The Book of Secrets

by Melissa McShane

  “What are you—we have to call the police!” I reached for my phone and came up empty. I’d left it in my purse—no pockets in this skirt. I felt my breath coming in quick, ragged pants and forced myself to stay calm.

  “That would be a serious error,” the stranger said. “Starting with the fact that you’d certainly be their first suspect.”

  I gaped at him, panic welling up again. “Are you crazy? Look, I don’t have any blood on me, I hardly touched him! There’s no reason to suspect me!”

  “You were alone in the store with him, you are a new employee—you might have killed him to get at the contents of the cash box.”

  “Then why would I stay around to call for help?”

  The man sighed. “I’m not saying they’d convict you. I’m saying they would make your life hell for a while. Is that what you want?”

  I looked at him, at his height and the way he stood, and felt more chilled even than the basement could account for. “I… think I’ll risk it.” I took a few casual steps toward the stairs, never letting my eyes leave his face.

  “I didn’t kill him,” he said, exasperated. “I don’t have any blood on me either, do I? And I think whoever stabbed Nathaniel in the back would be at least a little bloody.”

  “How do you know that’s what happened?”

  He pointed. “There’s a gash in the back of his sweater. You can see where the blood collected there first and made the fabric curl. Look, whoever you are, you can’t be stupid or Nathaniel wouldn’t have hired you. Somebody came into the store and killed Nathaniel, and you’re damned lucky whoever it was didn’t realize you were here, or you’d have joined him.”

  I sat down heavily on the second stair from the bottom, my vision clouding over. “They had to know I was here,” I said. “That typewriter isn’t quiet.”

  “It’s not important,” the man said. “What matters is we need to get someone to take care of Nathaniel’s body. Someone who isn’t the police.”

  “That’s insane. We have to tell the police. People don’t just ‘take care of’ dead bodies.”

  “The police will draw far too much attention to this store. No, we’ll handle this matter privately. I’ll need your permission to—”

  “My permission? What do you mean, ‘privately’? I’m calling the police.”

  The man focused on me then, his attention an uncomfortable knuckle digging into the base of my neck. “What’s your name again?”

  “Helena. Helena Davies.”

  “And you’re certain Nathaniel hired you today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Helena Davies,” the man said, his lips curving in a sardonic smile, “you’ve just inherited this bookstore.”

  gaped at him again. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Nathaniel didn’t tell you anything?” The man shook his head. “Let’s go upstairs. There’s nothing we can do for him now, and this situation is more serious than I thought.”

  I felt too numb to keep arguing. I let him lead the way up the stairs as I turned off the lights, then, after a moment’s thought, turned the single bulb back on. I don’t know why the thought of leaving Mr. Briggs alone in the dark felt so wrong, but I couldn’t bear to do it. I glared at the man, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t feel my moment of sentimentality mattered.

  We went back to the front of the store, where the man pulled out a mobile phone that looked like it could exceed the speed of light and tapped the screen a few times. The phone made no noise, no beeping nor dialing sounds, but the man held it to his ear and, after a few silent seconds, said, “This is Campbell. Theta epsilon at Abernathy’s.” I heard the tiny distant sound of speech, then Campbell said, “That’s what I said. Ask Lucia to come now.” He lowered the phone, tapping the screen once to end the call.

  “What was that about?” I said.

  Campbell looked at me again, this time narrowly, assessing me. “I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this,” he said. “But I am, if nothing else, obedient to the Accords, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else. If Nathaniel—” He half-turned away, rubbing the bridge of his nose and pinching his lips tight against whatever words were trying to escape them. “I wish he was alive so I could throttle him,” he continued in a low, rough voice. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

  “Are you blaming him for getting killed?” I wished more than ever I dared slap his smug face.

  “I’m blaming him for being so close-mouthed we might lose the most important resource we have in this war. Sit down. You look like you’re about to faint.”

  “I’m not going to faint,” I said, outraged, “but I’m thinking seriously about punching you in the face.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Have I done something to offend you?”

  “Treated me like a servant? Talked down to me? Acted like all of this is some huge cosmic plan to inconvenience you? No, of course not!”

  To my irritation, he laughed. “You’re not what I thought you were,” he said. “I’ll remember not to underestimate you again. You really do look like you need to sit down. I’ll tell you what I can, which isn’t much, I’m afraid, and then when Lucia arrives, she should be able to tell you more.”

  I sat on the freezing chair and clenched my hands in my lap. I wished I dared go back for my coat. It was really cold. But I was afraid if I left Campbell alone, he might leave, and then I’d never get answers to any of the questions that were multiplying in my brain.

  “First, a proper introduction. My name is Malcolm Campbell, and I am a master of the… let’s call them the magical arts.”

  “Magical arts,” I said. “You’re about to tell me you aren’t a stage magician.”

  “I begin to see why Nathaniel hired you,” Campbell said. “Real magic, not rabbits out of hats. Not that I haven’t turned my hand to the latter sometimes.”

  “Prove it.” Defying him felt good, like something I could control in all this madness.

  “What would you accept as proof?”

