Page 37

“You won’t find her in there.” She patted my arm. “But tell Xavier. He’s a good boy. Once you scratch the surface. He’ll help you.”

She watched me indecisively as I thanked her and went on through. Whatever the decision was that was troubling her, I felt must be a big one, as in our short acquaintance she’d struck me as a woman who knew her own mind.

Xavier was in his chair and looked at me dubiously over his book. “This is resting?”

“Can’t rest without a book.” I aimed at “breezy” and probably missed. Hesitating as I turned for the back of the shop, I added, “You don’t know a girl named Rose, do you?”

“I don’t.” A pause. “It’s an old-fashioned sort of name, isn’t it? Or is it back in fashion again?”

“Maybe…” I left him to his book while I went to hunt for Rose.

The whole thing seemed less likely and less feasible by the minute. This morning’s incident must have been concussion. The lunatic in the street might have found Sophie’s band, or one like it, or might actually have something to do with her disappearance—in which case, police or no police, I should be chasing him down. What I shouldn’t have been doing was coming back to this little book-lined alcove chasing a fever dream.

I spent a while hunting for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The thing eluded me for an age, but finally I reached for it with the trembling hand of someone once bitten. Relief and disappointment struck together, along with…nothing else. Whatever strange magic or madness had been connected to the book had gone, leaving only the ordinary kind.

“Where are you hiding?” I stood up, stretched painfully, and scanned the walls. “Are you watching me?” Rose had said she was standing with me before…only I couldn’t see her. I considered stretching out my hands but felt too self-conscious. Also, if Xavier were to walk over, he’d have me on an ambulance to A&E before I could say “avoiding a lawsuit.”

The empty air seemed to quiver with meaning, but none of it was reaching me. I ran a finger along a whole row of spines, went up to the next, ran it back. Nothing. I pulled out a book at random. A collection of Ray Bradbury sci-fi stories entitled The Illustrated Man. No sign of Rose on the cover…I opened it to a random page and started to read.

“I’m here…” It was a good start. “…on Mars. Hmmm…”

I pulled the next book. “Dracula? This should be fun.” I flipped to a random page, put my finger to the paper, and read aloud: “Can’t you hear me…No, I bloody can’t!” I looked around, still seeing nothing but books. “Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t you understand? Will you never learn? I think I’m doing pretty well, all things considered…” Returning my eyes to the page I read on, but the text wandered off topic: “Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and earnest now…”

The third book was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I repeated my earlier approach, landing a finger on a random page and line and starting to read: “What you know ’bout witches?” I paused, partly because witches creep me out at the best of times and the fact that actual magic appeared to be involved made that a hundred times worse. Also because of the preponderance of the N-word on the page. I was kinda shocked, but I guess it is a really old book…Still…To avoid wandering into one of the N-bombs, I skipped ahead and started anew:

“the wall, and before them…” It didn’t make any sense. I skipped more pages.

“the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man…” And again.

“the wall and kept mighty still…I’m sensing a pattern here…” I skipped ahead.

“the wall, just his shoulders showing…” I looked around at the empty alcove. “The wall, I get it. What about the wall?” Clearly the book didn’t have the words she needed, but there had to be easier ways to have a conversation. Like what we did last time. Albeit that had shoved me into unconsciousness, and I’d been lucky to slump against a wall.

I took a fourth book without looking at the title and started reading on page 113. “There’s a book hidden in the wall to your left. A witch wrote it. I need you to dig it out.” I looked up. “See! This is much better! Why didn’t you just— Ooh!” The room rotated around me and I sat down rather faster than I wanted to…especially given I hadn’t wanted to sit down at all. I felt slightly sick and stayed there on the floor for a moment with my head between my knees.

When I looked at the book again, the text was blurry and unreadable. It took me a moment to realize that the problem wasn’t with my eyes. The printing had gone wonky somehow. And I had no clue if it had been that way from the start or had been distorted by the message that had passed through the letters.

“A fucking witch.” The message hit home. “You want me to dig some black magic shit out of Xavier’s wall?” I didn’t look in a new book for the answer to that one. “What’s he going to say?” What I meant was that I didn’t want anything to do with a witch. Plus…what would Xavier say? “Why does it need to be dug out? Can’t you just use it where it is?” She seemed to have no problem moving between books on the shelves. How had an inch or two of plasterboard defeated her?

“I need to talk to you.” I muttered it so that Xavier wouldn’t think I was mad, though he’d probably heard some of the earlier one-sided conversation. I waited. Nothing.

“I know it might be dangerous, but…I need to see you…to believe this is all real.” Again, I waited. Again nothing.

“My sister’s gone missing, and I think this guy has her. This one-eyed crazy guy. And he’s searching for ‘a rose.’ I think he means you.”

The book in my hand snapped shut. The cover, which I hadn’t paid any attention to before, looked like colored oil on water, bearing only the title and attribution: A History of Histories by William Ancrath. A trembling on the shelves drew my gaze. Barely perceptible ripples ran through the rows of books as if the wall behind them were undulating, a deep pond disturbed by the arrival of a single smooth stone.

A soft, rustling hiss pulled my attention back to the History of Histories. At first it looked as if a black mist was escaping from between the pages. Then it seemed it might be a thousand tiny insects. And finally I saw it for what it was: letters, hundreds of thousands of them, swirling in a rising cloud…

And what they spelled was her.

Chapter 17

Rose

The boy looked as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backward. And in addition to his general dishevelment, he appeared battered and bruised, moving with the old man’s caution that by rights should still be waiting many decades in the future. Worry weighed on him that had not been there in Wonderland, even though that land was made of uncertainties.

Rose stood beside him, but he could neither hear nor see her. Only when she guided his hand could she reach his mind, choosing words from the various novels until he understood her about the witch’s book. She sensed that spell-wrapped volume more clearly now, since her time in Merlin’s cave. The other power, the one beneath the floor of the room she and Red stood in, was buried much deeper, and still its age and potential trembled across her skin. It was this—whatever it might be, for its strength shrouded it—that had brought her to this bookshop out of thousands, to this copy of The Wind in the Willows out of many millions.