The shop rearranges itself around the name. Maz takes half a step backwards and keeps her eyes fixed on the counter.Mr. H? If that’s the initial from the forms… then it’s the boss. You thought he’d be… older. He might as well be carved from something colder instead. Eli turns to Mr. H. His spine…

As the Inferno customer disappears between the aisles, Meg turns her attention to Maz and Eli. Maz’s eyes lock onto her clipboard. Eli places the donations box on the floor nearer the shelves across Maz. Meg drums her fingers on the hardback in her hand, three short taps of a countdown before giving the air a small nod.…

The bell’s chime carries on travelling when it changes. It reaches an end at last. For an ear-piercing split second, it behaves as if it understands what an echo is. The sound comes back with a different pitch, cleaner and harder than their ears expect, where the warped wood may have swapped itself for marble.…

As Eli steps in, the thick glazed pane of the entrance judders in its frame, all of a sudden seeming frail at his lightest push. When no return chime sounds from the bell above the door, he shoots a look at it over his shoulder.That bell. I don’t even remember the last time it worked…

Don’t think about Eli. Just count. Stack, slot, move. It’s more a surrender than a welcome as The Frayed Spine, the bookshop, opens up around Maz. The entrance door swings inwards, and with it, the rusted brass bell above bobs as if trying to ring. It musters a single note of a one-way whimper, still managing to…