Chapter 5
Heathcliff
While Morrie escorts Mina back to the bakery to buy another coffee and a scone, I try frantically to iron the new creases out of my trousers.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to remove said trousers from my body, so by the time I stomp downstairs to slump behind my desk, I’m nursing several third-degree burns.
I do, however, look mildly less rumpled, which is the point.
My brain and stomach are both churning about Mina showing up.
I haven’t felt anything for a woman since…
since Cathy. I’d seen Mina talking to Morrie, wearing that nervous smile and those cherry red boots that look like they could kick Morrie’s arse if he got out of line (an important accoutrement to anyone within his general vicinity), and the things that flash in my mind make me worry that I’ll be the one being kicked for being a scoundrel.
She is not for you.
But no matter how many times I tell myself this, I can’t help the way my hand trembles on the bannister as I descend the stairs and slide into my well-worn chair behind the counter. I pick up a book I’m supposed to be pricing and flip through it, aware that I haven’t read a single word.
Morrie would say that I’m putting too much pressure on this whole arrangement. “Just because a girl smiled at you doesn’t mean you have to fall obnoxiously, depressingly in love with her and once more become literature’s biggest douchebag.”
Easy for him to say. He doesn’t feel this gut-punching, soul-crushing, spirit-macerating connection to her that threatens to undo him completely.
I can’t explain what draws me to Mina in the same way that no words exist for what I felt for Cathy the moment I lay my eyes upon her.
I thought it was that mix of desperation and grim determination in her that I recognise all too well, for it’s a mirror to my own dark soul.
Morrie doesn’t see that in her. He wants her because he likes to torture me. And damn him, it’s working.
I saw them heading back! Quoth’s voice lands in my head as he flies back into the room, Grimalkin hot on his heels. They’re coming up the path now, and she’s holding Morrie’s hand and—get back, you foul feline, or I’ll poop on you.
“You’ve played the game before, Grimalkin,” I mutter without looking up from my book. “You always lose. Why would this time be any different?”
“I got coffee.” Her musical voice startles me. I fumble the book as I glance up, and my heart stills as Mina wanders cautiously across the room, as if I’m a wild animal she doesn’t want to spook. She sets a coffee on the desk and backs away. “I hope you like it strong and black.”
“Like my soul.” I sigh and grab the cup.
She understands you.
Because she got you coffee? Don’t be so melodramatic. Remember, she is not for you.
I avert my eyes back to my paperwork, willing my heart to return to its normal speed. This leaping-out-of-my-chest sensation is unwelcome. I sip my coffee, but it isn’t having its usual effect.
Say something, Heathcliff.
But my brain’s melted away, replaced by three birds flying in circles inside my skull.
I hear the familiar crackle of leather as Morrie folds his lanky body into the wingback chair under the window. He slides his phone out of his pocket and taps the screen. How can he be so calm with Mina in the room? How does he do this with women (and men) all the time?
“So…” Mina clears her throat. She swings her arms around, indicating the room. “Where do I start? Can I take down the blackout blinds and arrange some window displays? Or I could dust the shelves in the—”
“Yeeeeooooow!”
Mina whirls around just in time to see a flash of black streaking behind the Medieval History shelves. The chandelier swings wildly as Quoth unfurls his wings in victory.
“Croak!”
“Stop torturing her.” I glare at the bird.
She pulled out two of my tail feathers, he shoots back.
“Okay. Fair.”
Mina’s head whips up. “Is there someone else here?”
“We’re not open yet.”
“But I just heard a voice talking about feathers—”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” A woman tottles in behind Mina, clutching a ridiculously oversized tapestry purse that Morrie would say is large enough for a severed head.
“The door was open. I just wanted to know if you had a certain book. I’ve been looking for it for years in different bookshops, but no one can help me. ”
I nod to Mina, trying to convey that it must’ve been what she heard. Because there’s no way that Mina Wilde can hear Quoth’s voice. That would mean she’s a fictional character, and I have read every book in this bookshop, and there’s no character quite like her.
The lady approaches the counter, holding her hands six inches apart. “Do you have this book? I read it at a hotel in London back in 1984. Or ’83. I can’t quite remember. It’s about this big, with a blue cover, and it’s called something like The Idiot’s Confectionery Shop…”
This is exactly the reason why Simson’s gift to me is truly a curse. How does anyone expect me to endure such fools? And yet they come here, day after day, and assault me with their presence, and I’m expected to deal with them in a non-violent manner.
