
"If you help me clean up the glass on the floor, you can stay and read it," he tells her, inclining his head toward the comfortable chairs and couches near the big front window.
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The whole shop is like something out of a dream, though, and Liesel can't bear the thought of leaving without getting to read any of the words. They don't have many books in the children's home, and most of them have pages torn out or drawings over the words. The good ones get hoarded by the older kids, and all that's left are ones for babies. Here there are shelves upon shelves of books that Liesel could read.
Maybe she should have come during the day, she thinks. It's a shop, not Frau Hermann's library, and she's sure he'd open this place to everyone if it were daytime. Still, she can't bring herself to be too regretful; the urge to steal had been there, strong as anything, and she knows it's about more than the books, in a way.
Liesel glances back towards the mess of glass on the floor. She does feel bad about that, at least. She's never had to break a window before, but she'd been reckless. "I'm sorry," she tells him, nodding at the mess. "I'll pay for a new window." She doesn't have much money, but the city gives her some, Nicaise had said, so if she saves it up she could probably pay him back. She doesn't know how much a window costs but she bets it's a lot.
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"Don't step on any of it," he warns gently, then moves toward the counter and the register to fetch the broom and the dustpan he has learning against the wall. Soon enough Reid is going to wonder what's keeping him and come downstairs to make sure he's alright, but at the moment he thinks if too much happens or even if he moves too quickly, he might frighten the girl.
"You must really love books," he continues, wanting to keep her talking. The police will only take her into custody and release her into the Children's Home if she doesn't have anywhere to go and while Luke still believes they do the best they can, he worries about the children who live there just as he'd worried about Jack. So there's no point in calling them. This is something they can deal with one their own. "So do I. I've always loved books, I always wanted to be reading instead of running around with the other children."
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He fetches a broom and Liesel watches, socked feet rooted to the floor. Mama would demand she clean it all up herself and probably spank her with the broom handle for her trouble. It's habit that makes her move eventually, taking the dustpan from him and crouching down on the floor.
"My Papa taught me to read," she says, as though that explains everything. Maybe it doesn't, entirely; Liesel stole books before she met Papa, and she treasured them even when she couldn't read them yet. But it's Papa who made it something special, who taught her to sound out the words and paint up the ones she didn't know on the basement wall. Liesel sweeps bits of glass into the dustpan, seeing glints of Papa's silver eyes in the shattered window.
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All she wants, as far as he can tell, is a quiet and familiar place. Luke certainly can't begrudge her that. All children deserve somewhere to go, somewhere other than the Children's Home, and he knows they don't have the room, he knows taking children in isn't something he and Reid can just do without consideration, but he feels for her. It's often difficult enough for the adults in Darrow to adjust to this new world, but for all the resilience of a child, it must be harder still, to be without the support system they used to know.
"I'm Luke," he tells her as he puts the broom and dustpan back where they belong. "Have you been in Darrow for very long?"
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"I'm Liesel," she tells him, hugging the book closer to her chest instead of holding her hand out. The glass is swept away and dumped quick enough, though there's still a hole in the window that will need mending. She doesn't have much money but she could give him the small amount they gave her when she arrived. It's odd money that she doesn't really understand so she's not sure how to use it anyway.
Liesel shakes her head at the question, watching him carefully. "A week or so," she answers. Enough time to know that this isn't anything like her home, enough time to be sent to live with all the other children in a house she can't stand. The other girls aren't particularly nice to her, though Liesel has already given one of them a black eye for her trouble.
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All that would do is hurt her and he simply doesn't have that in him. Children need support and protection, not anger and punishment when they've really done nothing wrong. All Luke has really ever wanted is to keep people safe. It was part of being a Shadowhunter and at first it had been part of being in the Circle, too, but he understands the mistakes he's made since then and he knows how to do things properly this time around.
He sinks down onto one of the couch, then leans forward and picks a book up off the table to show her the cover. "Where the Sidewalk Ends," he says. "My son has been enjoying this one lately, but it might be a little young for you."
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The longer she can delay that the better.
Liesel takes a cautious step towards him so that she can see the cover, reading the title as he says it aloud. It has an interesting name, but it does look more like a child's book than the ones she usually reads. Still, she kneels on the floor near him, still cradling the other book to her chest as she watches him. "Does he like books?"
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"He's six, but he can read a lot of books meant for slightly older children," he tells Liesel. "We live just upstairs, so it's nice to know we can come down here and grab a book to read whenever we like. It's an offer I'm happy to extend to my friends, too, if maybe they just ring the bell when they arrive."
He's still looking at the book in his hands when he speaks, but he smiles and then glances over her, making it clear he's speaking about her.
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Liesel glances at the ceiling, thinking of the young boy up there asleep. He's lucky to have a Papa like Luke, she thinks, lucky to live above a bookstore. She looks back at him when he keeps talking, not missing the way he's clearly referring to her. Liesel ducks her head, suitably chastised but not enough to apologise.
