Page 20 of The Witching Moon Manor (The Spellbound Sisters #2)

A Lighthouse

Suggests that light will be found in the darkness.

While Anne was being pulled toward the ticking of a clock in the Crowleys’ home, Beatrix was standing in front of the shop across the street, her face pressed against the cold glass as she attempted to see what rested inside.

The evening shadows had stretched out their tendrils, and the light of the gas lamps reflected against the shop windows in a way that somehow made it more difficult to determine what was on the other side of the glass.

“I’m not sure we’re going to be able to find anything,” Beatrix sighed as she turned toward Violet, who had been standing farther back on the sidewalk so that she could see the faded gold lettering above the shop.

“The windows are all boarded up from the inside,” Violet murmured, as if she hadn’t heard Beatrix at all.

“Well, then I’m not sure how much we can do,” Beatrix said. “Not when the hour is so late and we can’t see anything through the windows.”

She threw her hands down in defeat then, the tips of her gloved fingers grazing the glass, just enough to leave a streaky impression against the frost.

But before her hands could lose touch with the window, one of the boards clattered to the floor of the shop.

“What did you do?” Violet asked as Beatrix slowly leaned forward to peer through the crack left by the fallen board.

“Nothing,” she insisted. “It must have been loose already.”

Once more, Beatrix peeked through the glass, placing her hands on either side of her face to block out the reflections cast by the gas lamps.

At first, it was difficult to make out what rested in the shadows, but after a few moments, those odd stacks and shelves started to take shape.

“It’s a bookshop,” Beatrix gasped, transfixed by the sight.

“A very dusty one at that,” Violet remarked with a sniff, as if the mere sight of what rested inside made her want to sneeze.

As Beatrix squinted to see past the grime on the windows, she realized that Violet was correct. All the piles of books looked like they had toppled over long ago, with no one to come along and line them up in neat stacks again.

If this was indeed a bookshop, no one seemed to have set foot in it for decades.

“It’s in a sorry state,” Beatrix sighed, pained at the thought of all those books waiting patiently for a reader to come along and pick them up.

Nothing quite captured the sense of loneliness that had recently settled within her own soul better than the shelves of books that rested beyond the glass, filled to the brim with stories that might never be shared.

It made her remember what it had felt like that very morning at her writing desk as she tried and failed to put a single word on the page.

“We should find a way inside,” Violet announced, instantly snapping Beatrix’s attention away from her own worries and toward the trouble unfolding in the here and now.

“What?” Beatrix asked, the words coming out louder than she’d intended. “You can’t possibly mean that.”

But Violet was already walking toward the alleyway that separated the shop from its neighbor. It was so thin that she practically needed to turn sideways to fit, but that clearly wasn’t enough to stop her.

“Violet!” Beatrix hissed as she begrudgingly followed her sister into the damp shadows.

Beatrix shivered as the snow that had built up in the alley began to seep into her boots and opened her mouth to beg Violet to let them return home, where they could take off their icy socks and warm their toes by the fire.

But before she could say anything at all, she heard the familiar noise of a rusty handle giving way and then the slow creak of a door falling open.

“It’s unlocked,” Violet declared in disbelief before stepping inside.

Again, Beatrix began to argue that they should go home, but her warning was lost among the sound of something crashing to the ground within the shop, quickly followed by a slew of her sister’s most colorful curses.

“Are you all right?!” Beatrix cried as she rushed through the door, her hesitation forgotten in her worry for Violet.

But as soon as she stepped over the threshold, a sudden gust of wind snapped the door closed behind her, engulfing the room in complete darkness.

Startled, Beatrix drew in a gasp, but as she did, a familiar fragrance drifted to the forefront of her attention, instantly pulling her back into one of her fondest memories of the past.

It smelled of aged paper with the barest hints of vanilla, almonds, and the promise of a wellspun story—the same aroma that accompanies the sensation of fading between the pages of a book.

