Page 47 of The Harbinger
The orange beckoned me, compelling me to pick it up and blend it in with the other oranges to make it not stand out in the sea of yellow. My knee bobbed as I fought it with all my might, my finger twitching and turning the tea cup off center.
Dammit.
I grabbed the orange and wedged it between the oranges on the other side.
A slight lopsided smirk lifted the corner of his mouth.
Did he know about my compulsion? My needs and desires and how unruly they could be? Was it fun for him to utilize that weakness against me?
“I couldn’t look at the chaos.” I swallowed. “So I fixed it.” I glanced up at him, his dark brown eyes focused on me.
“Fixed what,milaya?”
“It would be better if I showed you.”
Sacha nodded, and I slipped off my seat and walked him up the stairs like a child about to be reprimanded.
I opened the door, my shoulders tense with a sharp needle between them.
He walked in, his hands in his pockets, his gaze roving over the numerous bookshelves organized by color. “And you did this?” He pointed, then tucked his hand back into his pocket.
“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “The randomness of all the books caused confusion and disorder. I… I couldn’t handle it anymore.” The organized colors filled the room with excitement. I stepped forward and pointed to my design. “See, what I did was started with the smallest red book and worked my way up to the largest red book, and then I did the same with all the other colors.”
“Change it back.” His soft undertone swirled around me like a silk ribbon gliding across my naked flesh, but the words accompanying them brought a chill to my spine and hollowed out the blithe vibration surrounding me.
He didn’t like it.“You… you want me to change it?”Sacha stepped toward the chairs in the reading nook and sat down.
“Yes.” He tipped his head toward the books.
Katya was correct in her assessment, and I should’ve taken her up on the offer to fix it.
“Do it now.”
Now?“But I don’t know how you had it before.”
“In alphabetical order.”
“But I…” My mouth gaped as I looked up at the expanse of books. “I don’t know your alphabet, and it will take me hours to get it done.”
“Then you’ll stay here until it’s done. You’ll find in your brown section there is a Russian-English dictionary. Use it.”
He unbuttoned his suit jacket, rested his elbows on the armrests, and ran his finger over his bottom lip.
“You said I could help myself to the books.”
“I did say that. But I didnotsay you could change things.“ He leaned forward. “Do you walk into a library and change its organization?”
I shook my head.
“So why would you think you could come into my home and do so?”
Sacha stroked his short, trimmed beard, then pointed to the bookshelf when I didn’t move. “You better get started.”
Tears formed in my eyes as I grabbed the first few rows off and stacked them then grabbed the dictionary he’d pointed out.
The Cyrillic letters oozed across the thin paper. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Start on the first page with the letter‘ah’then move on to‘beh’”