As we walked toward the shop entrance, loud house music blasted my ears. A customer rushed from the store, her hands planted firmly over her ears.
“What’s going on?” I yelled at Quoth. He shrugged and followed me inside.
As I made my way down the darkened hallway, Lydia crashed through the room, spinning and jumping like a wild animal. She’d replaced her bonnet and empire line dress with an off-the-shoulder shirt adorned with a sequined penis across her breasts, leopard-print ballet flats, and a pair of the tightest black jeans I’d ever seen.
“Oh, Mina, you have returned.” She threw her arms around me. I staggered back under the force of her embrace. “Won’t you dance with me? The boys are such spoilsports. All they want to do is rest.”
Beside me, Quoth’s body shrunk into itself in an explosion of feathers. His bones cracked as they reshaped into wings. A moment later, a large raven took off, seeking the shadows of his lair above the entrance.
I didn’t blame him. Lydiawasa terrifying presence.
“Aren’t you freezing?” I asked, disentangling myself and wrapping my scarf tighter around my neck. Even though Heathcliff had the stove in the main room blaring, it wasn’t exactly warm in the shop.
“Of course not, silly goose. The dancing keeps me warm!” Lydia laughed and twirled away. “This music is so much more lively than the pianoforte. Why, I should like to dance all day and night.”
From the chaise lounge in the corner, Morrie moaned.
I stepped inside, unable to conceal my smile. The criminal mastermind lay in a messy heap across the couch, a cold compress over his eyes and an expression of existential angst marring his usually-smug features. All around him towered boxes and shopping bags. Makeup and hair straighteners and stacks of clothing and colorful iPhone cases spilled over the tables and cascaded across the floor.
Heathcliff was nowhere to be seen.I bet he’s hiding in the storage room, leaving Morrie to take care of Lydia. Smart man.
“She made me take her shopping,” Morrie whimpered. “She needed things so she could fit into our modern age.”
I grinned.At least he’s too exhausted to be a wanker today.
“Lord Moriarty and I had such good fun.” Lydia pulled his credit card from the pocket of her figure-hugging jeans and waved it in his face. “What a wondrous invention this is. I never wish to part with it.”
“Give that to me,” Morrie held out a limp hand. “It looks tired.”
Lydia tossed the card at him, laughing. She grabbed her a brand new phone from the table beside the armadillo and changed the song to a death metal track. “This one reminds me of Mary playing the pianoforte at the Netherfield ball!”
I sat down on the end of the couch, my eyes darting over Morrie’s features, trying to commit every detail of him to memory. Would I even remember what things looked like when I was blind? Would the full picture of Morrie’s high, sharp cheekbones and haughty lips and strong jawline and willowy, muscled frame cease to exist to me, accessible only in fragments through moments of touch and sensation. Would the ice-blue of his eyes no longer pierce my heart?
“Why are you looking so odd?” he asked. “Did Quoth ask you to do something kinky on your date? Did he make you eat a dead mouse?”
“No, I—” I opened my mouth to tell Morrie about the doctor’s office, but I bit back the words. As far as Morrie and Heathcliff were aware, Quoth and I had been out on a date. I glanced away, sucking in my breath and blinking away a tear that threatened to spill down my face. If I said something to Morrie now, and he acted the way he’d been acting… I couldn’t handle it. So I changed the subject. “Do you have my letter?”
“It’s in my pocket.” Morrie sighed, flopping back against the pillows. “Can you get it? I can’t move right now.”
I slid my hand into his pocket and pulled out my father’s letter. As soon as my fingers grazed the paper, a cold shiver ran down my spine.
“Did you have time to look over it between trips to the Barchester mall?”
“My investigations have confirmed our suspicions,” Morrie said. “The compounds in the ink match those used by Herman Strepel. The person who wrote this note and the person who letteredBatrachomyomachiaare one and the same.”
My father is Herman Strepel.
My chest tightened, and my mouth dried out. For the first time in my life, my father had a name and a profession.
So what? What does it matter that my father is an ancient book-letterer who owned Nevermore over a thousand years ago? He still knocked my mother up and then ran out on us when I was a baby.
And if he was Herman Strepel, then why was he in our time period in the first place? Did he just hop around the different centuries, selling books and breaking hearts? Where was he now? Has he been eaten by dinosaurs?
What does he know about fictional characters coming to life? The two things had to be connected. And who is his enemy?
And what does Mum know about any of this?
Quoth swooped into the room and settled on my shoulder. “Croak?” he asked, nuzzling his head against my cheek.