  I shrugged. The fog across my vision had cleared, leaving me feeling surreally alert, the way you do on a snowy morning when the sun is out and everything is outlined in clear, sharp, rainbow edges. Magic. Real magic. My employer was dead in the basement and this man was apparently part of some covert organization that used Greek letters as codes for things. I would humor the lunatic stranger for a few minutes, excuse myself, get my phone and call 9-1-1 as quickly as I could. “Do something no stage magician could do.”

  Campbell looked around. “Do you care about those books?” he said, indicating the stack of Master Your Potential! on the counter.

  “Not really.”

  “Counting from the top, pick one.”

  “Four.”

  The top three books rose into the air to hover above the counter. The fourth book drifted casually toward me. I watched it come without interest. “It’s done with wires,” I said.

  “That’s not the magic. Or, rather, it is magic, but I don’t expect you to be impressed by that.”

  I held out my hands to accept the book. On the dust jacket, a toothily smiling woman wearing some vaguely Indian robes and a lot of clunky gold jewelry held a glowing orb on her extended palm. “What will I be impressed by?”

  “Examine the book. Touch it. Smell it. Make sure it hasn’t been tampered with.”

  I rolled my eyes, but did as he said. It smelled of paper and ink and not much else. “What would it smell like if you’d tampered with it?”

  “Something flammable,” Campbell said. “Now, hold it on your palms, well away from you.”

  I stretched out my arms.

  The toothy woman burst into flame.

  I shrieked and jerked away, dropping the book. It hung in midair, then floated away from me, blazing hotter as it did. Campbell stood there, his arms crossed over his chest. “Tell me how I managed that,” he said.

  My panicked breathing slowed, not by much. “I don’t know.”

  “I
t’s a simple trick, but it is real magic. And believing that is the first step in understanding everything else you’re going to learn this afternoon.”

  A speck of fire had burned a little spot of char into my skirt. It probably wouldn’t be noticeable against the dark gray. “But why? Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you’re now the custodian of Abernathy’s.”

  “I’m not much more than a file clerk!”

  “That’s only because Nathaniel foolishly hired someone with no knowledge of what Abernathy’s really is. If he’d done as he was supposed to do—I don’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t even know he was looking for an assistant. But that’s irrelevant now. Abernathy’s has no file clerks, it has custodians. People who know the books. Either you take this position, or—”

  “So I have a choice. Fine. I choose to call the police and then take a job at the Pick ‘n’ Pack.”

  “Or Abernathy’s shuts its doors, and the balance in this Long War tilts, and everything you care about may be destroyed,” he said, as if I hadn’t interrupted him.

  “War?” I said.

  “War. The details don’t matter right now, given the situation we find ourselves in. What matters is the role Abernathy’s plays in the fight.”

  “I suppose we’re one of the good guys?” Belatedly, I realized I’d used the word “we,” but Campbell shook his head.

  “Abernathy’s is a Neutrality,” he said, and I could hear him emphasize the capital letter. “In the service of good, yes, but it’s not as simple as good versus evil.”

  “Why not?”

  “Again, not something that matters to you right now. Or should matter, really.”

  “I’m starting to once again feel the urge to punch you. Can’t you just tell me the truth? It sounds like I’m involved whether I like it or not.”

  “I’m having trouble not telling you things that will unduly influence you.” Campbell leaned up against the plywood counter, a relaxed move at odds with his elegant suit. “As I said, I’m obedient to the Accords, which lay out clearly the protections of the Neutralities. Lucia will explain it better, anyway.”

  “Who’s Lucia?” He’d said it oddly, “loo-chee-ah.”

  “A custodian of a different Neutrality.” Campbell came toward me, and I shot out of my chair, but he only moved to look out the glass of the front door. I headed toward the back of the store. “Miss Davies,” he said, and despite myself, I stopped and turned to face him. He stood with his back to the door, putting his face in shadow, and his eyes were black smudges, expressionless.

  “Miss Davies,” he said, “if you call the police, I won’t stop you. But you will open this store, and yourself, to influences that are a lot less friendly than I am. Someone murdered Nathaniel Briggs, and if that person was trying to attack Abernathy’s, the murderer may feel you’re also an acceptable target. You may not believe everything I’m telling you, you may not feel a responsibility to this store, but you’re in this now, and the only way to protect yourself is to accept that.”

  I looked at the charred remains of the book, which now lay on the floor near the chair. The woman’s grinning visage had been completely obliterated. The image of Mr. Briggs’ dead body lying limp at the foot of the basement stairs came to mind, and with it the thought of an indistinct figure stabbing him from behind, creeping up the stairs and pushing open the door to the office. That typewriter was loud enough I wouldn’t have heard anyone approach. I shuddered. “What do I do?”

  Campbell didn’t move, but I felt a tension go out of him. “For now, we wait,” he said. “Lucia will be here shortly. She’ll bring someone to remove the body discreetly and give you some basic instructions.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can tell me? I’m not even sure that paperwork I filled out was legally binding!”

  “Trust me, you’re the one. Nathaniel is—was—nothing if not thorough. Ah, this is Lucia now.”

