Unwritten: Daily Docs: Brooklyn Pieper (continued)

The Book

The next time Brooklyn Pieper opened her eyes, she was staring at a squirrel. 

“Cheese and rice!” Brooklyn shouted the made up swear word while the squirrel calmly jumped off her chest and to the floor. It cocked its head in concern as Brooklyn sat up and crossed her legs, just like she used to in elementary school. She rubbed her face and reached for the water in her pack, sure she was hallucinating. Brooklyn was a logical person, not someone who lived with her head in the clouds. The chase, the library, the book had all been one crazy dream, the result of too much sun exposure. 

Brooklyn kept her eyes closed as she drank from her canteen, the cool water spilling out over the corners of her lips. It was wasteful, but she didn’t care. She had one more bottle packed for the trek home, which wouldn’t take that long since she was still by the hidden lake, not in some random cabin library thing in the middle of the woods. 

“Ok Brooklyn,” she spoke out loud to herself, a tactic she adopted at the academy. It calmed Brooklyn’s nerves and helped her regain focus, something she apparently lacked in abundance. “It was just a dream. There is no cabin in the woods, no library, no squirrel, no missing engagement ring. Just you and the water. You and the water.”

She chanted the mantra two more times before opening her eyes. At least one of her statements was correct. There was no missing engagement ring. Brooklyn’s right hand was clasped around it, an unconscious movement she often made when she was anxious. Jackson made fun of her for it often since it was one of her few tells. Most people didn’t notice it, but of course he did. 

The other three facts were, unfortunately, true. Brooklyn was most definitely in a cabin in the woods, and a large one at that. When Brooklyn looked up to get a better idea of her surroundings, the roof seemed to tower over her, with multiple lofted floors and separate rooms built on top of each other. It reminded her of the Rocky Mountain library she spent so much time as a kid.

And there were books everywhere. Every wall, every shelf, every surface was packed to the brim with thick, skinny, elaborate, simple books. It wasn’t a calm, quiet, dainty little modern library, where all the books were stacked and organized to absolute perfection. Instead, it held an aura of organized chaos, with books stacked, tilted and organized in every which way and direction. Shelves too jutted out at odd angles, creating a maze like quality. To Brooklyn, it felt like she’d been transported into one of the mystery books or fantasy stories she read in her youth, the one where the heroes and heroines use string or an old sweater to find their way out. 

“What is this place?” Though Brooklyn’s voice was a whisper, her voice seemed to echo off the walls and shelves, reverberating deep into the cabin’s interior. She looked up, down and around for an answer to her own question. The obvious one was a library. There were too many books and nooks and crannies to think otherwise, but Brooklyn remembered the book she saw right before she fainted. Her name was etched in the spine, as though the book was about her. An autobiography. She wrote one when she was in fifth grade, but it was no longer than twelve pages max. It wasn’t the length of a full blown novel. 

Brooklyn checked her pulse, first on her wrist then her throat. Her heart was clearly beating. Her fancy watch confirmed it. Brooklyn was still alive, and young. Weren’t autobiographies often written about very famous dead people? Or people who were alive but lived a full life? Brooklyn didn’t check either of those boxes. Sure, the past ten years were filled with a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, but nothing to warrant a novel. Maybe a reality tv series, she rationalized, but not a book.

What kind of library holds books about people who are still alive? 

Chittering broke Brooklyn’s concentration. The damn squirrel was still there watching her every move. In Brooklyn’s opinion, it acted more like a dog than a squirrel. Brooklyn had a dog when she was little, an Alaskan Klee Kai named Sokka. It was yet another gift from her father, one meant to teach her responsibility. The squirrel reminded her of him. Sokka had a tendency to lead Brooklyn on wild goose chases during their walks thanks to his high prey job. One minute, they’d be jogging together on the train and the next, Brooklyn was sprinting to keep up as Sokka went after a harmless bunny or, ironically, a squirrel. 

Those mini adventures always ended well, though. Brooklyn remembered the time she and Sokka found a hidden waterfall and cave in Colorado after her dad was transferred to Rocky Mountain National Park. A few days after they moved, Brooklyn took Sokka out for a walk in the woods behind the new house. She wasn’t planning to stray from the path, but Sokka was insistent, probably because there was a bunny he wanted to chase. Trusting her dog, she followed, and he eventually led her to a majestic pool and waterfall that looked like it belonged in Hawaii, not Colorado. 

“Did you lead me here on purpose?” The words sounded ridiculous to Brooklyn, even as she said them out loud. If she believed in reincarnation, she might think the squirrel was Sokka in another form. It held that same curious look as her old dog, albet in much tinier, beedier eyes. 

