Page 33 of The Vanishing Bookstore
Dora stared into her mother’s emerald-green eyes, mesmerised by the beauty of them. The colour was so pure, with the tiniest fleck of yellow running through each iris. They reminded her of cats’ eyes, and they sparkled in the candlelight.
‘Why is he hunting us all, what did we ever do to him?’
‘I know that he lusted after Lenny back in the day and she wasn’t interested in him. She was quite the talk of those petty villagers, with her striking green eyes, wild black hair and a figure to die for underneath all those meddlesome petticoats, and he followed her around like a besotted puppy dog. She doesn’t talk about it, but I think that maybe because we were young and naïve – after all, that was our very first lifetime – she probably teased him a little, might have even broken hisheart when she went out with his friend Jonas instead of him. Talk about not being able to accept rejection. I think Corwin also knew about the book your father left with me, he heard the rumours and knew it could change everything. He is the true monster. He turned on the women of the village and rounded them up, calling them witches, knowing fine well they were to be tortured and hanged for nothing more than being the object of a group of teenage girls’ hysteria. He saved us English girls until last. I often wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been so obsessed with Lenny. Would it have changed all our lives and saved many others?’
Dora was listening to her mother enraptured, her jaw slack, her eyes wide as she imagined their lives back then.
‘When was this?’ she asked but she already knew fine well when it was. She’d studied the Salem Witch Trials back in college and had written an essay on them, having no idea of her own family connection to them. But she needed to hear this from the woman sitting in front of her. Her head was spinning, there was so much information to take in and try to make sense of.
‘It began in the bleak, cold winter months of 1692. Corwin had become bitter, more distant, but by February he had given up his heart, his mortal feelings, and had turned into a hunter. Oh, he’d always been a hunter, but this was different. He no longer preyed on wild animals, it was innocent women, and his fire was lit by those girls who were more than happy to point the fingers and call women and some men out as being witches. His first victim was Bridget Bishop, she was sixty and no more a witch than she was a white rabbit. Poor Bridget’s only crime was being a little outspoken and dressing rather flamboyantly for those miserable bastards. As more and more accusations were made and more women were rounded up, we begged Lenny to go and speak to him, but he was too far gone and too embroiled in his good fight to take any notice of her. Poor Lenny, we were thelast women he came for. We didn’t know back then the extent of the evil that lived inside of his sick and twisted mind until he had his men take us all from the captain’s house on the edge of the common to the foul, damp jail while he went after you.’
Lucine closed her eyes, her entire body jerked as she shuddered. A rush of fear filled Dora’s heart that she was making her already terminally ill mother relive the most terrible time of her life.
‘It’s okay, I’m sorry, you don’t have to say any more.’
Lucine squeezed her eyes shut then opened them.
‘Thank you. You are far more beautiful than I remember, Dora. It was a dreadful time. Ambrose heard them talking in the meeting house and he came to save you. The pair of you ran into the forest and you took the book with you, hiding it but no one knows where.’
‘Why can’t I remember any of this?’
‘Some things are best forgotten, sweet child; it will come back to you, we need you to try and remember now that you know, it was the worst of times. You reached the place you hid the book before they set off on their witch hunt with the hounds and an angry mob of Puritan idiots who didn’t have a single brain between them, led by Corwin. Ambrose risked his own life to save yours and for that I am eternally grateful. They took old Giles Corey and as they pressed his wretched soul to death, he cursed them all, but especially George Corwin who I was told smiled at every single stone and rock used to crush the man, and so set in motion this passage of time that spans centuries of our lifelong births and deaths.’
Dora felt confused. There was so much information to take in. But the name Ambrose caught her in her heart and this time at the mention of it she felt a warmth spread across her chest. She also felt overwhelmed and tired. Lenny must have felt her pain from somewhere in the house because there was a gentleknock on the door as Lenny pushed it open. She stopped Lucine mid-conversation.
‘Come, Dora, that’s quite enough for one evening.’
Dora stood up, then turned and kissed Lucine on her cheek.
‘I’m glad I’m home.’
Lucine closed her eyes, a beautiful smile on her lips. ‘Me too, sweetheart, me too.’
Dora followed Lenny out of her mum’s bedroom, her mind a conflicted confusion of swirling thoughts threatening to make her head explode from the inside out.
Lenny lifted a hand. ‘I know, this is difficult. Too many questions and so little time. The curse of the English women is that there is never enough time to figure all of this out before tragedy strikes.’
‘I just don’t know how or where to even begin to make sense of it,’ said Dora.
She felt as if the weight of the world was pressing down on her shoulders and had an overwhelming urge to throw herself onto her bed and hope that she would wake up in the morning to find this was all a strange and unusual dream. She yawned loudly and Lenny pointed to her guest room.
‘Perhaps you should sleep now, your system is still full of the anti-homesickness tea that Sephy overdosed you on earlier. You will feel better in the morning, I promise, then we can make a start on trying to figure out this mess and how to bring you back to yourself.’
She nodded. Her body ached for the soft mattress and cool cotton sheets to soothe her skin, which felt as if it was burning.
‘Good night, Lenny, and thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For everything, for taking care of me when you didn’t have to and then bringing me home where I belong.’
Lenny reached out and patted Dora’s arm. ‘You’re welcome, good night.’
Dora slipped into the room that was now hers, closing the door softly behind her. She felt as if the bed was calling her and she tugged off her boots and collapsed onto it, not even bothering to undress. Before she could even say good night to Hades, who was now sitting on her window ledge, she felt her eyes closing and wondered if he would stay there all night watching her or whether he would go to Lucine. Hades preened himself while watching Dora and gently cawed, ‘Dora’s home, Dora’s home.’
19
LONDON, PRESENT DAY
