Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: EERIE (07/28/16)
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TITLE: Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jody Day
08/04/16 -
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“Uh, guys wear cologne, and no. You laid the law down pretty hard about your allergies. To escape your wrath, I don’t wear any.” Jeff snickered at his little jab and slid off his stool. “Quittin’ time.”
“Yeah, bye,” Kate said. She tipped-toed her stool around in a circle, nose in the air. Where was that smell coming from?
“Gotta lock up, Miss Kate, you comin’?” Karl, the security guard, called from the front door, jangling keys.
“Yeah, sorry. Just gotta take a box of envelopes down to storage. Be right there.” She’d better hurry. Karl didn’t like to get home late.
She hurried down the stairs at the back of the building to an unlocked storage room. Mostly office supplies and old records lined the four walls, organized and labeled to the satisfaction of the bank’s office manager. Kate set the box of envelopes in its proper place.
Just as she headed for the door, that odor of too sweet perfume assaulted her, watering her eyes. Her eyes closed and dizziness set her off balance. She reached a hand out to steady herself against the wall and knocked a large frame to the floor. A minute passed until she could see, and then she picked it up.
The frame protected an ancient looking floor plan. Hadn’t Karl mentioned that the bank had once been a library a hundred or so years ago? This must be the floor plan. Yes, faded letters at the top of the document confirmed. CLARK CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Risking Karl’s irritation, she peered at the picture a few minutes more. She located the area of the floor plan that corresponded with her teller station. Near the entrance, in almost the exact same spot where Kate worked every day, a rectangular square labeled “Mrs. Potter” seemed to illuminate before her eyes.
Darn allergies. She must be seeing things.
“Miss Kate, we don’t get overtime pay, you know,” Karl called, jangling his keys for emphasis.
“Coming, so sorry.” Kate repositioned the framed floor plan on the wall and bounded out of the room and up the stairs. She grabbed her purse from her work area and met Karl at the door.
“I though Mrs. Potter had gotten you,” Karl said, walking her out.
“What?” Kate stopped short of opening her car door.
“You haven’t heard that old story? Mrs. Potter was the librarian. She’d been there, or I guess I should say, ‘here’, for many years. But when the library burned, she was accused of setting the fire. Seems she didn’t like some of the books she was required to provide to the patrons, and so she just put them in a barrel and threw in a match. Well, so they say. But it got out of control and poof. No more library. Oddly, though, her desk didn’t burn. It’s all in the old papers.” Karl opened her car door for her.
Kate stuck one leg in but turned to Karl. “What happened to her?”
“Couldn’t say. It’s assumed she died in the fire, but there were never any remains found. Only her old bottle of perfume sat opened, but unharmed on her desk. Creepy. Night, Miss.”
Kate couldn’t let a good mystery go to waste. Wasn’t the new library open late on Thursdays? She’d just go look this up.
Karl must have had a great interest in the story, because what he related was exactly what she read in the old papers on microfiche. Mrs. Potter, Kate Potter in fact, known for her very strong perfume, Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet, was accused of setting the fire and was never found in the smoldering remains.
The story kept Kate awake most of the night. Karl hadn’t unlocked the front door yet when she showed up for work early the next day. She peered inside to see if she could see him.
Kate blinked away what must surely be dust. A flash of light sent her eyes toward her work area. She shook her head to make sense of what she saw; a square wooden desk, surrounded by fire. In another instant, a tall, gray-haired woman in a powder blue period costume opened the locked door.
“Come in,” she said to Kate. The odor of dark, sweet and heady perfume overcame her. She felt her head hit the concrete before everything went black.
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