“Keeping the shop’s secret hasn’t been easy. Trying to decide how much to share, how much to hide… It’s been hard on me, but hard on the people I love, too, even if they didn’t know exactly what I was hiding. And I’ll have to keep on keeping this secret—wewill—from most of the people in our lives. But letting your mum in, and Oliver, that’s something I don’t regret.”
“Even though they’re not really ‘in’? Even though they’re a little on the outside, still?”
Aurelia thought about Oliver, that heaviness she’d started to realize crept over him whenever they talked about the characters. It was something they’d need to work out, but she knew with absolute certainty that working it out together would be better than hiding alone.
“Even so. And I think if you asked your mum or Oliver, they’d say the same. Let’s hope tonight’s experiments work. But if they don’t, let’s try to think of other ways to bring them as ‘in’ as we can. What do you think?”
Julia leaned down to give her aunt a hug as she said, “I think that sounds like a plan.”
Before midnight, Antonia and Oliver had set up the camera in an unobtrusive spot in the shop, and had gone over their plan with Aurelia and Julia so many times that Julia had finally exclaimed, “We know!” in her most exasperated voice.
Aurelia and Julia stood holding hands next to the Recommended Reads table, watching as the characters came to life before them. Aurelia held her phone in her other hand, ready for Antonia’s call at a quarter past midnight.
After greeting everyone, Aurelia took Cuff aside and explained the situation to him.
“I see.” He nodded. “Not yet finished with their efforts to detect us, then?”
“No, not quite,” Aurelia said. “They really wish they could see and talk to all of you.”
“I suppose I understand their curiosity. How frustrating to have a solution just out of reach, so close and yet—” He rubbed the fingers of one hand together and then spread them apart, as though letting loose some invisible, intangible element.
He and Aurelia climbed the stairs to the mezzanine and sat on the window seat just as the phone rang. Aurelia fumbled the phone in her hands in her haste to answer it and heard Julia downstairs explaining away the ringing sound to the other characters.
“Hi, Antonia,” Aurelia said when, at last, she’d managed to press the right button.
“Have you got someone with you?” Antonia asked, sounding eager.
“Yes, I have Sergeant Cuff here. Hang on.”
Aurelia held the phone to his ear, and he spoke into the mouthpiece just as she’d shown him.
“Good evening. How are you?”
Aurelia leaned toward Cuff and heard Antonia’s voice.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Cuff looked at Aurelia, a smile lighting his face at the wonder of speaking to someone through a rectangular piece of glass and metal. At the sound of Antonia’s voice, he spoke again.
“Yes, madam. This is Sergeant Cuff speaking with you.”
“I can hear someone’s there, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Maybe they could speak up a bit?”
“Hello,” Cuff said loudly, drawing stares from the women below. “This is Sergeant Cuff!”
Aurelia could hear a sound of exasperation from Antonia and put the phone to her own ear.
“Antonia? He’s practically shouting—can’t you hear him?”
“No, it’s all muffled,” she said forlornly. “It’s the same as when we’re in the stairwell.” Antonia sighed dramatically. “Oh, well. At least we still have the camera. Are you going to stay in the shop?”
“I might,” Aurelia said, looking longingly down at the rest of the characters. “Would you and Oliver mind?”
“No, we’re fine up here. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Julia looked up as Aurelia and Cuff came down the stairs, and Aurelia shook her head to signal that it hadn’t worked. She put her phone on her desk, then walked over to join Mrs. Jamieson, who was looking at several shelves of Dickens’ novels with interest. Perhaps the rest of the night could be salvaged, after all.
44
