Page 44 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Thirty-One

P en had lost track of time, and time, it seemed, had lost track of him.

The only thing tethering him to sanity was the sea of books that surrounded him.

The days blurred together, marked only by the turning of pages.

He’d read so many, he couldn’t keep count; at some point, he’d stopped trying.

The bookshop had become his entire world: dim light, musty air, and the rustle of paper his only constants. That, and the fox.

Pen first noticed the creature slinking around the gardening section, skittish and scrappy, where his old nest had been.

The kit moved with a restless energy, as though searching for a way out.

He couldn’t help but wonder if the poor thing shared his fate, trapped here, caught in the same invisible loop.

He began leaving scraps: bits of ground beef, half a boiled egg, the items that reappeared in his refrigerator each morning.

At first, the fox was cautious, only creeping in to eat once Pen was out of sight.

But over time, the distance between them shrank.

The fox began to appear during daylight hours, weaving through the stacks while Pen busied himself dusting and sorting the shelves.

Then, one day, as Pen sat in the loft with a book balanced across his knees, the fox appeared. Quiet yet unafraid. It padded toward him, then curled up at his feet and closed its eyes.

Pen stared at it, barely daring to breathe. “Frankie,” he whispered. After Frankie Valli, his favorite singer. The name felt right. Familiar. A small thread tying him back to the world he’d known. A piece of home.

From that day on, the fox became his shadow.

Frankie trotted beside him down the aisles, darting playfully between shelves.

He was Pen’s only companion, the only consistent rhythm in his otherwise monotonous days.

The stillness felt less empty with Frankie.

The fox’s soft snores, the patter of paws on floorboards, the occasional yip or a sneeze, as Pen sifted through books or added new notes to the wall of the hidden room, made it feel less like a prison.

Together, they existed in the quiet pulse of the place until one day the silence broke.

The door to the bookshop creaked open, rousing the soft, sweet jingle of the bells, an unfamiliar sound after what Pen could only guess had been months. Frankie took off, vanishing into the shadows in search of a hiding place.

From his vantage point, Pen’s gaze remained fixed on the entrance below.

A young man in his thirties stepped in, followed by Susan, the town clerk.

Her hair was grayer now, her features more lined.

They moved beneath the model ship and airplane.

The man looked around, his eyes full of wonder, the same kind of reverence Pen had felt the first time he stepped into the shop.

“Here it is,” Susan said. “Probably needs a good dusting, but other than that, it’s ready to go.”

Hearing a voice that wasn’t his own shook something loose in him, like the click of a long-seized cog. It felt strange, jarring.

“Great. Thank you,” the man replied.

Susan handed him a ring of keys. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

There was something off about the man. His shoulder-length hair and trimmed beard didn’t match.

His jeans flared absurdly at the ankles, and his tunic-like shirt looked like something out of a costume box.

Was Pen hallucinating? Had the silence finally pushed him over the edge?

Or was this really happening? Was someone reopening the shop?

The thought brought a jolt of hope. If the man was real, maybe there was a way to reach him.

To tell him what this place really was. And maybe, just maybe, he could help Pen find a way out.

But as Pen watched, it felt unnervingly familiar.

The way the man ran his fingers along the shelves, pausing to admire the books.

The same sense of awe and discovery that Pen had once felt.

Was it jealousy, seeing someone take over the very things he’d grown attached to?

Or was it something deeper, a darker thought he hadn’t dared name: that this stranger might end up just as he had, trapped?

Over the next few days, Pen tried everything to get the man’s attention. He flipped the lights on and off, slammed doors, and even yelled in the man’s face. Nothing. It was like being trapped behind a two-way mirror; Pen could see out, but no one could see in.

Then, one afternoon, it happened by accident, Pen tripped over Frankie, who was constantly underfoot now that they had a visitor, and bumped the painting of John Dee, tilting it askew.

Not long after, the man rounded the corner and ascended the stairs with a small stack of books.

Pen’s heart leapt into his throat as the man paused at the crooked frame, frowned slightly, then straightened it as he passed.

He waited until the man disappeared into the autobiography section, then nudged the painting off-kilter again. Later, when the man came back down the stairs, he stopped just as before, frowned, and righted the painting once more.

Pen repeated this over the next day. Each time, the man fixed the painting, his frown growing deeper. Finally, murmuring, “Guess this one needs a new hook,” he removed it from the wall and set it gently at the bottom of the stairs.

Pen stared, heart pounding. It wasn’t much, but it was something. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he’d left a trace, an impact in someone else’s reality.

That evening, Pen sat on the bottom step, his gaze fixed on the painting now resting there.

“How can I move this in his reality?” he muttered to Frankie as he stared into John Dee’s painted eyes.

An idea struck. He dashed to the hidden room and yanked Liber Loagaeth from the desk. Back by the painting, hands trembling, he flipped through the ancient text. Symbols scrolled past, but none leapt out. With a frustrated sigh, he set the book aside and returned his stare to the painting.

Exhausted, he left the book on the steps and retreated to bed, dread pooling. Maybe that had been his only chance to communicate with the man, and he’d failed.

The next morning, Pen descended the stairs just as the man unlocked the door, a box tucked under his arm.

He set it on the counter and pulled out a neat stack of Jonathan Livingston Seagull books by Richard Bach.

As he turned to shelve them, he paused, glancing over at the staircase.

Pen followed his gaze. Liber Loagaeth was still lying where he’d left it.

Could he see it? First the painting, now this, it couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Pen’s mind whirled. Both objects were connected to John Dee. Could that be the link?

The man set his stack down and picked up Liber Loagaeth . He cast a puzzled glance around the shop before placing it on the counter and returning to his task.

