I turned back to the door. “That’s it. I’m coming in.”
I shoved my shoulder against the door and yanked the knob. The door flew open. I tripped over the rug and stumbled into the room.
“What?”
I wasn’t looking at a guy’s room, but an entire suite. An enormous, elaborately-carved four-poster bed dominated the space, hung with thick curtains but unmade, the bare mattress covered in a layer of dust. In an alcove in front of the window were arranged chairs and coffee tables and a liquor cabinet, all covered in white sheets streaked with grime. On the other side of the bed were three doors. I opened one to find a massive closet – twin banks of ornate racks and shelving units flanking a floor-length gilt mirror. In the dusty glass my reflection appeared in mottled sepia like an old photograph, the edges fading into a pinhole, the way my vision faded away.
Imagine having a room like this. I pictured the racks full of my clothes, the shelves bursting with bright-colored Doc Martins and Vivienne Westwood dresses. When I was a famous fashion designer I’d be featured in my double-page Vanity Fair spread photographed inside this closet…
Except that you’ll never be a fashion designer.
The thought slammed into me, jolting me back to reality. The whole reason I was standing in this room in the first place was because I’d had to give up the one thing I loved. And I hated Marcus Ribald for not hiring me when I deserved that position, and I hated the industry for not being open to me anymore, and I hated Ashley for spilling my secret, but I also kind of hated myself for giving up.
But what other option did I have?
I backed out of the closet and slammed the door, then tried the next. The second door opened into the most incredible bathroom I’d ever seen. A hexagonal-shaped room in the southwestern turret housed an old fashioned porcelain toilet and sink. The stained glass window that covered one whole wall allowed light to filter down onto the copper bath that took pride of place in the center of the room.
Wait a second… it’s not a hexagon.
What appeared to be a hexagonal turret from Butcher Street was actually three sides of a five-sided room. Standing here in the bathroom, the angles were completely obvious. It almost looked like it was designed as a Victorian illusion, the way they liked to add secret compartments in their bookshelves and hidden drawers in their desks.
But why disguise a five-sided room? And why go to so much effort to create the room in the first place? It didn’t take my designer’s eye to see that it wasn’t as balanced or aesthetically pleasing as a hexagon would be. It also made it difficult to fit furniture into the space.
I stood beside the window and looked down at the circle of gossips converging outside the bookshop. Instead of dispersing, the crowd had grown even larger, and I could see a couple wearing jackets from the local television station with heavy cameras and mic equipment. Great. I’m sure they’re getting a totally true and unbiased account from the neighborhood busybodies.
I backed away from the window before anyone saw me, and tried the third door. It revealed a small drawing room, complete with fireplace and ornate oak desk. This was probably where the lady of the house wrote her letters.
I sneezed into my hand as dust swirled in the air around me. No one was sleeping in this room, which was completely crazy. It was by far the best room in the place. It was also the only other room on this floor. So where did Quoth sleep?
The attic.
After checking under the bed and behind the liquor cabinet for would-be murderers, I went out into the hall, shutting the door behind me. Whatever reason the guys had for avoiding that suite, I had a feeling they didn’t want me snooping. Besides, all it had given me was more questions. Right now, I needed answers.
I took the stairs two at a time, gripping the wall to steady myself. At the top was a narrow hall leading to two low doors where once the house’s servants would have slept. I could see the mechanisms for a call bell still hanging on the wall behind me.
“Quoth, are you in there? Come on, this isn’t funny—”
Flittering sounds issued from behind the left-hand door. I inched toward it and knocked.
“Don’t come in,” a voice croaked. I swung the heavy door inward. Too late, you wanker. You had your chance. I’m coming in and I don’t care if you’re naked with your dick in your hand—
The door banged against the wall behind it, revealing a scene that turned my blood to ice.
Artwork filled the tiny room – canvases stacked on top of each other and stuck at odd angles all over the walls. Mostly abstracted shapes and forms, but some realism, too – landscapes as seen from the sky or through the branches of trees. The bold colors assailed my eyes, already used to the dimness of the shop.