“What am I doing here?” The ridiculousness of the situation hit Brooklyn, forcing her to abruptly stand. “Brooklyn Pieper have you lost your marbles? It’s time to leave.”

As she reached down to grab her pack, the squirrel rubbed up against her legs, not once but twice, just like Sokka. Brooklyn paused, her hand halfway to her pack, and watched as it ran back over to the nearest bookshelf, the one she’d been staring at moments earlier. 

The one with the book. 

Brooklyn gulped. She abandoned her pack but picked her gun up from the floor.

“This is stupid,” Brooklyn muttered under her breath as she holstered the gun in the waistband of her leggings. She checked her watch and groaned. It was past four o’clock now. There was no hope of getting back to her condo before sundown, even with the extended summer days. Maybe if she was on the path she could do it, but she was in an unfamiliar part of the woods. Brooklyn knew it could take her four hours just to get out, and she didn’t have that time. She needed to find shelter, set up camp and make a fire if she wanted to survive the night. 

Inspiration hit. Technically, Brooklyn rationalized, she’d already found shelter for the night. While the idea of staying in the cabin didn’t thrill her, it was a better alternative than stumbling through the woods after dark. She could hear her father’s voice in her mind. Staying in the cabin was the safest, and warmest, option for the night, a fact Brooklyn couldn’t argue with, no matter how uneasy it made her feel. Plus, the cabin was filled with books. Brooklyn figured she could find a map or atlas somewhere among the shelves and use it to find her path home. 

But first, there was the other book she needed to look at. Brooklyn knew she wouldn’t sleep that night if she didn’t at least check it out, the weird book with her name on the spine. Of course, there was always the distinct possibility her mind played tricks on her. There were at least four other Brooklyn Pieper’s that existed in the world, and another two that either spelled “Brooklyn” or “Pieper” incorrectly. It was completely plausible that one of them was an author, and Brooklyn misread the words in her exhaustion. 

That wasn’t the case. Brooklyn approached the bookshelf, her breath hitching in her throat when she saw her name on the spine. Brooklyn Michelle Pieper, each letter popping out of the leather in silver etching. No author name was listed. Just her full name and a symbol Brooklyn didn’t recognize. Three perfect triangles intertwined. It wasn’t a gang symbol, at least not one she recognized, nor did it belong to any popular brand or company she was aware of. 

She expected to see the other Brooklyn Piepers on the shelf next to her, as custom in a library, but that wasn’t the case. The title to the left of Brooklyn’s was none other than Samuel Pieper, her father. Brooklyn’s breath hitched in her throat, tears welling in her eyes. She thought about her father every day. He was always present in her life, from the bracelet on her wrist to her habits and thought process, but that was the first time in years she saw her dad’s name written somewhere. Permanently. He wasn’t just a memory in Brooklyn’s mind. Samuel Pieper existed between the pages of the book.

Brooklyn cleared her throat and shook her head, forcing her emotions in check. As much as she wanted to learn about her father, she needed to focus on her own story, her own book. That was her mission. So instead of reaching for his book, Brooklyn grazed her fingers along the spine of her own. The leather felt worn and comforting against her hands, and she liked the grooves caused by the etching. It was surreal, seeing her name on a book. For a moment, Brooklyn felt separated from her body, as though she was watching the entire experience from a third person point of view. She didn’t feel real. The book didn’t feel real, especially when she nudged the top of it with her pointer finger and pulled it from the shelf. 

Reality returned as the book fell into Brooklyn’s hands with a dull thud. It was heavier than she expected, though the thick leather cover probably had something to do with it. The weight of the book in Brooklyn’s hands took her breath away. She ran her hands along the soft cover, which contained nothing. Not even a title or another imprint of her name. Unlike the black spine, the cover itself was actually a deep maroon, Brooklyn’s favorite color. But it had no title. While the book itself was made of sturdy material, it lacked both art and words. There was no author, no clever quip, no reviews from the New York Times or other world renowned writers. It was blank. 

Brooklyn flipped the book over to the back cover and saw nothing. It was just as blank as the other side. There was no description of the inner story, no raving reviews. There was no “about the author” section, with an extensive list of bestselling novels and awards. It was just blank, as though someone took the paper cover off and threw it in the nearby trash, leaving a literal mystery book behind. 

Brooklyn balanced the book in her left hand and opened it to a random page. The spine cracked with the movement, and Brooklyn was greeted by the smell of old books and leather. It was one of her favorite combinations in the world, right up there with oreos and milk, her one indulgence to her strict workout regimen and diet. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent, allowing it to calm her for just a moment. 

Brooklyn paused and returned to reality. She figured this was some type of journal where she could write her innermost thoughts and feelings. Brooklyn never was a touchy-feely person, but it was even worse after her dad’s death. The therapists went through a myriad of tactics to get her to talk. She even gave Brooklyn a journal similar to the book in her hand. It was meant to be a safe space where Brooklyn could write whatever she thought or felt in the moment. 

