Page 21 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Fifteen

T he trip from New York to Scotland had been anything but smooth, with delayed flights, turbulence, and a bout of motion sickness Pen wouldn’t soon forget. But somewhere between London Airport and Helensburgh, he’d found his footing.

He arrived in town a little after eight, stepping off the bus into the hush of the evening.

The sun was setting behind the mountains, and the streets were painted in a thick layer of twilight.

To his right, a vast river stretched wide, its surface shimmering with the last streaks of day.

To his left, the streets of Helensburgh were quiet, shopfronts shuttered, shut up for the night, with only a few stragglers from the bus walking about.

Shops mingled with homes, woven between long hedgerows and thick, sturdy stone walls. It was just as he’d imagined, a quintessential Scottish village steeped in timeless charm.

He hoisted his suitcase off the sidewalk and started down the main street, scanning the dimly lit corners for road signs.

He’d assumed the bookshop would be near the center of town, but that had been a mistake.

Guided only by the sparse glow of a few stray lampposts, he finally spotted the worn, wooden sign for Camberwell Street.

His pulse quickened. After the dreadful plane ride and an equally uncomfortable bus journey, this was the moment he’d imagined for days, the first glimpse of the bookshop Ward had left him.

He turned down the lane. The shops were nestled close, their windows dark; he followed the numbers along their doors, realizing they ran in reverse. The shop must be at the far end.

As he walked, he took note of the businesses lining the street: a leather shop with darkened windowpanes, a small wine and spirits store tucked behind ivy-covered brick, and a quaint little place called the Purple Thorn Apothecary.

The name made him pause, it was so close to the name of the bookshop, the Feather Thorn, it felt more than a coincidence. He stepped closer.

The apothecary stood apart from the whitewashed shops on the street.

Its stone walls remained bare, their deep blue-gray a rich addition to the buildings around it.

Black shutters framed the windows, and a large mossy-green door sat square in the center, making it feel more like an enchanted cottage than a shop.

In the wide front window, a wreath of dried vines, moss, and twigs hung, adding to the shop’s strange allure.

Pen stood there, transfixed. The storefront exuded a quiet, otherworldly charm, like something plucked straight out of a fairy tale.

He’d never seen anything quite like it. His mind drifted to what Lenny had said at the diner about magic being in the air here.

And standing here under the silver glow of the moon, the shop felt touched by it.

He glanced again. The Feather Thorn. The Purple Thorn. There had to be a connection. He made a mental note to look into it later and continued on in search of the bookshop.

He didn’t have to go far; just two doors from the apothecary, nestled across from a small bakery, the Marbled Clover, he found it.

The Feather Thorn.

The weathered building rose taller than the others, its stonework worn by time but still solid beneath the layers of moss and vines that cloaked its exterior.

Ivy had wound its way up the side and across the large-paned storefront window, as if nature itself was trying to reclaim the place.

In the scant light, Pen could just make out the roof, a sturdy slate, by the looks of it.

That, at least, gave him hope for what he’d find inside.

The once-rich navy-blue paint on the shutters, window frames, and door had cracked and begun to peel away, leaving behind patches of rotting wood.

Damp had warped the lower panels, and the door itself looked as though one firm push might knock it from its hinges.

Above, an old sign dangled from a single rusted bracket, creaking with a mournful cry as it swayed gently in the wind, its sound echoing the bookshop’s forlorn appearance.

Pen slipped his hand inside his coat pocket and ran his fingers over the cold metal keys to the broken-down door, hesitating for a moment before pulling them out.

What was he doing here? He’d crossed an ocean to assess the shop he’d inherited, thinking he might sell it.

Yet, as he stood before the Feather Thorn, he felt he might have bitten off more than he could chew.

The shop wasn’t just closed; it was crumbling.

If the outside looked this bad, what would the inside be like?

Perhaps he should have listened to the practical voice urging him to leave it to a real estate agent.

Let someone else deal with the rot. Now, standing in the chilly night air, in a foreign street under a half-lit sky, he wondered if ignoring that voice had been a mistake.

He had come this far, and there really wasn’t any turning back now. With barely a hundred dollars to his name, Pen needed to make this work if he wanted any hope of affording a ticket home.