In the midst of that bold color, Quoth crouched on the edge of a narrow brass bed, completely naked. Beside the bed, a stack of books reached nearly to the ceiling – all true crime stories or volumes with titles like Death Culture in America and Egyptian Funerary Ritual. But that wasn’t what dried my breath on my tongue.
Black feathers stuck from Quoth’s skin, their tips shrinking as they retracted into his body. A spindly frill around his neck made it appear as if he wore a sixteenth-century ruff. His fingers gripped the bed frame, their tips curled into sharp talons that smoothed over into fingers before my eyes. Black-feathered spines protruded from his elbows and wrists, forming enormous wings that crashed against the walls as they shrunk into his elbows.
How is this possible?
Where his mouth and nose should have been, a long black beak protruded from his face. It shrunk back as I stared in gape-mouthed horror, flattening and smoothing out and becoming Quoth’s alabaster skin and sharp cheekbones. Round bird eyes closed and opened as lids formed and Quoth – the human Quoth – stared back at me in horror.
I froze in place, watching a horrid transformation play out in reverse. In that moment, everything fell into place. The secrets they kept, the lies I’d been asked to tell. I understood what I was watching, but I didn’t comprehend it.
Quoth was the raven.
Chapter Thirteen
We both froze, staring at each other. A wordless conversation played out in the heated air between us. Accusal, denial, disbelief, indignation, horror, acceptance.
Quoth was the first to break our stalemate.
“I can explain,” he said.
I clung to the doorframe, the only thing holding me upright. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Can I put some pants on first?”
“I’d appreciate that, too.”
Quoth hopped down from the bed and crossed the room to a small chest of drawers decoupaged with scenes from nature and birds in flight. I knew I should look away, but I was afraid of what might happen to me if I did, so I kept my eyes trained on his body. I noticed the ripple of his muscles as I searched his naked skin for the signs of the feathers and beak and bird bones I’d seen only a few moments ago. Quoth was thinner than both Morrie and Heathcliff, but he was still toned and taut. Between his legs swung a cock that even flaccid was impressive.
He pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and skinny black jeans, then picked up his phone and tapped the screen.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Texting Morrie. The others have to know what you know.”
I didn’t like the ominous tone in his voice. “Why?”
“We assumed it was only a matter of time until you figured it out. We discussed it. We figured we could trust you. But we thought we had more time. And not even Morrie could predict this bloody murder messing everything up.”
Footsteps clattered up the stairs. A moment later, Morrie’s head popped around the door. “Well done, gorgeous. You deduced our secret.”
“It was hardly a deduction. I walked in and Quoth was all feathery.”
Morrie offered me a hand. I took it, and let him help me down the steep staircase. Quoth followed behind us at a distance, which I appreciated, since I didn’t want him anywhere
near me.
Heathcliff slumped in his chair by the fire, a cigarette jammed between his teeth. Grimalkin curled in his lap, staring at me with wary eyes. Someone had pulled over another chair so it faced Heathcliff. I recognized the design from the suite in the mystery bedroom.
“You’re a right nuisance, you know that?” Heathcliff growled, nudging the chair toward me with his boot. “You’re nosier than Morrie’s last boyfriend, and he was a detective of sorts.”
Morrie had a boyfriend. I felt a flash of disappointment, but not surprise. My memory flashed to the leather straps hanging beside Morrie’s bed. I stored that nugget of information away to process properly later. Right now, I needed to know about the feathers. I sank into the chair, gripping the curled arms.
“Quoth, fetch the tea!” Heathcliff barked.
“Three days,” Quoth muttered as he headed off to the kitchen. “I couldn’t even get three days.”
“I don’t need tea,” I said. “I need answers. Feathers stuck out of Quoth’s skin. He had a beak. And then they just got sucked inside his body.”
“You may have spent four years in America, but you’re British at heart. You need tea.” Morrie pulled over his computer chair and folded his willowy frame into it. He steepled his fingers together like some cartoon super-villain, and watched me with those icicle eyes.