Brooklyn never used it, and she never knew what happened to it when she moved to Boston. She brought it to Quantico, just in case, but left it there after graduation. To Brooklyn it was symbolic, a way of leaving her past behind and letting go, even if she never did. Someone probably found it, maybe even stashed it away in this library as a cruel joke. 

But the pages weren’t blank. Each one was filled with letters and sentences neatly typed in Times New Roman font. There were paragraphs filled with descriptors and quotes to indicate conversations. It appeared to be a real story, a real book, but who wrote it?

Brooklyn eagerly flipped to the title page of the book, looking for any indicator or clue as to the author of the book. The name she saw was shocking. Brooklyn expected there to be something on the opening page, but not her full name written in exquisite cursive, a talent she definitely did not possess. Brooklyn Michelle Pieper seemed to be the title of the book and below it, where an author’s name should have been, was a four letter sentence: Established February 17, 1988. Her birthdate. 

Brooklyn slammed the book shut and placed it back on the shelf. She was panting heavily, unable to believe what she saw. The analytical part of Brooklyn’s brain couldn’t process it either. The facts were simple. She found a book in a library in the middle of nowhere. The book contained chapters, paragraphs and sentences, like a normal book would. That information was easy enough to process. What was hard was the fact that the book title was her name and birthdate. The stories were about her, not some random fictional person. 

Brooklyn took two steps from the bookshelf and took a deep breath. There had to be some sort of logical explanation to this. Someone was just using her name in a story. Authors did that all the time. They made up names and characters not knowing that name belonged to a person in the real world. That’s all this was, she reminded herself. Nothing more, nothing less.

Then why did it feel like more?

Brooklyn stepped forward again and removed the book from the shelf again. It reminded her of the old fairy tale books her dad used to read to her. They were all old and leather bound, just like this one, though the front covers included elaborate designs and art to depict the stories inside the covers. Brooklyn smiled at the irony. She stopped believing in fairy tales and happy endings ten years earlier, when her father was murdered outside the grocery store. Declan brought out that side of her, the side that was willing to believe in miracles and happy endings, but it was crushed.

After his death, Brooklyn swore off anything and everything that included a shred of hope. She shut down her creative side, compartmentalized it and shoved it to the side. In the past three months, she realized, she functioned more like a robot than a human, avoiding everything and anything that make her feel any sort of emotion. 

With one last deep breath, Brooklyn slid down the bookshelf and opened the book to a random page. The squirrel darted over to her side and curled up in a ball at her hip, much like Sokka would on rainy nights when the two of them were in the house alone. It provided some level of comfort, though Brooklyn refused to accept she was bonding with the creature. 

Brooklyn turned her attention away from the squirrel and back to the book. She opened it to a random page, opting to start from the middle rather than the beginning. She wasn’t quite sure she was ready for that, reading her life story from beginning to end. Brooklyn knew there were repressed memories and relationships she wanted to keep locked away in long term memory. Reading this would just bring them back, so better to start in the middle, somewhere before her dad’s death, when she was young, happy and stupid. 

The page she opened to was the start of chapter 12, which held promise for Brooklyn. She assumed twelve meant either age twelve, right before the craziness and drama of hormones, or her senior year of high school. Year twelve as she and her friends called it. Both were good years. At twelve years old, Brooklyn, her dad and Sokka lived in West Yellowstone, Montana, and her dad was a year-round employee at Yellowstone National Park. By the time Brooklyn was a senior, her little family of three relocated to a small ranch outside Estes Park, Colorado.

Neither one of those were the case, though. As Brooklyn looked closer she discovered the chapter was not about a year at all, but instead a person. Franklin Smithers, to be exact, her high school homeroom teacher. 

Brooklyn blanched at the chapter title and paged through it. It wasn’t a very big chapter, maybe five or six pages tops front and back, but it still begged the question: Why was an entire section of her book dedicated to her high school home room teacher? It wasn’t as though they were exceptionally close. Brooklyn often skipped afternoon homeroom to run through the ropes course or run through the indoor rock climbing wall, two of the many perks of going to a school in Colorado. Sure, she never missed morning homeroom, but that was when the teachers took attendance and made announcements before students were sent off for the day. There was no reason for Brooklyn to skip unless she had an excused absence. 

Still, Mr. Smithers was her Sosh and Psych teacher junior year. Maybe that’s why he earned a handful of pages in her personal novel. 

Hey guys! Hope you like the latest continuation from yesterday's writing prompt! If you have any ideas for a title for this little short story, let me know. It's taken on an unexpected life of its own.