“I mean, do you think anybody is going tobuythem if they’re just in piles around the place?”
The rattkin puffed in exasperation as she straightened, dusting herself off. “If a customer tells me what they want, then I’ll find it for them. That’s how a bookshop works. They have to be storedsomewhere.”
“Well, if they can go anywhere then… why not in the back? If you know where they are?”
Fern squinted at her.
Viv hurried on. “It’s just, when they’re all out and everywhere, I’m sort of… afraid to touch anything. Or look at anything. Or move.”
There was a long pause while the rattkin nibbled at her lower lip.
“And,” ventured Viv, “you could probably toss all the sea charts back there, too.”
“Those gods-damned sea charts,” Fern said with remarkable savagery.
“So why not hide them? And see how it feels?” She saw the look on the rattkin’s face and held up her hands. “I mean, it’snot my place to say, but… seems like maybe a hole you can patch that doesn’t cost you anything?”
“Fuck!” muttered Fern.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t—”
“No, it’s not that.” The rattkin sighed and didn’t look at Viv. “It’s that it’s easier to do this when you’re here. And that makes me feel stupid. Have I been sitting on my tail all this time? Doing nothing because I waspretendingI couldn’t? Am I so pathetic that I couldn’t muster the energy to do this without… without achaperone?”
Viv stayed quiet. Sometimes, that was just what you had to do.
“I’m not blaming you,” Fern said. “I’mthankful. I’m just… angry. At myself. And I don’t understand why I didn’t see any of this before. Maybe it means I never wanted it to work out in the first place.”
“Or maybe you just needed to be back-to-back with someone.”
The rattkin blinked at her.
“To reframe it,” continued Viv.
“To look at it sideways,” said Fern.
“So. Let’s find out if it’s a rabbit or a gull, yeah?”
With the “floor books”—as Viv insisted on calling them—tucked away in the back room where Fern handled binding repairs, they stood together in the front and surveyed their handiwork.
“It feels twice as big in here,” said Viv. “And sinceI’mtwice as big asyou, I have to say, that feels pretty good.”
“I’ll admit, it’s a lot… airier.”
Potroast promptly curled up on the carpet in the pool of sun streaming through the open door. He fluffed the feathers of his ruff and closed his enormous eyes in obvious contentment.
It was a far cry from the oiled and gleaming ranks of volumes in Highlark’s office library, but it was a little less shabby. Not exactly organized. Not precisely inviting. Overstuffed shelves still ringed the room, and the central pair still threatened an avalanche, but it was remarkable what some open floorspace achieved. Even the peeling paint and cracked lamp chimney seemed less desolate.
“Doesn’t smell so yellow anymore, either,” Viv said to herself.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
The creak of the boardwalk outside preceded the arrival of a bandy-legged gnome in salt-crusted clothes. His hands had the hard, callused look of a man who spent his days on the deck of a ship.
Fern sighed, then mustered a smile. “Afternoon, sir! Looking for a sea chart?”
Two long creases below his cheeks deepened with his surprise. “Naw. Ain’t been sleepin’ lately. Just figgered I’d get somethin’ to occupy the hours. Whaddaya got for that?”
