The Grandest Bookshop in the World

by Mellor, Amelia

  To his surprise, cress was in the flower dictionary. It meant stability, or perhaps balance. Strawberry blossom was in there, too: perfection. But stability and perfection could refer to any number of things: shop scales, the happiness of the Cole family, or even the challenge itself. He would need the rest of the message to make sense of it.

  That meant identifying the big white flower. Unfortunately, it was not a waterlily. He knew that plants, like animals, belonged to the enormous evolutionary tree of life, and had relatives both near and distant. So, at once, he was able to rule out a few classes and families, and put the books about them to one side. The mystery flower had nothing to do with ferns, mosses or pines. It obviously wasn’t a rose or a daisy or an orchid. That only left him with several hundred thousand species of flowering plants to choose from.

  Deciding to come at the problem from the other direction, he picked up the flower dictionary. The mystery flowers were not abatina. They were not acanthus. They were not acacia, achimenes, aconite, adonis or agrimony. They weren’t azaleas or bachelor’s buttons or belladonna.

  The yellow bands had lost half of their colour. The sky began to lighten outside. And Vally was still lost in the weeds. He flipped through something called Cultivation in Capricornian Climes. At this rate, he would still be searching long after the yellow bands of the rainbows had faded. He would never find the white flower. He would be stuck here until Pa was dead and the Arcade was gone and Vally was left with no idea that either of them had ever existed.

  ‘Val?’

  Vally slapped the book shut. Ebenezer jolted awake.

  Linda stood in the doorway, her dark hair tousled out of its plait, her eyes half-closed against the lamplight. ‘What are you doing up this early on Saturday?’

  ‘I … couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘What a lot of books,’ Linda said. ‘Is this what you read for fun?’

  Vally shook his head.

  ‘Got a secret admirer?’ She touched the white flower in the jar with a teasing look, as if she expected him to stammer and blush.

  He rubbed his eyes. ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Where did you get these, then?’

  She was going to find out about the game, he realised. She would tell their parents. Or worse, she would try to take charge. She would boss Pearl and Vally around. Linda was a champion boss. She could boss bread rolls open and torn pages back together. She’d bossed the whole family into moving to Cole’s Book Arcade when she was ten. Pa had preferred the quiet suburbs, but he was the only one, and Linda had put her foot down. You can have the country! she’d said, with her mother’s emphatic gestures. You can have the seaside! But give. Me. The city!

  ‘Oh – those flowers?’ Vally said quickly. ‘I made them.’

  Linda raised her brows. Vally thought she was impressed – until she spoke. ‘You conjured these flowers.’

  ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’

  ‘Very good, for someone who never does magic.’

  ‘I’m getting the hang of it now.’

  Linda folded her arms. ‘Vally, come on.’

  He slumped back in his chair. She hadn’t believed him for a moment. ‘You’ll hate me.’

  ‘Is this anything to do with that “friend of Pa’s” you wanted to talk to the other night?’ Linda sank down opposite him on the couch. ‘Is he the same person Pearl didn’t want to let in?’

  He scratched Ebenezer behind the ears, avoiding her eye. ‘It’s bad.’

  ‘Worse than when Eddie scared the horse with the springy snake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Worse than when you and he put honey on the teacher’s chair, and the headmaster whipped the living daylights out of you?’

  Vally groaned. That seemed like such a small act of stupidity now, hardly worth regretting.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Linda.

  Vally stood and went to the little window in the lounge that looked out into the Book Arcade. He pulled aside a corner of the curtain. The dawn light showed that less than half of the yellow was left. ‘You mustn’t tell our parents.’

  He hoped she would agree at once. Instead, she hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Nothing good begins with don’t tell our parents.’

  That settled it. She couldn’t be trusted. She would dob him and Pearl in, thinking she was doing the right thing. Ma and Pa would try to take over, and all hope would be lost. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Never mind what?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s between Pearl and me.’

  ‘But I am worried, Val.’ The hurt in Linda’s voice surprised him, and he turned to look at her. ‘You don’t have to tell me, if you really don’t want to – but I might be able to help.’

