20
As Julia prepared for their day of watching the longest adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that Aurelia owned, Aurelia took Biscuit around the block.
Back at the shop again, she started toward the spiral staircase when she paused in front of the Recommended Reads table.
There were so many strange and wonderful things about the shop.
Julia had asked a lot of questions already, but Aurelia knew she’d have more.
Even Aurelia had more questions, despite a few years of having witnessed what the shop could do.
Walking toward the spiral staircase once again, Aurelia’s mouth crooked into a smile as she thought of the many mysteries the shop held.
She stopped again, this time with one foot on the bottom step.
Not just mysteries, she thought, but seemingly unanswerable ones.
There was one person who had learned and guessed more about the shop and its mysterious ways than anyone she knew, and he was one of the first characters she’d met in the shop: Sergeant Cuff, the detective from the novel The Moonstone.
Aurelia thought for a moment, wondering whether it might be worth a try to put his book on the table.
Anyone might come out of it, after all, and she could create a worse scenario than she’d already been facing with Blanche, Kitty, and Mrs. Jamieson.
But with Julia’s newly discovered ability to see the characters, it made a certain kind of sense to see if Cuff would appear to help them understand why Aurelia’s first batch of characters had disappeared, and how it was that Julia was able to see and hear them.
“Aunt Aurelia! Are you coming?” Julia called from upstairs.
“I’ll be there just now!”
It seemed worth a shot, Aurelia decided. She stepped back onto the shop floor and pulled a copy of The Moonstone from its shelf. Back at the Recommended Reads table, she held the book in her hands before placing it on the table.
“Here goes nothing.”
After three hours of Pride and Prejudice, they took a break to walk Biscuit again since Aurelia had insisted that they needed to move or risk turning into lumps.
She got the sense that Julia didn’t want to leave the building—as though she were worried that stepping out of the shop might shift things so that she wouldn’t be able to see the characters that night.
After her own discovery of the shop’s secret, Aurelia remembered that she, too, had nearly sequestered herself inside, constantly worried that one night they would stop appearing for no apparent reason, and for good.
In truth, it was a worry she still carried, always uncertain whether the shop’s magic would hold.
Once they were back, Julia soon fell asleep in front of the television. Aurelia was asleep not long after, her own run of sleepless nights finally catching up with her. The sun was just setting when she woke to the sound of her phone ringing.
“You sound drowsy,” Oliver said when she answered.
“I am drowsy.” She laughed softly, walking into the bedroom and closing the door so she wouldn’t wake Julia. “How’s the book fair going?”
“It’s going well. I signed a new author, sold some books.”
“Look at you, wheeling and dealing at the book fair,” Aurelia teased.
“More like budget wining and dining,” he laughed.
“You know, Julia was asking about us the other day—how we met and got together. But somehow, I forgot to tell her that I was instantly drawn to your keen business sense.”
“That does surprise me, since my keen business sense led me to sign you as one of our authors.”
“Exactly.”
“How’re things—are you two having fun?”
“We are.”
Aurelia was smiling until she realized she couldn’t tell him exactly what they’d been doing, why they were having so much fun, or how it had brightened her mood.
“How’s the writing going?”
Aurelia’s eyes widened. Her writing—the deadline! In the excitement over Julia’s discovery, she’d completely put it out of her mind.
“Um, it’s okay. I didn’t really get to it yesterday—or today, for that matter.” Aurelia sighed as she looked out the window at the fading daylight. “But it should be fine. I’ll get it done.”
“Maybe Jack or David can take Julia out for a bit if you need time to write?”
“No, that’s alright. I have another week—plenty of time,” she said in a mock boast.
“Yes, but I’ll be back before then, and I plan to distract you.”
“Distract me… Do you mean with wedding planning?” Aurelia asked, feigning confusion.
“That’s not really what I had in mind,” Oliver said, playing along.
“Cleaning the flat?”
“Nope.”
“Packing for the honeymoon?”
“Not that, either,” he said softly.