The Magic Collector

by Clayton Wood

  BAM!

  Stanwitz lurched backward, tripping over Grandpa’s body and slamming into the desk, scattering notebooks everywhere.

  Bella stared at him uncomprehendingly, then heard the thunderous sound of footsteps coming into the living room from behind her. She turned, seeing four police officers rushing toward her, their guns drawn.

  “Drop your weapons now!” one shouted.

  Stanwitz shoved Reynolds away, raising his pistol…and the cops opened fire.

  BAM BAM BAM!

  Stanwitz fell backward on top of Grandpa’s desk, the rain of bullets striking him in the shoulders and chest. Reynolds cursed, bolting into the dining room.

  “Go, go!” one of the cops ordered.

  One officer ran after Reynolds, another checking on Stanwitz, who was lying next to Grandpa, blood soaking through his uniform. The third cop ran to Grandpa’s side, rolling him onto his back. He checked his neck for a pulse, then swore, placing his hands over Grandpa’s chest and starting CPR. He pushed so hard Bella heard a crunching sound.

  Bella crawled up to Grandpa’s other side, her lower lip quivering as she looked down at him. At his kind brown eyes, staring off into nothing. His head bobbing lifelessly with each thump of his chest.

  His face as pale as Death.

  She shook her head mutely, kneeling over him and cradling his head against hers. She sobbed, tears streamed down her cheeks, wetting his.

  “No Grandpa, no,” she moaned, rocking back and forth.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. One of the police officers was kneeling beside her.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She ignored him, continuing to rock back and forth, cradling Grandpa’s head in her hands. She brought her lips to his ear.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered. “It’s me Grandpa, it’s Bella.”

  “Aw kid,” the cop muttered. “I’m real sorry.”

  The officer doing chest compressions looked up.

  “I need a medic!” he yelled. Sweat was already beading up on his forehead, dripping into his eyes. The cop who’d ran into the dining room after Reynolds came back into the living room.

  “He’s gone,” the other stated. “Not sure how. The kitchen’s a dead-end, but the guy’s nowhere.”

  “What do you mean he’s nowhere?” the cop behind Bella retorted.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he replied sheepishly. “He just, um…vanished.”

  “Jesus,” the cop behind Bella muttered. “Call in more back-up. Search the whole damn apartment, every damn floor. And set a perimeter around the building. No one comes in or out without going through us.”

  “This one’s dead,” the cop checking Stanwitz notified. “No pulse.”

  “Call two ambulances then. And put on some gloves and do CPR.”

  The cops got to work, but to Bella they weren’t there at all. It was only her and Grandpa, as it’d always been. As it was always supposed to be, until the end of time.

  Grandpa, telling her stories of a better, more beautiful world. Bringing life and color into an existence that too often seemed to have none. A man larger than life, the only one who made it worth living.

  But it was the peculiar habit of Time to plod along at a glacial pace during moments of pain and drudgery, and to speed up during the few fleeting moments of joy life offered. And there had been no greater joy in Bella’s life than Grandpa.

  So it was that, far too soon, Grandpa’s time had run out.

  Chapter 5

  Like a candle flickering in the darkness, Grandpa had been Bella’s guiding light. Warm and burning ever bright, he’d shown her the way through a world that often seemed cold and indifferent. But his flame had been snuffed out, and darkness seized the opportunity, rushing in to envelope Bella in its icy embrace.

  Without Grandpa, Bella went numb.

  The police had to drag her screaming away from his body when the paramedics arrived. The medics went through the motions of bringing Grandpa back to life, but soon ended their futile efforts. They declared him dead at the scene.

  Time of death: 1515.

  She was taken out of the apartment, where police were already surrounding the yard with yellow tape that said: POLICE SCENE DO NOT CROSS. The paramedics put her in an ambulance, bringing her to the local emergency room, where she waited for hours laying on a stiff gurney in a cold room. Eventually a doctor came to see her, asking her some rote-sounding questions, then touching her head and pressing on her neck and belly. He concluded that there was nothing seriously wrong with her, which was hardly surprising. The doctor had no instrument to evaluate the gaping wound in her soul, and no medicine that could have healed it.

