Page 81 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Fifty-Five

T he past few days had been both the best and the most unsettling Pen had experienced.

On one hand, he and Adelaide had found a way to communicate; she would speak to him during the day, and he would write letters to her at night.

But at the same time, the strange events in the shop had grown more disturbing.

Objects disappeared, while others would appear in random places, each one more worrisome than the next.

It wasn’t just the window and the bookcases anymore.

Nearly the entire fiction section had disappeared, along with the front counter.

In their place stood a battered workbench covered with tools that looked centuries old, possibly from the late sixteenth century.

The most troubling addition was a straw-stuffed sack bed now occupying the back corner where the window used to be.

Maybe the bookshop was reverting to some older version of itself, back to when the building had first been built.

Now, when Pen wasn’t with Adelaide in the bookshop, he spent hours in the hidden room searching for answers.

He debated telling her what was happening, but he wanted to make sense of it for himself first. Plus, he didn’t want to frighten her, and in truth, there was nothing she could do to help at this point anyway.

It would only burden her. They had to wait for the twenty-first, still days away, before the watch could be activated again.

He just hoped the Feather Thorn would still be standing by then.

Tonight, Adelaide had gone to the Dark Dagger, a local bar, with Camie, and Pen paced the bookshop, uneasy. Part of him worried she’d run into Ewan, another part couldn’t stop thinking about the disconcerting fact that another bookcase had gone missing since she left.

A sudden rustle broke through his thoughts; Frankie sprang out from the shadows, making Pen jump. The little fox darted between his legs, letting out a string of high-pitched chitters as he circled around him in a figure-eight.

“Hungry? Me too,” Pen said. “Let’s go get some grub.”

He did his best to avoid the apartment when Adelaide was home. It had been tricky at first, trying to balance eating and feeding Frankie without disrupting her schedule, but he’d managed. Frankie, however, had not been pleased with the change in his feeding times.

Pen still wasn’t used to sharing his space with another person, and several times he’d stumbled across something unexpected.

And tonight was one of those times. When he walked into the kitchen, he stopped short; there, draped over the kitchen chair, was a bright red bra.

He swallowed hard, looked away, then glanced back.

So this was what it was like to live with a woman: bras on chairs, hair brushes on tables, a whole world of private rituals suddenly made visible.

He smiled despite himself. If this was it, it wasn’t all that bad.

He could very easily see himself getting used to it.

Walking over to the table, he reached for her hairbrush to move it aside, but his hand passed through it, just as it had when he’d tried to touch her.

He recoiled and stepped back. That had never happened before.

In both timelines, he’d always been able to touch things; maybe not move them in Adelaide’s world, but in his own, he could at least touch them.

He looked down at his hand, hoping it was still solid flesh and bone, and not fading into the abyss like the bookcases had.

He let out a breath, seeing that his hand was indeed still whole.

Frankie chittered at his feet, snapping him back.

“I know, I know, you’re starving,” he muttered, walking over to the fridge. He pulled out the ground beef again. Frankie didn’t seem to mind, but Pen had had enough burgers to last him a lifetime. What he would have done for just a ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips.

As the meat sizzled in the pan, unease bubbled up inside him, threatening to overflow.

What if the brush was just the beginning?

What if he couldn’t move anything anymore, couldn’t type letters to Adelaide?

Or worse, what if the typewriter vanished?

He hadn’t thought of that until now. If that happened, he would have no way to communicate with her.

No way to tell her what was happening. As soon as he set the food down for Frankie, he bolted for the stairs and descended to the secret room.

The stone steps chilled his feet, and his breath echoed off the walls as he rounded the corner.

A sigh escaped his lips. The Underwood typewriter was still there.

He didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see it. He pulled out the old chair, sat down, fed in a sheet of paper, and rolled it up, ready to type. He decided it best to write Adelaide a letter, let her know what was happening, just in case one of these days he or the typewriter vanished.

He typed quickly, explaining everything, how some objects had vanished while others appeared out of nowhere. How the shop itself felt like it was slipping through a crack in time. And that if he ever stopped writing, at least she would know why.

He didn’t want to scare her, and there was still a chance he might figure things out in time. So, instead of leaving the letter in the usual spot, he folded it and decided to put it somewhere she might eventually stumble upon it if he did go missing.

Pen threaded another piece of paper into the old Underwood and began typing again; this one she would find in the morning.

Dearest Adelaide,

Good morning. Despite the overcast weather that seems to hang over this country, you, my dear Adelaide, are like the sun itself, your rays of beauty lighting up every dusty, shadowed corner of this shop.

I want you to know that over the past few weeks, your company and conversation have brought me fully back to life.

Jeff was a fool to lose someone as wonderful as you, a damn fool.

It looks like the shop is almost ready to open.

Just a few more days, and I can only imagine how excited you must be.

You’ve done such a wonderful job bringing color and life back to these walls.

I wish so badly I could be there with you, in your timeline, when you open those doors.

You will bring smiles to so many people, just as you do for me.

The town of Helensburgh was lucky when you arrived.

I will be waiting to hear your voice tomorrow and dreaming of it tonight.

Yours,

Pen

Letters in hand, Pen headed up into the shop.

He slid the one meant for tomorrow into the letterbox, then tucked the other one into the John Dee book resting on the counter.

If he ever went missing, he knew she’d search for answers within its pages, and the letter would be in it, waiting for her.

Then, he sat in the quiet, listening to the sounds of a world that might not hold together much longer, and waited for Adelaide to come home.