"Wiccan beliefs and executions, no. African voodoo and its spread, no. Witch-hunting in the 1600 and its political repercussions, no. There's nothing of utility here," Vanilla sighed and rested her forehead on the barren, worn-down rows of books.
"Didn't you mention the forbidden section?" Rowie leaned his paws against the books at the bottom of the bookshelf.
"The librarian told me that the keys were stolen. And we've been looking all around here but there's nothing," She gazed at the brown chandelier swiveling on the beamed ceiling. Guess she had to find out more about that being without the help of her printed friends...
"You're losing your time, sweetheart. You aren't going to find out what you're looking up here," A smooth voice with forced femininity sounded behind her.
It was a middle-aged man of Asian facial features wearing a fuchsia, velvet suit, and an emerald homburg. His watermelon-strawberry scent engulfed the area. He leaned on the bookshelf behind.
How did he get there? Neither Vanilla heard him nor Rowie sniffed him to arrive. "H-how may I help you?" She asked. Rowie hid behind Vanilla's legs.
"I think it's gonna be how may I help you." He emphasized the word "I" while signaling himself.
He carried a permanent grin on his face that Vanilla could not tell if it was full of plotting malice or naive curiosity. The gleaming tints of his attire contrasted with the brown, moss, and cherry dead tones from the books at his rear.
"Vanilla. Vanilla Land in person. Incredible."
"How did you learn my name?"
"Impossible to not know it. But not because of your human, mundane reasons. I don't care about your social position nor who your father is," He took out a yellow apple from the insides of his sack, split it in half, and offered one part to Vanilla.
"C'mon, don't leave my hand stretched like this. This apple is fresh from the market this... interesting town possesses..."
Vanilla awkwardly stretched her hand and took the divided apple, accidentally rosing her hand with his. Not even Carol's were as soft. Was he a member of the circus, the theater, or perhaps some psychotic artist?
"Now tell me. What do you know about your book or what you need to do next?"
"What are you talking about?" She frowned. "How did you know about—"
"As I suspected..." He interrupted and condescendingly rolled his slanted eyes. "It seems using your brain is not your strength," He crossed his arms and intensified his grin.
People could mock Vanilla's aspect, weirdness, or height. But what enraged her the most was when someone doubted her intelligence and mental capabilities. Goddamned... She yearned to smash Avrevm Bacvlvm against his face just like she did with Carol.
"C'mon. You aren't that cute when you're angry," He chuckled and finished his apple. "I'm here to help you."
"...Who are you?"
"You can call me The Contractor. You are going to have to accomplish several... tasks for The Master, as you've already been told. I'm going to be the intermediary. The one that formalizes what you ought to do and how you're going to be rewarded. Or punished, if you don't comply." His eyes darkened.
Something felt off, but naturally disenchained. Who or what in the world was this eccentric man? Perhaps 'in the world' was the wrong expression.
"Oh, hi Rowie. How are you doing now that you can talk?" He leaned his hands on his knees, but the pup was too suspicious to reply. "I see," He straightened up. "Well, surely you've already received the basic clues about what you have to do, Vani."
Her last dream inside the eternal cold and darkness came back to her mind. 'Silence... Silence... Silence... Silence the one who serves the primitive human desire'
"I... can't help you too much with that. But hey. It's time for you to sign your first contract. Come with me. You know what they say. Show, don't tell..." He extended his hand. "And please don't leave me with my hand stretched once again. I don't like it when people do that."
What did that mean? Maybe she was still dreamed or ate an amanita by accident. "...What about Rowie?" She played along.
"He can come with us. He is now part of your arsenal, after all."
She hesitated for a moment. If that was real, was she really going to just depart to wherever a strange man wanted to take her? The man surely knew too much to be a simple trickster or kidnapper. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? He even knew about Rowie's voice.
She put her left hand inside her coat, grabbing Avrevm Bacvlvm, just in case, and gripped hands with the smooth hand of the man in pink. "You've chosen well, Vanilla, you've chosen well," His grin turned into a full-fledged smile.
