Chapter One
Eighteen months later
‘I’ve been waiting five minutes, Clarence,’ says a voice behind me. A foot taps along with the words, punctuating each one of them.
I put the last few boxes I’ve been carting around out the back, then paste a smile on my face and turn around to Annabel Stone, who has been standing at the front counter for four and a half minutes at most.
Yumi’s eyes glitter with amusement over Annabel’s shoulder, like she’s just waiting for me to look pointedly at a clock. Unfortunately, despite only having been working here twelve months, Yumi can read me . . . well, like a book.
I resolutely ignore her and focus my entire attention on the stern and rather intimidating regular in front of me.
‘I’m so sorry, Annabel, we’ve got a children’s event in less than half an hour so we’ve been flat out this morning.’
Annabel sniffs as though the idea of having children around books is abhorrent.
‘I understand, Clarence,’ she says. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told her to call me Clarrie, she still insists that full names are a sign of respect. ‘Perhaps you could personally assist me, so I can be out before the event begins.’
‘Of course, Annabel,’ I say, like I didn’t know that was coming.
‘There’s a book that’s too high for me to reach,’ she adds.
‘I’ll grab the stepladder,’ I say, already on my way to do just that. Yumi is straight-up laughing now, though she turns it into a cough after I glare at her.
I’m at the top of the ladder, freeing the book – whose spine I couldn’t even see from the ground – when Annabel asks her next question.
‘Tell me, Clarence, do you have the new Francis Coates?’ she asks imperiously.
‘Sorry, the . . . who?’
It’s only the start. This is what Annabel does. She follows me around, pointing to books I can’t reach and naming authors I’ve never heard of until one of us cracks. Spoiler alert: it’s pretty much always me.
It’s twenty-five minutes before I manage to find one that she wants to buy. She nods the Annabel Stone seal of approval, and I breathe a discreet sigh of relief.
‘Excellent choice,’ I tell her, even though I honestly had no idea that the book in my hand even existed, let alone that it was in stock in our shop. I’m just about to ring up the purchase when she taps a finger on the counter.
‘Declan Archer,’ she announces.
I almost drop the book I’m in the process of scanning.
Annabel barely notices, though. She’s busy running her eyes over the bursting shelves and bright displays that have always been one of Brooks’ Books trademarks. They pause on the stand that showcases new releases.
‘I’m surprised you don’t have Declan Archer’s book on display,’ she says. ‘He has a new one.’
I’m surprised that Annabel Stone knows who Declan Archer is, let alone that he has a new book.
Not that anyone who’s been in a bookshop in the past two weeks would have been able to miss him.
His latest book, Talking to Trees , has gathered something of a cult following; so much so that the media coverage that was initially just local has begun to spread internationally.
People do actual pilgrimages to the places mentioned in the book.
It’s on the brink of becoming something seriously big.
The man himself is apparently reclusive, and has given a total of one interview.
It was written, not even in person. Which, of course, only seems to add to his mystery and appeal.
Yumi glances up from where she’s just finished setting up an under-the-sea display, her eyes twinkling. She’s heard the same question from more than one customer in the past few days – has asked me the same question herself.
I give Annabel the same answer I gave all of them.
‘There’s a display of Mr Archer’s books down the back,’ I say with a smile that doesn’t even hurt a little bit.
A display that I fought tooth and nail to avoid putting up, until the pile of overdue reminders got so big that they no longer fitted in the drawer into which I’d been shoving them.
Until the cash register that’s been in the shop at least half my life finally began to die at the same time Yumi was pointing out the paint peeling in the break room.
There is no avoiding that we desperately, urgently need sales.
And Declan’s book sells. ‘He seems to be doing very well on his own,’ I tell Annabel, ‘with or without a front-counter display.’
It comes out more pointedly than I intend it to, and I cringe inwardly. There’s a look of pure delight on Yumi’s face, and I know I’m not going to be able to get out of answering questions about this later.
‘Yumi, don’t you have to get changed soon?’ I say to her over Annabel’s shoulder. I am perversely glad Yumi drew the short straw and is the one dressing up today. She sticks her tongue out at me, like an employee most definitely shouldn’t, but then dutifully tramps out to the back room.
‘Right,’ says Annabel, looking at the new-release stand again. ‘He’s a local, you know. Declan Archer.’
‘Is he?’ I say, pretending I don’t know. ‘That’s so lovely.’
