Page 66 of The Vanishing Bookstore
Both Dora and Sephy turned to her and said in unison, ‘Shut up.’
Hades took off in the air, circled around them once, then disappeared.
Lenny waved her hand. ‘He’s okay, you gave him a shock, that’s all. He’ll be back when he’s finished sulking.’
She turned and went back inside the kitchen, they followed her. Dora stopped to pick up the trail of feathers that had fallen off Hades’ tail. She tucked them into her pocket and Lenny winked at her. ‘Once a witch, always a witch. Before you know it, you’ll have a cupboard full of empty glass jars and a crystal collection bigger than you could ever imagine.’
‘Are you going to be of any use to us, Lenny, because if not I would like you to go and open the shop for an hour for me.’
Lenny stared at Sephy with a look of confusion. ‘Why?’
‘I have a very important customer calling and I can’t not be there, Margo and Ambrose will have finished for the day, I forgot to ask if one of them could stay a little later. Everything she needs is out the back packaged up. All you must do is give it to her, it’s already paid for. I can’t leave Dora like this.’
Lenny shrugged. ‘Why do I get all the best jobs? You know how much I dislike the people who come into the shop.’
‘Stop being a grouch, you do not. You just don’t like seeing people relying on our magic to improve their lives or the tourists. But she needs me, and the herbs in that package. Just because we’re focusing on the curse doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon my other witchy duties.’
Sephy took the key from her pocket and tossed it in Lenny’s direction. She caught it deftly and nodded. ‘Only if we can have take-out for dinner.’
‘We can have whatever you want if you go fetch it.’
Lenny left them to it and Sephy smiled at Dora.
‘That was a very good attempt, I think the power incantation worked. Maybe we could try something a little less dangerous though. I have a basket of peas that need shelling. Should we see if you can use it to do that?’
Dora smiled at her aunt, feeling so much love for the woman standing in front of her.
‘How is that going to help me fight Corwin. Am I going to distract him with my pea shelling?’
It was Sephy’s turn to laugh. ‘Don’t be silly, dear, we just want you to be able to focus on using your power and aiming it in the right direction. I’m afraid we’re going to need a lot more than a basket of peas to stop him, but I suppose we’ve never tried that particular one before so never say never. Once you’ve mastered that we’ll move on to the next thing, we don’t have much time so I’m going to keep at you until I’m happy you know what you’re doing and have some semblance of control over your magic.’
She went into the pantry and came back with a seagrass basket full of freshly picked peas, placing it onto the table in front of Dora, who looked up at her and smiled. She didn’t ask if Sephy wanted to use them for supper because she had a feeling, by the time she’d finished, they would be nothing but a charcoaled mess.
42
Lenny strode the short distance to the shop with an anxious smile on her face and the aroma of caramel apples, popcorn and hot dogs surrounding her. There was a street market in full swing going on along Essex Street and the tourists were everywhere. It wasn’t that she hated them, it was more a case of disliking the crowds, the sheer volume of them and the noise. It sounded too much like execution day when the crowds of villagers had been jostling and baying for blood, caught up in the frenzy and not really thinking about the absurd behaviour the afflicted girls had displayed, or listening to the accused as they pled their innocence. It made her blood run cold just thinking about it and the fact that Corwin was probably onto them, which meant their time was short, they needed Dora to pull it together before he figured out where they were and came looking for them.
She passed the Witch House and frowned; it hadn’t looked anything like that when that pig Corwin lived there. Now it looked all dark and spooky and had people forever taking photographs outside. She understood the need to own the town’s history, it kind of also made her glad that the house no longer represented Corwin, but it had become a beacon for all witches,who flocked to see it.I hope you are turning in your grave, Jonathan Corwin, it’s the only kind of immortality you deserve.
Oh, how it tickled her. She would have loved to see his face at the irony of it all. It made her sad that they would never be able to tell of how it really was. They’d tried over their lifetimes to get the history books right, but they would never be able to tell the world the true story of the English women. Unless they wrote it as a fiction story, that was always a possibility. If she didn’t go back to London and her career as a surgeon she could retire here and live with Sephy, write their stories and watch Dora flourish.
A wave of grief washed over her; they had only bid goodbye to Lucine a few hours ago yet it felt like years. Would Dora want to stay here? Anyway, Lenny was getting away with herself, they had one major problem to contend with before any of them could live happily ever after. Corwin, he had to be stopped this time for good. Neither she nor Sephy had told Dora that they’d tried and failed so many times in the past. Maybe this time it would be different, though. Dora had finally found the lost spell book and discovered the vanished bookstore.
Standing outside Sephy’s shop, Lenny took the key out of her pocket. As she leaned against the door it clicked open and she stared at the lock. She hadn’t even inserted the key, had Margo forgot to lock up last time she left? That was always a possibility, Sephy had mentioned the woman could be quite the forgetful one at times, very much like Sephy too. Lucine used to say that she had a head full of cotton candy some days, which was a pretty good description of Sephy’s mind, Lenny didn’t know Margo but if she was anything like her sister it was possible.
Lenny stepped inside the shop; the stench of decay filled her nostrils along with a sense of pure dread. Corwin was here or had been recently. Most people couldn’t smell it, he disguised it with expensive aftershave, but Lenny knew that he was like a piece of rotting meat underneath the sharp suits and good looks.Her brain screamed at her to turn around and leave, get out of there and warn her sisters. Yet there was this tiny part of her that wondered if she would need to take this chance to slow him down. Dora wasn’t ready to fight him yet.
Lenny flicked on the light switch by the door and the shop burst into life. All the black shadows dispersed and there was no obvious sign Corwin was here apart from the foul smell. Maybe she’d got lucky, and they’d narrowly missed each other by minutes. If that was the case, she needed to warn Sephy. The phone was out the back of the shop, which was hidden behind the curtain. Lenny cast around for something to defend herself with and spied nothing of any use except for a large chunk of jet-black obsidian. She looked around for something to put it in and her eyes fell on a small cotton bag. She slipped the stone inside the bag and pushed it as far as it would go into her coat pocket. She began to hum ‘Eye of the Tiger’ to herself; she’d loved watchingRocky IIIand the final fight with Clubber Lang, she could have done with some of Rocky Balboa’s spirit. She walked towards the curtain as if she had no idea there could be an evil witch hunter waiting behind there for her and drew it back. The small room that served as a kitchen, storeroom and consulting room was empty, and she stopped in her tracks. So far so good, she thought to herself as she looked towards the small cubicle and its closed door.
‘Why are you hiding? I could smell you as I walked through the door. You’d think after all these years you’d be able to do something about that rotting stench of death that follows you around.’
The door creaked open, and the blackness was almost all-consuming. Then Corwin stepped out. He looked devilishly handsome, but he always had. He was a good foot taller than Lenny and his hands were twice the size of hers.
‘I wanted to surprise you. Turns out I’m the one surprised. Where is your sister?’
‘Go screw yourself and while you’re at it get the fuck out of this shop before I call the cops. You’re trespassing, asshole.’
He threw back his head and laughed, a deep, throaty sound that vibrated his vocal cords, and it went right through Lenny. Then he stared straight at her.