  A small white van pulled up to the curb in front of the store. It occurred to me that that spot had been empty when I arrived that morning and I was pretty sure it had stayed empty the whole time. That nearly convinced me of magic all by itself: empty parking spaces, even in this part of town, were rare.

  I watched a woman and two men emerge and come toward the front door. Campbell backed away to give them room to enter. The woman was dark-haired and well-rounded, in her late forties probably, wearing a baggy sweat shirt and yoga pants in purple and bright pink. The two men had matching blond buzz cuts and wore jeans and plain T-shirts, one red, one black. They looked around the store curiously, scoping out new territory. The woman focused on me, and I had to keep myself from cringing, because her expression said I was an inconvenience she wished she could have the men get rid of.

  “Theta epsilon?” she said. “I only came because I know it’s impossible. No one uses those codes anymore.” She had the faintest Italian accent.

  “Nathaniel’s dead, Lucia,” Campbell said. He didn’t seem fazed by her attitude. “In the basement.”

  “Who’s she? A witness?” Lucia transferred her irritated gaze to Campbell. “Or a suspect?”

  “She’s Abernathy’s new custodian.”

  “Impossible.” Lucia looked me up and down again. “I would have known if Briggs had hired someone.”

  “I took the job just a few hours ago,” I said, determined not to be cowed.

  “Convenient,” Lucia said. “Maxwell. Henry. Basement.”

  The two men headed off toward the back of the store. I hesitated briefly, then turned to follow them.

  “You stay here,” Lucia said.

  Her tone of voice, like someone calling a dog to heel, broke through my intimidated stupor. “If I’m Abernathy’s custodian,” I said, “then I can’t let strangers into the back unaccompanied. You can come with me if you want.” And I turned my back on her and followed the men. I heard Campbell chuckle, then say something I couldn’t make out. Well, Lucia already disliked me; I could hardly make things worse.

  I waited at the top of the basement stairs while Maxwell and Henry examined Mr. Briggs’ body for signs of life. Then one of them—it hadn’t been clear who was who, from Lucia’s instructions—produced a folded square of blue plastic tarp out of nowhere, maybe literally out of nowhere, and unfolded it until it looked large enough to cover the entire basement. The other gently lifted Mr. Briggs’ body onto it, and together they wrapped him in the tarp until he looked like a blue plastic mummy. They managed to do this without getting any blood on themselves or on the outside of the tarp—more magic?

  I backed out of their way as they brought their burden carefully upstairs. The whole thing had been done in silence, whether out of reverence for the dead or simply not needing to waste words, I wasn’t sure.

  Lucia and Campbell were where I’d left them, though they were having a conversation that cut off before we reached them. “Let me take care of this,” Campbell said, and touched the bundle. It shimmered, then went solid again, and to me it still looked like a body wrapped in a tarp, but Lucia nodded and held the door open for the men. They opened the sliding door of the van, which turned out to have no seats aside from the two in front, and put their burden inside. This was all completely visible, but none of the passing cars slowed at all. Either people were more indifferent than I’d thought, or Campbell really had worked some kind of magic on the body. In which case, why hadn’t I been affected?

  One of the men climbed in with the body and shut the door. The other got in the driver’s seat, and the little van pulled away from the curb and disappeared off down the street.

  “That’s settled,” Lucia said. “Now, for you.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Shouldn’t someone have examined the body in place? For evidence?”

  “No need,” Lucia said. “We can learn everything we need to know at… somewhere else.”

  “You don’t have to be cagey with her,” Campbell said.

  “I’m not convinced she’s the right pe
rson,” Lucia said.

  I forgot, for the moment, that I felt the same way. “Why not?” I said, a little belligerently. “Mr. Briggs hired me.”

  “So you say. He didn’t give you any instructions. He might just have wanted you for mundane tasks. Abernathy’s does have those.”

  “It’s simple enough to find out,” Campbell said. “At least, so I’ve heard.”

  “Don’t teach me my business, Campbell,” Lucia said irritably. “All right. What’s your name again?”

  “Helena Davies.”

  “Go find me a book, Davies. Take one off a bookcase and bring it to me.”

  “What kind—”

  “I don’t care. Any kind. Hurry up, I’ve got things to do.”

  I turned on my heel and walked away, quickly, wanting nothing more than to get away from her. Then I kept walking, but more slowly, trying to imagine what kind of book would satisfy her. Why was the place so disorganized? How did—how had Mr. Briggs ever found anything? I scanned titles. Some of them weren’t in English. Some of them weren’t even in English script. There was no way I could guess what would interest Lucia. So I decided to choose one that interested me.

  A blue binding, sky blue, in the middle of a row of black leather spines caught my eye. I pulled it off the shelf. It was hardbound, had no dust jacket, and the title, Reflections, was printed on the front cover but not on the spine. I flipped it open at random. The text was printed in double columns on each page, and the columns rather than the pages were numbered. It looked like an account of someone’s travels in, I thought, southeast Asia. I loved books about travel.

  I closed the book and returned to Lucia. She held out her hand for it, and I slapped it into her palm with a little too much force. She didn’t flinch. She opened it to the title page and went still.

  “You see?” Campbell said. He wasn’t quite gloating.