And for the first time in a long while, Beatrix remembered what it had felt like when her only fear was knowing that her fingers would eventually turn the last page.

She drew in another deep breath, trying to capture the fragrance again and the recollections that came along with it.

But this time, a heavy undernote of dust and neglect caught in her throat, causing her to cough.

As quickly as it had begun, the spell was broken, snapping her away from the enchantment of the past and toward the trouble unfolding in the present.

Beatrix hesitantly reached into the darkness, trying to find purchase as she listened to the sound of books tumbling to the floor crash against Violet’s curses.

Eventually, her palm met a wall, and as her fingers trailed along its tattered surface, she stumbled upon what felt like a gas lamp.

Though the chances of it working with the shop being in such a state of disrepair seemed slim, something made Beatrix turn the knob anyway, and to her shock, a flame sparked to life, casting a comforting glow over the room.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, the details of the shop started to take shape against the shadows.

Beatrix realized with a start that many of the books had been thrown from the shelves and tossed to the floor, as if someone had knocked everything askew in a fit of fury.

The covers were thrown open, and some of the spines had cracked, casting loose pages across the boards and tangling the different stories together in a riot of faded yellow paper and stark black ink.

It pained Beatrix to see so many words left to rot in the dirt and grime. But before she could so much as lean forward and pick up the nearest book from the floor, an unfamiliar voice filled the shop, booming from the direction of the alleyway.

“You’ve come after all!”

Beatrix’s gaze snapped to the open door, where a middleaged woman stood in the threshold with only a thin shawl to shield her shoulders from the harsh winter winds.

She didn’t have the flushed cheeks and stiff posture of someone who’d been chilled to the bone, though.

No, the woman merely looked as if she’d just stepped out of her home for a moment to grab the evening paper from the porch, the wide smile stretched across her face making her seem even warmer.

Beatrix opened her mouth to ask the stranger what she meant, but before she could utter a word, Violet lifted herself from the mountain of books that she’d fallen into and moved toward the woman, her arm extended in greeting.

“Yes!” Violet said with enthusiasm. “We’ve come.”

As she grasped the woman’s hand in her own, Violet turned toward Beatrix and winked.

“What a relief,” the woman replied as she moved deeper into the shop, trying to avoid stepping over the upturned book pages but failing to find a clear surface to place her sodden boots.

Beatrix winced as she watched clumps of snow melt into the ink of what looked to be a novel, resisting the urge to reach out and save the story from its unfortunate fate.

“I was so disappointed when I received your note this morning telling me that you weren’t interested in seeing the shop any longer.

As you know from my letters, we’ve only recently inherited it, and my husband and I are eager to find a tenant.

The apartment upstairs is in quite a state of disrepair, but the shop could be lovely with a bit of attention. ”

Beatrix glanced at the upturned shelves and sea of papers set adrift across the floorboards and thought that it was going to require quite a bit of attention indeed to get this place in working order.

“I apologize for the confusion,” Violet replied. “My sister found another property that she thought would suit our needs, but as it turns out, someone else came along and claimed it for themselves before we could sign the papers.”

“How fortunate,” the woman said with a sigh of obvious relief. “I can assure you, if what you’re looking for is a bit of peace and quiet, you need not look further than this shop. Come with me, and I’ll show you the rest.”

Beatrix and Violet trailed behind their unexpected hostess as she moved quickly past the tumble of shelves and toward a door in the back of the room.

“Pardon me,” Violet said while the woman pulled out a ring of keys and went about the task of testing them in the lock. “But I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Think nothing of it, dear,” she replied. “I know what it’s like trying to find a place to rent in this city. No doubt you’ve been writing to a dozen people all at once. My name is Brigit, Brigit Müller.”

The keys tinkled against one another as she continued her search for the one that would unlock the door.

“I apologize,” Brigit said with a sigh. “My husband only just inherited this building from his aunt a few months ago, and it’s been a trial to figure out which doors each of these keys unlock. I’ve been trying to find the right match for weeks, but nothing seems to fit.”

