There was a sound from the top of the stairs. I tore my lips from Morrie’s to squint up at the darkness. Victor poked his head inside. “Mina, I don’t know if this is a good time, but there’s a man here to see you. He says he’s come to fix the power and the plumbing.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Are you sure it’s okay to use a regular plumber?” I asked as I ran the mop over the floorboards at the base of the Classics shelves, trying to sop up every last drop of the waters of Meles. “These aren’t exactly ordinary pipes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I must’ve missed the page in the Yellow Pages for ‘magical plumbers,’” Heathcliff grumbled. “The water doesn’t seem to hurt people. It’s our books that are in danger from your father’s shoddy pipework.”
He wasn’t wrong there. We spent all week clearing out all the books from the Classics shelves so Handy Andy could get into the wall behind them to fix the pipes. When we pulled them all out, the damage was worse than we realized. Most of the books were completely soaked through. Now, several of the less-damaged books were laid out across the radiators around the shop, their pages drying out. Many were beyond saving, and we couldn’t risk them going home with customers and bringing fictional characters to life outside the shop. But we had a plan for them.
Now we’d solved the mystery of Nevermore Bookshop. At least, part of the mystery. When he fitted the shop with modern conveniences, my enterprising father had decided to use the waters of Meles to supply the water to the building, perhaps thinking he’d save on utility bills by tapping the ancient spring deep beneath the house. The shoddy Victorian pipes had started leaking years ago, slowly allowing water to turn the wall to sponge behind the bookshelves and then soaking the pages of the books with magical water and bringing the characters within those pages to life.
It explained why there had suddenly been this huge increase in the number of fictional characters. The pipes were a ticking-time-bomb – at any point during the last ten years they could’ve blown. They chose to blow a couple of weeks ago, slowing the water pressure to a trickle, soaking the Classics shelves, and flooding the cellar. It was a complete coincidence. A plumbing leak. Nothing to do with Mina Wilde and her wacky book magic.
I wasn’t controlling the chaos that was Nevermore Bookshop. I was still an ordinary wonky-eyed girl with three boyfriends and a killer wardrobe. And I couldn’t be happier.
I’d rid the world of Dracula and saved Quoth and the others from his spell. Jo had Fiona back and the pair of them were adorably, obnoxiously in love. The Spirit Seekers got some amazing footage from the night that the television people are convinced is fake, but they still want to give Mrs. Ellis her own spinoff show. Dorothy Ingram was off to a special facility where she’d hopefully get the help she needed. And we got justice for Jenna Mclarey – Jo and I presented Hayes with our evidence and – after rebuking us for taking the law into our own hands – he arrested Connor for her murder.
The good ended happily, and the bad got a stake through the heart. That’s life in Nevermore Bookshop.
“Does this mean there won’t be any more fictional characters showing up in Argleton?” Jo asked as Handy Andy carried the last of his tools up from the cellar. It had taken him over a week to locate the worn pipes down there and replace them with brand new ones, and he had a lot of work still to finish. Luckily, the insurance I’d insisted Heathcliff take out on the shop had covered it all.
“I don’t think so.” I flipped a copy of Shakespeare’s plays over the radiator to dry. Although I was kind of sad that I wouldn’t get to meet any more of my heroes and heroines from literature, it was worth it to keep the world safe from the likes of Dr. Jekyll, or Grendel, or Moby Dick or – Isis save us – Edward Cullen. Besides, the fictional characters in my life caused enough chaos and mayhem as it was.
The last of the books set out to dry, I collapsed into Heathcliff’s chair, resting my boots on the desk. I was beyond tired. My phone buzzed. ‘Incoming call from Helen Wilde’ the screen read out. I kicked the phone off the edge of the desk. I was so grateful that my mum was alive, but I didn’t need to hear about how in love with Handy Andy she was.
Every child of parents who’d split up had that secret wish they’d get back together. Homer and Helen were written in the stars…but maybe Dad was right, and it was my turn to tell the story.
Morrie picked up a battered copy ofSilence of the Lambs. “I for one don’t want to run the risk of this Hannibal Lecter creeping into my life. There’s only room for one criminal mastermind in this bookshop.”
“Besides, we’re going to have a devil of a time finding homes for all our pox-ridden houseguests as it is.” Heathcliff made a dramatic nod at Socrates, who was holding my phone on a selfie stick as he reviewed Peter Jordanson’s latest book for his Instagram followers. “Mina, it’s time.”
“Arf,” Oscar agreed.
I sighed. “Yes, you’re right.”
Everyone followed me and Oscar upstairs and piled into the living room of the flat. A stack of waterlogged books sat beside the fireplace, and I knelt down and placed the last books from today’s clear-out on top.
Heathcliff knelt, stoking the logs on the fire into a roaring blaze. He handed me a leather-bound volume. “You first.”
I peered down at the title, my heart catching in my throat.Wuthering Heights.
The very volume that had brought Heathcliff into my life. The words that had so stirred my soul were now blots of ink on the ruined pages.
I looked up at Heathcliff with surprise. He smiled at me. “Toss it. I’m not the person I was inside those pages. Because of you, I’m a better man. My story isn’t finished.Ourstory isn’t finished.”
I thought of Dante’s offer to me, and how easy it was to cast aside the one thing I thought I’d wanted most in the world a year ago to bring my family together. How it wasn’t really a choice at all.
I threw the book into the flames. Fire licked along the spine, wreathing the book in a halo of orange light. The pages curled and fell away, returning to the earth as smoke and ash.
Far from the fear-based ‘librocide’ Dorothy Ingram had sought to enact, this book burning was aboutsavingbooks – about keeping stories in our hearts instead of running around the streets hurting people. We needed to set these characters free to live their own lives within the pages.
I sucked in a breath. Even though I knew this was the right thing to do, there was something sacrilegious about watching a book burn. I almost expected Ray Bradbury or the goddess Sylvia Plath to float from the heavens and smite us all.
But no, Goddess Plath had better things to do. She knew, as I now knew, that we were the writers of our own stories.
Heathcliff tossed a book to Morrie. “Your turn.”