  Her eyes had a pleading look – and Vally was surprised to realise why. Linda felt left out. She didn’t belong to any of the little groups within their family. She was not a big brother, nor a little sister, nor a parent, but somewhere in between. She had more in common with Lily, their older cousin, than with any of her siblings. By the time Eddie had been old enough to play with her, he’d already had Vally tottering after him. Besides, she must have been used to her loneliness by then. She used to join in with family games – hide-and-seek, chasey, anything with rules – but when the others made believe, she would turn them down and read instead. For the first time, Vally wondered if that was what she’d really wanted.

  ‘Maybe you can help,’ he said. ‘But I mean it, about not telling.’

  ‘You’re making an awfully big deal out of a bunch of flowers, Val.’

  ‘A big deal …’ He lifted the curtain again. The paper wagtail sat waiting on a metal strut under the skylight. ‘You have no idea.’

  He heard a clunk of glass on wood, as if Linda had picked up the jam jar. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t make these. I love magnolias.’ She inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent. ‘All right. What have you done that’s worse than the Great Springy Snake Disaster?’

  Vally whirled around. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘What’s worse –?’

  ‘Before that!’ He seized the flower dictionary and flipped through it. Heliotrope, juniper, lantana, liverwort …

  ‘I like … magnolias …?’

  ‘That’s a magnolia?’

  ‘Quiet, Val –’

  ‘But I thought magnolias were pink!’ Magnolia, pink: femininity. Magnolia, purple: royalty. Magnolia, white …

  ‘What does it say?’ Small feet thudded down the corridor. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Sweetness.’ Vally clicked his fingers, trying to remember the messages of the cress and strawberry blossom. ‘Balance, perfection and sweetness.’

  Pearl barrelled into the sitting room. ‘Sounds like Lolly Land! Or maybe the Tea Salon!’ She stopped still when she saw Linda, and looked sharply at Vally. ‘Are you serious? After the fuss you made about not asking for help?’

  ‘I haven’t told her anything!’

  ‘You will,’ hissed Linda, propping her hands on her hips. ‘You’re both going to tell me what’s happening, right this minute, or – or –’ For the first time, she seemed flustered. She glanced towards their parents’ bedroom. ‘Or I’ll wake Ma, and you’ll have to tell her instead.’

  ‘What are you all shouting for?’ A scruffy Eddie slouched out of the gloom. ‘Let Pa get some sleep, for God’s sake.’

  ‘You can help, too, now you’re up,’ said Pearl, lowering her voice. ‘Pa made a deal with a man who looks like a stage magician because he wanted to bring Ruby back to life but it didn’t work, so now Vally and I are playing a game where we have to pass seven tests in seven rooms and we only have –’

  ‘Hang on.’ Linda made a dismissive gesture towards Vally. ‘He’s not saying anything, and you’re saying too much at once. What’s that about Ruby, and what do the flowers have to do with it?’

  ‘Start again,’ Eddie said, stifling a yawn. ‘You’re playing a game where you pretend you’re fighting a magician …?’

  ‘It’s
not pretend,’ said Vally.

  Pearl moaned in frustration, and stomped towards the front door. ‘Come and I’ll show you.’ She opened the door and leaned out. ‘You too, Vally! We’re losing the yellow!’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE WRONG SISTER

  Pearl’s heart thumped as she gripped the doorknob of the first-floor storeroom. She looked to her older siblings for reassurance. At Linda’s insistence, they had dressed, and their hurry showed: an uncombed head here, a loose bootlace there. Vally was as tense as a bowstring, his hand over his mouth. Linda’s haughty confidence had deserted her, leaving worry and mistrust on her face. Eddie just looked confused.

  Useless, the lot of them. With a deep breath, Pearl turned the handle and let it go. The door swung open and bumped against something in the dimness beyond. She did not want to look, but she had overcome more frightening things in the last twelve hours. She took a big step into the storeroom. Teenaged feet shuffled in behind her. The air was dusty and still – but not as still as it might have been. Somebody had piled crates and draped a paint-speckled canvas sheet to create a canopy. Under it, an upended box served as a table. On either side were two stained cushions, their feathers spilling at the seams.

