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“I’m not, really. I just want to work around books again.”
At the rear of the store, a bookcase collapsed, sending several leather-bound books skittering across the floor. He lifted a scraggly white eyebrow. “Perhaps you could start off with some reorganization,” he said, looking at the neat stacks of books I’d arranged around us. “You seem to have a steady hand at that.”
I had learned my lesson from Greenfield Studios, so we sat down to discuss schedules, pay scale, distribution of responsibilities, and the fact that at some point, he was going to want to see a copy of my résumé. I left the shop feeling considerably lighter than before. I believe happy people call this emotion hope.
I got as far as the parking lot before I ducked my head back through the door, thanked my new boss, and said, “Mr.
Wainwright, do me a favor, if you meet a woman named Ruthie Early, don’t marry her.”
I emerged from my first night shift at Specialty Books covered in dirt and suffering several injuries that would have probably resulted in tetanus before I was turned. But I was happier than I ’d been in weeks. It was like being given a glimpse into my life before my firing.
My first order of business was cleaning. I chased several generations of spiders from the storage closet with a very large broom. I scrubbed the windows until you could actually see outside. (I remained undecided about whether that was a good thing.) I hauled away the broken shelves and organized the stock into piles by subject. I had not found Mr. Wainwright ’s office or computer, but I did find what could have been a blueberry muffin petrifying in the back of the cash -register drawer. Also a small vial of dirt, a mummified paw of some sort, a pack of Bazooka, and currency issued by twelve governments, three of which had collapsed.
And at the end of the day, you could not tell I’d done anything. But still, Mr. Wainwright was thrilled to have that paw back.
He’d been looking for it for twelve years.
>Half-Moon Hollow’s literary outlets were limited to an ailing Waldenbooks and the library. How could there be a bookstore in this town that I was unaware of? Of course, this place didn’t look as if it was a member of the local chamber of commerce.
Sure that I was about to enter a cleverly disguised adult bookstore, I pushed the door open. An old cowbell tinkled above the door as I walked in. It was an Ali Baba’s cave of literary treasures, their cracked spines winking out at my superhuman eyes through the incredibly bad lighting. I loved old books as much as the next bibliophile, but these were crumbling, suffering. I wandered the shelves, running my fingers over the spines. The shop offered everything from sixteenth -century manuscripts hand-copied by monks to old Tales from the Crypt comics, but finding either on purpose would be a small miracle.
Hanks of herbs hanging from the ceiling, candles of all colors and shapes, and scattered crystal geodes only added to the air of committed disorganization. There was no effort to let the customer know what subjects were located where. Plus, there didn ’t appear to be a division of subjects, anyway. Books on astral projection were mixed in with books on herb gardening. Books on postdeath tax issues were mixed in with guides on the proper care and feeding of Yeti.
I picked up an orange soft-cover book, titled The Idiot’s Guide to Vampirism.
“It is official. Vampires are now uncool,” I muttered to no one, as there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the building.
I shuffled through the books. There were some useful selections, but it took a keen eye to find them.
Werewolves: A Vampire’s Best Friend or Foe?
A Compendium of Self-Defense Spells.
From Fangs to Fairy Folk: Unusual Creatures of Midwestern North America.
50 Ways to Add Variety to Your Undead Diet.
Living with the Dead: How to Happily Occupy a Haunted House.
And perhaps the most bizarre title: Tuesdays with Morrie.
I was so engrossed in my task, I didn’t detect the presence over my shoulder that asked, “Oh, hello, what are you doing?”
I turned to see a skinny old man, wizened to the point of cuteness. He was dressed in a gray cardigan with skipped buttons and brown corduroy pants held up with a black leather belt and bright red suspenders. There was a Mont Blanc pen stuck behind his ear, practically lost in the frizzled gray nest of hair. A pair of bifocals, repaired with white tape and a paper clip, sat perched on his balding crown.
I looked down and saw I was balancing stacks of books in my hands. I hadn’t even realized that I’d spent about a half hour sorting the books by fiction, nonfiction, author, then subject. It was as if I were in some sort of alphabetically induced trance.
I dropped the books to the floor. “I’m so sorry. I’m a complete freak. I used to work at the library, and it—it just drives me crazy to see books so out of order.”
“It’s a pretty habit. There are more shelves in the back, you know.” He grinned. Following Gabriel’s advice, I cast out my senses, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. He was 100 -percent human, just a funny old man who loved weird stuff.
“I must be the rudest customer you’ve ever had,” I moaned, shelving the books.
He chuckled. “No, that would be Edwina Myers, a horrible woman who tries to close me down every few years. Claims I’m a bad influence. Though whom I’m influencing I have no idea.” He nodded to the empty store.
“I’ve lived in the Hollow for my whole life. How did I not know about this place?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages. And there’s a limited interest in occult books in the Hollow. We don’t have walk-in business. I like to think of the store as one of those mystical places you pass right by unless you already know it’s there.”
