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‘Sure,’ Jaide said. ‘Come along. It’s just an old bookshop, though.’
‘I love books,’ Tara said. ‘Maybe I’ll find something I haven’t already read.’
‘You’re bound to,’ said Jack. ‘Rodeo Dave has everything.’
That wasn’t remotely true, Jack knew, but he had yet to be disappointed. He liked reading, too, and when he had finished the stack of childhood favourites his father had left behind in Grandma X’s house, Jack had gone looking in the Book Herd for something similar. There was row after row of old Westerns. He could read for years without running out.
As they explained to Mr Carver that they were going home for lunch, Jack felt as though he was being watched. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Kyle sitting on his own, staring hotly at them. Jack didn’t know what they’d done to offend him. Maybe he was just upset because his dad might lose his job at the estate. Or maybe it was because they had each other and he had no one.
For a microsecond, Jack considered inviting Kyle along, but there were too many of them already, and Kyle had done nothing to initiate friendship before. The middle of a mission wasn’t the time to start making new friends.
On the way to the bookshop, Tara spotted a carved memorial stone outside the fish markets that had been dedicated by George Archibald Mattheus Rourke the Second in 1923, commemorating the loss of a commercial ship to a storm just outside the harbour.
The Book Herd was open but empty of customers, as it always seemed to be, but Rodeo Dave wasn’t alone. Rennie was there, as well. She and Dave looked up from his desk as the twins and Tara walked through the door.
‘Well, hello,’ said Rodeo Dave, brushing imaginary sticking-out hairs back into line on his thick, proud moustache. He was in his usual jeans and cowboy boots, with a red-and-white check shirt. ‘I wasn’t expecting you kids around these parts on a school day.’
‘Hello, Dave,’ said Jaide, echoed by Jack. ‘Hello, Rennie.’
Tara said nothing, and neither did Rennie. The woman who was Portland’s Living Ward simply nodded her head and almost smiled.
She looked pale and thin, scarred physically and mentally by her time possessed by The Evil. She was wearing a black cotton dress with very long sleeves that didn’t quite hide her twisted right arm or the complete absence of her left hand. She wore a yellow silk bandana to conceal her lack of hair, and the skin of her throat was pockmarked and scarred. The Warden healer called Phanindranath had done her best, but neither Warden Gifts nor modern surgery could correct all Rennie’s injuries.
The almost-smile was new, though. It showed that Rennie was healing on the inside, where it counted.
‘Renita’s going to be minding the shop while I’m busy at the Rourke Estate,’ said Rodeo Dave. ‘I could close the shop, but with Renita living here I figured, why miss out on the custom?’
A flicker of trouble crossed Rodeo Dave’s face as he said the name Rourke, but the twins didn’t notice. This was the perfect opportunity for them to get back to the estate!
‘Mum says the library is huge,’ said Jack. ‘Won’t that take longer than a few days?’
‘We could help you,’ said Jaide brightly. ‘Then you’d be done in no time at all.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Rodeo Dave slowly, looking from one to the other.
‘We won’t get in the way,’ said Jack. ‘We promise.’
‘But it’ll be very boring.’
‘Anything’s better than homework,’ said Jaide.
Rodeo Dave laughed. ‘Well, yes, that’s bound to be true. All right, then, fine with me, but I’ll have to talk to your grandmother first.’
‘She’s still in the hospital,’ said Jack. ‘Mum’ll probably be grateful we’re not at home alone.’
‘Sensible thinking, but I’ll be sure to make sure. What about your friend here? Does she want to come, too?’
Tara was staring at Rennie with a blank look on her face. When Rodeo Dave spoke to her, she blinked and looked away, as though waking from a dream.
‘Oh, hello. Do you have anything with vampires?’
‘Over on the far wall,’ said Rodeo Dave, ‘next to the maps of Vanuatu.’
Tara wandered off.
‘She half remembers,’ said Rennie unexpectedly, in a voice both rough and soft.
‘Remembers what, Renita?’ asked Rodeo Dave.