  ‘That’s a good cubby,’ Linda said. ‘Did you build that, Pearl?’

  ‘No.’ She glanced at Vally, who looked mystified. ‘Someone else has been here.’

  In another alcove lay a baby doll – an old one of Linda’s. Had that been here in the storeroom all these years? Or had someone brought it for … the other girl?

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Vally said. ‘I do not like this.’

  Pearl couldn’t tell whether he meant the signs of play in the supply room, or what awaited them in the cot.

  Eddie lifted a crate out of his way. ‘You’re such a sook, Val. There’s bound to be a perfectly normal explanation for whatever it is.’

  Pearl rounded the stack of old papers. There was the cot again. There was the copy of Ruby.

  This time, she was sitting against the headboard. Around her, but out of reach from where she sat, children’s books and board games lay scattered on the piles of furniture and the floor. She took no notice of them. Her eyes were fixed on her hands, which lay in her lap. She was bending her fingers, one by one. She was so fascinated by them that Pearl and the others might not have been there at all. She was silent. Weak. Not like Ruby. She talked like a parrot, she skipped like a lamb …

  But still. But still.

  Eddie said a short, hard word Pearl had never heard before.

  ‘My God!’ Linda pushed through to the cot. ‘Ruby!’ She gripped a small leg through the blankets. ‘Roo?’

  The copy froze. She raised her head and stared at Linda with cold, unblinking eyes. She might have been a statue, except for her strange, shallow, rhythmic breathing.

  Linda recoiled. The copy’s eyes remained fixed on the end of the bed. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  In the silence that followed, Pearl heard footfalls outside. Someone had forgotten to close the door. A high, happy voice carried through the empty Arcade. ‘… be nice to her, all right? You’re both my sisters. We should help her, because she’s like an old lady and can’t do much things.’

  Pearl looked at Vally. How long had Ivy known?

  ‘Yes, I know it’s confusing,’ Ivy continued to her imaginary companion, ‘but people in the same family can have the same name. Like Eddie and Pa.’ Ivy paused as she reached the doorway, as if waiting for a response. Then she said, ‘That’s a good idea. And then later, you and me can do something together, like we could go to the Fernery, or –’

  ‘Ivy?’ Eddie called. ‘Are you talking to Ruby again?’

  Ivy stopped. She came around the piles of old papers looking guilty, still in her nightie with bare feet. She glanced at her four older siblings in turn, and at the false Ruby on the bed, with an expression of fleeting surprise. ‘I was wondering where you’d all gone without me.’ Her eyes rested on Pearl, who felt a pang of guilt. Until this week, they’d been best friends. True, their games wore out sooner for Pearl than they did for Ivy. The tea parties, and the concerts for the toys, and Lost Orphans were better played with three girls, not two. Especially when one of the two liked to talk to the one that wasn’t there. But from Ivy’s point of view, it must have seemed that Pearl had thrown her aside in favour of Vally for no reason at all.

  ‘Well, we’re all here,’ Eddie said, with a touch of bitterness. ‘The six of us, back together again.’

  ‘Ed.’ There was a warning in Linda’s tone.

  Eddie ignored it. He shot accusing looks at his younger siblings. ‘You three kept this quiet, didn’t you? You knew she was here, and you didn’t tell us.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t look at Ru– … at her,’ Vally said. ‘I’m going to wait outside.’

  He was probably trying to sneak off and attempt the next challenge. Pearl was about to join him when Eddie stepped in front of him, blocking the way out. ‘You three found out that our sister was alive, and you didn’t tell us.’

  ‘Does she look alive to you?’ Linda said, raising her voice.

  ‘Well, she sure isn’t dead! Which is a hell of a surprise, since she’s been on the wrong side of the grass for three bloody years!’

  ‘Eddie, language,’ said Linda.

