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“The young have the loudest dreams,” Drummond murmured, more to himself. “Unfettered by life and reality.”
Cassie and Izzy exchanged a glance. A young couple appeared then, scraping chairs and sitting down at the table beside them, and Cassie and Izzy shared polite smiles with them as the woman from the café appeared and gave her singsong “Bonjour!” greeting.
“Look, never mind our dreams,” Cassie said. “What do we do about that man at the deli? You need to help us with that and then maybe we can talk about why the book is so dangerous.”
Drummond nodded. “Okay, then,” he said. “First, we need to go back to New York. There’s a couple of things I need to do that will help you both, but we have to be in New York. Can we go, now?”
Cassie nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“Let me pay for these,” Drummond said, gesturing at the coffees. He stood up and disappeared into the small café.
“What do you think?” Cassie asked, once they were alone.
Izzy shrugged. “I don’t know, Cass. I just want life to be normal again. That man in Ben’s, he scares me.”
“Yeah,”Cassie agreed. Her brain forced her to see the bald man kicking the server again and once more, her stomach flinched. “Do you trust him?” Cassie asked, nodding sideways to the café, in the direction of Drummond.
“I don’tnottrust him,” Izzy said. “He seems kind. And he’s not tried anything suspicious so far. But you know what, Cassie? He’s just one. That Dr. Barbary man is another. There will be more. That book you are carrying around, people are going to do awful things to get it. I told you, no good will come of it.”
Cassie nodded. “Even though it was you who told the world about it by googling it?”
She regretted it immediately, the words coming out without her thinking. Izzy looked at her like she had been slapped. Cassie reached out to apologize with a touch, but Izzy turned away just as Drummond emerged from the café, and the moment passed.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They found a doorway down a cobbled alley, an unlocked door that appeared to lead into a narrow passageway, and Cassie used the Book of Doors to step through it into her own bedroom in New York in the middle of the night. They shuffled around in the small space until they were all through the door from Lyon, and then Cassie closed the door, and the apartment was suddenly quiet. Cassie reopened the door as normal and led them through into the living area. It felt odd being back in the apartment, in their safe, comfortable home, after what they had seen in the last hour.
“So now what?” Cassie asked, switching on the kitchen light. “What’s the plan?”
Drummond nodded as he began to pat down his jacket, as if looking for something.
“We need to do two things,” he said, pulling out a book from inside his coat. “First of all, I need to show you the second book I have. And then I want to show you exactly what the Book of Doors is capable of.”
“What second book?” Cassie asked.
“Hold this, please,” he said, passing the book to Izzy. She took it inboth hands and looked at it, eyes down like a nervous person reading a script. The cover of the book was light gray, like a rain cloud.
“My second book,” he said to Cassie, “is the Book of Memories.”
“What does that do?” Cassie asked.
“It can do a variety of things,” Drummond explained. “It can help you forget things or remember them.”
“Like if you’ve lost something and you’re trying to find it?” Cassie suggested.
Drummond smiled. “A bit more than that. I used it once with a dementia sufferer,” he said. “I brought her back for her family, just for a few hours.”
“Wow,” Cassie said.
Drummond nodded. “It was one of the best things I have ever done. They were so happy, for a while.” He seemed to drift off for a moment, as if luxuriating in that happy memory. Izzy was right, Cassie thought, Drummond Fox seemed like a kind man. “It was great,” he continued, his smile fading a little. “Until I had to take the book back from her, until she knew what was going to happen. That was... harrowing. I’ve never tried to help someone like that again.”
Cassie thought about that. She thought about Mr. Kellner being able to know who he was once again, and then knowing that he would slip back into the dementia.
“How awful,” she murmured.
Drummond nodded his agreement. “Yes, awful. But over the years the book has been used more to help people to forget.”
“Why would you want to forget?” Cassie asked.