She felt an earthquake on her feet, and a tornado suctioning from above. Everything went white and then black.
"Wake up, sweetheart. This is a bad place to sleep. You might never wake up," The feminized voice woke her up. She unlocked her eyelids, and the man in pink was kneeling next to her, with his crow's feet on his eyes being notable.
The sky above them was a litmus amalgam of salmon, lavender, and cherry fades shyly playing with each other. It was so perforated with dazzling, white cavities that infinite constellations could be combined with the only restraint being the human imagination. Some shined sharper than others, and lots of them were so uncomfortable to stay in the same place. They expressed their love for drawing stelae up, below, and in every direction the three dimensions permitted.
Maybe she was hallucinating, after all. "What's this place?" She sat, unable of putting her eyes off the infinite painting. Not even the clear yet unusual nights of Merry Oaths were as immense as that.
"Let's just say it's a place where no one can harm you. And you will not harm anyone, either..." He replied.
Vanilla placed her hands behind her and panicked when she saw there was no floor. Under their insignificant corpses, it was the same as above. A boundless, unending abyss of lustrous crumbs and flower shades.
"...Where is Rowie?" She looked everywhere around, but he was nowhere to be seen.
"He died. His body exploded while we were crossing," The Contractor's grin disappeared.
"What?!"
"I'm teasing you. You must have seen your face!" He chuckled. "He is waiting for us. Wipe those tears from your already glossy eyes," He straightened up.
"You goddamn..." Vanilla frowned.
"Hehehe. Relax! I don't want you to kill me with your Gorilla friend as you did with that girl Jane. Now follow me. We have something to do." He turned around and walked into the floorless space.
"Wait!" She got up and attempted to sprint, but she felt anxious about striding on the bottomless, imperceptible surface, on which the man strolled with grace and elegance.
"How do you know so much about me?" She neared him as she could, struggling to not look down. He didn't cease sauntering, nor put his gaze off the horizon.
"Don't you listen to me? I'm your contractor. I honestly don't know how the master didn't choose someone... Smarter. Or at least a little bit taller."
Goddamned imbecile. Did he think he was too good? Vanilla contained herself. Better to just observe while inside such a bizarre, surreal mirage. Lately, she had to learn in a hard way that getting inside the wolves' lair to confront them was not the best strategy.
"If you know so much, then that master that you mention must be whatever brought me back, right?" She asked.
"Don't call them 'whatever'!" He put his look off from his destiny and gave Vanilla a disgruntled eye.
"Fine," She whirled her eyes. 'The... "Master'"
"Also don't do that! You aren't worthy of addressing them either."
"Then how in the hell I'm supposed to..." She sighed. "Fine. You can keep your stupid paradoxes to yourselves."
"Hey. Don't be mad at me. I'm much of their servant as you are."
"You demons and your typical... 'look! I'm the god master almighty of darkness! You aren't worthy of learning my name nor even thinking about me. Surrender your pathetic human asses to me!'"
"You don't care about what happens to you, right!?" He halted. "You can be sure they'll castigate you for your sharp tongue. Sooner than later." He kept walking. "Oh, and don't think you're special." He ceased his walk once again. "You perish once again, and forget about everything. No one is going to resuscitate you. It's impossible, even if they wanted to."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, pink buttocks..." She chuckled.
"You..." He gestured at her with his polished, glossy nails. "Crow head. Yes! You're a crow head!"
"Hehehe, now you're the one who's mad!"
"Just look at what you made me say!" He swirled his eyes and breathed hard. His grin squeezed on itself. "Now, enough chitchat. Look. We're there."
There was a wooden table of roughly two square meters levitating in the amethyst void. Two seats made with it a sandwich. They accelerated their pace.
