Chapter Seventeen
It was so early that most of the shops on the Royal Mile were still closed.
Landon’s feet ached, but his toes had at least thawed on the walk up the street from Holyrood Palace.
“The whole city is going to spill across these cobblestones in a few hours,” Rose said.
“It’s electric.” Landon knew what she meant.
He’d seen the street performers playing bagpipes and mass of tourists weaving in and out of stores and bars.
But Landon hadn’t found the scene “electric.” Never one for crowds, he’d found the street overwhelming and the shop goods tacky.
Not even the whisky tastings could have tempted him.
“You find a way to make everything an adventure, don’t you?”
“We’ve been given a second chance,” she said. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed. “Electric or not, it seems like everyone’s still sleeping. What’s our plan?”
“It’s just a little farther.”
“The castle?” Landon guessed, pointing straight ahead. The Royal Mile was aptly named, a steep mile of road between Holyrood Palace at the bottom and Edinburgh Castle at the top—an old war relic featured on every postcard, calendar, and coffee mug for sale in the city.
Rose scrunched her nose. “That castle is not going to help you fall in love with this place. It’s cold, musty, and overpriced.”
“A woman after my own heart.” If it was too flirty, she didn’t let on.
“Through here,” she said, and she looped his arm through the crook of hers with the same ease as she’d bridged the physical distance between them on Arthur’s Seat. It was staggering, really, her effect on him. Without eyes to see or ears to hear, his body would know hers anywhere.
Rose led him down a narrow side street, one of Edinburgh’s many closes—those alleyways that once allowed residents to slip in and out of main streets.
Though he knew they were a feature of the city, something about the way she swept through felt like a secret the two of them now shared.
The shop was marked by a wooden sign above the doorway.
“Mnemosyne,” Landon finally spelled out, though he had not a clue what it meant.
“Neh-mow-zeen,” Rose said. “She’s the Greek goddess of memory.”
Landon looked through the transom window at the top of the door. A single warm ceiling light glowed, but the store was otherwise dark. “Is this place open?”
“Almost always,” Rose said with a sly smile, pulling a key from her pocket and turning it in the lock.
The door creaked as she pulled it open and lights fluttered on, one by one, like a flock of little fairies.
A wave of dust collided directly with his nose, and Landon sneezed into his sleeve.
“The sign was so on the nose that I knew I wanted a job regardless of what they sold, but when I found out it was books, it felt like fate. This place holds all the memories I don’t. ”
The space seemed infinite, shelves stretching from floor to ceiling, sagging under the weight of hundreds of books crammed so tightly Landon was sure even a single new edition would be the tipping point.
Books were piled on every surface—on armchairs, on windowsills, on the counter beside an old register that did not look like it belonged in the same century they did.
Landon immediately lost his footing on the uneven wooden floor, sliding into one of the shelves and catching himself before he could set off a domino effect.
He squinted at the label on the bookshelf, drawn on a piece of white tape in blue Sharpie.
“Dull books,” he read. “Is this really a section for dull books?”
“It’s all part of the charm.”
Landon strummed his fingers down the shelves. “Hard-to-classify books,” he read.
“That’s a lot of them, when you really get down to it.”
Landon shook his head and laughed, his eyes catching a spiral staircase that wound up to a second level. Two bright, yellow eyes peered at him through the darkness. “Oh my God,” he said, embarrassed at how high his voice pitched. “There’s something up there.”
“I assume you’re talking about the cat,” Rose said, “otherwise, we should clear out as fast as possible.”
“But you’re allergic.” His eyes bulged. His breath stopped.
Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Maybe he could explain it away fast enough she would ignore the certainty with which he’d said it.
“I mean, everyone I know is allergic to cats. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to cats.
” He wasn’t, but he wiped his nose on his sleeve for good measure.
Rose stared at him a moment too long. “I’ve been thinking I might be,” she said softly. “Though I also thought it might be all the dust in here. I guess I should start taking some allergy meds before coming in, huh, just to be safe?”
Landon breathed out through his teeth. “You can never be too safe, that’s what I always say.” Then winced, again. Because he did always say that.
The cat stretched and trotted down the stairs, landing between Rose’s legs and wrapping itself around her like a donut. “Biscuit, meet Jamie,” she said to the cat.
“Pleased to meet you, Biscuit.” He reached down and gave Biscuit a scratch on the head, which neither upset nor pleased the cat. “And what’s your favorite section? Birds, fish, napping? I’d imagine there’s a section here for books that can put you to sleep.”
Rose giggled, and Landon felt he was out of the woods. “I found Biscuit down on the docks, in Leith—a port just north of here. He was a skinny little thing prowling around the boats, and if I had to guess, I would say the seafaring section would be up his alley.”
“Mine too, Biscuit,” said Landon. “Lead the way.” Landon followed two steps behind Rose on the rickety spiral stairs, his sore legs protesting the movement.
“It’s back here,” Rose said, waving him on. It was darker on the second floor, lending the space an air of mystery.
“Seafaring,” Landon read, tracing his fingers over the lettering.
It seemed a well-loved section, the books randomly placed back after hands had pulled them from the shelves to consider.
Treasure Island, The Old Man and the Sea, Master and Commander, all favorites of Landon’s he could trace back to particular epochs in his life—childhood, high school, college.
All these years later, he could still hear his mother’s voice reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s beloved classic beside him in bed: “I have never seen the sea quiet around Treasure Island.”
