by Kevin Lucia
A Night at Old Webb
by Kevin Lucia
Published by Apokrupha
ISBN: 978-1514847633
Copyright Kevin Lucia, 2015
kevinlucia.com
Cover Design, Robert Ford
whutta.com
apokrupha.com
Tales from Clifton Heights
“And I Watered It With Tears” – LampLight, Volume 1
Things Slip Through
Strange Days
Devourer of Souls
Through a Mirror Darkly
The Way of Ah-Tzenul
Night at Old Webb
“A Night at Old Webb” is an intimate tale of youth, wonder, attraction, and exploration of mystical places. Blurring the lines between memoir and fiction, it’s an unsettlingly sweet and sad story about friends, new and old, standing around being young together.
- Mercedes M. Yardley, author of Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu
“Lucia writes tales that stick with you, that are memorable. And believe me, they are the best kind.”
- Bram Stoker Award Winning Author, USA Today Bestseller
Tom Monteleone
“Give Kevin Lucia a moment of your time and he will entertain you, making that moment stretch into hours.”
- Mouths of Madness Podast
Arcane Delights
Main Street
Clifton Heights
Saturday
“So we did it. We got this place up and running.” Cassie Tillman smiles as she stirs her chicken and broccoli with a pair of chopsticks. “Gotta admit, when you first hired me and showed me what was left here after that flood, I didn’t think it was possible...”
She lifts her full chopsticks, chews and swallows, and waves around the store’s back room. “But here we are. Two months open and chugging right along.”
Cassie carefully shifts her feet—propped up on the big metal desk used mostly for this—so as not to disturb a stack of books. Digging chopsticks into her plastic take-out container, she grins. “Of course, you couldn’t have done it without me.”
Not nearly as refined nor as sophisticated as her, I spear a hunk of spicy shrimp with a fork. Smiling, I lift the morsel and salute her with it. “How well I know. Which is why the assistant manager’s position is still open.”
Cassie swallows another mouthful and shakes her head. “Sorry, boss. You know I...”
“...only work part-time. Part-time at three different jobs. Why I don’t know. Because you don’t want to be tied down. Or something.”
I eat the shrimp and gesture at her with the fork. “Just so long as you know...”
“...the position’s always open.” Cassie smiles again. “Yeah, I get it. You’ve mentioned it a few times. Doubt I’ll ever take you up on it, but if I decide to, you’ll be the first to know.”
I nod, knowing that’s the best I can expect from her right now. Hyperbole aside, Cassie Tillman has been highly instrumental in getting my Dad’s old store—now my store—up and running. Not only is she a hard, smart worker, she’s offered some much-needed levity along the way, without ever overstepping her bounds. Her only informality is the occasional boss, which, coming from her, doesn’t sound like the slight some might mistake it for.
Regardless, she more than deserves the assistant manager’s position I keep dangling before her. If she ever decides to give up her oddly vagabond employment situation (she works two other part-time jobs besides this, as a waitress at The Skylark Diner and a nurse's aide at Webb County Assisted Living) and expresses interest in the position, it’ll be hers in a heartbeat.
Though I can’t deny how much comfort she provided Dad as his aide at the Home. He passed away in the grip of Alzheimer’s and dementia six months ago, and she did everything possible to make his last days bearable. He didn’t recognize any of us by then or know where he was or what was happening, but Cassie managed to establish a rapport with him. I’ll always be thankful for that. If she wants to work three part-time jobs at once, more power to her. Especially if she helps all her patients like she did my Dad.
To distract my thoughts from Dad’s passing (which, quite honestly, I still haven’t dealt with completely), I glance around the store’s back room while Cassie and I eat in silence. To my satisfaction, it looks exactly as it did when Dad ran it: barely organized chaos. Shelves built into the walls are stuffed full of books accumulated from library book sales, yard sales, rummage sales, discards from the local high school libraries, estate sales, and books donated from across Webb County. This big metal desk sitting in the center of the room is used mostly for newly acquired books that haven’t been sorted yet, and for Cassie and me to rest our feet on during lunch breaks.
