Chapter 2 #4
I had friends over to play all the time, but the secret portal was off-limits to them. Only Jon knew about it and I did let
him look in there sometimes, but I never let him share it—he had other games he played with his dad that I wasn’t a part of,
and it only seemed fair that I got to keep this one to myself.
I don’t remember when the cushions were moved or thrown out but I do remember that the pile of books in that room constantly changed, with a brand-new book appearing as soon as I finished one, and even if I gorged myself on those hard lollies, the next day the jar would be refilled.
The fairy door never did open while I was in there, but I was convinced that there was magic dust in the air because when I read a book in that room I really could disappear into it—experiencing every story as if it were my own.
I know now that the chest was designed such that a delivery man could place fresh blocks of ice right into the room to keep
the food chilled, without bothering the lady of the house by coming inside. There was even a drainage system built in to channel
the water outside as the ice melted. By the ’60s, when I was a child, fridges were easy to come by and the feature was redundant.
But this was what my uncle did—he took the ordinary, and he turned it into pure magic.
Maybe that’s what I’ve come home to find.
There’s a ten-seat farmhouse table in the kitchen, a mammoth, bulky thing as old as the house. There’s a small cardboard box
seated on top that’s instantly familiar but I can’t quite remember why. I blow the dust off the top and discover it’s from
a publisher in the UK. The postmark says November 1999.
A memory stirs. It was the day of the wake, and the guests had gone. Jon and Ilona were finishing up inside but we had said
goodbye and I was headed back to Mum’s to sleep for the night. I stepped out onto the front veranda and there was a box there—some
hapless courier had just dumped it by the door during the day. I took it inside and sat it on this table. It never occurred
to me that Jon wouldn’t come back to sort the contents of the house later.
I sigh as I slice the decade-old box open with one of Tad’s kitchen knives. Inside there’s a folded letter, and twelve copies
of a novel.
Dear Mr Winslow,
Please find enclosed twelve copies of The Midnight Estate by Charity Wilkie.
With all best wishes,
Spencer Kallaide and Michaelson Books, London
I pick a book up and stare down at the front cover. The image is dark and moody—a shadowy oil painting of a beautiful young woman, donning a masquerade mask as she stares into an ornate-framed mirror. The description on the back is almost as vague as the cover.
Silas thought he was going home to say goodbye. To be forgiven.
Marie thought the stranger in the cafe would pass through her life. To be forgotten.
Fate, in all of her mysterious wisdom, had other plans.
It was not uncommon for Tad to buy bulk-lots of the books he especially loved. Countless times after I left home I was surprised
by a parcel from him and inside would be a book—sometimes without explanation, sometimes with a long letter in his barely
decipherable scrawl, telling me all of the things he loved about the story and how I “absolutely must read it right away!” Often Mum and Daphne would be gifted the same book and he’d send one to Jon and he’d drop one off to Roberta at the town library
and Marilyn, the woman who runs the Forbes cafe bookstore, Turn the Page. I always read the books he sent and I’d try so hard
to read the way he did—pondering deeper meanings, dissecting the story, parsing every line for brilliance. And as soon as
I finished, I’d call him and we’d talk on the phone for hours. I like to think I have a reasonable intellect but it didn’t
matter how hard I tried, Tad always found insights I missed.
I’m not surprised to find that he’d ordered twelve copies of a book from the UK before he died, and I am more than a little excited to see what it was he was going to share with us all.
I set the books on a chair and walk out to grab the cleaning supplies from my car so I can wipe down the table.
As I’m wiping, my gaze keeps drifting back to the box, and I am very tempted to start reading right away.
But no! I want to at least make a dent in this room—I have to be disciplined, to work
before I relax. I rinse the cloth and move to the countertops. This is messy, frustrating work, because every time I wipe
something down and move on, the next surface I wipe sends dust flying into the air, and it inevitably settles back over whatever I just cleaned. Soon enough I’m
sneezing and my eyes are watering and it feels a whole lot like the book is calling to me, so I finally give in. The job is too big and I’m wasting effort and time starting it with the tools I have on hand
today.
I take a seat beside the only-slightly-less-dusty farmhouse table and reach to pick up a copy of The Midnight Estate.
After all, what better tribute could I make to my uncle than do exactly what he would have—sit with the chaos and the mess,
and lose myself in a book?