“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 tothink, 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.