“Bookstores are strange and wonderful, don’t you think?”
Landon agreed, but wasn’t sure it was for the same reason. He erred on the side of caution. “Strange and wonderful, yes.”
“How many of these books do you think our others read?”
Not as many as he should have, Landon thought. Instead of answering, he said, “What a gift, huh? To get to read everything again for the first time.”
“Yes,” Rose said, her gray eyes sparkling in the dim light. “Let’s read one together.”
“A whole book?” Landon asked. “Right now?”
“Let’s start one,” Rose amended. “Your choice.”
Landon’s fingers twitched over his favorites, until it found one of hers.
He considered Moby-Dick a verifiable paperweight, but from the moment she’d cracked the spine, Rose had been entranced by it—by the story and the language, both.
Captain Ahab’s tragic obsession had torn her apart to the point that Landon sometimes wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the book or an episode of reality TV.
But he’d read a little of Moby-Dick, too.
Rose had had a terrible bout of tonsillitis back in college and was struggling through her English classes, so Landon volunteered to help.
Each night he read a chapter aloud, sometimes two, until she fell asleep on his chest. It was a memory he’d returned to often enough that it felt as well-loved as the seafaring section itself.
“Moby-Dick,” he said, grabbing one of three editions crammed next to each other.
By now, Rose didn’t need to tell Landon to follow her lead.
She walked toward a long green chaise in the back of the shop, and Landon followed.
Side by side, he opened the book. “Call me Ishmael,” he read.
Rose laughed, and it hit home that she was truly hearing those seminal words for the first time. “A good start.”
Landon continued, counting Melville’s win as his own. “Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
“The watery part of the world,” Rose repeated. “That’s a lovely way to put it.”
Had she said the same thing when he’d first read those lines to her?
Something like it, probably. His infallible memory was failing more and more, and always in this new Rose’s presence.
Landon eased back into the chaise, letting the words wash over him and trying his best to imagine he, too, was hearing them with fresh ears.
As he read, Rose drifted closer to him. At first it was so subtle he assumed he was imagining it.
But by the fifth page, it was impossible to deny.
Her thigh had shifted so far it touched his, so close he tripped over his words and had to start the paragraph over. Joy made him clumsy.
“Jamie,” Rose breathed, as though she were about to say something very important.
Landon turned just enough to meet her gaze without pulling away from where they were still connected.
But his eyes caught something else: something alarmingly red.
At some point while he’d been reading, blood had started to trickle from her nose, streaking downward.
“Your nose is bleeding,” he said, then wished he hadn’t. Whatever spell they’d both been under was instantly broken. “A lot, actually.”
“Oh,” she said, wiping her nose with her shirt sleeve.
She pulled her arm away and the dark splotches on her gray sweater confirmed it.
“Oh my God. I thought the cat had just made my nose run. I’ll be right back—I’m just going to clean myself up.
” Hand to her nose, Rose pried herself from the chaise and jogged off toward the back of the shop in the direction of what Landon assumed was the bathroom.
He took a deep breath. He’d felt something between them—something indefinable and irreducible.
Had she? Landon set the book beside him and twiddled his thumbs, unsure what to do with himself while he waited.
Something fuzzy twirled around his ankles.
“Biscuit,” he said. “Nice of you to join us.” The cat purred loudly and swirled itself into a tight circle at Landon’s feet.
He felt as though he’d been judged and deemed worthy.
Five long minutes passed. Then ten. Landon fiddled with his phone, his hands, the book.
Finally, he heard the telltale sound of an old door opening and closing.
“Hello?” Landon called out. Heavy feet holding up a heavy frame clomped up the spiral stairs until Graham’s unmistakable mane of reddish-brown hair came into view.
“Oi!” Graham said. “Is Rose just in the back, then?” Why is he here? Landon wondered, knowing rationally that he had every right to be. Graham read his mind, as Graham was wont to do. “She’s got terrible cell service in this cave, but it sounded like she’s not feeling well?”
“Nosebleed,” Landon said, at the same time as Rose called out from the back, “Over here!”
“You all right there, lass?” Graham asked, walking toward her with the sort of protective stance the body naturally assumes when someone you love is hurt. Love. The word whistled through him.
Rose’s neck was bent as far back as Landon had ever seen it. “My nose just won’t stop bleeding.” Blood dripped down her hands and landed in splotches on the floor. “It’s slowing down, but I feel kind of dizzy.”
“Let’s get you home.” Graham’s eyebrows furrowed, and he draped an arm around her waist, holding her steady.
“Can we rain check the rest of the day, Jamie?” Rose asked, staring up at the ceiling in an attempt to stop the flow. “I promised you’d fall in love, and I only halfway delivered.”
“Oh, yes,” Landon said, reflexively, the way a knee pops when the doctor hits it with a hammer.
“A rain check it is.” Everything in him wanted to reach out for her, hold her, lay her head back on his lap and smooth her hair, tell her he would take care of her.
But Graham and his beefy arms were there and would no doubt do exactly what Landon would have when they got back to his palatial flat.
“I hope—” he said, and paused a moment. He hoped too many things. “I hope you feel better.”
“I’ll make sure she does,” Graham said. He shot Landon a smile, but there was something underneath it that gave Landon pause.
This wasn’t my fault, he wanted to say, even thought about saying. Instead, he followed a few steps behind Rose and Graham like a shadow and waved goodbye when Rose locked the doors behind them.