Murder in the Shadows

by Jade Astor

  “Tell me something,” he demanded. “What would you do if you ever came across a book that was evil?”

  “Evil?” Stephen blinked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Could you resist it? Would you fight it? Or would you let it slowly take you over…like Christabel did with Geraldine in the poem?”

  “Books can’t be evil. They’re just paper and glue, mostly. Anyway, you said the poem has no ending. So we don’t know what Christabel did.”

  “Forget the poem. I’m asking what you would do.”

  The guy’s intense stare began to annoy him. Trying to freak him out, obviously. Maybe he wasn’t so different from Uncle Vernon’s other customers, after all.

  “First, I’d look the title and publication date up on the Internet.” Stephen pointed to his computer. “Then I’d price it and put it on the shelf. Just like I do with all the rest.”

  Those dark eyes frosted over. He placed the twenty on the counter.

  “Keep the change,” he said. “Consider it a tip for indulging my Porlockian patter. Good day, Stephen.”

  After he left, Stephen held the bill up to the light, half expecting it to come up counterfeit. Luckily, this one looked real enough, even if the guy himself seemed a little too good—or maybe a little too weird—to be true. Who willingly paid double for a musty old poetry book?

  Still, Stephen had to admit, he liked the way the guy said his name—softly, like it was also part of a classic old poem. Too bad he hadn’t offered his own in return.

  Just another day in Used Book Land, he mused, tossing the money in the till. Otherwise known as the Land of the Lost.

  Soon Uncle Vernon and Geoffrey returned, having exchanged their load of boxes for a bag of delicious-smelling sandwiches and three cans of orange soda. They dragged two chairs up to the front counter and spread the napkins out to form a makeshift tablecloth.

  “I thought you deserved this, since you’ve been working so hard,” Vernon said, handing Stephen one of the sodas. He popped the others for Geoffrey and himself. “Do you remember when you used to come and visit during school vacations? I’d put up a sign and we’d walk to the corner store, just you and I. I’d buy you a comic book and any snack you wanted. You never asked for candy, though—orange soda it was, every time.”

  “I remember. That was a long time ago.” Stephen smiled. The loving gesture filled Stephen with affection and warmth, not to mention a salting of plain old-fashioned guilt. His resentment at being stuck in the store faded, at least for the moment. “Thank you, Uncle Vernon.”

  “Now you’ve finished college,” Vernon said wistfully. “Who ever knew time could go so fast?”

  “Andrew Marvell, maybe,” Geoffrey suggested. Uncle Vernon ignored him.

  “Just wait until you’re old, like Geoffrey and me. Then you’ll watch the days slip away like water dripping down the sink. Faster and faster. Nothing you can do to stop it.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Geoffrey. “Here’s to making every moment count.”

  The three of them clicked their cans together like champagne glasses.

  Uncle Vernon sipped from his can and winced a little. “I see they’re putting just as much sugar in this stuff as before. Thought people were eating healthier these days.”

  “You should, certainly,” Geoffrey reminded him, prompting a withering look from Vernon.

  “Anyway, never mind that. Did anything happen around here while I was gone?”

  Stephen took a long swallow of soda, which really was too sweet for him now that he was an adult. Then he started to tell him about his strange young customer, his dramatic reading of Coleridge’s creepy poem, and his apparent belief in evil books. At the last moment, he stopped himself.

  “We had a sale,” he settled for saying. “A Coleridge book. It was marked eight bucks, but the guy insisted it was worth twenty. Paid up without argument. And yes, I checked to make sure it wasn’t a fake bill.”

  Uncle Vernon beamed. “Obviously a collector. Well done, young man.”

  “Sales have been slow, I take it?” Geoffrey offered both of them a sympathetic gaze.

  “I’m afraid so, though Stephen’s idea of selling things on the computer has worked out remarkably well. Don’t think I can’t see the irony. Those damnable machines are what killed the public’s appetite for books in the first place. Now we’re using them to simultaneously preserve and annihilate this store and hundreds more like it.”

  “Don’t say that, Uncle Vernon,” Stephen objected, though privately he didn’t see the transition to digital texts—and modern attitudes—as a bad thing in any sense of the word. “There are still people around who want what we offer. A lot of them are looking through our web listings now, and we’re getting good prices, at least for the moment.”

  “So you can keep the place going for a while,” Geoffrey said, making Stephen want to kick him—right after he kicked himself. The orange soda must have gone to his head.

  “We would have gone under when I had my heart attack if Stephen hadn’t arrived to help out,” Uncle Vernon grumbled. “As it was, the place was shut down for almost three weeks. Put quite a dent in things, I don’t mind admitting. And frankly, I’m not sure what I’ll do when Stephen moves on at the end of the summer.”

  Geoffrey glanced from Vernon to Stephen. “I thought he hadn’t made any definite plans yet.”

  Stephen started to answer, but Uncle Vernon cut him off. “He hasn’t, but he can’t stay here forever. Nothing for him to do in this town. He’s a college graduate now, and with a degree in business besides. He needs to go out in the world, find a job and a boyfriend. I can’t be the one to keep him from that.”

  “You’re right,” Geoffrey said solemnly, gazing at Stephen. “Everyone should have a partner in life, or at the very least a steady companion. I’m glad you think so, Vernon.”

  “Well, someone his age should, certainly,” Vernon said, picking up his soda again. “Best to get that over with before you get old and set in your ways, like me.”

  “Oh, come now, Vernon, surely you don’t think one has to be a certain age to fall in love,” Geoffrey pressed on, a bit desperately. “It can happen at any age, and it can turn out quite well if both people are willing to work at it.”

  “Well, there you are,” Vernon said. “Who has time to work on such things? I don’t certainly. Keeping this store afloat takes up all my time, and then some. It’s not as though I can afford to hire an assistant. Stephen’s father is taking care of his expenses while he’s here. Another reason this can’t go on long-term. My brother would never agree to that, and I would never ask him to.”

  “It’s all right, Uncle Vernon. The summer’s only begun. Everything will work out eventually.” Stephen spared a meaningful glance for Geoffrey as he said it, but by then Geoffrey had slumped over his sandwich, despondent.

  Not noticing, Vernon lifted his eyes to the portrait of Maynard, gazing sternly down on them. “We inhabit a world far removed from the one Maynard Carlyle knew,” he said solemnly. “The past exists only in echoes…and the books in our store, of course. As long as Carlyle Books still exists, we can still hear the voices of those who came before us. And I intend to make sure it exists at least as long as I do.”

  Crumpling his sandwich wrapper, he stood and marched to the back office as Stephen guiltily cleared away the remains of his own lunch. However he might feel about the store and its contents, this place was Uncle Vernon’s dearest possession in the world as well as a link to the days of his own youth. He’d be devastated by its loss unless Stephen did something to soften the blow. He’d have to talk to his father about that as soon as possible.

  Then again, a lot could happen in two months. He glanced at Geoffrey, still munching his sandwich in gloomy silence. Time to get that particular horse on the track, and fast.

  “Thanks for your help with the packages,” Stephen said cheerfully. “I know Uncle Vernon appreciated it, even if he forgot to say so.�
�

  Geoffrey shook his head sadly. “Every time I think I’ve taken a step forward, I find myself being kicked back into the gutter. And the worst part is that he doesn’t even realize he does it.”

  “We’re just going to have to double down,” Stephen said. “Frankly, I think—”

  He froze when Uncle Vernon stuck his head back through the door.

  “By the way, Stephen, please make some time this afternoon to finish cleaning those pictures. The frames are an utter disgrace. Somehow the dirt has now migrated to one side.”