  Another half-hour later, a nurse came in to say she was going home.

  Which was a lie.

  A while later, a woman calling herself a social worker came in to talk with her, asking her if there were any relatives that could take her in. Any friends.

  There were none, of course. She’d only had Grandpa.

  A temporary court-appointed guardian was chosen, some lawyer. They called Bella’s downstairs neighbors, who graciously agreed to take Bella in until a more permanent “solution” could be found. The police had an officer stationed in a cruiser in front of the apartment just in case Reynolds tried to return.

  And through it all, Bella just sat there, feeling hollow. Like her heart had been carved out of her body, leaving her incapable of feeling anything.

  That night, as she laid on her side on a blow-up mattress in her neighbor’s spare bedroom, she stared at the wall for hours. She tried to cry – wanted to cry – but nothing came. All she felt was that awful numbness, as if she’d lost the ability to feel anything at all. And every time she closed her eyes, she saw Grandpa’s eyes staring off into oblivion. The life that had oozed out of every pore in his body when he was alive, that had animated every gesture, every smile, was gone.

  And it terrified her that, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine him any other way now.

  * * *

  Morning came, and the neighbors’ kids went off to school while Bella stayed home. Their mother offered to take a day off from work to be with Bella, but Bella refused, saying she wanted to be by herself for a while. Everyone left, and she remained.

  Alone.

  She laid in bed fully clothed, still dressed in her clothes from yesterday. Bella huddled in her warm jacket, staring out of the window. She had no desire to eat breakfast. Or lunch. She felt no hunger. Other than a headache, she felt nothing at all. Not even sadness.

  She should feel sad, but she didn’t.

  Time passed as it always did, but without anything to look forward to, time didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

  Eventually she had to go to the bathroom, the call of nature the only thing that managed to get her out of bed. She answered the call, then walked back through the living room toward the spare bedroom, slowing as she did so.

  There, nestled against one wall, was a desk.

  Her mind went to her Grandpa’s desk, that wooden monstrosity he’d slaved over. His voice, deep and earnest, seemed to whisper in her ear.

  If something happens to me…

  She reached under her shirt into her bra, pulling out what she’d put there for safekeeping.

  A golden key.

  For the first time since Grandpa died, Bella felt something.

  She spun around, walking toward the front door of the apartment and opening it, making sure it was unlocked. Then she bounded up the spiraling staircase beyond, slowing as she reached the third-floor landing. The front door was still busted open, yellow police tape spanning the doorway.

  She hesitated, peering beyond it and straining her ears. The coast seemed to be clear.

  Bella took a deep breath in, then ducked under the police tape, stepping quietly into the hallway of her apartment. She moved stealthily into the living room, scanning it.

  Empty.

  It was bizarre, this e
mptiness. The apartment had never been empty before, not with Grandpa always being there. Death had taken him away, and now the apartment was just a place, not her home. A hollow series of rooms, like her soul.

  She crept to Grandpa’s desk, trying to ignore the bloodstains on the framed pictures of mushrooms atop it. Retrieving the golden key from her pocket, she unlocked the leftmost drawer. She emptied it, pulling out the false bottom and retrieving the silver key, which she used to open the right drawer. Then she pulled out the heavy black safe, setting it on the floor.

  13-33-7.

  Twisting the dial, she entered the combination, and the door swung open. She reached inside, feeling something there…something heavy. She pulled it out.

  It was a book.

  Take what’s inside and bring it to a safe place, follow the instructions.

  She heard footsteps coming up the stairs from behind.

  Bella stuffed the book under her shirt, rushing back into the hallway. The footsteps were getting louder, and she heard voices echoing in the stairwell. They were clearly past the second-floor landing…and approaching quickly.