Stepping up to the weathered door, he stuck the key into the lock and twisted. The mechanism resisted, forcing him to jiggle the key a few times before the rusty lock gave way with a reticent click .

As soon as the door opened, a wave of dust and the smell of aged paper and long-forgotten ink poured out, as if trying to escape its confines. It was oddly comforting, reminding him of the smell of Ward’s den.

Inside was cloaked in shadow. The only light came from a lone streetlamp outside the shop’s front window.

Pen ran his hands along the wall, fingers brushing over peeling paint and cold plaster until they found a switch.

He flipped it. Nothing. The room stayed dark, heavy with stillness.

Of course, the power was off. Why had he expected anything else?

It had been abandoned for over two decades.

He pushed the door shut behind him, snuffing out the little light that remained, and darkness settled in.

Pen rummaged through the side pocket of his suitcase until he found his trusty Eveready flashlight.

The beam flickered to life, dim, but steady, casting long, narrow shadows that danced across the floor.

He swept the light slowly over the room.

Shelves loomed around him, their books buried beneath layers of dust, crooked stacks leaning precariously, casting warped shadows on the walls.

He found a small counter with a cash register perched atop, and next to it a stack of yellowed newspapers.

Beyond that were rows upon rows of bookcases stretched into the shadows, their contents whispering stories he had yet to explore.

Pen’s pulse kicked up a notch. He stepped further inside, the flashlight trembling slightly.

These books, all of them, were his. For an avid reader, it was like stumbling into a forgotten temple.

His inheritance. His treasure trove. Suddenly, the idea of selling the shop felt more complicated than he had imagined.

Letting go might mean letting go of something more than just a building.

It was too dimly lit to make out the condition of the books or the space, but the air wasn’t heavy with mold or mildew, and that had to be a good sign.

The bookshop, cloaked in darkness, carried an eerie stillness that stirred Pen’s imagination.

For a fleeting moment, he wondered if the monsters from those old stories might come to life and hide behind the shelves, waiting.

It was absurd, of course, but something about the shadows and the silence seemed to breathe life into the books.

He ran his hands along the dusty bookcases as he moved through the narrow aisles, letting them guide him to the back of the shop.

There, he found a wide staircase that ran up the wall, like a secret path.

Raising the flashlight, he cast its beam upward, the light catching motes of dust suspended in the air.

Shaking off the ridiculous notion of monsters, Pen placed his hand on the rail and began to climb.

At the top of the stairs, an open loft area emerged, crammed with more books.

Only a few feet of the space was visible, the rest swallowed by darkness.

An iron railing ran along the edge, overlooking the shop floor below.

Pen stepped closer and peered over. As he looked out over the sea of books, movement caught his eye.

Did something just dart between the shelves?

He stiffened as a jolt of adrenaline rushed through him.

Frozen, he listened, but the shop had gone quiet again.

Probably just a stray cat , he told himself. Or rats . God, he hoped it wasn’t rats.

Maybe it was the long journey, or being in a foreign country, but his imagination was beginning to wander.

He shook his head, trying to dispel the tension prickling in his skin.

Instead of venturing further, Pen turned his attention to a pair of large overstuffed chairs angled toward the open view below.

He lowered himself into one; it let out a groan, and a cloud of dust erupted, making him sneeze.

The fabric carried that familiar musty scent of old upholstery, and it reminded him of the tin-can back in Oak Ridge.

He winced at the thought. It made him think of his brothers and how they were faring without him.

However, the idea of them at Ward’s house, safe, warm, and no longer subjected to their father’s wrath, gave him a small amount of comfort.

He looked out over his new world full of books.

He’d come to Scotland with a plan: take stock, sell the shop, and have an adventure of his own along the way.

But now, seated in the hush of the Feather Thorn, there was something about its atmosphere that made him pause.

Ward, even in death, had altered the course of his life, setting him back on the path he had once hoped for Pen, and that Pen had hoped for himself.

He rested his head against the back cushion, meaning only to sit for a moment, to collect his thoughts. But the instant he closed his eyes, exhaustion claimed him. Within minutes, he was asleep, lost to the world.

And just beyond the edge of the light, mere feet away, a pair of eyes watched in silence.