Page 22 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘So I’m working here today,’ Lucy said to Sophie. ‘But I might go and help Birdie with her allotment this afternoon.’
‘As long as you wear your hat,’ Dexter said. ‘It’s cold today.’
‘Nice to have a bit of sunshine, though.’ Except that, when Sophie turned to the window, she saw that the blue sky was fighting a losing battle with a wall of grey cloud. She chewed her lip. She wasn’t going to get anywhere if she didn’t ask any questions. ‘Have either of you heard of The Secret Bookshop?’
Dexter looked up from his chopping board. ‘No, what is that? Some kind of experience in London?’
‘There’s the secret bunker in Essex,’ Lucy said, ‘but it has brown tourist signs pointing the way, so I don’t think it’s still a proper secret.’ She twirled one of her curls around her finger. ‘What’s the point of a Secret Bookshop, anyway? How would you find the books?’
‘With a magic key?’ Dexter suggested. ‘You’re the one who reads all the Romantasy. There must be a special wayof getting in: a handshake, some kind of seal, or a hidden door in a bookcase.’
‘Oh Ilovethose,’ Lucy said, her dark eyes wide with excitement. ‘I’ve never seen one in real life, though.’
‘Me neither,’ Sophie admitted. ‘I don’t have any details about The Secret Bookshop, I just … I was given a book the other day. It turned up on my counter in the shop, but I don’t know who left it there. It’s a beautiful copy ofJane Eyre, and there was this anonymous note saying it was from The Secret Bookshop. I just … I wondered if you’d heard anything about it.’
Dexter turned around, a finished sandwich in one large, plastic-gloved hand. ‘No, never, as far as I can recall, and I’ve lived here all my life.’
‘I haven’t heard anything about it at school,’ Lucy said. ‘It soundsamazing,though! I bet Uncle Clifton knows, but he can’t say anything because he only speaks dog.’
‘The shop doesn’t have CCTV, does it?’ Dexter asked. ‘Then you could check to see who left it for you.’
‘I don’t think Fiona’s into all that modern security stuff.’ She sighed. ‘Thank you, though. It made me think of The Book Ends. From the way everyone talks about it, it sounds as if it was special – the kind of place that might have been involved in mystery book deliveries.’
‘Oh it was.’ Dexter slid the sandwiches carefully into paper bags. ‘It was really unique, and now it’s just—’
‘Haunted,’ Lucy finished. ‘It’sdefinitelyhaunted!’
‘We sort of debunked the ghost story,’ Sophie told her. ‘Did you hear?’
‘About the young woman who was sleeping in there?’ Dexter said. ‘Jazz, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. She’s staying with Fiona for a few days.’ She didn’t think it was her place to say anything more, like the fact that Fiona had turned up in a tizzy that morning, because she’d offered Jazz another week with her and Ermin, and at first Jazz had said she was leaving immediately, that she didn’t want their charity, and then, once they had persuaded her to stay for a couple more days, she had shut herself up in her room.
Fiona was being generous, and Sophie sympathized with her frustration, but she could have told her at the beginning that offering her home to someone like Jazz, who’d had such a difficult, turbulent life, was unlikely to be plain sailing.
‘Hopefully having somewhere safe to stay will give her a bit of stability,’ she said to Dexter. ‘A pushing-off point for whatever she wants to do next.’
‘Sometimes all anyone needs is a breather,’ Dexter said. ‘A break from the full-time struggle to survive. Do you need a sandwich for her, too?’
‘No thanks – she’s at Fiona’s today, not the shop. Anyway, she didn’t see any ghosts while she was in The Book Ends.’
‘I expect she missed it,’ Lucy said authoritatively. ‘It probably went somewhere else for the night. That big old house has ghosts, too.’
‘Mistingham Manor?’ Sophie wondered what Harry thought of that particular rumour, then answered her own question. He wouldn’t give it the time of day.
‘Everywhere in this place is haunted if you listen to the older residents,’ Dexter said.
‘Not our bakery.’ Lucy folded her arms. ‘But the bookshop, and that crumbly old house, and my friend Alice’s mum said she saw this old man in the village hall when a minute beforeit had been empty. She was taking down the balloons after Alice’s baby brother’s party, and he was justsittingthere!’
‘It was probably a relative in a sugar coma,’ Dexter said with a chuckle.
‘No it wasn’t, Dad.It was someone she’d never evenseenbefore!’
‘Right. Ghosts everywhere.’ Dexter gave Sophie a wry smile. ‘But none of that helps you with your secret bookshop, or your strange gift.’ He put the wrapped sandwiches into a larger paper bag, which hadMistingham Bakerywrittenon the side in a purple roundel. ‘There’s nobody you’ve got close to recently? Nobody you might expect a gift from, out of the blue?’
‘Dad means a boyfriend,’ Lucy said.
‘Oh.’ Sophie felt herself flush. ‘Nobody like that, no. Not on the horizon or … or anything.’