  Her heart leapt into her throat.

  The door to her bedroom was in the hallway; she bolted into her room, closing the door most of the way and peering through the crack between the door and the doorframe. She heard a man talking as he entered the hallway, and moments later a police officer passed by her door and into the living room, followed by a second person. Someone wearing a brown cloak with a hood over their head. The cloak was open in the front, exposing a colorful painted vest covering their chest.

  “You sure there’s no one here?” this person asked. It was a woman’s voice.

  “Just the cop outside we killed,” the police officer replied. Fear gripped Bella, her breath catching in her throat.

  It was Reynolds’ voice.

  “You should’ve notified me when you found Thaddeus,” the cloaked woman scolded.

  “You were away,” Reynolds countered. “Stanwitz insisted on…”

  “And now he’s dead,” the woman snapped. “Why didn’t he wear protection?”

  “He was in character for years,” Reynold’s explained. “He got lazy…and stupid. Idiot almost killed that girl.”

  “If he had, the boss-man would’ve killed him anyway,” she replied.

  “I still don’t get why we have to hunt down that girl,” Reynolds grumbled. “Or her stupid book.”

  “Neither do I,” the woman admitted. “Be a good boy and check the bedrooms, love. Looks like someone already went through that desk.”

  Bella hid behind the door, hearing Reynolds pass by her room again. Luckily he went into Grandpa’s room first, leaving the door half-open. The cloaked woman knelt before the empty safe with her back to Bella, peering inside of it. Then she stood, lifting her gaze to stare up at the painting above Grandpa’s desk.

  Bella steeled herself, then made her move.

  She opened her door, slipping into the hallway as quietly as a mouse, then ducking under the police tape and tiptoeing down the stairs. She made not a sound, taking the stairwell past the second floor to the first, then bursting out of the front door, leaping down the steps and sprinting out of the front gate. She turned left down the sidewalk.

  There was a police car at the curb, a single bullet hole in the windshield on the driver’s side.

  Bella jerked her gaze away, running as fast as she could for as long as she could. Until sweat poured from her skin, her lungs burning and legs threatening to give out underneath her. Only then did she slow to a walk, struggling to catch her breath. She glanced behind her, seeing empty streets as far as the eye could see.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she bent over and rested her hands just above her knees. She closed her eyes, feeling sweat drip from the tip of her nose.

  Okay.

  Bella took a deep breath in, then stood straight up, trying to get her bearings. She was on the corner of Arlington Street and Main Street; downtown was a short distance down Main Street, the city library only a few blocks away.

  Bring it to a safe place.

  She turned down Main street, passing City Hall on her left, then Summer Street. The library was on Summer Street, a squat, rectangular building with a small clock tower. It was just as she remembered it from two years ago; she turned left down the street, walking up to the double-doors at the library entrance and opening one, stepping inside.

  The woman at the front desk glanced up at Bella, then returned to being hypnotized by her phone.

  Bella made her way to the main area of the library, a rather plain room with gray patterned carpet and endless rows of bookshelves. She found herself drawn to one of the long rectangular tables sandwiched between the tall shelves of books, and sat down before it. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, she retrieved the book she’d gotten from the safe, setting it on the table and studying it.

  It was an old book, that was certain, and awfully thick. Its hard cover was a dull maroon, dark blocky letters embossed on its surface.

  “The Chronicles of Collins Dansworth,” it read. “By Belthazar Squib.”

  She was disappointed to find that it wasn’t written by Grandpa, a part of her hoping she’d finally get to read one of his books. She didn’t recognize this author’s name at all. When she opened the book, she spotted a folded-up piece of paper between the cover and the first page. Unfolding it, she immediately recognized Grandpa’s fine handwriting:

  Dearest Bella,

  I’ve left you all alone, and for that I may never forgive myself.