The bell above the shop door rings, and I have honestly never been so glad in my life to see a horde of rampaging children dressed up as crabs.
The floor is covered in beanbags, crêpe paper and pipe cleaners, and there are at least five misshapen sea creatures hanging from the shelves in the children’s book section – all signs that Read Under the Sea was a raging success.
Yumi picks up a one-eyed seahorse from where it’s dangling upside down next to Lord of the Rings . She holds it up to her face and looks it in its one eye, which is accompanied by an angry slash that I think is its eyebrow.
‘I love kids,’ she says with a sigh.
I pick up a crab with six pincers from the story-time chair.
‘Me too,’ I say. The words come out more softly than I mean them to, and Yumi looks up at me and rolls her eyes.
‘Sap,’ she says.
‘You said the same thing!’ I say, as though it might actually be worth protesting.
She really is the worst employee in the world.
But she’s the best, too. During her job interview she announced that we were going to be best friends.
There are a lot of things when it comes to the bookshop that I’m unsure about – like whether the power problems that were once a sweet quirk have become an actual fire issue – but hiring Yumi is not one of those things.
Despite my every intention to maintain a professional distance, in the twelve months since she started, she’s become – well, one of my closest friends.
Her hair is currently purple, because she made a bet with one of our elderly customers that she could finish a book before they did, and lost. They adore her, and so do the kids and angry teenagers.
‘It was a good idea, the story time,’ I tell her.
‘I know,’ says Yumi, flopping down onto one of the beanbags. ‘I am a low-key genius. Maybe even a high-key genius.’ There is an almost imperceptible pause. ‘Which we’d know if you tried any of my other ideas.’
Familiar guilt rolls in my stomach. When I first took over the bookshop and everything happened with Gran, I was doing everything I could just to keep my head above water.
Yumi was a godsend, but the idea of changing anything – of shifting Brooks’ in any direction that Gran wouldn’t recognise – made me feel physically sick.
Then council rates and electricity prices went up, and the number of people buying books went down, and everything started to feel like a risk.
‘Yumi—’ I begin.
‘I know.’ She holds up a hand. ‘It’s okay, Clarrie.’ She studies me for a second, and when she speaks again her voice is so unexpectedly gentle that it brings a lump to my throat. ‘Tell me – how bad is it?’
I hate that she knows the state of the shop’s finances.
I tried to keep the worry from her – I’ve done my best to keep it from myself – but it’s difficult to hide the broken tap out the back that hasn’t been fixed; or the fact that half the bills that arrive have bright red lettering stamped on them.
I don’t pretend not to know what she’s talking about.
‘If sales don’t pick up, we have six months,’ I tell her, the truth stark in the air. ‘Maybe less.’ Then I make myself say what I’ve selfishly been avoiding saying for a month now: ‘If you want to start looking for another job, I understand.’
Yumi rolls her eyes, then leans back in the beanbag. ‘ If the day comes, I’ve got a few offers,’ she says, waving her hand in the general direction of the street. ‘But let’s face it, you’d be lost without me.’ She winks and pushes a beanbag out towards me.
I don’t deny it. I sigh and flop down next to her.
‘Ruth popped in when you were at the till towards the end,’ says Yumi, changing the subject. ‘She asked me to tell you that Knit, Stitch and Yarn is on again this Thursday.’
I used to go sometimes with Gran, but I haven’t been since she went into the nursing home just over eighteen months ago. Ruth invites me every month anyway. She was – is – Gran’s closest friend, and has been for the last forty years.
‘Thanks,’ I say. Yumi doesn’t push on it like she normally does, and I realise too late it’s because she has another agenda.
‘So,’ she says after she’s been quiet for four whole seconds. ‘Declan Archer.’
I shake my head and lean back into the beanbag again.
‘What about him?’ I say in my best disinterested voice.
‘Come on, Clarrie, every time you point to the display down the back, I can basically see you gritting your teeth. And it’s our highest selling book – by a long way – I’d have thought you’d be dancing naked in front of the stand to draw attention there.’
‘I’m fairly confident that would drive people out of the shop,’ I say, even though she’s right. About the sales, not about the naked dancing. At this point, Declan Archer is literally almost paying for Gran’s shop to stay open.
‘Have you read it?’ says Yumi.
‘I started it,’ I tell her truthfully. ‘But, to be honest, I just didn’t find it that engaging.’