“They have, but this book… It’s a little different than their usual genre.”
Their usual genre was their own—mostly nineteenth-century literature—but Aurelia had the good sense to keep that detail to herself. It was easier to talk about the characters as if they were a group of fellow writers, making her nightly routine something she could share—even if in a code only she understood—with her friends and family. She’d figured out how to keep her life with the characters a secret without completely eliminating their existence, but it didn’t make hiding the truth from the people she loved most any easier.
Last year, after she and Oliver had gotten engaged, she’d realized that she shouldn’t—couldn’t—marry him without telling him the truth. But how, and when? She’d asked Esther from Dickens’Bleak Housefor advice, and Esther had suggested that she wait for the ‘right moment’ to tell him. So Aurelia had held back from blurting it out, not wanting to pick the wrong moment while waiting patiently for the right one to show itself. With their wedding weeks away though, the right time was running very late. Aurelia had decided that, if the right time still hadn’t arrived by the week before their wedding, she would sit Oliver down and make it right. It was scary to think of how he’d react, how he might be hurt by her secrecy, how he might not believe her. But she had to trust that he’d find a way to forgive—and believe—her.
So: her deadline to finish the book and her deadline to tell Oliver were now closing in, leaving no more room for putting either one off.
“If your writing group can’t help you, then you’ll just have to really buckle down and push yourself to get those last edits out of your head and onto paper,” Louisa said, bringing Aurelia back to the moment.
“Alright,” she said with a firm nod. “Three weeks. I can do it.”
3
Dayspassedandstillthe heat was unrelenting.
Aurelia was due to gather Julia from St. Pancras station the following day and had finally landed on her list of required reading. She had just cleared off the Recommended Reads table, having said goodbye to another set of characters at dawn, and had her arms full of new books to set out. These were the same books she wanted Julia to read. She thought it would be fun to talk to the characters at night and get insight into their worlds that she could then share with Julia (without divulging her sources) during the day. It was a slight deviation from Aunt Marigold’s old system of selecting books with characters that would get along, but Aurelia hadn’t yet met a character the others didn’t like and was confident that this new batch would be no exception.
Since they only had four weeks together, Aurelia had settled on three books: two shorter ones and one longer one. With Aurelia working in the shop during the day and trying to meet her writing deadline, Julia would need something to occupy her time, so the reading pace seemed manageable.
The first book she put on the table wasJane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. Aurelia thought it might be a little heavy for a fourteen-year-old, but she couldn’t resist sharing strong, intelligent Jane with her niece. She had visions of Julia enjoying the banter between Jane and Mr. Rochester, worrying over what might become of Jane, and learning from the way Jane stuck to her convictions. Truth be told, Aurelia’s eagerness to share the book with Julia was due in part to her own interest in meeting the characters fromJane Eyre. She still hadn’t figured out why one character appeared in the shop versus another, but she had her hopes set on meeting Jane that night.
Second wasPride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. An obvious choice, maybe, but Aurelia couldn’t help herself; it was a classic for a reason. She’d confirmed with Antonia that Julia hadn’t been assigned it in school yet, giving Aurelia a chance to be the first to give it to her. Lizzy Bennet was another strong, intelligent woman, and another good example for Julia to follow. Aurelia also thought the contrast between Lizzy and her flighty younger sisters might help Julia avoid a few of the pitfalls that came with being a teenager. Aurelia had put the book on the Recommended Reads table a few times now, and had met Mr. Bennet, Jane, Charlotte Lucas, and Mrs. Gardiner—Lizzy’s aunt. Aurelia kept hoping to meet Lizzy, but like every other time, she’d just have to wait and see which two characters she would get.
Last wasCranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell. The novel was focused on a town populated by strong women. There was gossip and social scheming, yes, but also women banding together and forming lasting friendships. Gaskell, like Austen, balanced pathos with humor, teasing her characters for their defects and highlighting their good qualities. It had been a while since Aurelia had read the book, but she was fairly certain she’d be happy to meet any of its characters.
After arranging the books on the table, Aurelia carried one copy of each upstairs to the flat. She set them on the bedside table in the guest room, just as eager for Julia to make her own appearance the following day.
4
Withfansrunningtwenty-fourhours a day in their flat, the white noise helped make Aurelia’s escapes down to the shop at night easier to pull off without disturbing Oliver. That night, she managed once again to get out of their bedroom without waking him. In the bathroom, she changed out of her nightclothes and into what she’d been wearing earlier that day, which she’d made sure to hang from the hook on the back of the door. From the bathroom, she padded down the hall to the living room, where she grabbed her props—her notebook and pen—so that if Oliver did happen to wake up, he’d think she was downstairs writing.
At the top of the stairs that led to the shop, Biscuit sat waiting for her. He knew her routine well at this point, and hardly ever barked at the characters anymore. Fezz, meanwhile, was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs, where Aurelia slipped on a pair of shoes before opening the door that led into the shop. It was quiet and dark as Aurelia made her way down the spiral staircase at the back of the shop’s mezzanine, but she didn’t bother to turn on the lights since the shop would be filled with a soft, mysterious glow once the characters arrived. She made herself a cup of coffee and leaned against her desk as she waited for the clock behind her to chime midnight.
A few sips of coffee later, and Aurelia spotted the familiar white mists beginning to form above the Recommended Reads table. Smiling and excited to see who might appear, she thought yet again that she’d never get tired of seeing the shop reveal its magic. The mists rose up from each stack of books on the table, then spilled over to the floor, growing upward into columns that soon shaped themselves into six distinct people.
“Hello!” she said as she approached them. “Welcome. I’m Aurelia Lyndham and I own this shop. Has anyone visited here before?”
“I have, Miss Lyndham,” said a man in an expensive-looking frock coat, waistcoat, and cravat. “Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
He nodded his head in greeting and Aurelia felt herself dipping into a curtsy before she could stop herself.
“May I also introduce you to my wife, Elizabeth Darcy.”
The woman at his side—Lizzy—curtsied to Aurelia before breaking into a large smile.
“Miss Lyndham! I am very happy to meet you. I have been to your shop—oh, countless times. But last I was here, Marigold—I should say, Miss Clarke—owned the shop.”
“Marigold was my aunt. I’m sorry to tell you, but she passed away a few years ago.”
“Oh, I am very sorry to hear that,” Lizzy said, her smile fading.
“I am, as well, Miss Lyndham,” Darcy said. “She and I had some heated discussions during my visits here, but I did enjoy them.”
The other characters joined in with their condolences, and Aurelia thanked them.
“Do you know, I think we might have missed each other the last time I was here,” Lizzy said. “We’d been visiting the shop a few nights running without seeing Marigold, and we did begin to wonder if something had happened. Then for a night or two there was some commotion about someone coming into the shop—just there,” she said, pointing to the mezzanine. “I never seemed to turn around in time, but the others thought it must have been the new owner.”
“That was you?” Aurelia asked excitedly. “I heard someone mention Pemberley! Marigold never told me about what happens here, so it was a complete shock when I first heard voices in the middle of the night.”
