He was there again on Tuesday, a pile of books already on the desk despite it being only 9:31am. I walked straight over this time, taking the seat opposite him without asking and arranging my station.

"How do you set up so quickly?" I asked him as I placed the laptop in front of me.

Smirking, he raised his hands in the air, twinkling his long, slender fingers as he said, "Magic." 

I rolled my eyes. "Okay. Keep your secrets."

He responded by pushing a brown paper bag across the table towards me. 

My eyes widened as I glanced between him and the object clearly on my side of the desk as though it were intended for me. I cocked a curious eyebrow at him.

"You always get a drink and never food," he commented.

Glancing into the bag, I spotted a cookie from Costa, which forced a smile onto my face. "You didn't have to get me this."

"I know," he said, tone full of sincerity.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, Olivia," he mumbled back bashfully before opening the book in front of him.

But I wasn't done with the conversation. 

I could already feel the crease working its way between my brows before I asked, "How do you know my name, by the way?"

His hand raised, a single finger coming down upon the front of my unopened notebook, right above where I had labelled its owner. While I had an explanation now, I also couldn't shake my confusion as I pondered how he knew my name though before I even sat with him... No way was his vision that good. Had he walked by my table when I wasn't looking just as I had done with him?

"Oh. Right," I warily replied, still not sure if I bought it, but unable to figure out otherwise. "Considering you know mine, are you going to tell me yours?"

"Benjamin," he nonchalantly divulged.

I grinned, relieved that he had somewhat of an alluring name to go with the face. "Ben," I surmised, already nicknaming him. "It's a pleasure to meet you." I held my hand out to him, offering to shake. 

But he just stared at it, making no move to meet my gesture, but no sudden attempt to ignore it either.

As my body washed with chagrin, I retracted my hand and opened the paper bag. "There's only one. Have you eaten yours?" I asked, desperate for a distraction.

"I can't eat cookies." His head turned back down to his book.

My brows pinched together. "Why not?"

"Special diet," he mumbled, not even glancing at me.

"Oh-kay." Very short answers, I thought. He must not be up for talking this morning. 

Or... maybe he's sick of you interrupting him, my self-doubt shot back.

With the new wave of dejection washing over me, I got up to select my books, deciding to leave him to it. 

But I wasn't alone for long. 

Behind me, I heard his chair scrape against the wooden floor, but his footsteps were silent as he ghosted behind me. A shadow in my wake, his own head tilted, glancing at the spines I took in, as though he wanted to start a conversation this time.

After endless moments of silence, of my hands shaking as I tweezed books from the shelves and fearing he'd judge my selection, he finally whispered, "What are you looking for?" 

"Information on all sorts of mythical creatures," I said, hoping my voice sounded confident.

"Why?"

I smirked at him. "I'm in a writer's club."

"Oh. So this is for a fictional novel?"

I nodded. "Of course. It's no memoir or anything. I'm too old to believe in magic and fairy tales," I laughed. 

But he fell silent. Head turning slowly back to the shelves, he no longer followed me down the aisle as I collected the rest of my texts. 

Why do I feel like I've somehow upset him? I pondered as I grabbed the last book. 

As I walked past Ben on my way back, I couldn't help but cast him a wary glance. His face was contorted in agony, as though he were lost in deep thought.

In that moment, I wanted to beg him to tell me what was wrong. If I could help in any way.

But I bit my tongue and headed back to the table instead.

He took quite some time to return. And when he finally sat down, he didn't even say a word. He didn't glance at me again. He merely flicked through his books with intense speed, as though he were in a hurry.

Time flew quickly, us sitting together, not talking, and just reading. And as the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes eventually into half an hour, the churning in my stomach became too difficult to ignore.

"What are you looking for?" I desperately asked him.

Pausing, he glanced up at me. "A solution," was all he gave me.

"To?" I probed.

He bit his lip, as if weighing up whether he wanted to share.

"If it's a story idea, I won't steal it. I just want to help," I almost pleaded.

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I don't know." Think of something, my mind begged. Anything but confessing that you just wanted him to talk to you again to know that he doesn't suddenly hate you. "I normally don't intrude in other people's business, but... for some reason I feel compelled to help you." Because maybe you won't disappear if I'm useful... 

He studied me for a moment before saying, "It's not my story is all..."

My eyebrows furrowed as I cocked my head to the side, wondering what he meant by that.

Sighing, he closed the book and rested it on the table, gaze fixed on its hard cover as he spoke. "I have a friend who is... writing a story. And I'm trying to help him find a solution."

"What's it about?" I responded way too quickly and eagerly. "Perhaps I know where to look for this 'solution'."

His eyes flickered to mine briefly before going back to the book. 

For a moment, I thought he was never going to reply. 

Until he finally said, "It's a revenge story, I suppose. There was this boy, born to a really powerful vampire and witch, destined to be the most powerful creature alive. The boy was abused for years by his vampire uncle who hoped to unveil some hidden magic in his nephew that he could use as a weapon. 