‘Nothing important,’ said Jaide hastily, keen to change the subject before Rennie said something that Rodeo Dave shouldn’t hear. ‘Will you call Mum and ask her? Shall we come back here after school?’
‘Unless you change your mind.’ His usual grin returned. ‘I’m sure you can think of better things to do than hang out with an old man’s books. Now, who’s for lunch?’
‘Me!’ said Jack, opening his lunchbox on the desk. It was lunchtime, after all, and his stomach was complaining. Rodeo Dave joined him, unwrapping a thick ham, cheese and mustard sandwich. Rennie didn’t eat anything, even when Jaide offered her a bright-red apple Susan had insisted on packing for her, even though Jaide didn’t like apples. Rennie just watched them eat, perched on a high stool among the books like a solitary bird in a rookery.
‘You knew him, didn’t you?’ Jack asked Rodeo Dave.
‘Knew who?’
‘Young Master Rourke.’
‘I suppose I did.’
Rodeo Dave thought about his own answer for a moment, then added, ‘If anyone could say that. He was one of my best customers, always calling me up, looking for this or that. I would take him his books in person rather than use a courier, but George was never one for talking, just like his father.’
‘Did you meet him?’ asked Jaide. ‘Mister Rourke, I mean?’
‘I never really met him. But I saw him around. Always out and about the town, always talking, making his opinion known. You could see him a mile off, a tall, rakish man with an enormous nose, and you could smell him, too. Not because he never bathed. He was fussy in that regard. He used to slick his hair back with this gel – I forget what it was called now – but it was ghastly, sticky stuff. The stink of it was enough to make you feel ill.’
Rodeo Dave pulled a face.
‘He sounds horrible,’ said Jack.
‘Mister Rourke had faults. There’s no denying that.’
‘What happened to him?’ asked Jaide.
‘He died in Africa. Some people said he was trampled trying to capture an elephant, but actually he caught malaria and wasn’t treated properly. Which goes to show that money can’t buy you everything.’
‘Nobody’s perfect,’ whispered Rennie.
‘Indeed.’ Rodeo Dave rais
ed the half sandwich he had been holding, uneaten, as though in a toast. ‘The dead outnumber the living. Let’s not tempt fate by speaking ill of them.’
Tara chose that moment to return from the shelves, clutching a scuffed, cloth-covered book in one hand.
‘This is all I could find,’ she said. ‘I was looking for stories, but most of the books you have in that section seem to be non-fiction, which is weird because vampires aren’t real.’
‘Monsters are only as real as we believe them to be, like tyrants.’ Rodeo Dave took the book from her and studied the spine. ‘Ah, Dracula. The original and the best.’
‘There was no price on it.’
‘That’s because it belongs to you,’ he said, giving her back the book with some of his usual sparkle.
Tara looked confused. ‘You’re giving it to me?’
‘Books find their own owners. I just hold on to them until they meet each other. Money is often an unwelcome complication.’
‘But . . . I mean, won’t you go out of business?’
‘Have no fear on that score, Tara,’ Rodeo Dave said. ‘Not with Renita here to keep the shop open.’
‘There’s more to living than busyness,’ said Rennie in a soft but firm voice.
‘Exactly!’ Rodeo Dave grinned widely, as though having someone in the shop to not take money from non-existent customers solved all his problems.
Jack and Jaide could understand Tara’s puzzlement. Her mother ran a gift shop in Scarborough, and her father was relentless in his pursuit of the next business opportunity. It wasn’t surprising that she found Rodeo Dave’s philosophy completely alien.
Come to think of it, most people would find it pretty weird. Not for the first time, Jack wondered whether Rodeo Dave was secretly rich or something. Maybe he owned a cattle ranch somewhere.
His thoughts were interrupted by Tara suddenly leaning close to Rennie and staring at her. Dracula hung limp in her hand, forgotten.
‘Where do I know you from?’ she asked.
‘We drew pictures of her,’ said Jaide quickly. ‘At school, remember? When we thought she had . . . you know?’
Mr Carver had held a small memorial for Rennie when the town believed she had drowned in The Evil’s storm, one year after her own children had drowned.
