Unwritten: The Brooklyn Pieper Story (continued)

Disclaimer: all characters in this short story are fictional/creations of my own imagination. Sights and locations are based on real cities/towns/National Parks located in the Western United States.

The Prompt:

You discover a library with a biography for everyone on earth. While reading your own, you notice whenever someone else is mentioned, there's a footnote showing where you can find their biography. It's odd how someone who was only a sentence in your book has a whole chapter for you.

The next morning

Sun gently kissed Brooklyn’s cheeks the next morning, waking her from a deep slumber. She smiled, but kept her eyes closed. It was the perfect Saturday morning. The soft musings of Dropkick Murphys played faintly in the background while sun streamed in through Brooklyn’s bedside window. Declan was cooking in the kitchen, but Brooklyn knew if she kept her eyes closed, he’d bring the strawberries and pancakes back to bed. Maybe hot cocoa, if she was so lucky.

Brooklyn pulled her blankets up under her chin and waited patiently. The smell of batter and syrup wafted in from the kitchen, broadening her smile. Brooklyn wasn’t a talented chef. She had a few meals in her arsenal and wasn’t a fire hazard by any means, but Declan was a master. His mother taught him to cook at a young age, passing down generations of family recipes. He talked about opening his own restaurant one day when he was sick of chasing and protecting bad guys.

With her eyes still closed, Brooklyn indulged in Declan’s restaurant fantasy. Together, they would buy a forgotten building, hopefully in Charleston, and renovate the interior. Declan would do most of the handiwork, designing the top level to look like an old Irish pub. They would use dark, ebony wood for the bar, tables and chairs, paint the walls a deep green to match her eyes and commission local, Irish artists for the decorations. It would be called the Emerald Lady or Brooklyn’s Pub if Declan had anything to do with it, but Brooklyn would get the final say. She would be in charge of the business, after all.

Declan’s footsteps approached from the hall. They were the footsteps of a seasoned field agent, a true professional Soft, quiet, barely making an audible sound. Only a trained ear could hear the distinct paddling.

“Mo anam Cara.” My soul mate, Declan cooed, his voice a whisper as he sank down on the bed next to Brooklyn. He never wanted to wake her, but he also knew better than to let the pancakes get cold. “Breakfast is served.”

Brooklyn opened her eyes, but the warmth of her bedroom was gone. Yellow light wasn’t streaming in through a nearby window, giving everything a soft, happy haze. The blurry outline of Declan wasn’t sitting next to her on the bed, a hot plate of pancakes in his hand. Instead, there were only the sleep tinted swirls of heather grey, olive green and brown.

She squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled, sucking in the smell of weathered paper, dust and pine needles. Water gathered in Brooklyn’s eyes, the tears and emotions threatening again. The morning was her favorite part of the day until it crashed and burned. In the in between, when she was awake but the haze of sleep lingered, Declan was alive. The last six months never happened. Brooklyn didn’t go undercover. She didn’t work her way through McGinty’s network, and Declan wasn’t kidnapped and tortured. He was very much alive in the first moments of the day.

Then reality hit, and Brooklyn remembered. Every morning, for just a second, she forgot Declan was dead and buried under a maple tree in a Boston cemetery, and every morning, she was forced to remember and acknowledge his absence. Initially, the reminder felt like a punch in the gut, but it evolved. As days wore into months, Brooklyn felt as though the rug was constantly being pulled from under her feet as her hopes and dreams were dashed time and time again.

That morning, it felt worse. The library greeted Brooklyn as she reopened her eyes, and she remembered more than just Declan’s death. Jackson’s betrayal swirled through her mind, a memory she hoped was nothing more than a vicious nightmare. Ice seized her heart as anger pulsed through her veins. Declan and Sam were taken from Brooklyn by Nathaniel McGinty. There was someone for her to hate and blame, someone who was worthy of her emotions, but that wasn’t the case with Jackson. No one forced him to keep the truth from Brooklyn. It was his own decision to cut her out, and that knowledge hurt worse than any pain Brooklyn experienced, including the deaths of her dad and fiancee.

