Mist & Whispers (3 page)

Phoenix Tears
.

It certainly looked special, bound in leather and bedecked with a stunning portrayal of a phoenix. The tips of its feathers twisted themselves into wondrous and endless weaves and knots. The title was embossed in gold lettering along with the author’s pseudonym. She couldn’t take her eyes off the design and wondered if this was how the original had looked when James George had discovered it.

Eventually, when she heard the crowd of adoring fans chasing James in her direction, Anya headed off to the tills, making a quick detour for a cheeky cinnamon pastry from coffee shop first. She could never resist cinnamon.

ANYA AND MICHAEL
walked back to Scott’s mostly in silence. Michael still tried to give out his flyers along the way, though most, Anya noticed, ended up in bins.

She tried to read the synopsis on the back of the book she’d just bought, or at least, she
pretended
to try reading it. She didn’t take much of it in though – something about a King in a time of war.

They found Scott’s still empty when they got back. Empty, save for the manager, who was dancing around the shop floor with a broom in her hands.

The ex-couple watched in the door way for almost an entire minute before Stephanie realised they were there.

‘What?’ Stephanie asked, all innocent as they joined her inside the shop. ‘I’ve got to do
something
to cheer myself up. If no one comes in today, that’ll be the fourth day in a row without a sale. Iain’s back tomorrow, he’s sure to fire me if this carries on much longer.’

‘No, I don’t think he’d do that,’ Anya tried reassuring her, but another voice much bigger than hers flooded the shop.

‘I don’t know about that... you’re not the sharpest claw on the cat’s paw, are you Stephanie?’

The three colleagues whipped around. James George was standing in the doorway, smug as a slug swerving salt. A satchel hung from one of his shoulders.

‘James George. To what do we owe the misfortune?’ Stephanie sneered.

With his charming blue eyes and great complexion, James could have been quite the looker, had his inner-ugly not been so pronounced. He leaned against the door frame with his arms casually folded, crossed one leg in front of the other, and smiled like a Cheshire cat. ‘Well, I heard the bad news and had to come see it for myself.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Anya demanded.

‘That Scott’s is finally going out of business. Honestly, I don’t know how this mockery of a book shop has survived this long with Chronicles around the corner, but I am glad to be the one to put this place out of its misery.’

‘You can leave now, James,’ Stephanie said, biting her tongue against saying something her mother wouldn’t be proud of.

The three of them stood together like a wall, their eyes narrowing to slits.

‘I see I’ve touched a nerve, so I’ll go. But I wanted to leave you with this.’ He pulled a copy of
The Princess and the Peacock
from his satchel and placed it on the book stand in front of them. ‘Call it a good-bye present.’ He smiled again as he began to walk out. ‘Oh, and that’s not for resale. Only
my
store has the rights for that.’ He skipped out of the shop and down the road.

Anya was livid.

Stephanie was fuming, muttering angrily under her breath. She marched over to where James had left the book, picked it up and threw it at the counter.

‘Hey,’ Anya said, hurrying to retrieve it from the floor. ‘I know he’s a bit of a douche, but it’s still a book!’ She picked the book up and carefully brushed the covers down. A few of the pages were creased and the spine had taken a hit but it still held together, albeit a little looser than before.

‘Sorry,’ Stephanie sighed. ‘But I hate that guy.’

‘How do you know him?’ Michael asked. 

‘We went to school together. He was always awful to me, making fun of me and my parents, and spreading rumours about me. We both ended up going for that manager’s job at Chronicles and the whole time at the interview he kept picking on me, teasing me for being – well, for not being as clever as him. Whenever I see him, he still goes out of his way to make me feel like a complete idiot. He’s just... not a nice boy.’

ANYA ENDED UP
staying at Scott’s, drinking tea and talking shop with Stephanie for most of the day. Michael removed himself from the conversation and sat behind the counter,
The Great Gatsby
acting as a wall between him and the girls. Things were still so awkward between them; their brief moment of civility outside Chronicles had felt unnatural. Still, it was better than being back at the home with Simon and his bad mood.

Around closing time, as Michael was sweeping the floor and Anya was dusting the shelves, Iain’s son, Wade Scott, walked through the door. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he’d been crying.

‘Wade?’ Stephanie asked tenderly. ‘What’s the matter? I thought you weren’t getting back until tomorrow?’

His salt and pepper hair was matted and his surfer shirt creased with day’s worth of wear.

‘We never ended up going. We’ve been at the hospital since Monday. Dad’s been keeping it a secret, said he didn’t want to upset anyone. He’s got cancer. The doctors did all sorts of tests but...’ he swallowed, trying to hold back more tears. ‘There’s nothing more they can do for him. He’s dying.

T
HE FEW HOURS
that followed seemed to blur into insignificance. Anya had never had anyone to call her family. She’d never felt the hurt of losing someone close to her. She’d never known her mother or her father, so it never felt like she’d lost them in the first place, but
this
– losing Iain... It tore at her heart like an animal clawing its prey.

