Chapter 12
PAGES, POTTERY, AND PUSSIES
Hailey
Following Ron and Molly’s sedan, I pull my pink Chevy into the driveway that runs down the side of their bookshop.
My old car grumbles and rattles as it goes over a bump, and my head bounces with momentary pain.
Hangover. Yuck. I was so drunk, last night.
I barely recall what I said to him, to the frankenstruct.
Maybe I should get more than tea in my stomach?
Some food? I scowl as nausea churns, and I hold my hand over my belly.
Or not.
To give Molly time to park, I halt at the join of sidewalk and road, noting the red Pages and Pottery sign perched above the front glass of the shop. It’s painted in a quaint Victorian style, with a flowery flourish border and all.
What did we say to each other? My memory blanks out, here and there, and that unknown is disturbing. Some of it remains. But we fucked and then…blur, showered, a few words were said, that I can recall, then fell asleep.
And I can appreciate how easily I am taking this bit of crazy science. We can recreate a fucking human, and I’m as emotionally shocked as by a new embroidery pattern.
When I drive forward and hit more bumps, my headache bounces to the fore. I grimace. Get a hangover and all disasters and crazy science become insignificant compared to the disgusting filthy toxins in your body? Maybe. When I exit the car, the slam of the car door reverberates.
Leaning on the Chevy, I look around while Ron unlocks the rear shop door.
This is a small parking area, enough for four cars, with garbage bins and a corrugated iron fence that conceals a mechanic’s yard. The tops of beaten-up cars and the faint clang and purr of machinery reinforce this notion.
The bookshop is on Main Street, and how many towns have a street named that? The mechanic must be on the parallel Runcorn Street. Slowly, I’m penciling-in and redrawing my map of Revenant. This used to be a small corner store, but I guess the supermarket down the road took all the trade.
We enter with Ron motoring his wheelchair through first, past a kitchen and storerooms, then into the main shop.
A small mezzanine floor projects above us, with an overhanging balcony.
It’s quaint. Nooks and spare places among the books are decorated with little sculptures and artworks, along with framed posters of upcoming literary events.
A Paris 1921 poster of a book show, to the left at the front, is definitely a been-and-done affair.
“I love this.” Inhaling summons the unmistakable scent of books. “It even smells great.”
“You’re a booklover?” Molly deftly carries a stack of books past me. I nod to her.
I hesitate and start forward to help her as her cane has been laid aside, but then she pirouettes like a pro ballerina, sweeping her spare hand in an arc to encompass much of the shop as she begins to speak.
“Behold our books with their black-hearted ink seeping into Viking wars, cracked spines, and the ghosts of writers who bled their very souls into these tomes. Romances! Murders! Adventures and riveting thrillers…” She trails off with a grin before heaving the book pile straighter and depositing it on a square display table.
I’m standing open-mouthed in slight awe at her energy.
The shop seems to have revived her youth. It’s also, for the moment, dispelled my hangover.
“Definitely a few books in here,” mumbles Ron, from where he’s buried, sitting at the rear counter tapping something on a screen at their point of sale.
Books line every shelf on the walls and the three freestanding bookcases. Tables are covered with laid-flat books displaying eye-catching covers. On the right-hand wall a narrow stairway leads up to the mezzanine floor.
While they busy themselves with chores they clearly knew were waiting, I wind down into a strange ennui where I realize I am lost. What am I doing here? I chose to stay in town to find out about Father’s murder, despite the threats I seem to face.
Yet I still don’t quite know what the vanished man was doing at my door. Sure, he had a weapon but maybe he was visiting me in the dead of night to sell me stamps, or something? Making light of that doesn’t help.
And Kail? He said he was sent to find me. That and the note from Dad is the sum of my knowledge. I need to dig up more.
Idly, I lean over a table and open a fantasy on vampires, assassins, and lost kingdoms, but I’m not really reading the words. I’m merely pretending and thinking.
Frankenstructs are real. I’ll need to say that a few more times before it sinks in. The how-can-that-be-possible, the science—that’s beyond me. Dad would’ve explained it.
Yeah. If I could wish him back into existence I would. I hold the book a little tighter, turn the page I do not see.
I may learn more if I discover where Dad’s cache is located. My neighbors want to help me. The danger, though. No matter that Ron and Molly agreed to let me stick around, if I get them killed, I will not forgive myself.
