“Forget his bloody trousers. Look what you’ve done to my shop!” Heathcliff folded his arms and glared at the ladder, which had smashed a wooden panel and left a long scratch along the balustrade.
“It wasn’t me,” Morrie protested. “It was the mouse!”
“Meeeoooow!” howled Grimalkin.
My temples throbbed.Just another day in Nevermore Bookshop.
The shop bell tinkled. Heathcliff frowned as the sound of clomping orthopedic shoes signaled the arrival of an elderly customer. These were his least favorite types of customers, after children and Millennials and everyone else.
Heathcliff was the only shop owner I knew who wished customers would just leave him alone. We’d been getting a steady stream through the doors ever since I started working at Nevermore Bookshop, but I blame that on the recent murder in the Sociology section. Even though the police solved that crime over a month ago (with a little help from Heathcliff, Morrie, Quoth, and myself), the villagers still made a beeline for the upstairs room where it had taken place.
Believe it or not, a murder during my first week on the job had so far been theleastof my problems. It turns out the murder victim was my ex-best friend, Ashley, and since I’d been one of the people to find the body, the police were convinced I’d done it. Luckily we’d managed to clear my name and got a dangerous killer locked behind bars.
Italsoturns out that my new boss and his two flatmates are actually the fictional characters Heathcliff, James Moriarty, and Poe’s raven, Quoth. And the bookshop I’d loved since I was a kid was no ordinary bookshop – it was plagued by some kind of curse, had a hidden occult book collection, and had a room that moved forward and backward in time.
Andthen,because my life wasn’t already crazy enough, I sort of…sleptwith Morrie. Well, there wasn’t much sleeping happening. He’d taken me hard against one of the hallway bookshelves. My cheeks reddened just thinking about it. Ever since then we’d been doing it everywhere we could – in the storage room, on his perfectly-made bed, on Heathcliff’s chair in the living room. My body tingled just thinking about Morrie’s hands sliding over my skin. My life may be insane, but it had never been more perfect…exceptfor the tiny, unresolved issue of me not wanting to be with a master criminal, and of Heathcliff kissing me, and Quoth declaring he had feelings for me, and me not knowing which of them to choose…
Oh yeah, and I was going blind. That was also a thing.
Quoth fluttered away to greet our customer while Morrie scrambled to right the ladder. Heathcliff slouched back to his desk and slid his muscled frame into his chair, flipping open a book in front of him with a heavy thud.
I guess I’ll help the customer, then.I turned to see who’d come through the door.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Ellis!” Mrs. Ellis was the hilariously horny old biddy who used to be my school teacher. She’d encouraged my love of reading, always giving me books far above my level, usually featuring muscled men and swooning women on the covers in various states of undress. She’d retired years ago and now lived in a small flat above the chippy across the road, which suited her perfectly as it gave her the ideal vantage point to eavesdrop on conversations in the street and gather all the village gossip.
“Hello, Mina, dear.” Mrs. Ellis wrapped her arms around me in a motherly hug. I sucked in a mouthful of hyacinth perfume and tried not to gag. As I pulled away, a pair of beady grey eyes met mine from over Mrs. Ellis’ shoulder.
The eyes belonged to a sour-looking woman in a fuchsia-pink suit, complete with matching handbag and hat. She leaned against a crutch and peered down at me through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“That’s a provocative outfit for working a retail job,” she frowned, sweeping her judgmental gaze over my body.
I smoothed down the front of the t-shirt I’d screen printed the night before. It read, ‘I like big books and I cannot lie,’ with the OO’s in the word BOOKS strategically angled across my chest. Morrie and Quoth thought it was hilarious. Heathcliff didn’t seem to have noticed it yet. “What do you mean, ma’am?” I asked, all sunshine and innocence. “I’m declaring my love of the written word.”
“It implies you’re sexually excited by books, like some kind of pervertedlesbian,” she sniffed.
“Oh no,” Morrie called from the top of the stairs. “I can assure you, she’s a big fan of the cock.”
Mrs. Ellis snickered. She squeezed my hand. “Iknewyou’d land one of those handsome beaus, dearie. Tell me, is he long and lean in all the right places?”
My face flared with heat.Could the floor just swallow me now?
The woman’s face turned beet red. She called up the staircase. “Young man, that is inappropriate language in front of your elders, and you—”
Sensing a lecture coming on and Heathcliff’s anger sizzling in the background, I jumped in. “Ma’am, I’m sorry about my friend, and my t-shirt. I’m happy to help two such lovely young ladies with your book-buying needs.”
Mrs. Ellis tittered. Her companion didn’t look nearly so amused, although she did brush an invisible speck of lint from her shoulder.
“Oh, dear me, where are my manners. Mina, this is my dear friend, Gladys Scarlett. We’re on the Argleton Community Fundraising Committee together.” Mrs. Ellis beamed, clutching Gladys’ hand. “Don’t mind her. She approves of provocative outfits and beautiful bookish men, don’t you, Gladys? She’s just a bit under-the-weather today.”
“Ichairthe committee, thank you very much,” Gladys Scarlett corrected her.
“Yes, of course. Gladys is very involved in the community. She’s on all sorts of committees; I forget which ones are which.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Gladys,” I held out my hand and the old woman shook. She had a firm grip. “I’m Wilhelmina Wilde. I used to be one of Mrs. Ellis’ students—”
“Wilde?” Mrs. Scarlett’s eyes lit up. “Are you any relation to our Oscar?”
“Um, I don’t think so.” My heart skipped a beat. My mum ran away from home when she was sixteen to be with my dad, who abandoned her shortly thereafter while she was pregnant with me. She still didn’t talk to anyone in her family, and I’d never met any relatives. “I don’t know anyone by that name—”