Just as she uttered that final word, though, the sound of the lock clicking open echoed through the shop, followed by the hiss of another gas lamp.

“Oh, what luck!” Brigit exclaimed as she shuffled them inside the adjoining room.

Something in Beatrix’s chest loosened as the light filled the room and her eyes flitted over the different textures that awaited them there.

At first, all she could decipher was the arm of a worn leather chair, the gentle curve of a rolltop desk, and the flash of a red carpet.

But once most of the shadows had slunk away, the full scene came together, and for a moment, Beatrix forgot to breathe.

“The last person who ran the shop must have used it as their office,” Brigit remarked as Beatrix stepped closer to the back wall, where hundreds of books were packed tightly along the towering shelves.

Their spines practically inched forward as her hand hovered within reach, begging her to pull them free and give them a chance to stretch.

“You aren’t planning to open the shop, correct?” Brigit suddenly asked, snapping Beatrix’s attention away from the stories that were resting within her grasp. “You said in your letters that all you needed was a place to work.”

“That’s right,” Violet replied, her face taking on an expression that Beatrix recognized from their childhood days.

It was the same one that appeared whenever her sister was piecing together some sort of plan that would no doubt have them sent to bed without dessert later in the day.

“Just a quiet room to focus on the task at hand.”

“Wonderful,” Brigit said, the word punctuated by a loud clap of her hands.

“Just wonderful. I don’t mean to rush you, of course, but I only stepped away for a moment to see if you’d changed your mind about coming.

We live in a building just down the street, and I left a pot of water to boil on the stove when I saw that someone had lit a lamp in here. ”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Violet said with a thoughtful nod that made Beatrix wonder what she was up to. “I believe we’ve seen all we need to.”

“Here’s my card,” Brigit said as she pulled out a piece of paper with her name and address scribbled across the center. “In case you’ve misplaced the other one. Please let me know if you’re interested in becoming our new tenant.”

When Violet turned to tuck the paper in her pocket, though, Beatrix noticed her gaze catch on something carved into the threshold of the office door.

A flash of disbelief crossed her face, quickly followed by excitement. But before Beatrix could straighten her spectacles and lean closer to see what had so captured her sister’s attention, Violet was pushing her forward again, obviously eager to catch up with Brigit.

“If you’d like to see it again in the daytime, don’t hesitate to ask!” Brigit cried, her words nearly lost beneath the sound of the wind as she opened the door that led toward the alleyway.

“We’ll certainly be in touch,” Violet replied when the three of them had stepped outside. “Thank you, by the way, for leaving the door open for us.”

“Oh!” Brigit said, clearly confused. “I was wondering how you’d managed to get inside. My husband must have forgotten to close everything up properly yesterday when he was showing the place to someone else.”

Beatrix turned curiously toward the door, surprised by the sharp pang of reluctance that rose in her chest as she pulled the knob and stepped aside to let Brigit turn the key in the lock.

“Well, in any case, we appreciate you walking through the cold to meet us,” Violet said as they all shuffled out of the alleyway.

When they stepped onto the street, the wind hit them so strongly that they had to brace themselves from falling onto the cold pavement.

“It wasn’t a bother at all,” Brigit said as she reached up to keep her bonnet from flying off the top of her head. “And to think, if I hadn’t glanced out the window at just that moment, we might have missed one another entirely.”

As Violet turned to say a final goodbye, Beatrix shifted closer to the window, a piercing need to gaze at those mountains of dusty covers growing stronger in her chest.

Though it was now far too dark to see through the glass, Beatrix shuddered as she remembered the sight of all those books tossed haphazardly across the floor, the pages so coated in dust and bent at the corners that she worried the stories beneath were dying alongside the bleeding ink.

Even as Beatrix shook her head and began to move farther away from the storefront, she was still drawn to the thought of all those lost words that would eventually fade from the paper as readers forgot they ever existed in the first place.

Unless someone was able to brush them off before it was too late.