Of course. It’s the secret occult collection Mr. ___ compiled so he could figure out why the bookshop kept bringing literary characters to life.
Grimalkin yawned in reply, stretching out across the pedestal and rolling on her back, kicking her paws up in the air. I rubbed her stomach while she purred, and my eye caught the cover of the book underneath.
It was made from a fine black leather, blank except for a small symbol inlaid in gold in the center. I ran my fingers over the spine, and a sliver of ice drove into the back of my neck.
Grimalkin meowed and leapt off the table. She circled my feet as I ran my fingers along the deckled edges of the pages. Goosebumps rose on my arms. I flipped open the cover, expecting to see towers of skulls and mirror writing. Instead, every page was blank.
My fingers tingled as I flicked through the pages again, but there was nothing inside the book. Even so, every hair on my body stood on end. I closed the book and studied the cover, wondering if the symbol held a clue as to what it was and why it was blank—
“What are you doing in here?” A voice growled behind me.
I whirled around. Heathcliff stood in the doorway, his bulk blocking the light from the storeroom beyond. His wild hair stuck out at all angles, and his eyes blazed.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Grimalkin snuck in the doorway behind that stack of boxes and I thought—”
“You thought you’d snoop around in my private property? How’d you even get the lock open? Is Moriarty teaching you how to be a criminal mastermind?”
“The door wasopen, and I followed Grimalkin in here. I didn’t realize this was private. I thought it was just old stock or something.”
Heathcliff grabbed my wrist. “You shouldn’t be in here. These books are dangerous.”
I wrenched my arm away. “Why? They give wicked paper cuts?”
“I don’t know why! All I know is that when Mr. ___ left the shop to me, he told me to keep this room locked and not to let anyone in here. Not even Morrie or Quoth have been in here.” Heathcliff pointed to the lintel over the door, where a series of symbols had been carved into the wood. “He placed these runes there to contain the magic within this room and stop anyone passing. How did you get past it?”
“I’m telling you, the door wasopen. I didn’t even see those runes. Maybe Morrie taught Grimalkin to pick locks with her claws.”
“This isn’t funny,” Heathcliff growled.
“You really believe in all this occult magic stuff?”
“I never did until I woke up in this shop. If you discovered your entirelifewas just words in someone else’s book, would you believe in magic?”
“Fair enough. And Mr. ___ believed as well.” I glanced up at the pentagonal ceiling. “Do you think this room shape is significant? I know pentagrams have meaning in pagan rituals. I’ve seenThe Craft.”
“Even if it is, this isn’t your concern.”
“Of course it’s my concern. I want to help you figure out how you got here. Maybe if we uncover the secret spell or whatever, we can reverse it and send you back.”
“Why? You want to get rid of me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You want to send me back to the life where my greatest love dies and I turn into a vicious sociopath who kills dogs and abuses children?” Heathcliff’s whole body shook with rage. “Is that how little you think of me?”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“None of us want to go back. Wecan’tgo back. If we could go back,Wuthering Heightswould end at chapter nine and no one would have heard of the Reichenbach Fall. It’s too late for us – what we want to do is stop this happening to other characters.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Why are you evenhere?” Heathcliff waved his hand at the room, at the shop, at the village outside. “You’ve crawled back to ___field with your tail between your legs because of a single wanker’s harsh words. You’ve come back to this bookshop because you want to pretend you’re a child again, sitting in a corner, reading her stories and waiting for someone to come along and save her. Only now, you’re usingourlives,ourstories, to distract you from living your own. Hear this, Mina. Life goes on after tragedy. Time marches onward. This shop is not a place out of time – it will not save you any more than it will save me. I have glimpsed my future, and I am incapable of being saved. And you—” he jabbed a finger at my chest. “Youwillgo blind, but if you don’t step out those doors, then you’ll become the footnote of your own tragedy.”
Tears welled in my eyes. His words cut right through me, the wounds stabbing through Marcus’ rejection and Ashley’s death and the ophthalmologist’s terrible diagnosis.How does he see right through me? I’ve been invisible for so, so long.
I backed up against the plinth, my hands scrambling for something to hold, for anything to put distance between my raw, open heart and Heathcliff, whose black eyes threatened to burst everything open.
“I don’t want to be in the world if I can’t see,” I choked out.