A dark cloud descended over Brooklyn. She took a moment to feel sorry for herself and her rotten luck in life. Sokka, Parker, Sam, Declan and now Jackson. All the men in her life seemed to leave her when she needed them most.

But it didn't matter. There were questions that needed answering, and one last book that needed reading. The men all left, but there was a woman too, Brooklyn reminded herself, who left before all the others. Her mother: Kenna Pieper. In Brooklyn’s gut she knew the book was there and it contained all the answers to her questions.

Before Brooklyn could search for the book, though, she first needed to find the bathroom.

As though sensing her need for direction, the squirrel stirred and looked up at Brooklyn with sleep filled eyes. She smiled and batted his head, “Know where the bathroom is, little guy?”

Ten minutes later, Brooklyn was ready for the day, dressed in her last pair of leggings and her well appreciated black quarter zip. She didn’t exactly have much time to spare reading in the cabin. Her supplies were running low. Brooklyn was down to a day’s worth of food and water, and her clothes had been worn well past their due date. It was time for a shower and new shirt that didn’t stretch and crinkle when she wore it.

Yet, Brooklyn couldn’t leave. Even after she packed her bag, there was something calling to her, tugging on her sleeve and tempting her back into the shelves: her mother’s book.

For an hour, she searched. Her excuse was simple: Susannah and Declan’s books had to be returned to their rightful place. If Brooklyn happened to find her mother’s book in the process, then so be it. She would stay and read it, but Brooklyn’s search came up empty. The book was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t in the Pieper section, as Brooklyn expected, nor was it near Declan or Susannah’s books. The only place Kenna Farclay-Pieper existed was in Brooklyn, Sam and Declan’s books, and there wasn’t even a reference in the footnotes. She was a ghost, and Brooklyn wondered if there really was a woman named Kenna Farclay-Pieper.

“Oh my God, you eejit.” The thought dawned on Brooklyn. Her middle name was Michelle with two “L”s because it was her mother’s family name. Brooklyn assumed it was a first name that, like an heirloom, was passed down from one generation to the next. But what if it wasn’t.

“What if it’s a last name?” Brooklyn pulled her own book off the shelf and flipped to the first chapter: Samuel Pieper. The words whirred past her eyes as she looked for the distinctive combination of Michelle among the pages. She never found it.

But of course she wouldn’t, Brooklyn reminded herself. This novel was about her, and technically, Brooklyn never knew her mother. She was a picture on their fireplace mantel. A crinkled photograph in Sam’s wallet. A leather strap around Brooklyn’s wrist. Brooklyn knew what her mother looked like, but she had no real memory of her. She died when Brooklyn was barely one, which meant she wouldn’t be a prominent character in Brooklyn’s novel, even if she was a prominent background influencer in Brooklyn’s life.

Muscle memory took over as Brooklyn looked at the facts in front of her. The library became a crime scene, and Brooklyn scoured the nearby shelf for clues. Michelle was somehow involved in her mother’s name, most likely her last name, though Brooklyn couldn’t rule out the first name as a possibility. She also changed her name to Kenna at some point, and Brooklyn hypothesized why. With her luck, her mother would somehow be tied to Nathaniel McGinty and forced into witness protection. Other possibilities included being a con artist or wanting to get away from an abusive relationship.

Then, she saw it. A tall, thin book no bigger than a countertop romance novel at the grocery store, blue in color with silver writing on the spine. It slanted into the open space her own novel once occupied, resting gently against Samuel Pieper’s thick tome. The name on the spine was barely legible in the morning light. The silver lettering caught the sun, filling Brooklyn’s vision with speckles of green and purple.

Brooklyn’s arm extended on its own, her finger prints lightly brushing the spine. The cursive lettering dipped into the book’s fine leather hardcover, changing its texture. Brooklyn followed the ornate loops, recognizing the font, tracing the name. The loop of a strong, uppercase “D”, a dip to flowering lowercase letters. A space the size of Brooklyn’s pinky before a towering “M”.

DM. Her mother’s real initials. Not KF. Not KP. But DM.

