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“Doing science to the books?” Wagner asked, amused.
Lily waved a hand. “You know, get them in a laboratory, examine what happens when they are used.”
Wagner considered the question. “I have not,” he admitted. “Perhaps I should, as you say, do science to the books.” He looked at Drummond. “Perhaps if I could borrow one or two books from the library, we could run some experiments.”
Drummond nodded. It was an interesting idea, and as far as he knew, nobody had ever conducted experiments on what the books were or how they worked.
“Has anyone heard anything from the Popovs?” Yasmin asked, already on to the next subject.
“The Popovs?” Lily asked, her eyes suddenly focused again. “The Book of Despair Popovs in St. Petersburg?”
Yasmin nodded. “I have a contact who told me a story that they had gone missing. Nobody has seen them or heard from them for some months.”
“I hope not,” Drummond said. “The Book of Despair could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Ja,” Wagner said, nodding, as he lifted his coffee mug.
“That’s why I thought I’d ask,” Yasmin said.
Lily was shaking her head. “We really should try to buy up all these books and keep them somewhere safe. I have nights where I lie awake and frighten myself with what might happen if the wrong people got more of the books.”
“Like Hugo Barbary,” Yasmin reflected.
“I have heard a story, actually, from a friend in America,” Drummond said. “A story about a woman trying to collect all the books.”
In the present, in the Fox Library, as Cassie slept below, Drummond stood at the window in his tower, the mug of tea in his hand and sadnesssmothering him as he remembered those days with his friends. He wished they had been more cautious, more attuned to the rumors and the stories they had been hearing. They had been naive, too ready to believe that the worst wouldn’t happen.
And now his friends were dead, and he was alone. And he had to work out what to do next.
He sipped his tea and stared out at the dark, searching for an answer.
Matt’s All-American Burgers (2012)
Several hours after Drummond had revealed to Cassie what the Book of Doors could do, and more than a decade earlier, Cassie and Drummond stepped into Matt’s All-American Burgers in Myrtle Creek, Oregon. Drummond had returned the Fox Library to the shadows, trying but failing to hide his obvious sadness at leaving his home once again, and then they had returned to the doorway they had come through the previous day, and Cassie had taken them into the past. Intoherpast.
They stood in the doorway of the diner for a moment, Cassie remembering a place she had known throughout her childhood, and then one of the servers greeted them and led them to a booth by the window.
“Where are we?” Drummond asked, gazing out at the dark green trees and the heavy gray sky.
“Oregon,” Cassie said. Her voice sounded very far away to her own ears. She was struggling with reality, she realized, struggling with what she had come to do. “A town called Myrtle Creek. I grew up here. We used to come to this diner all the time.”
The interior of the restaurant was designed to remind customers of an idealized 1950s that had probably never existed. There was lots of neon and chrome and red vinyl booths and a checkerboard floor. The pictures on the wall were full of optimistic young faces at barbecues or campfires.
“Is this place for real?” Drummond asked. “Tell me it’s ironic, please.”
“People don’t come for the decor,” Cassie said. “The food’s real good.” The televisions behind the counter were showing the sports network and news channels, events that were current for the customers but history for Cassie. She watched, hypnotized for a few moments, as a younger Barack Obama addressed a room, a crowd of faces gathered in rows behind him, and then she pulled a menu from the holder at the end of the table.
“Coffee?” the server asked, wandering over to them from a nearby table. She was a middle-aged woman who looked tired, giving out all the signals that she wanted an order and not a chat. Cassie remembered her, vaguely. “Coffee?” the woman asked again, and Cassie realized she had been staring.
“Yes,” she said. “Coffee. Drummond?”
“Do you have any whisky?” he asked, and the server answered with a weary look. “Tea?” he tried.
“Coffee, tea,” the woman said, and turned to walk away.
“Breakfast tea, with milk,” Drummond called after her, and she glanced back without slowing her stride. “Boiling water for the tea, please, not just warm water.”
There were only a few other people around them, but Cassie knew the diner would soon get busy with the lunchtime crowd. With people like her grandfather.