On it, a stack of books identical to the one Vanilla found on that sunny day after she died rested one on another, making an asymmetrical pile. An inkstone accompanied a giant, goose feather that Vanilla could swear was longer than Avrevm Bacvlvm.
"Do you want some apple pie?" The contractor passed by her, holding a trail with something that scented so nostalgic, sweet, and warm she couldn't help but lessen her guard. He laid it on the right side of the table.
"Where did you get that from?"
"Don't worry. Now take a seat. We don't have time to lose." He sat on the throne on the other side of the table. It was a wooden seat with a red cushion and gothic, golden engravings, forming a cross on the top. On it, a gothic "C" stood out.
Vanilla pulled the throne in front of him. It was the same, except that instead of a gothic "C" It had a "V". Was it a coincidence or was this seat just for her? She could not help but feel uncomfortably recognized.
"Rowie? Wake up!" She moved him. The puppy was on a profound snooze, curling himself on the cushion of the throne.
"Huh? Vanilla! you finally arrived."
"Come here." She raised him, sat on his former place, and put him on her lap.
The contractor sliced up the apple pie and served everyone a generous portion. Rowie began to joyfully devour his. Vanilla could not resist the temptation and delighted herself too in the sweet and warm caramel.
"Do you like it? I would have liked a little more cinnamon and a few less vanilla," He delicately bit it from his fork, with his gape concentrated on the apple bits. "I'm talking about the flavor, not you. Stop looking at me like that."
"Not gonna lie. It's so delicious..." Pleasure overran her palate and rushed through her body with each bite.
"Alright, now that we are on good terms," He straightened up, put his elbows on the table, and intensified his dark gaze and his full of mischief grin. "Let's sign your first contract."
"Contract?" Vanilla put her fork down. "Don't I have to just follow the orders they gave me on that odd dream?"
"Yes. But you see, you're supposed to sort out what you need to do and how your book and that bargain that shoots sparks work. Now," He snapped his fingers. Flames and smoke covered his hand for a second and then a yellow paper appeared on it. "Let's begin."
He wrote on it so fast and moistened his gigantic feather on the inkstone multiple moments. By the time Vanilla tried to say something he had already finished.
"Please sign here. You can use little hearts or smiling faces or whatever you like."
The scroll was crammed with the same geometrical characters that the title of her book and its text next to the picture of the banshee. "And how in the am I supposed to know what I'm signing?" She frowned.
The Contractor put his palm on his face. Vanilla died to fry him up with Avrevm Bacvlvm. "Of course you haven't even learned how to read our alphabet. See, you sign, and then you have to accomplish what you were told in whatever form it was. What you need to do, in specific terms is not written here in the contract. And you have, ehem, 5 cycles to finish. Or 2 weeks, in your human time system." He handled it once again to Vanilla and slid the inkstone through the table.
"And what do I get once I finish?"
"That's a secret until you finish, silly."
"I just hope this is not some pity scam," She sighed.
"Vanilla," He interrupted her before she could wet the feather. "Your eye is a mark if you haven't figured that out yet. You can't make deals with any others as long as you are carrying it."
Vanilla didn't say anything. Suspicious yet inquisitive, she wrapped the feather between her fingers, and gracefully signed the old and stiff paper. She passed them back to him like a bartender.
"Well done Vanilla. Well done." He rhythmically clapped. Shooting stars ran everywhere.
"Now what?" She asked.
"We'll see each other soon. Sooner than you expect," He got up from his rustic seat and moved towards Vanilla. "Well, It's time for you two to return."
"Wait, now what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to teleport you back to your world. Hope you don't faint once again," He adjusted his emerald homburg. "Oh, and it's my first time doing this so don't fault me if you end up in the least preferred situation or place."
"Wait, I'm not re–"
"Good luck Honey!" He extended his hand and a white beam of pink borders hit Vanilla.
"Woa–" Neither she nor Rowie could move. Vanilla felt her mind getting warped, her vision stretching, and with a smooth whistle, the pink man and his dimension of the same lit colors were gone.