A shaky breath escaped Brooklyn’s lips as her heartbeat quickened. The organ thunked against her chest with the strength of a bullet as her pointer finger found the top of the spine. It nudged the book slightly forward, allowing her thumb and middle finger to pinch the sides. Her heartbeat raced, the moment too surreal for her logic to explain. A quick surge of terror froze time, as Brooklyn stood frozen in the space. She reached the point of no return. If she pulled the book out of its space, there was no turning back. There was no forgetting. Brooklyn would officially know information she could never forget, potentially life altering information, and she didn’t care.

No regrets. No hesitation. Alone in the library cabin, Brooklyn pulled her mother’s book from the shelf and walked back to the desk. It felt so light, so small, as though the book itself was unaware of its true weight. The true power it held in Brooklyn’s life.

Anticipation and adrenaline played games with her body as she sat in a chair, causing her emotions to fluctuate out of control. With a light touch, she opened the cover. The crackle of its spine filled the empty, stale air, awakening something in the library. The lights glowed brighter, and Brooklyn swore she heard a fire crackle in the distance. Dust danced in a nearby ray of sunshine, and the squirrel even stirred from its lazy slumber. It ambled up the leg of the chair and sniffed the book, inspecting it with its nose and eyes.

Satisfied with its search, the squirrel nodded and perched itself between Brooklyn’s outstretched arms, ready for the story. Brooklyn knew then it was time.

Time to read, and more importantly, time to learn.

***

Dianna Michelle’s book was nothing like Brooklyn expected. Like Susannah and Declan’s it was told in first person, more like a diary than an actual novel. Each page represented a day in Dianna’s life. No more, no less. Some days were skipped, but most of the pages were in sequential order.

The details of her childhood were minimal. Dianna was the youngest of four children in the Michelle family. Her older brother tragically died in a car accident gone wrong, and her parents split shortly after. Mom moved to Boston, taking Dianna and her older sister, Tara, and brother, Dermont, with her, while dad moved to the midwest. That was all the author offered. No happy memories. No tragic ones either. It was more of a report than a story, a statement of fact. This is what happened on this date.

Her voice shifted after she graduated college. The language transformed from objective and rigid to personal and descriptive. Dianna started including her own opinions about people, places and things. For the first few pages, Brooklyn thought she was reading the life of a robot, but Dianna’s inner personality started to shine through. The passages extended to a page and a half or two. One day was even worthy of three pages, though not for good reasons. It was the day Dianna’s life changed.

It was the day she became a FBI information.

Like Brooklyn, Dianna’s life seemed to be on the up and up. She was a second year law student at Boston College, working two jobs to pay her own way through school. Tara was just released from rehab and seemed to turn a corner this time, and Dermont was back from a trip overseas. Dianna even had a boyfriend, a young Irishman named Liam. They met when she was bartending one night at a local Irish pub and started dating a few weeks later.

After a year of dating, things were starting to get serious. Liam asked her to move in with him, and she accepted. After years of caring for others, Dianna craved to be cared for. Though she was the youngest child, Dianna practically raised her two older siblings. Her mother tried, but the single mother of three kids worked three jobs to provide for her family. Tara cooped with the divorce by rebelling, hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting into drugs. Dermont tried to help his younger sister, but there’s only so much a ten year old can do for a six year old.

Liam offered to care for Dianna. He even told her she could drop out of grad school and never work again. He insisted he made enough money as a businessman to keep her and their future family comfortable for the rest of their lives, and Dianna believed him.

Until she witnessed the murder.

It was late, and Dianna’s night to close the pub. She kicked out the last few stragglers, locked the front door and went out back to throw away the garbage. The alley was dark as usual, and as Dianna heaved the bag of trash over her head, she heard voices in the distance. Two males, one threatening and vaguely, the other terrified. She crouched behind the dumpster, careful to stay out of sight, and listened. The argument escalated, something about missing shipments and payments. Then talking ceased.

Dianna heard a sickening squish and peered around the corner of the dumpster, hoping the coast was clear. It wasn’t. A large, heaping man stood with his back to her, a knife visible in his right hand. A red liquid gleaned off the blade with a neon glow, making it look almost fake. Dianna risked sticking her head out further. If she could just see the man’s face…

A door closed up the alley and the man whirled to check his surroundings. Dianna dipped back behind the dumpster just in time, acid in her throat, tears in her eyes. It was only for a second, but Dianna swore she recognized the face of the murderer, and it matched the voice she thought she recognized earlier.