As she wandered back to the home, her chest felt heavy, her breath snatched from her lungs by sorrow. The word
cancer
ate away at her soul like the disease itself eats away at life. Why hadn’t he told anyone? He’d just gone on, struggling with the days and not saying a single thing about how ill he was. How could she have missed it? She hated herself for not seeing there was something wrong. 

Her eyes prickled where she’d repeatedly rubbed them dry and her head throbbed.

Too tired to undress, she climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over her, the need for comfort outweighing the humidity of June.

A WOMAN SHE
wasn’t familiar with was crying. Anya didn’t know where she was but she knew the woman’s cries were because of her. She felt herself talking, but it wasn’t her voice that filled her ears.

‘We knew. We knew it had to be this way.’

The woman looked up at Anya with her ice-blue eyes and smiled through her tears. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ she sobbed with the deepest sincerity. ‘I’m going to miss you both.’

Anya felt her arms close around the woman, and as she held her tight, she disappeared into darkness.

THE NEXT MORNING
, Anya woke to the sound of kids squabbling. The usual arguments over bathroom time at the home didn’t usually kick off this early on a Thursday –
WAIT, WHAT TIME IS IT?

She jumped up and grabbed her phone from the bedside table.
8:27AM!
She had nine minutes to catch a bus or she’d be late for work. She grabbed some fresh clothes from her wardrobe, ran down the stairs from the attic and pushed her way past the kids, claiming the bathroom hers for the next five minutes.

A splash of water and a new outfit later, Anya raced out the building and down the road, a second shy of missing the bus. She couldn’t believe she’d woken so late. She must have forgotten to set her alarm... and then she remembered why.

Iain was...

She couldn’t complete the sentence in her head. She wished it had all been a dream, like the one about the crying lady.

IT’S OFTEN SAID
“things happen in threes”.
Anya remembered discussing the topic once in an English class. They were reading Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
at the time. “
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
”

When she reached the bookshop that morning, Shakespeare’s observation rang loud and true. The sign read
CLOSED
.

She arched her hands over her eyes and pressed her face against the window. Wade was inside, face down in the bank-books. She tapped on the glass and he let her in.

Wade didn’t usually spend time at Scott’s. In fact, the only time Anya had ever seen or heard of him being in the store was two years ago, before Stephanie had started working there. It was a Saturday, and Anya was doing what she usually did on a Saturday – hanging around the bookshop until tea time. The last manager had called in sick and Iain was on holiday in Greece, so Wade had come in to cover. Both Iain and Wade were keen travellers, though Iain had slowed down on the travel front in recent years. He couldn’t have known it then, but his trip to Greece was to be the last holiday Iain would ever have.

During his time behind the counter, Wade complained all day about how boring the bookshop was. ‘Why people read books when they could be out in the real world living their own adventures, I’ll never know,’ he kept saying, as if he’d expected the customers to drop the books in their hands and instantly come to the same epiphany.

Now, he seemed pre-occupied as he closed the door behind her. ‘Anya? Didn’t you hear me last night? The shop’s closed today.’

‘Iain... has he...?’ She couldn’t say the words.

‘No,’ he said, his eyes welling again. ‘Not yet. I was with him all night and early this morning. He’s hanging on.’

‘Then what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with him? Shouldn’t somebody be with him? He can’t be alone
– ’

‘Calm down, the nurse is with him. He asked me to come. He wanted me to find something for him.’

‘In the bank-books? What could possibly be in the bank-books that’s more important than being with Iain right now?’

‘Oh, no, I’ve found what he wanted. I was just... checking something.’

She raised her eyebrows, pressing him to continue.

He sighed. ‘I didn’t really want to bring this up right now, but I suppose you’ll work it out yourselves anyway.’

She didn’t like the sound of that.

‘When Dad... passes, as his son, I will inherit the bookshop.’ He looked as if he was having trouble finding the right words.

‘Right. And?’ She was getting impatient. What exactly was he tip-toeing around?

‘And... all of its debt.’

Suddenly the presence of the strange man on her first day made sense; a debt collector looking for payment. ‘No,’ she whimpered.

‘I’m sorry, Anya, but I’m not going to be able to afford to keep Scott’s open. I’ve already had someone contact me about a buy-out.’

‘Who?’ she asked, her eyes welling, causing a temporary blur in her vision.

‘I’d rather not say at this point...’

‘WHO?’ she said again, this time demanding.

He sighed again. ‘A nice chap named Mr George. Don’t look so horrified, it’s not all bad. He said he wants to keep it as a bookshop. He manages one at the moment.’

‘Hold on – do you mean James George who manages Chronicles?’

‘I didn’t know you knew him. Apparently Chronicles have been looking to expand and Mr George thinks this would make the perfect place for their new pre-owned department.’