We waited in silence while the kettle boiled. My stomach churned with a mess of feelings – fear, suspicion, indignation, anger. The scream of the kettle rattled around my skull. A few moments later, Quoth appeared in the doorway, a tray balanced in his hands. Morrie reached up and collected his cup. Quoth held the tray out to Heathcliff, who grabbed a cup and raised it to his lips. That left one for me.
I took the hot cup and held it in my hands, but I didn’t trust myself to raise it to my lips without spilling, so I just rested it on the arm of the chair. Quoth had put too much milk in it, anyway.
“I’ve got my tea now. Start talking. Why is Quoth a… a shapeshifter?” The word should only be used in silly paranormal romance books. It should not be a word I spoke aloud to my new friends.
Morrie leaned forward. “You know how you joked about our names, how ridiculous it was that he was Heathcliff and I was James Moriarty, and I know you thought Quoth was an odd name, too.”
“It is an odd name.”
“Our parents weren’t strange librarians who named us after characters from literature. We are those characters.” Morrie pointed to his chest. “I am James Moriarty, mathematician and master criminal, and arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. He is Heathcliff, spurned orphan and beloved of Cathy of Wuthering Heights. This here is Edgar Allen Poe’s raven, the one who perched upon a chamber door. We don’t know how we got here or why, but we’re definitely not supposed to exist in your world.”
Chapter Fourteen
I snorted. “Right. Come off it. You said you were going to tell me the truth. I don’t want any more stories, especially not one this bloody stupid.”
“It is a story, Mina,” Heathcliff said. “We are the stories. Think about it. Why else does Morrie seem completely unperturbed about his employer losing millions of quid overnight?”
Quoth gave me an apologetic look from the doorway. “Why else would feathers poke out of my skin, and you’ve never seen me and the raven in the same room together?”
“Why else is Heathcliff such a prick?” Morrie tossed in.
“But… but that’s impossible!” I cried.
“Agreed,” said Morrie. “I’ve been running computer simulations ever since I arrived here, trying to find an answer for how it happened. My conclusions have all been the same – we shouldn’t be here. And yet, here we are.”
“But… how?”
“We don’t know,” Morrie shrugged. “I’ve directed a considerable amount of energy toward solving the puzzle of it, but so far to no avail. All I can tell you is that the most likely responsible party is Nevermore Bookshop itself.”
“How can a bookshop be responsible for this?”
“I need a proper drink,” Heathcliff declared, slamming his empty cup down on the tray.
Leaving my question hanging unanswered, Heathcliff dove into the kitchen and emerged with a dusty bottle of wine. He popped the cork and filled a glass, which he handed to me. He took a long, deep swig from the bottle.
“None of us remember how we got here,” he said, between gulps. “Last I recall, I alighted from Wuthering Heights in a state of great agitation after overhearing Cathy planned to wed Linton. I’d stolen a bottle of Hindley’s finest whisky and I took this medicine as I ran, for I had lost myself to the futility of love. I stormed across the moors until the drink purged the rage from my bones, and I passed out in a puddle. I woke up on the floor in front of the Classic Literature section. Mr. Simson collected me and gave me some magical elixir to sober me up—”
“Gatorade,” Morrie supplied. “I keep telling you it’s not magical. You can buy it at the market for two quid.”
“Shut up for a moment,” Heathcliff swigged another gulp of wine. “Mr. Simson explained that the shop was cursed, and that he’d been expecting me for some time.”
“He … what?” I slumped down in Heathcliff’s chair, pressing my fingers to my temple.
“He said a few years after he purchased the building from its previous owner, the greek poet Sappho appeared on the shop floor, same as I was lying there now. He said he’d had a few others over the years, always from the Classical Literature shelves. He saw it his duty to help them find their way in the world as best he was able. He found Sappho a post as a weathergirl. Lady Macbeth runs a chippie up in Glasgow. Pip from Great Expectations is a council planner in London, if you can believe it.”