Against the back wall stand two empty bookshelves, made recently in case we need more space. Made by Cassie, of all people. Over the past two months I’ve learned that in addition to her three part-time jobs she’s also a part-time, self-taught, self-employed carpenter who makes everything from classic Adirondack lounge chairs to picnic tables. She sells the bulk of her wares anonymously on Ebay and at out-of-town craft fairs. Her surprising hobby only serves to strengthen her strange charm.
Next to the door leading out front are two bins of battered paperbacks so beat-up I can’t possibly charge for them. They trickle into the store in boxes of donations. I rotate those bins up front as “freebies” throughout the week. Patrons who take them probably never read them and eventually throw them away, which is probably what I should do, but I have this little quirk: I can’t stand the thought of throwing books away. When I was still teaching high school English I brought home a box of discarded books every other month (much to my wife’s chagrin) when the librarian stacked them on a table in the teachers' lounge. And I didn’t even necessarily want to read them. I just couldn’t stand the thought of them thrown into the recycling bin.
Digging back into my lunch, I think of how well we’ve exceeded my expectations. I’d mentally prepared myself for a shortfall the first few months until word got around we’d reopened. However, much to my surprise we’ve run a tidy little profit.
Our success can be attributed to how Dad ran Arcane Delights. He catered to all literary tastes. He was active in the community; hosting a variety of events: poetry readings, creative writing groups, children’s story hour every Saturday morning, guest readers from out of town. He celebrated World Book Day and All Hallows Read, giving away free books for each, and he coordinated Scholastic Book Fairs at both Clifton Heights and All Saints.
People came from all over Webb County to shop here. He was active online with an email newsletter and a Facebook Page, and he sold stock through a number of online vendors. When Arcane Delights closed, many folks felt as if they’d lost a close friend or a dear member of the family.
And when word traveled I’d inherited the store and was planning on re-opening, the response to our request for donated books proved generous beyond our wildest expectations. Dad had made provisions in his will for start-up funds should I choose to run the store upon his death, but he hadn’t accounted for the inventory lost in the flooding. My initial estimates of how much it’d cost to obtain enough stock to re-open left very little margin for error.
We issued a call for book donations locally and on the internet. Almost immediately donations poured in, from families and libraries, publishers, other bookstores and individual authors. Several establishments even donated rare and hard to find volumes to bolster our Amazon and Ebay listings. It didn’t take long to fill the shelves, creating the need for Cassie’s hand-made bookcases.
This show of support has greatly eased my new-store-owner jitters. Abby (my wife) has supported me since the day I decided to quit teaching and take over the store. Nev
er once has she expressed any doubt we’d stay afloat financially. She also maintains (only half-kidding, I think) I’ve been a lot easier to live with now that I’m not a grinding gear in the idiot machine of standardized high school education.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit some low-level anxiety about the coming months. The rent on Main Street isn’t exorbitant, but it’s not cheap either. I wonder what will happen when the glow of our reopening wears off, or if our online sales die out. What happens if we need to dip into our reserves to start paying the utility bills? Or if I need to start pulling funds from personal finances? I don’t worry excessively about these things, but it wouldn’t be truthful to pretend I didn’t mull over them occasionally.
Other aspects of this store occupy my thoughts, also. There’s something different about this place. An odd vibe. Something in the air. I don’t know if Dad ever sensed it. If he did, he never mentioned it. The sensation isn’t necessarily unpleasant. I don’t feel menaced or threatened. More like...observed. Even when working alone, I feel something hovering just beyond my senses, as if someone has ducked around the corner of the shelves to another row, or slipped out into the back room.
Of course no one is ever there. And I know it’s probably just my imagination (which has always been overactive, leading me to many “odd” experiences over the years). But I often wonder if this sensation helped speed along Dad’s descent into his Alzheimer’s and dementia. Then, of course, I begin worrying about my own mental faculties, which never leads anywhere good.