What was happening? In a matter of a month everything she’d ever cared about was gone. Iain was going to die and there was nothing she could do. The fate of the place she loved so dearly was going to be in the hands of a man who despised it, and
–
okay, so
she
was the one who ended things with Michael, but it still hurt that the guy she thought she’d been in love with for the last year had betrayed her.

She felt cursed. She needed someone to talk to, to tell her things would be okay. There were only two people in the world she’d ever trusted, and with Michael and her not on good terms, there was only one person left she could turn to, even if it would be for the last time.

Wade agreed to take Anya to see Iain, if she agreed to keep calm around him. Of course, she agreed. She wasn’t going to ruin her only chance to say goodbye.

IAIN’S HOUSE WAS
a humble home; a small townhouse on the outskirts of Little Wolf Green, overlooking the lake. The place was laden with books, piled high all around the house in corners and nooks, on shelves and on window sills. Trinkets from all over the world cluttered every side, trophies of holidays across the globe.

The walls were covered in photographs of Iain and Wade at various stages throughout their lives. Anya wondered what had happened to Wade’s mother. There was not one picture of a woman anywhere, not even in the oldest of photos.

She made her way into the library where Iain had requested his bed to be placed. Her favourite memories of him flashed through her mind, as clear as if they were happening before her eyes. The laughter they shared at the awful-tasting cake he’d baked and surprised her with on her tenth birthday. The days he came and read to the children at the home. The many conversations they’d had about the books they’d both read. Adventure stories were his favourite, and he could do the best voice imitations that really made the characters come to life. Once, when Anya was still quite young, they built a tree house in the woods. Whenever Anya was upset with things at Piddling’s, she’d pack a bag and sneak off there, vowing never to return. But Iain always knew where to find her, helping her see reason.

When she saw him lying there, tubes running around his body, she almost broke down. It took all her strength not to let it show. She didn’t want her weakness to worry him.

A single tear rolled down her cheek when she reached the chair by his bedside, his faithful brown cardigan hung across the back of it. Iain had always seemed strong. She’d never really thought of him as being old or elderly. Now, he looked so frail, hooked up to drips and other monitors that a nurse was checking every few minutes.

His breathing was laborious, his eyes closed. The soothing light of the mid-morning sun beating through the windows and onto his face seemed to be the only thing bringing him any ease.

Anya gasped in sadness as she stroked his withered hand. She pressed her teeth together, fighting against more tears.

He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. ‘Child,’ he said. ‘Don’t cry.’ His voice was faint.

Anya took a deep breath. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were sick? Or that the bookshop was in trouble?’

‘I didn’t want to
–
to worry you. The doctors knew there was nothing they could do the moment they found the tumours.’ His words broke as he struggled to pull the air into his lungs. ‘Wade, did he
– ’

‘Oh...’ Anya took a small gold key from her pocket. ‘He gave me this. He said you’d asked him to find it for you.’

‘Not for me,’ he whispered. ‘You.’

‘Me?’ Her eyebrows wrinkled with intrigue.

Shaking, Iain pointed to a cabinet amongst the bookshelves.

‘Red box
–
’

She touched her hand on his and smiled, then she made her way over to the cabinet.

Inside was a trove of bizarre items, some that looked ancient, some that looked like scientific gadgets, and some that seemed so incidental they looked odd amongst the others. It was just like Mr Scott to have a collection of strange little gadgets. He had a passion for things that were out of the ordinary. Sometimes Anya wondered if that was why he’d taken a shine to her.

Next to a hanging, misshapen glass orb, Anya found the red box. It was wooden, though soft like the skin of a peach and with natural rivulets running through it. There was a gold emblem hand-painted on the top that reminded her of planets orbiting the sun. She continued to study it as she sat back down beside Iain.

‘What is it?’ she asked him.

‘Open it.’

Her thumb traced the emblem one last time before she opened the box. Inside sat a gold necklace unlike any she had seen before. It was shaped like a triquetra in the centre of a heart, but with a pear dropped loop at the bottom instead of a point. Its beauty took her breath.

‘There was a time when I had a love,’ Iain began, his voice unsteady but determined. ‘She was perfect. Kind. Understanding. Truly fair and so graceful. Her name was Cosette.’

‘Like Les Misérables?’

‘Her mother’s favourite novel,' he replied, pointing to a glass of water on the table beside them. Anya helped him to take a drink.

‘What happened?’

‘It’s complicated, child.’ There was a look of deep pain in his eyes and she knew to ask no more. ‘She always wanted a daughter to pass this on to, and I know if she could have chosen anyone to have it, it would have been you.’

‘I... I couldn’t possibly – it wouldn’t feel right.’ She held the necklace out for Iain to take back, but he closed her hand back around it.

‘Please. The last wish of a dying man.’ By his smile, he knew she’d be unable to refuse.

Anya closed the box and put it in her pocket. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, Mr Scott.’

‘Look after the bookshop, Anya. I know how much you love it.’ Breathing was getting more strenuous for him. The nurse came over to check on him, and gave Anya a grave look that chilled her to the core.