Pen didn’t waste a second. He ran to the biography section, pulled out the thick leather-bound volume on John Dee, and placed it square in the center of the shop floor, impossible to miss.

Then, he waited.

The man rounded the fiction case and strolled right over the book without so much as a glance.

Pen’s heart sank. He couldn’t see it. So John Dee wasn’t the connection after all. He slipped his hand into his pocket, fiddling with his lucky penny, thoughts spinning. The painting and the book, he’d touched both, the day time had stopped for him. Could that be the key?

Needing to test his theory, he went to the counter and pulled the silver letter opener from the can, the one he’d used to try to pry open the desk drawer that night. He dropped it to the floor. The sharp clang echoed through the shop.

The man whipped around, eyes wide, searching. He heard it!

Excitement rising, Pen picked up Liber Loagaeth again and flung it onto the floor.

The man jumped back, visibly shaken.”What the bloody hell?” he muttered, bending to retrieve it, eyes darting around the room.

Pen grinned. He’d gotten through.

This time, he lifted the book slowly, holding it at eye level. Right in front of the man’s face. The man’s jaw dropped. He stared at the floating volume, color draining from his cheeks. Pen let it fall.

The man backed away, grabbed his coat, and fled.

Pen winced. Okay, maybe that was a bit much .

Next time, Pen told himself, he’d try a gentler approach.

He waited. Surely the man would come back. But the next day came, and the next, and the shop remained empty.

“Maybe he needs a few days,” Pen said to Frankie.

Days passed. Then weeks. Time blurred again into the same gray haze as before. The man never returned.

Then, one day, the silence was broken once again.

A couple entered the shop, wide-eyed and eager, their voices echoing off the shelves as they wandered around. Pen stood watching from the loft, Frankie curled at his feet. This is my second chance , he thought.

He pictured his brothers. If he could make this work, if he could get out, he could keep his promise to Val.

He could go home. Hope surged. The story he would tell them.

It seemed so unbelievable that he’d be lucky if they didn’t think he was completely mad, but he wouldn’t care; he’d hear their voices again.

This time Pen decided to try a different approach.

He gathered every object he remembered touching the day of the eclipse: books, the letter opener, a wooden spoon from the apartment, even his razor, and carefully arranged them on the floor to spell out a single word. HELP. Maybe they would understand.

The couple returned the next day, their conversation light as they unlocked the door, but the man stopped mid-sentence; the woman clutched at his arm. “What the…?”

They crept forward, studying the items on the floor. The woman nudged the spoon with her foot. They exchanged a look. Then a book slipped from Pen’s hands and hit the floor with a thud. He hadn’t meant to drop it, but he had. And they’d heard it.

They didn’t run, but they didn’t look back either. The door slammed shut behind them.

Pen stared at the word still on the floor. HELP . As stark and useless as before. He’d failed. Again.

The hope drained like the color from a bleached photograph. He wandered the shop aimlessly that afternoon, unable to focus on the wall of books or even Frankie’s quiet steps trailing him.

That night, he didn’t eat. He didn’t write. He didn’t plan.

He just sat.

One afternoon, something stirred, and he felt the urge of an old habit. He went upstairs to the apartment, cracked open the window, and looked out.

It was summer. The last time he’d looked out, snow covered the cobbled streets.

Had that much time really passed? The street below buzzed with life, flowers in full bloom, a sky wide and blue, light glinting off car windshields.

But not the boxy cars Pen remembered. Sleeker ones.

Flashier ones. Then one passed with a glowing sign on top: Pizza Hut.

What was a Pizza Hut? And why did it need a car to deliver it?

He pressed his forehead to the glass as he watched it disappear down the street.

Over the next few days, he found himself back at the window. The clothing people wore was bright, almost fluorescent, and their hair was teased and wild, even the men’s. Music thudded from a passing stereo with a strange, chaotic beat.

Everything had changed.

What is going on?

Then one afternoon he saw her. A pretty young woman following a moth as it fluttered its way toward his doorstep.

She paused, peered at the sign, then wandered off toward the apothecary as the moth fluttered away.

Moments later, Pen spotted an older woman.

At first, Pen didn’t grasp what he was seeing.

But then, it hit him: it was Carolyn. Her once-dark hair was now white, her posture softened with age, her face lined with time.

It was most definitely her, but a much older version.

He pressed a hand to the window. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been forty at most. Now she appeared to be in her seventies.

How long? How long have I been trapped in this hell?

His mind scrambled to piece together the years that had slipped away into decades, it seemed.

Time outside the loop seemed to move faster; Pen hadn’t aged even a day.

He watched as the two women disappeared into the Purple Thorn. Then he sat at the window and waited until they emerged again, walking down the street together, chatting as they stepped into the Marbled Clover. His gaze followed them through the glass, where Dottie and Iain stood behind the counter.

Dottie and Iain.

They had aged too, no longer in their thirties, but well into their sixties.

Pen swallowed hard. Everyone he’d ever known had aged, grown older, changed. He, too, would have been that old if he hadn’t been trapped here in time.

He turned from the window, sinking to the floor as a cold realization gripped him.

Years had passed. Not months. Not a year.

Decades. He thought of his brothers, Val, Will, Dave.

He’d imagined them waiting for him, confused by his disappearance.

But now, they must have moved on, grown up, and had families of their own.

Lived whole lives without him. What had they thought happened to him?

That he’d died? He’d promised to come back.

Promised to stay in touch. To keep them safe.

Pen clenched his fists, jaw tight.

No more waiting.

He had to find a way out. Before it was too late. Before everyone he’d ever known, everyone he’d ever loved, became nothing more than a memory he couldn’t touch.

Because if he didn’t, he would be left behind forever. Left in this endless loop. A stranger in a world that had long since forgotten his name.