Footsteps crunched against the debris in the alley and Dianna’s anxiety spiked. They were approaching, fast and determined. The murderer was coming. Would he let Dianna go? Would he take pity on her or would she be just another victim in the carnage?

A scream formed in Dianna’s throat. Water spilled down her face. The pressure, the tension was getting to be too much, but she forced herself to stay still. Pain encased her body as she fought her natural instincts to run, but the footsteps stopped. The world froze. Dianna’s raspy breath echoed off the dumpster, deafening to her own ears, but the murderer never stirred. His shadow stretched across the alley, long and looming, the knife highlighted in the light backlight.

A car drove by, and the shadow retreated, its master startled by the intruder. It retreated up the alley, accompanied by the sound of footsteps and breaking class. A car door popped open and slammed shut. Then there was silence, occasionally interrupted by a ragged, desperate breath.

Dianna sprang from her spot and tried to tend for the injured man. She counted six stab wounds as she tried to apply CPR. It was nearly impossible. Blood spurted from the wounds, ruining her favorite cream colored sweater, but Dianna didn’t care. She continued the chest compressions, screaming for help every chance she had.

The police and an ambulance arrived, but it was too late. The man died under Dianna’s care. She felt his last breath leave his body. It caved under her hands, transforming into nothing more than lifeless bones and muscle. It haunted Dianna when she returned home to Liam, who was sleeping peacefully when she returned. It followed her for a week as she rationalized what she saw. Dianna convinced herself Liam wasn’t a murderer, even though the evidence was staring her in the face.

When the FBI found her, Dianna was ready to burst. She was consumed by guilt as she continued to live her life, ignoring the events of the alley. The man murdered was an undercover agent for the Bureau, and that was all Dianna needed to hear. She became Agent Paul Tenston’s newest informant, identified Liam as the killer and single handedly took down a major branch of McGinty’s operation by keeping her job as the pub’s bartender.

Liam never knew Dianna was the witness who turned him in. He admitted to the charges and took a plea deal, which meant he was to serve one life sentence with a chance at parole. Dianna, in turn, was “killed” in a shooting, and Kenna Farclay was born. The Marshals, Randy Jones to be specific, helped her relocate to Arizona and checked in every now and again after she was settled. She eventually met a charming park ranger named Samuel Pieper, a man who could not only take care of her, but make her happier than she ever felt in the process.

The two were married in May, six months after they met. A year and a half later, they gave birth to a girl and named her Brooklyn Michelle. Kenna lived the life she always wanted until she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. She died after a year and a half battle.

That was the final page before the epilogue. Brooklyn started crying well before that point. The flood gates were open, as Brooklyn realized she was more like her mother than Sam let on. They were both strong women, fighters to the bitter end, but Dianna was braver than Brooklyn ever realized. She gave up her life, her home, her own family to help the FBI take down Liam McGinty, Nathaniel’s brother and enforcer. A man Dianna thought she knew and loved because she only saw one side of him, the side the Irish mob never saw.

But there were a few final pages left to read. Brooklyn turned to the epilogue. Rather than a typed font, Brooklyn was greeted by a handwritten cursive, unrecognizable to her discerning eyes. It was perfect as letters flowed together, creating words, sentences and paragraphs. But that wasn’t what caused Brooklyn’s breath to hitch in her throat. It didn’t freeze time. Rather, a single phrase at the top of the page, one Brooklyn never expected to see.

My dearest Brooklyn, my darling daughter:

Brooklyn’s brain froze. Logic couldn’t explain it. A letter written to an adult daughter Dianna, Kenna, never knew, found in a book with no author. A handwritten note, no less. It was bizarre, but Brooklyn wasn’t afraid or skeptical as she had been when she first discovered the library. Brooklyn wasn’t thinking like a logical FBI agent. She was thinking like a daughter with a mother she never knew.

So she wiped the tears from her cheeks with the palm of her hand and brought the book closer to her nose. Brooklyn blinked once then absorbed the words on the page, words she thought would never read, and for a moment, her mother was in the library with her. She didn’t feel quite so alone.