And I’ve no real plan as to what to do about that man-thing that calls himself Kail.
Man, my subconscious corrects. He is a man.
He thinks. He feels. If he’s made of human parts, he’s surely still a man. Would it be sacrilege, or something, to deny him humanity? Feels wrong to think otherwise.
He sure felt like one when he handled me.
I inhale shakily. That was some awesome handling.
Sounds reawaken me to where I am. I close the book, arrange it so it’s perfectly aligned to the books beside it.
“What would you like me to do?” I ask Molly. She’s unlocking the front door. A customer waits, a woman with two children in tow.
“Well.” She pauses with her hand on the lock. “We brought you here as it seemed wise. Safer. You can unpack some books out the back, but also, I feel we need to get you involved in a club we have going. Ron?”
He looks up, cocks his head, twirling a pen in the fingers of one hand. “The Weirdos Club? We do meet at the Maelstrom bar, tonight. It’s a book club with other secret aims, like figuring out all the weird things in Revenant.” He seems to expect an answer from me. They both do.
“Sure.” I don’t know what else to say, and it can’t hurt. Secret aims, when they’re just blurting that out to anyone? It will be some amateur get-together, though I’m an amateur at this myself.
“Good.” Molly turns the lock and pulls at the door. “And we are milking you for all the tea later.”
The tea? Customers spill inside, kids toddling about. One of them finds a hidden box of toys that must be there to amuse the children while Mom finds a good read. The mother smiles at Molly and me but not Ron, as he’s ducked low and is tap-tapping away already.
She wants the tea, as in the scandalous gossip. I’m not entirely sure if Kail is anything that tame.
Amateur sleuth club meet killer. He does look like one. In my mind, I’ve been cataloguing the scars on his fine body, endlessly, ever since he departed. I may fear him, but he fascinates me, same as a bright burning fire would attract a damn stupid moth.
That missing man has not been found, there’s no local news of him, and Kail was utterly unconcerned by any thoughts of him turning up. Why? He’s dead. That makes two deaths in total.
I’m out of my depth. I know this.
I don’t care.
Unpacking books requires merely an hour of work.
When lunch comes around, I’ve been huddled in a corner upstairs reading through one of the latest, greatest fantasies, Swords of Love.
The title is shockingly suggestive and within a half a chapter a lot of swords of love have been sheathed and unsheathed, mostly inside the heroine.
She’s on board with this, squirming in joy one might say.
I’m pretty sure wishing I had a vibe with me is inappropriate, and I’ve done zero planning on my investigation.
My stomach and head are much improved.
I’ve not barfed over a single page.
I’ve also seen no signs of him in the crowd passing the shop. I’m torn between thinking that is good and imagining the bad things he might do to me. Bad, but good…things.
The salad, then the coffee and cake I get at the bakery-cross-curbside café across the road are welcome. The CLOSED sign Molly and Ron left hanging on their door must be normal for them at lunch. A few people have shouted greetings.
I manage to avoid the ‘tea’ questions until I’ve stuffed the last bite of the chocolate tiramisu cake into my mouth. Or perhaps it is that Molly and Ron are too polite.
Crunch time, though. Molly has this intent squint as she leans in, propping her forearms on the little round table.
An umbrella shields us from the sun, and the only other outdoor table is unoccupied, and those passing by on the sidewalk are either tourists interested in taking selfies and vids, or locals striding quickly by with urgent stuff to do.
“Revenant seems overrun with tourists?” I forestall her questions.
“We get busloads looking at the LHC, mostly, since that last antimatter movie. It was a load of nonsense, of course. It’s not the antimatter causing all this fuss. Now. The tea,” she whispers. “What are we doing next, dear?”
“We?” My eyebrows have risen to my bangs.
“And how much do you want to divulge to the Weirdos?” Ron says from the right as he, too, leans in. “At the Maelstrom Bar, tonight, about half past six.”
“To the book club?” My voice squeaks and rises. “I never thought I would be—”
“You must.” Suddenly Molly has the demeanor of a praying mantis, and I’m the bug she wants to eat. “It’s not a requirement, but it would be nice.”
“Oh?” Nice? I recline, licking the last of the chocolate off my fork so I have time to think. “Why? I know you said it’s a book club that figures out the weird manifestations in Revenant, but has it? Like, does it ever solve anything because this problem of mine is not trivial. My father died.”
Then I wait.