  I ask you to trust me one last time, Bella. Read this book until you are lost in its pages. Then close it and find the answers to the mysteries you hold in your heart.

  Remember that love is something you give, as I gave mine to you. Give it to your art and heal your heart.

  A friend awaits.

  ~ Grandpa

  Bella read, then re-read the letter, blinking away tears. Then she re-folded the letter, stuffing it in her pants pocket. She flipped past the introductory pages, reaching the prologue.

  Collins Dansworth was an average boy to most. An average student, average at sports and school, with an average number of friends in an average neighborhood. Nothing about him stood out at all…which made the life he ended up living all the more outstanding.

  The boy’s name sounded awfully familiar. She wracked her brain, trying to think of how she knew it. There was no way she’d read this book before; she would have remembered that. Maybe there’d been someone at school with a similar name a few years back.

  She read on, her chin propped in one hand, turning to the next page, the paper thick and stiff. Though the prose matched the paper, it wasn’t long before the story exerted that strange power books had, to make the rest of the world fade away. It drew her deeper within itself, and before Bella knew it, the small part of her brain that remained within the real world alerted her that a considerable amount of time had passed.

  She closed the book, rubbing her tired eyes and leaning back in her chair with a big yawn, stretching her arms up and to the sides. Then she opened her eyes.

  And was struck by a terrible surprise.

  Chapter 6

  There had been a few times in Bella’s life when she’d woken from a particularly vivid dream, one that’d felt so real that she’d found herself questioning whether she was returning to reality or escaping it. On each occasion, it’d taken a fair bit of time for her to accept that she’d truly awoken, and that what her eyes were telling her were not lies, but the truth.

  This was one of those times.

  The city library on Summer Street was rather plain, both inside and out. The floors were covered in a thin gray patterned carpet, the shelves made of pine and dark brown metal. There were a few old couches here and there, and a row of long rectangular tables sandwiched between the endless bookshelves. The most decorative thing about the library was the white statue of George Washington standing proudly on
his pedestal near a small shallow pool in the middle of the main room. This library was where Bella had been.

  But it was no longer where she was.

  She found herself instead in a long, cathedral-like room of massive proportions, with dark, polished wooden floors, and walls that rose up a good fifty feet high on either side of her, not a single ray of light streaming through stained-glass windows of nearly equal height. The ceiling far above was arched, and decorated by elaborate paintings like the Sistine Chapel. The cheap rectangular table she’d been sitting at had been replaced by a dark wooden one, with elegant carvings inset on its polished surface. There were still long rows of bookshelves on either side of her, but they were now three times as tall, and made of the same rich wood as the table. And the books they held were not the simple paperbacks she’d seen earlier. No, these were all oversized hardcovers of impeccable quality, their spines richly designed and decorated with gold and silver. A few even looked to be studded with gemstones of various sizes and colors.

  And in front of Bella sat a long row of tables identical to the one she found herself sitting at, arranged like pews in a church.

  Bella closed her eyes, rubbing them vigorously, then opened them again.

  No change.

  She realized her jaw had gone slack, and shut her mouth with a loud click. Then she glanced down at the tabletop before her.

  Grandpa’s book was gone.

  She looked down on either side of her chair, searching the floor around her, but the book was nowhere to be found.

  “Got lost in a book?” a voice inquired from behind.

  Bella jumped, twisting around in her chair. There, seated at the table behind her, was a man. He looked to be in his fifties, and was dressed in a formidably formal three-piece suit a shade lighter than black, with a deep purple dress shirt and fine silver tie. He had a short salt-and-pepper beard and a mustache that didn’t quite qualify as a handlebar mustache, but got as close as one could without earning this designation. His well-groomed beard joined the extremely short hair at his temples, which in turn blossomed into the longer – and meticulously swept back – hair atop his head. His face was quite pale, with rather deep horizontal furrows in his forehead and much finer lines elsewhere. His eyebrows were full and fiercely angular, his eyes a piercing shade of green.