I didn’t want to read the page that the shop so obviously wanted me to read. I didn’t want to receive some cryptic literature-laden message from the shop. Couldn’t I just have a week off from my duties as the Caretaker of the shop for my wedding? Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was.
When I made no move to look at the pages, Rainwater picked up the book. As soon as it was on his lap, it snapped closed as if in anger. The shop might be all right with me sharing my secret with Rainwater, but it surely didn’t want anyone else trying to communicate with it or decipher its messages.
“Geez,” Rainwater said. “I’m lucky I didn’t get a paper cut.” He held his hands in the air as if he was afraid the book would bite him. Considering how hard the book had closed itself, he wasn’t far off the mark.
I held out my hands. “Give it to me.”
He shook his head. “You’re going to have to take it. I’m afraid to touch it.”
I moved the book from his lap to mine. As soon as I lifted my hands from the book, it opened to a page. My eyes fell on the line:
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
This couldn’t be a good sign.
Rainwater peered over my shoulder. “What do you think the essence is trying to tell you?”
The essence was what we called the power in the shop. It ultimately came from the mystical springs that were in the park behind the bookshop. Every other day, I had to go into the woods and collect water from those springs. When I watered the birch tree with the mystical spring water, the essence of the spring became infused into the tree and the shop. It was able to communicate with the Caretaker—me—through messages in books just like this. I would be lying if I didn’t say that sometimes I’ve lain awake at night, pondering how incredible it all was.
“What I think it means is there will be a price for the woman’s visit. I don’t know if she’s the one who will pay it or me.”
“You can tell that from one little sentence?” He shifted in his seat on the couch. “And that’s not the only line on that page. How do you know that’s the phrase the essence wants you to read?”
I looked at him. “Well, it’s certainly not his marveling at the cost of a house being eight hundred dollars, which is the next line.”
Rainwater wrinkled his smooth brow.
I touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I know what line the essence wants me to read. I just do. I guess I’ve never questioned it before.”
He covered my hand with his. “Okay, but it still doesn’t mean that something bad is going to happen. She was trying to sell you Walden. I’m sure the book is reminding you of the possible cost a rare book’s first edition would be.”
I sighed and wished I could be as sure as he was, but I had had too many strange experiences with the messages from Charming Books to believe that the shop’s essence was speaking to me in such a literal sense. “I think it’s something more than that.”
“Could it be that you just want something else to focus on?”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
He put his hands on my shoulders. “Could it be that you have pre-wedding jitters? We have a lot going on right now, and this woman’s surprise visit just added to your already full plate. It would make sense if you fixated on it.”
I looked up into his amber-colored eyes. They looked more golden than amber in the light coming in through the skylight and windows than they normally did. “No, it’s not that. I mean, yes, I’m a little apprehensive about what Grandma Daisy and Sadie have in store for the wedding day, but not about marrying you. I have never been so sure of something in my life.”
He smiled. “Okay. Then, let’s put the woman and Walden out of our heads until after the wedding. If that woman, whoever she was, really wants to sell you the book, she will be back just like you said.”
“And if she doesn’t come back?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Then it was just another strange day at Charming Books. Where, let’s face it, strange is kind of the norm here.”
Faulkner cawed from his perch by the front window as if he were trying to emphasize on Rainwater’s point. “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I knew I never should have taught him Thoreau.”
Rainwater looked up at the bird. “Yeah, that’s going to backfire.”
Over the next several days, putting the encounter with the woman out of my head proved to be easier than I expected, but that was mostly due to the fact that Grandma Daisy and Sadie had packed my days with wedding preparations. I had been plucked, fluffed, exfoliated, and detoxed within an inch of my life. By the time the morning of the wedding came around, I was exhausted.
I woke up at four and stared at the ceiling of my bedroom. I was getting married today. The gravity of that hit me all at once. I didn’t know what to expect from the day, and I was seriously regretting my hands-off approach when it came to planning. Letting Grandma Daisy and Sadie handle all the arrangements seemed like a great idea months ago when Rainwater and I had gotten engaged. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
Most of all, I wanted to remember this day and, no matter what happened, burn it in my memory forever. It didn’t matter that a videographer and photographer would be there. I had a fear that the busyness would turn the most important day of my life into a blur and that I would miss all those little moments that made it special.
