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 might mean. The sound comes back with a different kick, clearer and harder than their ears expect. The warped wood pretends to have swapped itself for marble as the ringing ascends to a higher register before it stops dead.
Meg lets the book she was about to shelve slip from her hand, and its hard spine strikes the floorboards with a thump. With her back straightened, shoulders pulled taut, and chin held high, she spins to the door.
Eli halts by the trapdoor. The donation box forgotten under his arm slides down a notch. He hoists it back into place as its sharp edge starts to dig into his ribs.
His gaze stays glued to the glass pane.
That wasn’t the bell. No. It was. I did hear it, for once, and that… Still, no bell’s supposed to do any of that. How come it decided now to work for this sharp-dressed guy, though?
Behind the counter, Maz presses a finger to her ear, trying to muffle the bell’s phantom ring that continues to screech in her head. She snaps her attention to the door.
What the… Don’t worry about the bell. Not your problem. Just deal with this customer who apparently likes to wear black like a standing order.
The man steps inside. His height threatens the top of the doorframe as his dark hair, slicked back and frozen in place, clears it by a mere breath. Despite him moving, the coat resting on his shoulders holds unswaying in its dense fabric that could choke the warmth from a room on its own. His scent, intense and yet too clean to be unpleasant, reaches the counter first.
Three dogs wait outside the glass, their sleek fur the colour of unbroken black ink. Each stands as broad as a pillar, wearing plain leather collars more by habit than restraint.
Their eyes divide the shop between them. One pair, a fiery red, fixes on Eli with intent, while another, a striking green, directs a blank stare at Maz. The third’s molten gold keeps a guarding lock on the gap in the threshold.
Meg’s brow bunches into a trembling knot as she looks at the dogs first, her hand clamping around the serpent cuff at her wrist. She never takes her eyes off the man from then on, even when she sinks to a crouch to pick up the book she has dropped.
Eli retreats for half a step, unaware that the backs of his boots align with the seam of the trapdoor hatch. He watches the man as a synthetic pulse starts seeping from his headphones. The melody that follows curdles into a stutter.
His chest squares before his brain files an objection.
‘Everything in Its Right Place’ is it? I recognise that walk. He thinks he already owns the building itself and everyone in it. I know that walk, and worse, I definitely know that smell. From where, though?
Maz squeezes her fringe back up into her messy bun. Her hands rush to the nearest stack and press it straight.
Possibly dangerous, probably harmless. Don’t you know him from somewhere?
She glances from him to the dogs, to the door, trying to shape the outline of a pattern. Nothing lines up.
The dog outside with the red stare remains focused on Eli through the window, giving clicks against the glass with one paw. When the man raises a single finger without turning to the panes, the dog stops and sits.
He surveys the shelves with a courtroom’s patience, eyes skimming the dark wood and studying its cracks and dips longer. Any dust they hold proves to be of no interest to him.
The man turns to the counter. The strip lights overhead flare brighter, buzz louder, and flicker before returning dimmer. As he approaches, the darkness in the gaps between the bookcases grows wider. With his next step, the shadows beneath the shelves lengthen, stretching towards his shoes, mirror-shined to the point of judgement. A deeper sound takes over the air conditioner and replaces its constant whirring with a note that presses against the eardrums.
Leftover raindrops on Eli’s jacket seem to freeze in place. The damp cold that has been sneaking from below all morning turns ice cold and spreads with a persistence to convince anyone that this has always been the temperature within the shop and everything earlier was a misunderstanding.
Each of the man’s steps lands with a firmness that should demand a creak from the floorboards, but the wood never dares to make a noise. He watches the order of the book stacks until his shadow casts over them.
“Inferno.” The word leaves him without an effort, low and dry.
“The complete, unabridged work, if you have access to it. Translations can transform a soul, whereas nuance carries the bone.” His accent hints at being from somewhere ancient where the consonants click like keys in a lock.
Maz gives a stiff smile.
You had it behind the stacks. He can’t have seen it. Probably a coincidence. Go on. She hands the copy to him.
His gloved thumb runs along its spine before he cracks it open. His hand spreads across the front page as if the dedication itself were once in debt to him.
“I could start again.”
Maz’s chin pulls down and backwards with a tilt.
Philosophy, flirtation, joke. Pick one.
“Start again?”
The smile he wears only stretches enough to stay polite.
“The descent is instructive.” He rifles through the pages to the middle of the book.
“One should return to old thresholds sooner or later, especially in the absence of oversight.”
He glances down at Maz’s neck, where the corner of an old scar peeks out at the side.
“Perspective is an expensive thing. It can only be hard-earned, but is rarely shared truthfully.”
His gaze travels from the trapdoor’s padlock to Eli’s boots and, for a brief instant, to Maz’s twitching hand on the counter.
“I will peruse further if the relevant records also remain accessible.”
Maz’s lips pucker at the man remaining unmoved.
Do you even know what he means? Accessing the bits you’ve forgotten would be a good start anyway.
“Tell me.” He closes the book without lifting his face from it.
“Have you been here long?”
“Long enough.”
His mouth shapes a word as he tilts the spine towards himself.
“Mm.” He allows a single note to exist, suggesting it to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with her answer.
“Time has a way of becoming irrelevant in certain conditions.”
Maz throws quick glances between the corner of the book and the man’s coat that partly hides it.
It can’t really be about the bookshop employment any more. What’s any of this got to do with you?
He looks at her, the weak lights turning the grey of his eyes flatter by the second, as if the ash he hides behind them begins to reveal.
“You don’t precisely remember how long.”
Maz rests her hands on the counter.
He’s met every answer to every question and found most of them wanting, hasn’t he? Just maybe don’t say exactly that.
“I remember enough.”
Stop saying ‘enough’.
He turns his head and casts a sweeping gaze across the shop floor, skimming the inventory until he drops anchor on Eli.
By the trapdoor, Eli’s free hand reaches for his phone in his pocket, and the headphones fall silent. He hitches the donation box up and forces his attention on a pile of books behind the counter.
That obviously wasn’t the casual face of a bloke browsing Dante. But then why did my gut just take the stairs two at a time?
The Inferno customer returns to Maz.
“Without a doubt.” He gives her a perfunctory smile before he draws away and heads towards the maze of aisles with silent steps.
Eli’s glare latches onto the man’s unmoving coat as he goes.
Why was he looking at me like he was… counting me? I should file that under ‘eccentric customer’ and move on.
He catches sight of the dog with the golden eyes beyond the window, who hasn’t stopped observing the gap in the door with patience.
Right, okay. I could understand the bell being somewhat operational now, but at least the door’s still doing its ‘not closing properly’ thing. Even the dog’s noticed it. Why the ‘mission for life’ stance, though?
As the Inferno customer makes his way towards the gap between one shelf and the next, a heavy exhale escapes Meg. Her eyes narrow into a restless focus on Ron’s empty spot by the till. The crease in her brow dissolves. A shaky smile appears in its place.
Maz picks up on the tail end of it.
Was that… fear?
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