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get diseases from this stuff, right? She was sure she couldn't but continued to wipe her hands. As she did so, she shuffled to the rear of the shop where a small round table accompanied by two chairs was positioned next to a banister. Should she sit down or just stand here aimlessly? She peered over the banister and noticed that the stairs seemed to sink in to the floor. Behind the staircase stood yet another bookcase this one spanned the full length of the wall until it met a door. There must have been thousands of books on that one bookcase.
                  A soft click from somewhere behind her interrupted her thoughts. She sat without thinking and tried to act normal, if normal was twisting yourself around in her seat to see where the woman had come from and gawping like a deranged idiot. Then that was her normal.
                  The woman placed two steaming cups on the table as she continued to assess the door at the bottom of the stairs. She knew the woman was looking at her like she'd lost her marbles, not the first time she'd received such a look, but she needed to see what was down there. It was a nos e y habit of hers but the door didn’t have a handle which meant the woman didn’t want people going down there. Restrictions only made her more intrigued.
                  Turning and facing the stranger, she tried to form appropriate questions in her head but they all just sounded stupid. She knew you couldn't ask if she could walk through floors, that didn't sound like a sane question. You also couldn't ask someone if they were an escaped asylum patient. That wasn't considered appropriate conversation.  For the first time in her life she hated the silence. What was she meant to say to a woman she didn't know at all? Maybe she should go with the asylum patient ice breaker?
    “Th-thank you for your help outside,” she stuttered, avoiding the weird ice breaker and going for the stuttering idiot.
    The woman continued to look at her, the smile forever on her face. Cora was unsure whether she’d heard her or not. Her voice sounded distant, the blood that was pounding in her ears was to blame. The woman lifted the steaming blue cup to her smiling lips but her eyes remained focused intently on her over the rim. She hated direct eye contact like this, especially contact that was so intimidating. She watched as stray curls of black hair moved cupping the woman's face as she drank. The woman seemed more than content to sit thinking and staring at her. Cora fidgeted in her chair. She really wouldn’t mind getting out of this shop, the sooner, the better.
                  Having nothing better to do, she lifted the red cup to her lips and took small sips. She tried to keep the surprise from showing on her face but she was completely unsuccessful. The drink wasn't tea, it was a lovely thick chocolate. Didn't people in the north drink tea? Lancashire was close to Yorkshire wasn't it?  She just assumed people drank it more up here. Well, it wasn't like people down south didn't drink tea. God, she was rambling in her head.
    “What were those boys doing to you outside?”
    Finally the woman had spoken yet that didn't make her feel better. Keeping the cup in front of her face like some sort of shield, Cora took another sip. You couldn’t talk with a mouth full of liquid, she knew that much and even if she tried it would probably dribble out. She nearly choked on the liquid. She was sat here trying to figure out ways not to speak to the woman and her best idea had been dribbling. This wasn’t exactly her greatest moment.
                  She took another sip surprisingly enjoying the chocolate which was laced with something sweet. She didn’t know what it was but it was delicious all the same. She dared to look at the woman whose eyes hadn’t strayed from her face. God, she was patient, usually her mother would fill the silence with meaningless chatter. For the first