"He's very lucky," she says. "There was no bookstore on Himmel Street." She couldn't have afforded to buy any anyway, but it would have been nice to be able to go and sit around them. She'd missed being able to do that in Frau Hermann's library, after she yelled at her.
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"We're very lucky to have found him here," he says instead and he means that with all his heart. Being around children makes Luke truly happy and he's pleased he's been able to open his home and his heart to so many. It's not the life he imagined for himself, but it's a life that makes him happy.
"You're from Germany, yes?" he asks. "I lived in Munich for a little while, many years ago." He had been looking for Jocelyn at the time, trying to track her down and there was evidence she'd been there, but by the time he got there, she had been gone.
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She nods when he asks about Germany. "I lived in Molching," she tells him. "It's not far from Munich." Only a little way out of the city, and she's surprised to hear he might have been near her home. No one else here has ever heard of it, certainly not a little street named after Heaven. Then again, there's nothing left of Himmel Street now, so she supposes that makes sense.
Liesel hesitates a moment, looking at the floor. "There's not much of home left," she says, mainly to the ground. She hadn't told Nicaise, even when she had arrived covered in ash and soot and the remains of her home. But he seems like someone she could trust, maybe, and she feels like someone ought to know about the home she left behind.
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Having been in Darrow for such a long time now, he's learned what's possible here, and even before this strange city, he hadn't been one to scoff at things that might seem as crazy as time travel. Being friends with a warlock who was capable of creating portals had made it so Luke didn't see anything as being particularly impossible. So while there are some who might still find it a strange question to ask what the year was when someone left home, Luke simply considers it part of meeting people in this city.
And when it comes to Liesel, it might have a significant impact on what he can establish about the place she's from. It's entirely possible she's from a different world altogether, one that missed out on the war or saw its way through another one, but it's a place to begin.
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"1943," she tells him, matter-of-fact. It is fact, or at least it was, before she ended up here. "What about you?" It seems like the proper thing to ask, polite even if it doesn't sound as much. She's not sure why he cares about where she's from, considering she broke into his store, but it's better than being arrested or sent back to the Home.
Besides, she likes to hear about the different times, different worlds. It's almost like reading a new book, except that all the stories are real instead of made up.
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"Was there a war going on?" he asks. "Is that what happened to your home?"
It's possible she won't want to talk about it and Luke won't push if she hesitates, but that simple question will give him a lot of insight into her behaviour tonight. Luke has lived through his own war, though Shadowhunters don't fight with bombs, and while their attacks can be devastating and while he knows the Circle hurt people who didn't deserve it, he does find the slightest relief in the knowledge they hadn't hurt any mundane civilians. It doesn't excuse what he's done, but it's one less burden for him to carry.
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He asks about the war and Liesel nods. They'd called it World War II in the broadcasts and in the newspapers. She remembers the day the Führer announced it, remembers Papa talking worriedly to Mama in hushed voices in the kitchen. "They said our basement wasn't deep enough," she says, recalling her skinned knees and the soldier who they'd tried their best to distract as he inspected the basement. Max had hid under the dust sheets and held his breath, and Liesel had never been so scared that they would find him.
She doesn't know Luke very well but maybe that's what makes it easier to talk about it. She hasn't been able to talk to anyone since she was pulled out of the wreckage, and in the beginning she hadn't wanted to but she thinks now she does. Luke doesn't know her family or Rudy or any of the other people she lost, and so it's easier to tell him and know that it won't upset him so much. "But it protected me before I came here. No one else." She thinks of Papa's silver eyes closed forever, the broken accordion case lying next to him. Her throat catches and she cuts herself off.
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"I'm sorry, Liesel," he says. "I'm glad it was enough to protect you, even if it couldn't protect everyone."
And what an abrupt and scary way to arrive, he imagines. He himself had arrived in the midst of an attack, but he's an adult and a werewolf, a man who had spent a good portion of his life training to fight. She's a child, she shouldn't have been forced through that.
"It must have been frightening, going through that and then finding yourself here."
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She'll need a new book. Maybe once she's saved up enough of the money the city gives her, she can ask Luke where to buy one.
"I have Papa's accordion," she says. She'd managed to bring that with her at least, and somehow that made her feel stronger. When she's sad she can imagine the music, remember the precise way Papa used to stumble over some of the keys, the music ringing in her ears like sunshine. "And Nicaise helped me." She appreciates that he'd found her and helped her without asking why her clothes were covered in ash, without asking her where exactly she'd come from or what had happened. It's easier to talk about now, but if he'd asked her then she thinks she might not have been able to hold a straight face.
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Children shouldn't be forced through this, but he knows he can't stop that, and so instead he does his best to be there for them whenever and wherever he can.
"Something familiar from home," he says with a smile. It's just one single item and it can't bring back her family, but he knows something as small of that can make things a little bit easier here and there. His truck, as silly as it might be, does that for him. It holds so many memories, driving with Clary over the Brooklyn Bridge, heading to his farm house. "Did he ever teach you to play?"