"After almost a century of torturing the boy in all sorts of unimaginable ways, the uncle finally released him from his experiments, believing he was a waste of potential for his family. The boy fled from his hometown, attended a boarding school for magical kind, and grew up resenting his uncle, convinced he had to do something to stop him. When one day he got word that his uncle was planning a way to wipe out the human species, the boy deemed it was his duty to find a way to stop his uncle once and for all... by finding a way to kill him. But currently, nothing exists in this world of his that can wipe him out. The uncle is way too strong and resourceful..."

I was quiet as I mulled over his words, until, eventually, I couldn't hold back the comment burning on my tongue. "It's always some old guy with way too much power, isn't it?"

A laugh barked out of his mouth, and he seemed almost surprised to hear it escaping him. But then his eyes met mine again in a much kinder, closer manner, making my heart skip a beat. 

I liked it when he looked at me with such warmth, I decided then and there.

"Yes. Always old white men finding ways to use their privilege for evil." Though the light disappeared as quickly as it had come, as if he couldn't even allow himself that joy anymore. 

"You sound like you really care about your friend's story?" I pried, not wanting this conversation to stop, hoping I could see the life return back to his eyes.

"I do. I'm very grateful towards him and want to help however I can." There was such a sureness and sense of affection to his tone that I, too, almost felt compelled to help whomever this person was.

So, I stared at Ben as I recalled the plot points, sorting through everything he had told me. Trying to find something, anything, that could see his burdens lift from his shoulders. "Well, I suppose I need more context to the world. Is it just vampires? Or are there others from myths and legends?"

"Assume every single legend is somehow real."

I smiled. "Those are my favourite types of stories." I leaned back in my chair. "Build an army of many magical creatures?"

He shook his head. "The uncle has many of his own in his army. Which is why he tried to add his nephew to his collection."

I pursed my lips. "Create a strong potion?"

"He'd detect it in a heartbeat."

"A spell?"

"No characters are strong enough. Witch spells aren't that impactful on vampires in this world. It needs to be something completely unexpected, too. Like the vampire would never see it coming. And no one can really get hurt. An unnoticeable and strategic power play..."

I began to flick through my notes, starting at the beginning. 

But everything I had was expected. Known. 

No wonder he's searching so desperately... none of these books have anything.

I continued to turn pages, defeat almost consuming me... until I landed on my notes from yesterday. 

"That's it," I whispered.

Glancing at my page, his disbelieving tone asked, "Fairies? Yeah, right."

"What's wrong with fairies?" I demanded, for some reason feeling defensive.

"Nothing... they just... like to stay hidden from vampires. So it would be really hard to catch one. Besides, they can't do anything." He was already shaking his head at the idea, almost suggesting I was foolish for considering it.

He's really into this book, talking about them as if they are real. "That's why you need a very specific breed of fairy," I went on, ignoring his pessimism. 

"And what breed is that?" His tone told me he was already bored of my suggestion.

But then I hit him with, "A Terra Fairy."

"An earth fairy?" He shook his head. "They can't do anything special."

"Not just any earth fairy..." I closed my notes, already feeling the sense of victory consuming me at the fact that he didn't actually know about this myth. "The Terra Fairy was sometimes referred to in 'modern days' as a Terra Australis Fairy."

"Australian fairy? Never heard of it."

"Of course you haven't. When I was thirteen, my friend Marli and I were dropped off at this library. Her auntie gave us this massive spiel before we left her car though about how we must go look for the 'fairies', like she was setting us on this very important quest." A chuckle escaped my mouth as the memory vividly flashed through my mind. "We were very confused about what the old bat was harping on about. But eventually we found these really old lore books about a specific fairy called a Terra Fairy. We got lost in reading them that whole afternoon, even asked her auntie to drop us off a few times after to reread them. They could do all sorts of things and had such a fascinating backstory... We had never read of creatures like them. Though, at the same time, their story felt so... familiar to me. Like I had heard it before, but I knew I hadn't... However, that's beside the point. 

"The really interesting part was that these books claimed that, when the fairies fled Europe for Australia, they used their magic to rid the land of every written record of their existence so that eventually no one would speak of them again, which would theoretically hide their existence and protect them. The books suggested only a select few novels, magically bound together to exist in one location, would remain in the world. So naturally, as young girls intrigued by fairy tales, we checked every library in town trying to prove it wrong. But we found nothing. We logged onto the internet. Could not even find anything on Google. Marli and I have been to Brisbane, Melbourne... we couldn't find one trace. Now here I am in ye ol' London, expecting, for sure, I would find something here with so many libraries, history, and books."

"But nothing?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I searched that whole section up and down for it and it's been nowhere. Not in its own books and not even as a sentence in any other texts."

"What can they—" He began to ask, but, as he spoke, my phone buzzed.

Checking the screen for whatever notification had called for my attention, I quickly noticed the time. "Shit!" I exclaimed. "I'm late." 

At once, I started packing up my belongings and gathering my stack of books. 

"Sorry, Ben. I have my writer's meeting."

"Right now?"

"Right, right now."

"Where is it?"

"Just downstairs, but it starts in, like, two minutes. So I've really got to run. I'll see you  tomorrow?" But I didn't have time to wait for a response.

So, before he could say anything further, I left. Dropping my books off on the return trolley, I walked as fast as I could down the stairs to my writer's meeting, heart racing as I took one of the seats in the room on the bottom floor, all the while my mind was still upstairs with him.