The world is cruel.
But Mina is so beautiful.
I huff as I rise from my chair and shove past the lady to the Classics shelf, which occupies one entire wall of the adjoining room.
I yank out a copy of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces with such force that the entire wall shudders in protest, and shove it into her hands. “This the one?”
“Er, why yes… yes it is!” She stares at the book with shock.
“Shall I ring it up for you?” Mina beams at me, pushing past in her hurry to head back to the desk. My desk.
She’s so enthusiastic. It’s adorable.
“Oh, well, I…” The lady flips open the cover. “It’s a little bit too pricey for me, I’m sorry. But thank you.” She drops the book and backs away. “I’ll just be on my way—”
Quoth meets my eye. “Croak?”
I nod. Morrie hides his smirk behind his hand. The other two pretend they don’t enjoy this part of the job, but they love it.
“Oh, a raven!” The woman’s face breaks into an enchanted smile. ‘What’s he doing inside the bookshop?”
“He lives here.” The corner of Morrie’s mouth tugs up into his half-smirk.
“Croak.”
“He sure looks comfortable up there on his wee perch,” she coos. “He’s like the shop mascot. It reminds me of that poem… the nuns made me memorise it as a wee lass in school. ‘Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore—’”
That’s it, keep talking.
“Croak.” Warning creeps into Quoth’s voice.
Mina freezes, half-hunched over the desk, watching the raven with wide-eyed interest.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Morrie warns, sliding his phone into his jacket pocket and steepling his fingers with anticipatory glee.
“—‘Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ Mina adds, and when she looks at Quoth with her big smile, I think she might have been teasing him, and it makes my stomach do the churning thing again. ‘Art sure no craven—’”
“Croak.”
“Seriously, lady.”
“Leave her, Morrie.” I fling Toole’s book at Morrie and flip open the cover, pointing to the price written on the inside front page. “She’s sealed her fate.”
“What are you talking about?” Mina asks, just as Quoth lifts a leg, angles his body just so, and drops an almighty poop onto the woman’s shoulder.
The woman screeches and flings her purse up to clobber Quoth, but he’s already swooped away, landing gracefully on the armadillo. The woman screams a string of words that would have made the nuns blush and scrambles down the hall. The whole house shudders as the door slams on its frame.
The bell tinkles.
Good riddance.
“Croak!” Quoth calls after her.
Morrie bursts out laughing, and the delighted gleam in Quoth’s orange-rimmed eye makes a chuckle bubble up from some deep recess inside me. Mina thrusts her hands on her hips and glares at us, which only makes us laugh harder.
“You might have helped her!” Mina cries. “You could have given her a tissue or at least knocked a couple of quid off the price of that book.”
“What, and pay her to take it off my hands?” I grab the book off Morrie and hold it up. She leans in close to squint at where I’ve written in the price: ￡1.50.
She definitely has a vision impairment. But it’s odd that she finds her way around the grim, gloomy, and dusty shop just fine.
Mina frowns. “But she said it was too expensive. And she didn’t look poor. That purse she was carrying was a classic Chanel.”
“Here’s your first lesson about the second-hand book business.
Many people come into bookshops every day.
Only a select few of them want to buy books.
The rest want to waste your time. You’ll learn to distinguish the two, but only if you stick around long enough and don’t do anything stupid.
She was a time waster, and now she won’t come back. The bird did us a favour.”
Morrie raises an eyebrow at me. That eyebrow says, “You’re actually considering teaching Mina Wilde how to do your job? As if you want her to stick around?”
Damn him.
“Croak?” Quoth flutters down to perch on my shoulder, butting my cheek with his feathery head.
Before they can both get in on the act, I reach into the top drawer for some raven snacks. As I pull it open, my arm brushes Mina’s, and a spark shoots down my forearm and nearly bowls me over.
I jerk back my arm so hard I nearly throw Quoth off my shoulder. He ruffles his feathers at me, like he’s going to go for my throat next, but I toss my handful of dried cranberries on the rug. Quoth hops down to collect his prize.
“He’s really cute.” Mina kneels down to study him. “I didn’t know you could have a pet raven.”
Quoth jerks his head and glares at Mina with fierce brown eyes edged with gold.
“He’s no pet,” I growl. “He’s another bloody nuisance flatmate, just like that twit over there.” I gesture at Morrie.