Chapter II.VI

Jo greeted the new day with a severe headache - having not yet really woken up from sleep, he, wincing from the spasms running through his brain, barely got out of bed and sat down on the blanket that had been crumpled during the night. Soon, when his eyes were finally able to focus, he was able to roughly understand the cause of this illness - outside the window the rain was pouring down like buckets. Mister Thurlow read somewhere that with the change of weather, certain magnetic storms pass over the territory, which in people with poor blood circulation cause pain in the brain, similar to what he is now experiencing.

In any case, for Jo, who, in his own words, was a professional procrastinator, the headache was not any serious hindrance, because he had to turn on his brain very, very rarely - he even forgot how to solve arithmetic problems from the moment he finished his studies at High School. Even when he had to deal with paying for some services he needed, he used to honestly declare that he hardly knew how to count, and as a result, this could sometimes result in sellers cheating him, as he once had with the purchase of Buffalo through Nuell Saberlow. But Jo has long lost any pieces of pride that anyone who lives in society should have.

Be that as it may, the headache, although it did not interfere with his business, was an obstacle to a happy pastime - it’s not so easy to even just walk when there is a risk of falling somewhere with blackness in eyes. So Jo decided not to go anywhere today, but just sit quietly with some reading material in his hands. Rinsed lightly under running cold water, he wrapped himself in his battered green bathrobe and, looking in the mirror, thought that before he could take in the food of his mind, he also needed to provide food for his stomach.

He didn't even need to open the refrigerator to remember that there wasn't a single crumb of food in his house. It’s sad, he thought, he’ll have to wait out this ill and then go to the store to buy something... Slightly shivering from the cold, mister Thurlow went into his office and began to look for some interesting book in his small library, which was located in a bookshelf that occupied the entire wall - all the inheritance that he received from his maternal grandmother (like this house itself).

His eye caught the strange name that intrigued him - "The Book of Light". The hands themselves grabbed this book in a hard blue cover. Plunging into a chair, Jo prepared to read this manuscript, which, for some reason, it seemed to him, could tell the reader about the lives of the servants of the Templar Order and their infamous curse - he himself could not explain why this name evoked such associations in him, apparently his hunger for information about the novels of Walter Scott and similar authors he loved as a child affected him.

Sitting by the window, he involuntarily plunged into memories of how this book got into his house. It was just recently - last month, when mister Thurlow, having finished his short work day, walked out of the door of his place of work and, taking a deep breath of the warm July air, leisurely walked along the wide sidewalk towards the boulevard, which he could see from his office window. He had not yet walked a few steps when he caught the eye of a man standing near the wall of a building decorated with decorative tiles. Jo was immediately struck by the fact that despite his good build and youthful appearance, the stranger’s long hair was completely silver, as was the thick beard that covered his entire face. Mister Thurlow walked past him, but the stranger suddenly moved away from the wall and followed him.

- Take a book! - the silver-haired man spoke inaudibly, but loudly enough.

Jo, without slowing down, looked back. The stranger, stretching his arm forward, somehow strangely minced his feet, almost dancing as he walked. His voice sounded too young for his aged face - apparently he used some kind of hair bleaching product. But at the moment that was not the point at all - the crazy light that burned in the man’s eyes testified to the extent to which he was out of his mind.

- Take a book, take-a-book, takeabook!... - raising his voice, he muttered, jumping with every step.

- What's the matter? - mister Thurlow asked sternly, trying to break away from his pursuer.

- Let you take a book! I'm has good book! - the whacky said, shaking his whole body.

Jo quickened his pace a little, hoping that his shadower would leave him behind, but where there! This silver-haired man, dressed in denim overalls, has become even bolder - his movements became even more fussy, and the whacky began to mince his feet even more energetically, continuing to repeat the same word, which now sounded like "takabuk", he pronounced it so incoherently. This was starting to get on mister Thurlow's nerves, but his upbringing didn’t allow him to start running. Eventually the crazy man overtook him and stopped on the road, blocking his path.

- What's the matter, I said? - Jo repeated his question even more sternly.

- Take one, just one book! - said the pursuer, mumbling lips.

With these words, the whacky grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him towards him. Mister Thurlow silently shook off his hand and walked forward, but this only provoked the silver-haired man in denim overalls even more, who, without stopping for a second, began to pursue him again, coming in from one side, then from the other, like an annoying jackal. Jo was already starting to get angry, but the stranger, dancing around him, pressed harder and harder, as if trying at all costs to prevent him from passing.

- Get lost! - Jo replied through clenched teeth, looking with hatred at the insane smile on the face of his pursuer, covered with thick silver hair.

- Take a book and I'll go away! - the whacky was already screaming, continuing his attempt to grab his hand.