Page 33 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Twenty-Three

T he day of the grand reopening had gone better than Pen could’ve hoped.

The sun had shone over Helensburgh like it was rooting for him, and the shop bustled from morning to close with customers drifting in with curious smiles and leaving with arms full of books.

Dottie and Iain had brought over sweet buns and warm pastries, luring even more people through the door.

That night, as he locked up, Pen felt like maybe, just maybe, this could work out.

Now, weeks later, the bells above the door of the Feather Thorn still chimed steadily through the day, bringing with them a stream of customers, which kept him busy and brought in enough money to place his first order of new books. The townspeople, it seemed, had missed their bookshop.

Still, a thought needled at him. How many had come because of the books, and how many just wanted to stand in the shop where a man had vanished? Pen didn’t blame them, though. Curiosity had its own gravity. But one absence was louder than all the chatter.

Carolyn. She hadn’t come in. Not once. Not even when she passed by. After what Iain and Dottie had told him, it did make sense. Grief didn’t always show up in tears; it sometimes just avoided doorways. Still, Pen found himself glancing toward the apothecary each morning, wondering.

As the days passed, the mysteries started to lose their grip.

The drawers in the desk remained locked.

The chimes, in their strange, solitary notes, hadn’t rung since the day Dottie and Iain had helped clean the books.

Maybe they’d been nothing. A trick of the mind from too much stress, or an overactive imagination.

And that was for the best. Now, he had more important things to occupy his mind.

It was just past four when Pen began his usual end-of-day routine, shelving books, wiping down the counter, when the bells above the door rang out. He looked up and made his way to the front. There, standing in front of the fantasy section, was Carolyn.

“Carolyn, how are you?” Pen approached her with a tentative smile.

“Afternoon, Pen.” Her tone was clipped, eyes moving quickly, brushing over bookshelves and the corners of the room, as though searching for something, or someone. Her gaze flicked toward the stairs, to the paintings, and then to him. An unreadable expression passed across her face.

“I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to come by,” she said, a sigh escaping her.

“I expect you’ve heard all the tales by now.

” She looked tired in the golden light, and not the kind of tired that sleep cures.

The kind that seeps in when years pass and questions outlast the people who can answer them.

The lines on her face seemed to deepen, casting shadows that made her appear far older than her forty years.

Not knowing how to respond, Pen simply nodded.

“It’s been a long time since I was last in here.” Carolyn’s gaze swept across the room once more. “You’ve done well.”

Pen rubbed the back of his neck, glancing up at the model airplane and ship suspended from the ceiling above them.

“Well, I kept most things the same, really. Just gave the place a good clean.” He could only imagine how she must be feeling, stepping into this preserved time capsule, full of memories she probably didn’t want to revisit.

“Feel free to have a look around,” he offered, gesturing toward the shelves.

“Thank you, but I’m here for a book,” she told him.

That caught him off guard. “Oh? Any book in particular?”

“ De Magia ’ by Giordano Bruno.” Her fingernail tapped against her thumbnail, a nervous tic betraying her cool demeanor.

“Hmm, not sure off the top of my head. Any idea which section it might be in?”

“Spirituality and religion.”

“Right, that’s just—” He swallowed the rest of his sentence as she brushed past him and began up the stairs.

“I know where it is,” she snapped.

For a moment, Pen felt like he’d become the stranger here, an outsider occupying a place that hadn’t really been his to begin with.

She paused halfway up, her gaze fixed on the paintings hanging along the wall. Her fingers lightly brushed the edge of a frame.

The paintings. They lined the stairwell, familiar to him now; he’d passed them every day without a second thought. Then his eyes shifted to the small initials in the corner of the nearest canvas: CM.

His breath caught. Carolyn McGregor.

She had painted them. All of them.

These weren’t just fixtures, these paintings were hers. Her past. Her hands. Her history with Rowland, hanging on the walls of this place. He’d kept them on display, thinking them part of the shop’s charm. Now they felt more intimate, a story that wasn’t his to preserve.

He considered asking her if she’d like them taken down. Or moved to the apothecary. But the moment didn’t seem right. She had made it through the door; that alone had probably taken more strength than she wanted anyone to notice. So he stayed quiet.