  Again, he ignored her. ‘You know it’s wrong to tell lies, don’t you, Ivy?’ He grabbed Ivy’s arm. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘Edd-ee, that hurts!’ Ivy squirmed in his grasp. ‘I’m telling!’

  ‘Ed, stop!’ Pearl had never seen Vally look so fierce. ‘We were right in the middle of telling you –’

  Eddie pulled Ivy closer. ‘How long have you known Ruby was back?’

  Ivy’s eyes welled with tears. ‘Why are you yelling at me?’

  Linda reached to pull them apart, but the stacks of junk left her no room to get between them. ‘Let her go!’

  Eddie held onto Ivy for a moment longer, then released her suddenly, so that she stumbled backwards. Linda caught her and put a protective arm around her shoulders. ‘What is the matter with you?’

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’ He gestured at the copy, who by now was looking at him with impassive eyes. ‘Your sister has popped back to life after three years, your other sisters didn’t think you deserved to know, you’re as calm as can be about the whole thing – and you think I’m the one with the problem?’

  Linda took a step back. ‘Edward. You are being …’

  ‘I’m being what, Ada Belinda?’ He was red in the face by now. ‘What, in your high and mighty opinion, am I being?’

  If someone had given Pearl three wishes right then, she would have spent them all on making Eddie stop talking.

  ‘All I’m saying is, it would have been nice if someone had told me Ruby was back!’

  The Obscurosmith’s magic could overpower the will of others, but Pearl didn’t have that strength yet. Her conviction was not enough to close Eddie’s mouth by force. But she could save everyone from having to hear him, and make space for herself to get her words in order. It was a clear, intense desire. The yellow bands were fading, the Book Arcade was falling apart, and she couldn’t do anything until she brought an end to Eddie’s outburst. A month ago, she might not have believed she could do it – her parents’ magic was often so laborious, so hit-and-miss. But now she had seen flowers appear from books and fish disappear into nothingness. If the Obscurosmith could freeze a hundred people in time, she could freeze Eddie’s voice.

  ‘Maybe if someone had told me she was back, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time and energy missing her! And maybe if someone had told me she was going to –’

  Imagination. Pearl pictured an invisible wall reaching from floor to ceiling that would deaden the vibrations of his voice in the air. Articulation. She would be as descriptive as she knew how. Conviction. He would listen to her. He would.

  ‘– be like this when she did, I could have had a say in –’


  ‘A strong, invisible wall,’ Pearl whispered. It had a good rhythm, and she let it roll on. ‘A strong, solid, invisible wall. A strong, silencing, solid, invisible wall will rise up right here and make Eddie shut up, make Eddie shut up, Eddie, shut up!’

  The last part came as a shout. She threw her whole body into a lunging step. Eddie was silent, and for a moment, Pearl thought he was obeying her of his own will.

  Then she felt the slight resistance in the air, like a breeze, and Eddie spoke. You shut up, Pearl. She saw his lips form the words, but the sound was faint and indistinct. Not a perfect sound-wall. Not a bad try, though. Linda stared at her in astonishment.

  ‘We were upset when we found her, too,’ said Pearl, bracing her invisible wall in front of her. ‘But Vally and I have something important to tell you, and we’re running out of time.’

  Vally shot a worried look at Eddie. ‘To answer your question, Ed, we’ve known since Thursday. Pa wasn’t planning on telling us until Easter.’

  Ivy sniffled. ‘Did he bring her back?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Vally looked around the storeroom for the wagtail, and dropped his voice. ‘Someone else did. Someone dangerous and powerful, who wants to take Pa and the Book Arcade away from us forever.’

  ‘Magnus Maximillian,’ said Linda.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pearl. ‘I’m sorry we lied. We’ll tell you everything. But we need you to listen. And we need you to help.’

  ‘I’ll help!’ Ivy said, cheering up.

  ‘Without telling, showing, writing or doing charades to Ma and Pa?’ Vally said.

  Linda sighed. ‘All right, Val.’

  Behind his invisible wall, Eddie had realised he was being ignored, and was starting to look quizzically at his siblings. Pearl heard a faraway call that might have been, Hello?