Another bit of weirdness is the strange donation I received shortly before opening the store. A box full of old cloth-bound literary texts, both classic and obscure, what looks like a diary written in several different languages, an esoteric planting guide called The Way of Ah-Tzenul, and several black, leather-bound journals. The latter contains handwritten stories about life here in Clifton Heights. Written by whom, I don’t know. The stories in the one I’ve read are far too fantastical to be true, despite an eerie verisimilitude making you want to believe they are. I haven’t read the stories in the other journals yet, and haven’t decided what to do with them once I have. For now, they’re in the box they came in, at home in my office. They're never far from my thoughts.
All things considered, however, our first two months have passed much more smoothly than I ever thought they would. Even considering my worries about the store’s financial future, its odd vibe and those strange stories in that journal, I’m happier and far more relaxed than I've been for quite some time.
Swallowing her last bite of lunch, Cassie looks as if something has just occurred to her. “Hey, before I forget. Martha Wilkins called while you were working on the website.” A mischievous light twinkles in her eye. “She wants to know if any new Mills & Boon romances have arrived. Think she needs a new fix.”
I groan with exaggerated disgust. Just the thought of Martha Wilkins—all three hundred pounds of her—enjoying the latest in smutty romance is enough to ruin even a starving man’s appetite. “Thanks. I was enjoying this.”
“I live to serve.”
I shake my head, setting my box of spicy shrimp on the desk to open the top drawer. “Think I put the most recent inventory in here.”
“Think you did? Don’t you have a filing cabinet for those sorts of things?”
I snort as I dig through old inventories, pens, boxes of paperclips and packing slips. “Or something. I’m pretty sure I put that list in here, though.”
“And if you don’t find it there?”
“Then it’s probably in the middle drawer. Or the bottom drawer. Or out front under the counter.” I look up and shrug. “Or maybe at home in my office. One of those places. I’m sure it’ll turn up.”
Cassie smiles and runs a hand through her purple-tinted black hair (purple this week). “Like I said, boss. Couldn’t run this place without me.”
Calmly pushing aside worries about my spotty memory and the Alzheimer’s that very well might run in my family (technically I’m too young to experience symptoms yet, but not unsurprisingly, that offers little comfort), I offer Cassie a game smile. “Don’t I know it.”
The middle drawer proves to be empty. The third drawer, however, turns the trick. The most recent inventory is right on top. “Ha! Told you it was here.”
“There or maybe five other places.”
I waggle a finger at her, shooting her a mock-stern look. “Be nice to your elder, young miss. Someday you’ll be old and spotty like me. THEN you’ll wish you’d been nicer.”
“You better be nice to me. Especially since I’ll probably be changing your bedpan in a few years.”
I grimace. “There’s a pleasant thought. Now I don’t feel like eating dinner, either.” I’m about to close the bottom drawer when I notice a sealed package I don’t remember seeing when I stuffed the inventory list in there. Of course, considering I didn’t exactly remember where I’d put said list, not remembering the package wasn’t necessarily a big deal.
“Huh. That’s weird.”
“What’s up?”
“A package. Looks thin. Like it might have a picture book in it, or something.”
I pull the package out, heft it a few times. It’s about the length and width of a picture book, or maybe a notebook of some kind. Pressing the package along its edge, I can feel something like spiral binding. Probably a notebook.
Cassie looks at the package with a thoughtful expression. “Huh. Doesn’t look like a bound book. Maybe an ARC from a publisher?”
We get advance reading copies—usually for review purposes—in the mail occasionally, though I’m not sure why. Seeing as how I can’t legally sell them, I wait until the publish date is far past, then dump them in the freebie bins. I heft the package again. “If it is an ARC, it’s probably for a novella. Awfully light. Let me see the mailing address...”