I groaned and covered my face with the back of my arm. A loud purr began in my ear. Emerson was here to comfort me. I lowered my arm and squinted at him. All I could make out of his lithe body were the white patches on his tuxedo that glowed in the dim street light coming in through the window.
He meowed in my face.
“I know. You have no worries about today, do you? Oh, to have the life of a housecat.”
Emerson arched his back and hissed softly. It wasn’t in anger, but it was most certainly to remind me that he was much more than a mere housecat.
I scratched him between the ears. “I know, Emerson. You’re special.”
The purring resumed. Emerson was never one to turn down a compliment. He was certain he deserved all the praise.
The cat moved away, and I made out the shape of a book where he had been sitting. It wasn’t unusual for me to fall asleep with a book or three in my bed. Last night, I had gone to bed so late after the wedding rehearsal and dinner that I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. I hadn’t brought a book with me to bed. I knew that for certain.
I scooted up into a sitting position and reached for the light on my nightstand. When I turned on the light, there was a volume of Walden on top of my quilt.
I exhaled. Part of me hoped I’d brought this book to bed with me. That would mean the shop’s mystical essence had nothing to do with it, and certainly hadn’t put the book in my bed to bring to mind the peculiar woman who’d stormed out of my shop earlier in the week.
I rubbed the back of my neck. I felt a headache begin to form at the base of my skull. “Maybe,” I said to no one but myself because Emerson had already left the bedroom, “maybe I grabbed it last night on the way up.”
By the look of it, it was a mass-market paperback edition that I had in the shop for sale.
“Yes, that must be it,” I said, still talking to only myself. “I’m sure I just absentmindedly picked it up in my sleepy state.” Feeling better, I started to snuggle back into bed, hoping to catch a little more sleep.
The shop’s essence wasn’t having it though. The book fell open, and the pages fluttered to life. At last, the pages stopped moving, and they settled wide open on the bed.
I squinted at the page and then looked up at the ceiling. “Come on. It’s my wedding day. You won’t even give me a break on my wedding day?”
As if to make a point, the volume scooted one inch closer to me. If I hadn’t seen this happen before, I would have screamed.
Instead, I grimaced and a large part of me didn’t want to look at the pages to see what the shop wanted me to know. I doubted it was best wishes on my upcoming nuptials.
I peered at it. Wedding or not, I was far too curious not to look. Not to mention, I knew the shop’s essence wouldn’t leave me alone until it believed I had absorbed its message.
I picked the book up and set it on my lap. My eyes fell on the line that read:
Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.
I looked up at the ceiling again. “Nice. A cheerful passage for my special day.”
The book snapped closed. It seemed to me that the essence did not appreciate my attitude.
I sighed. There was no going back to sleep now. I got out of bed.
It was a losing battle to try to put the lines out of my head. Was the passage trying to tell me to get on with the business of the day, or was it telling me of a death?
I dressed in jeans, a thick hooded sweatshirt, and wool socks. Over that, I put on snow pants and my winter coat and topped it off with a hat and a scarf. The scarf covered most of my face. Only my blue eyes could be seen in my bedroom mirror. That reminded me of the mystery woman again. When she had stepped into the shop earlier this week, all I could see of her were her eyes. My eyes were blue with a tinge of gray. Hers were the brightest blue I had ever seen. They almost looked artificial, like she was wearing colored contact lenses.
I groaned. There was I was again wondering about the mystery woman when I should have been heeding the shop’s advice and going about my business.
And my business was my duty to the birch tree. Part of that duty was to water the tree every other day with water from the springs in the park. The waters were special—mystical even. They had kept the birch tree alive for over two hundred years, and make no mistake, this was no ordinary birch tree.