I snorted.
“Mr. Simson said that’s why he kept the bookshop all these years. He needed to help them. He didn’t think anyone else would. And he wanted to figure out why we kept showing up. He wanted to break the curse before the shop brought back some truly heinous villain.” Heathcliff shot a look at Morrie, who grinned angelically. “That’s why he started Nevermore’s occult collection.”
“I’ve seen the occult shelves, behind the pet books,” I said. “It’s not exactly impressive. Just a bunch of flat earth conspiracies and new age rubbish.”
“You have seen the dime-a-dozen tarot books we leave on the shelves for the plebs,” Morrie said. “Mr. Simson kept all the real occult books locked away under protection. He believed that in one of these books he’d find the secret of the shop’s magic.”
“Wait a second,” I stared at Heathcliff, starting to comprehend. “If I believe this story, which I’m not saying I do, you were pulled from your story as you left Wuthering Heights? You never came back?”
Heathcliff never became the cruel, twisted figure who haunted Wuthering Heights. He never went wherever he went in those mysterious three years that turned his heart to ice.
“And you?” I swirled to meet Morrie. James Moriarty, one of the more iconic villains in Victorian literature. “You never met Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls?”
Morrie shook his head. “I found myself placed in such a position through Holmes’ continual persecution that I was in danger of losing my liberty. The situation had become impossible, so I left England in my attempt to remain one step ahead of my foe. I fell asleep on the train to Geneva, and woke up here.”
“But what about you?” I asked Quoth. He shook his head.
“He’s different,” Heathcliff growled. “Mr. Simson never said anything about shapeshifters.”
“I have a theory that he might be both the raven and the poem’s anonymous narrator,” Morrie said. “Somehow, they were pulled from the poem as a single unit.”
“I remember little from my previous life.” Quoth stared at the ceiling as words tumbled out – a stream of rich, velvet vowels dripping with sadness. “This stands to reason since I came from a poem and not a book. I recall only a room filled with books and a sensation of time marching on without
me, while I remained frozen in a memory that faded into nothingness, dragging some vital piece of me into the void along with it. Even now that memory haunts me, and my mind snatches at the visions as they grow ever dim. That is why I spend most of my time in my raven form.” Quoth pinched the skin on his thigh. “This human skin feels… awkward. Plus, these stupid things are a bit useless.” He flapped his arms.
My ears buzzed. It was such a wild tale, it couldn’t possibly be true. And yet… I’d seen Quoth’s feathers retract into his skin and a beak where his mouth should be.
“But I heard Quoth’s voice in the shop when the raven was around,” I said, my last weak protest.
“You did,” Morrie frowned. “And that’s highly irregular. In his raven form, Quoth can communicate telepathically, but only other fictional characters have ever been able to hear him. Until you. That’s why Heathcliff gave you the job.”
Is it? I remembered Quoth’s voice from my first meeting with Heathcliff, saying I was pretty, that I was ‘the one.’ Did he mean I was the perfect one for the job because I could hear him? He didn’t know that when he spoke.
Or is there something else?
“So why can I…”
“Yet another question we’re not yet able to answer, gorgeous.” Morrie patted my leg. “Let us clear your name of this murder first, and then perhaps between the four of us we can figure out the secrets of Nevermore Bookshop.”
“What about Grimalkin?” I asked, faintly.
“She’s just a cat,” Heathcliff said.
“We’re almost certain,” Morrie added.
“Meow,” Grimalkin confirmed, stretching out across Heathcliff’s lap.
I tipped my head back and skulled the wine, then held my glass out to Heathcliff. “You got more?”
“You planning to drink until this seems plausible?” Heathcliff asked.
“Damn right.”
“A woman after my own heart.” He returned to the fridge and pulled out another bottle of cheap cheap swill. He offered some to Morrie, who shook his head, instead pulling a gold flask from a strap around his ankle and taking a deep swig. Quoth too refused, but he didn’t seem to have a hidden stash of his own.
A Dead and Stormy Night Page 11