I flip the package over to read the mailing address. At first, the words don’t seem to make sense. Or maybe my brain just doesn’t want them to make sense. On a second pass, however, the address reads all too clear, and an eerie wonder fills me. “It’s...it’s addressed to me. But to my address when I lived in Binghamton and was teaching at Seton Catholic, about four years ago. And it’s from...”
I scan the return address again, look up at Cassie and say, my voice sounding very far away, “It’s from my father.”
Cassie’s eyes widen slightly. “Wow. Wonder what it is?”
I shake my head, looking back at the package, as if reading the addresses a second time will offer a clue. “I have no idea.”
Instantly Cassie becomes all business. This is one of her strongest points. She intuitively knows when to get serious. “Listen, whatever it is...it’s probably personal. If you want to take off for a while and check it out, I can mind the store until you come back.”
I wait for a slight chill to run down my spine...but it never comes. Yes, this most likely is personal. But I don’t sense anything secret about it. In fact, though I’d be hard pressed to tell you why I feel so, I sense whatever is in this package is meant to be shared.
I shake my head. “No...it’s fine.” I look up at Cassie and smile bravely. “Let’s check it out.”
I rip the flap open and slide the package’s contents onto the desk. Sure enough, it’s a notebook. A spiral MEAD notebook, the kind I used in high school for notes, and...
The royal blue cover strikes resonant notes deep inside.
“Wow.”
“What is it?”
“It’s one of my old notebooks, back from when I was in high school.”
Cassie leans forward, definitely interested but trying to maintain a respectful distance. “What’s in it?”
I smile-grimace, feeling my cheeks warm. “Stories, mostly. I wrote them a lot when I was in high school. In blue notebooks only, to keep them straight from my school notebooks. Must’ve accidently left this one behind when I went to college. Thought I’d taken them all with me.”
“So y
ou wanted to be a writer when you were a kid.”
I nod. “Yeah. Dad sold about ten or eleven short stories in college. A small publisher released them in a collection right after he married Mom. It did okay, and he wanted to write more...but he didn’t. Mom never told him no, exactly, but she wasn’t very keen on the idea of him writing, from what little I’ve gathered over the years. And because she wasn’t keen on the idea of Dad writing...”
“...she wasn’t keen on the idea of you writing,” Cassie finished. “Or, because she wasn’t keen on it, you never shared your writing with anyone.”
I nod. “The second one, yeah.” Of course, what Cassie doesn’t know is that part of the reason I quit teaching to take over the store was to try and free up time to finally start writing. It was one of the reasons why Abby supported the idea so strongly. She’s been gently nagging me for years to start writing, citing Dad’s short-lived career as something to avoid.
I shifted the package and heard something rustle inside. “Something still in here.” I set the notebook on the desk and plucked a sheet of paper from the packaging. Flipping it over, I see it’s a letter from Dad, dated about four years ago, right after Mom passed away.
I hold up the letter to Cassie. “It’s from my Dad.” Before she can say anything, I flip it over and start reading.
“ ‘Kevin— I was re-arranging the attic when I came across this in a box of your high school things. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of reading it. There’s a strong voice here, son. And I’m not just saying that because I’m your Dad. I’d always wondered if you’d done any writing of your own, also wondering—all respect to her, God rest her soul—if you hid it because of your Mother. Understandable, given her misgivings about my writing career.’
“ ‘I hope you’ll pardon my boldness, but I’m sending this to you with a plea: if you still write, if you even think of writing, don’t just think about it any longer. Your Mother loved and cared for me, and not a day goes by I don’t miss her. But not a day goes by that I don’t wish I’d been more insistent on pursuing my writing. I could be wrong, but I sense in Abby someone who’d support your dream, if indeed it’s still yours. And I know maybe you might not feel comfortable talking to me about these matters, but I’d love to discuss what you’ve written here. Again, I apologize if I’ve overstepped my bounds, but given the fate of my own writing career, I hope you’ll understand. Love, Dad.’ ”