Page 53 of The Vanishing Bookstore
‘Hey, is she okay? Do you need help?’
Dora jumped and opened her eyes; an older man was standing behind the gates of the beautiful mansion they had been dropped outside of.
Ambrose smiled at him. ‘No, she’s fine, she’s a tree hugger, always been a bit weird. Sorry, we’re going now.’
Dora’s mouth dropped open and she had to stifle the laughter threatening to burst out of it. Ambrose grabbed her hand and waved at the guy. ‘Have a good one.’ Then he was dragging her away, hissing, ‘We better keep moving before he calls the cops. Did you get anything?’
She nodded. ‘I know where there’s a path.’
He stared at her in wonder. ‘You still have it, who’d have thought.’
She knew he was referring to her ability to communicate with flowers. Now she could add trees to that list.
Half a mile down the road there was the tiniest of paths leading between the trees, so overgrown she almost missed it, but she heard a voice inside her mind telling her to stop and she did, so abruptly that Ambrose walked straight into the back of her.
‘This is it; we need to go down there. I’ll go first, although I don’t know what exactly I’m looking for.’
She looked around to see if anyone was watching her, there was nobody, and she pushed her way through the low evergreen branches of white pine which filled the air with the scent of Christmas. There were lots of brambles, too, that kept catching on their clothes. After what felt like forever the path opened into a small, wooded area but none of this looked familiar to either of them. Dora didn’t want to sound pessimistic but she felt it. A large flat rock jutted out of the ground, and she sat down on it, and Ambrose did the same.
‘It’s so different. I have this clear image in my mind of where it was, but this doesn’t feel at all familiar. I’m sorry, Ambrose, I thought that I would have no problem finding it.’
He reached out and clasped hold of her fingers. ‘Don’t give up just yet, Dora, we’re close, I can feel it.’
She closed her eyes to stop the tears from falling and to give into the exhaustion she felt. The burden of knowing she was being chased by an evil hunter who wanted to kill her was making it hard to think of anything else, that and Lucine. Her beautiful, dying mum who she wasn’t going to spend much time with. She heard whispering and opened her eyes.
‘Can you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘Shh.’
Dora stood up, where was it coming from? It was like a swoony, sing-song sound of kids singing nursery rhymes. She lether feet move in the direction of the voices and hoped that this wasn’t some kind of trap.
35
There was a patch of brambles so thick that Dora doubted even rabbits could get through it, but that was where the strange singing was coming from, and she found herself standing in front of it. She turned to look at Ambrose.
‘It’s through there, I can hear them calling to me.’
He looked at the thick branches, their sharp thorns, and whistled. ‘We didn’t need a spade; we need a machete, maybe even a chainsaw to get through that.’
Dora lifted her fingers in front of her face, staring at the chipped black nail varnish and her silver rings, wondering if it was worth a try. Then she realised that she had no option. They had managed to come this far, if they left without even trying to get to the cabin, they might never find it again. She closed her eyes and pointed at the clump of thorny branches, criss-crossed to stop anyone passing through them.
‘Vines so thick and brambles sharp, grant me the way deep into your heart, lead me to find the books I need, to save my life and honour thee.’
A tiny crackle of static electricity shot out of the end of her finger and the vines and brambles began to slither back. She watched, eyes open wide in awe, and whispered, ‘It’s likesomething out of a fairy tale.’ Then: ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, you did a great job of keeping Lucine’s book safe, she will be so thankful to you for protecting it all this time.
Ambrose was laughing and clapping. ‘You did it, Dora you did this.’
Dora was watching in amazement, and a tiny voice whispered, ‘You did this, you really can speak the language of flowers.’
She clapped her hands and smiled. ‘This is wonderful, I don’t know where those words came from, but they worked.’ She held out her hand and Ambrose took hold of it. Together they stepped forward, walking along the narrow winding path until they saw the small wooden door that looked as new as the day Ambrose had built it, protected by the canopy of the ancient cedar tree.
Dora grinned at him and rushed towards it. She placed her fingers against the wood and jolted as a rush of memories flooded her mind: Ambrose was dragging her through the woods, she had a stitch and was moaning at him, the sound of the dogs searching for them making her blood turn to ice. She had Lucine’s heavy book clutched in one arm, Ambrose pulling a loose board away so she could hide the book. She remembered the gentle sway of the boat on the water, the first kiss they shared, so tenderly, how he declared his love for her and how she knew he loved her deeply. Dora turned to Ambrose and kissed him; he pulled her close and she didn’t want it to end but when she did draw away from him he stared at her.
‘What was that for?’
‘For always being my saviour, for loving me across centuries of time and for saving me that night. I’m sorry I couldn’t save myself for you, but I will try this time, I promise I will stop this, for once and all.’