I left my apartment and paused in the middle of the children’s book loft that was just outside my apartment door. It was decorated as a fairy forest with toadstools for seats and a mural of fairies peeking out around the bookshelves lined with the bright spines of picture books. Kids and parents alike loved the children’s loft. It was my favorite room in the house when I was growing up at Charming Books. I used to spend countless hours there daydreaming and praying that my mother’s cancer would magically disappear. It never did.
I padded in my stocking feet to the top of the spiral staircase that wrapped around the birch. Faulkner was asleep on his favorite branch. His long black beak was tucked under his left wing. Moonlight that came into the shop through the skylight above his head glistened on his ebony feathers, making him look more like a stone sculpture than a living, breathing bird.
I grabbed my snow boots by the front door and carried them into the kitchen. I perched on the kitchen stool and put them on. Emerson appeared at my feet. He had a knack for doing that, and I rarely ever saw him coming. He looked at me with expectation on his black and white face.
“Nope,” I said as I laced up the second boot. “Not happening. No way.”
He cocked his head so that the white side of his face caught the light.
“Double nope.”
His ears went back and he gave me the most pitiful expression he could muster, which was saying a lot because Emerson was the most expressive cat I had ever met.
My shoulders slumped forward. “Emerson, I can’t take you with me to the springs this morning. I can’t risk you running off today.”
He lowered his head and stared despondently at his two white forepaws. His thin black tail beat a staccato rhythm on the floor.
I groaned, not knowing why I bothered to argue with him. The tuxie always won, and to be honest, there was no way for me to stop him from coming along or following me. He had a history of sneaking out of the house. Many times, I found him out in the village, prancing up and down the streets like he owned the place. My guess was Emerson believed just that. It was pointless to tell him otherwise, just like it was pointless to tell him to stay home.
“Fine,” I said, “but it’s very cold outside, which means you have to let me carry you and keep you close. I can’t have you getting frostbite.”
He lifted his head and a smug cat smirk curled his lips. He knew as well as I did that my resistance was futile.
I pulled my stocking cap down further over my ears and went out the back door of the house. It was still early and as dark as midnight in the back garden.
Before I went through the garden gate that led to the woods and the park, I stopped to grab my grandmother’s watering can from a shelf in the garden shed. One full can of water every other day was all the tree needed to stay alive and vibrant. Normally, I watered the tree at night, but because of the wedding, I didn’t know if I would be back in time tonight. It was more important to water it every other day than the time of day. At least that’s what I had found over the last couple of years.
Goodness knows I have tried shortcuts along the way, thinking I would make it easier on myself if I cut a few corners. One time, I’d gathered up gallons of the spring water and stowed them in the kitchen. My hope was that it would be easier to water the tree without having to run back and forth through the woods quite as often. It was a good plan. Sadly, it didn’t work. It seemed that the water lost its mystical essence if it sat around for any length of time. It didn’t matter how long I held the water—be it one day or just a few hours—by the time I poured it into the ring of dirt surrounding the birch tree, it had lost its power. I knew because the birch tree’s leaves would turn brown and fall off. It happened more times than I would like to admit, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
I had to go to the springs. There was no alternative. I knew I was taking a risk by watering the tree earlier than usual. I didn’t even know if it would work. Perhaps Rainwater and I would have to go into the woods after the wedding to collect more water.
I was going through the garden gate when I heard something in the snow behind me. I turned to find Emerson leaping through the deep snow like an arctic fox in the tundra. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s awfully cold out.”
He meowed softly as if to say his mind was made up. I was certain it was.
“All right. Let’s go. Sadie said she would be at Charming Books at nine.” Apparently, even after all the beauty treatments I received this week, it was still going to take a lot of work to get me ready for the wedding, or so I’d been told.
Emerson looked down at his snow white chest as if taking in his handsome tux that was always a perfect fit. He purred.
“Yes, you are already wedding ready. It must be difficult to look so dashing all the time.”
I patted my shoulder, and the cat ran at me, jumped onto my arm, and pranced up my body until he perched on my shoulder like a parrot. Usually, I would have made him walk to the springs and back, but it was dark and cold. I didn’t want to worry about him wandering off in the forest. Today was going to be stressful enough.