Aurelia wanted to laugh as she thought of the possible responses to that question but settled on what had become her usual: “The shop’s been fine.I’m slowly getting used to it all.”
“I remember the first day I came in here with you.”
“When was that?”Aurelia asked, scrunching up her face as she tried to remember.
“It was Marigold’s birthday and you wanted to drop off a present between classes, so I tagged along.”
“That’s right!Aunt Marigold wound up giving you a copy of something—what was it?”
“Ivanhoe!”
“Yes!Because you told her you had pretended to read it in school—”
“—and she said it was a crime to have skipped reading it and she expected me back in two weeks’ time ‘for tea and a discussion of the merits of the book,’” Kali finished, mimicking Marigold’s bossy tone.
“I still can’t believe you read it.”
“I was scared not to!But I’m glad I did.I wouldn’t have been able to come back and face her otherwise, and then I would’ve missed out on getting to know her.”
“She liked you—especially because she knew you liked it here.”
“I can’t believe it’s yours now, Aurelia,” Kali said with awe.“I know you must miss her, but how lucky that she left this place to you.”
“Yeah, that’s started to sink in these past few days.”Aurelia smiled.“At first it was a hassle, but now I’m seeing the upside.”
“You could find some real inspiration for your writing here, what with all the different customers coming in and out.Plus, there must be quiet moments during the day when you can write?”
“I’m just focused on the shop for now,” Aurelia said, trying not to wince at yet another reminder of her ongoing inability to put words to paper.“I swapped out the books on the Recommended Reads table this week, and I’m thinking of changing the displays in the front windows.”
“Good for you, taking charge of the place!I’ll have to come back next week and see how it looks.”
Ben slept soundly as they continued chatting, waking just as Kali stood up to say they should be getting home.He blinked his sleepy, confused eyes first at Kali, then at Aurelia.
“You missed teatime, lovey—did you have a good nap?”Kali asked.
Ben continued his drowsy assessment of them.
“Here, Ben—take a biscuit for the road,” Aurelia offered, pulling one loose from the packet and bending down to place it in his warm, damp hand.She kissed his cheek and he gave her a shy, sweet smile in return.
The rest of the day went by in a blur.Between frequent yawns and her anticipation of another conversation with Vronsky that night, Aurelia felt as though five o’clock took ages to come round.When at last the mantel clock struck the hour, she eagerly closed the shop and went upstairs to make a quick dinner and unpack some more boxes before settling down for a nap.Without closing her eyes for a bit, she didn’t know if she could make it until midnight, never mind dawn.Although it took what felt like hours to fall asleep—What if she didn’t wake up in time to see them?What if they didn’t appear tonight?—she eventually drifted off.
18
Atthefirstnotesof her alarm, Aurelia practically fell out of bed in her eagerness to get moving.It was eleven thirty, so she had a few minutes to fully wake herself up before going downstairs to greet everyone.She picked another outfit that seemed appropriate for a nineteenth-century gathering—a deep blue velvet dress that swept past her knees, along with her mother’s old pearl drop earrings.
When she opened the door from her flat into the shop, the only sound she heard was the ticking of the mantel clock.Fezz slipped out beside her just before she closed the door, then settled himself in a corner of the window seat.Aurelia stepped down the spiral staircase and went into the back room to make coffee, then sat at her desk with her chair positioned so that she could swivel her head to mind both the mantel clock and the Recommended Reads table.The minutes seemed to crawl along: five minutes until midnight, four, three, two, one…
The moment the clock began to strike the hour, Aurelia spun in her chair, her eyes almost aching with the strain of staring at the table and its stacks of books.She didn’t have long to wait; soon enough, mists began rising from each book, whorls of words twisting across the whiteness.The figures slowly formed and, finally, each character appeared before her.
Rachel and Marianne were the first to spot Aurelia and they rushed to her side, trying to grasp her hand before remembering it was impossible.
“Aurelia!”
“Here you are!”
“We were worried—”
“We feared something had happened to you!”
