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Chapter 1

Luna

The alley in front of the bookshop where I work is giving off its usual spooky but quaint vibes. It’s dark outside – because it’s Cambridge, and the middle of winter, and England is dark pretty much all day at this time of year.

There’s a strange kind of mist in the air that’s been hanging around the city lately. Creeping in after sunset in a way that reminds me of marshes on the coast instead of the winding streets of a big city.

I open the door and breathe in the crisp evening air. When it’s cold out, the shop is either freezing or too hot. All we have are old electric heaters to warm the space – despite the fact I’ve told my boss via email at least one hundred times that the fluctuating temperature isn’t good for the books.

Above me, the shop’s glossy black sign swings gently in the breeze. It creaks as it moves, which reminds me of the way my body feels.

Achy.

Protesting under the pressure of even the slightest touch.

This line of thought leads me to the kind of conscious awareness of my pain levels that I try to avoid. Because thinking about pain is even more tiresome than talking about pain.

It starts with noticing that my forearms are sore, then my lower back, my hips, the strange throbbing feeling that seems to embed itself deep in my muscles. All of them. Like I’m recovering from a marathon I never ran.

Rubbing the small of my back, I nudge my glasses further up my nose, then lean against the doorframe and watch as a woman in a beige overcoat and bright red shoes trots down the alleyway toward the market square.

Her heels aren’t too tall, but they are tall enough to make me jealous.

I haven’t worn heels since before the accident.

I pretend I don’t mind – that I’m okay with perpetually being the shortest person in the room – but really, it’s hard to feel anything but dowdy when I have to go out wearing flats or trainers.

Steven always told me heels were for other women. Not me. That he couldn’t imagine a version of me who wore pointy shoes and danced all night, and he was glad he never met that Luna.

Of course, he was glad; that Luna would never have fallen for his charms. She would never have been so in need of affection and affirmation that she allowed herself to tumble head-first into his web.

Or maybe she would.

Maybe I romanticize that version of myself; the girl who danced all night, snuck out to parties, and felt alive.

Since Steven disappeared, even though it’s only been two months, I’ve seen glimmers of that Luna. But whenever she tries to claw her way to the surface, it seems like the pain swallows her up, bites down on her, keeps her silent and still and scared.

I have a burst of energy.

A bubbling, irrepressible need to move, to flail my limbs, to scream, and shout, and wear big earrings, and bright colors, and high heels.

It lasts a millisecond.

And then his voice creeps in. The fear that he might not really be gone. The sense that he might be lurking just around the corner, watching me. Waiting for me to act out so he can punish me for it.

A shiver runs through me.

I’m ducking back inside, ready to close up for the night, when I hear wheels and the chug of a moped engine. When I turn around, the delivery driver is waving at me. “Delivery for The Haunted Bookshop,” he says loudly.

Yes, I work at a shop called The Haunted Bookshop. No, it’s not really haunted. At least, I’ve never seen any evidence of ghosts.

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose as the delivery driver lifts up his visor. My boss has a habit of sending me books he’s purchased at auction on an almost weekly basis. Always old, beautiful editions that – while wonderful to look at – will never sell.

I’ve asked him to slow down, or move us to a bigger shop, but he has so far ignored both requests.

I linger in the doorway. The driver opens the holdall on the back of the moped.

He makes me sign a small tablet with my index finger, then hands me a large box. I wince, anticipating its weight. But it’s definitely lighter than the usual packages we receive; perhaps the books inside are paperbacks – or those strange old penny dreadful pamphlets that the boss seems to be obsessed with.