As she disappeared around the landing, Pen’s gaze dropped instinctively to the trapdoor beneath the rug. Did she know about it? About the room below, and the locked desk? Did she know what the chimes were coming from? His curiosity stirred, but he tamped it down. Not now. Not tonight.

When Carolyn didn’t immediately return with the book, he resumed closing up the shop and began logging the day’s sales. The scratch of his pen was the only sound in the room. Until he heard her footsteps on the stairs.

“Did you find it?” Pen asked, glancing up from his writing as Carolyn approached the counter. He hadn’t cataloged all the inventory yet, but he did remember seeing something of the sort up there.

“No,” she said, placing a book on the counter, “but I’ll take this.” The Principles of Astronomy by George E. Hale and William W. Campbell.

Pen raised an eyebrow. “Interesting choice.” He hadn’t taken Carolyn for the scientific type; he’d imagined her leaning more toward the mystical, the unconventional. But astronomy did have its mysteries, too. Maybe that’s what drew her in.

“I figured it would be a good read with the eclipse tonight and all.”

“Eclipse?” Pen vaguely remembered reading about them back in high school, but he’d never actually seen one.

“Yes,” she answered. “There’s a lunar eclipse tonight.” She spoke absently, gaze drifting, somewhere far beyond the bookshop walls. “How much do I owe you?”

“No charge,” Pen said with a smile, wrapping the book and placing it into a paper bag.

“Pen, I insist on paying,” Carolyn stated firmly.

He held up a hand. “Very well then, pay me with a piece of knowledge.”

That earned him a small smile, the first he’d seen since she’d walked in. Carolyn glanced down at the book, then back at him.

“Did you know some sixteenth-century astronomers believed the sky could show you where the world thinned? Places where one reality bled into another, if you tracked the right alignments.”

Pen blinked. “Like portals?”

“Sort of,” she said. “But these didn’t stay open, just a flicker and then gone, once the astral event ended.”

He let out a quiet breath. “Sounds like something I should be shelving in the fiction section.”

“Yes.” Carolyn nodded, her smile widening. “Though I’d wager there’s a few books here that cover that.”

Pen laughed, glancing around the shop. “You’re probably right.”

“Goodnight, Pen, and thank you,” Carolyn said, heading for the door.

“See you,” Pen called after her, stepping out from behind the counter.

He turned the brass lock, flipped the sign to Closed , and wandered to the front window.

He watched as Carolyn walked away and wondered what thoughts trailed her steps.

Across the road, he spotted Dottie and Iain in the bakery’s large front window, packing up an order.

Iain raised a hand. Pen waved back, smiling.

He still couldn’t quite believe how different his life had become.

It was everything he hadn’t known he wanted and more.

Though he missed his brothers back home, here in Helensburgh, something had settled inside him.

Peace. Belonging. Purpose. Ward had given him a way out, a door into another kind of life.

One where Pen wasn’t just surviving under the shadow of his father’s reputation.

He was someone here. A bookshop owner. A neighbor.

A friend. If he’d stayed in Oak Ridge, he’d probably still be elbow-deep in grease, dismissed before he’d even opened his mouth.

As he headed toward the stairs to the loft, ready to turn off the lights for the night, he paused and looked at the wall of paintings.

Knowing now that Carolyn was the artist, he examined them with fresh eyes.

It was as if the paintings were now coming into focus, and he was seeing them clearly.

The woman in the rain; it was her. Younger, yes, but unmistakable now.

He didn’t know how he’d missed it before.

It was the same person as in the photo that still rested on the dresser upstairs.

His attention shifted to the large portrait of the man with the long beard.

He wondered if this might be Rowland. It was the most prominent of all the artworks, but it lacked the familiar CM signature.

Cracks spidered across the canvas’s edges, its surface older, more fragile.

The eyes unsettled him, like they were watching him back.

A chill crept over his shoulders as he reached up and unhooked the frame.

Holding it wide, he carried it to the counter and turned it over.

His heart nearly stopped. Taped to the back of the frame was a small ornate silver key. Beside it, two words and a date had been engraved, John Dee, 1559 .