The Door to Lost Pages (5 page)

The shopkeeper looked anxious. He listened carefully to the young girl, all the while petting a large, goofy-looking Saint Bernard. The shopkeeper’s other hand was resting on the skeleton’s book, which Aydee had brought with her.

“You’re very brave. And smart. You did the right thing. I’ll close up, and we’ll go right away.” He shooed out the few browsers who were loitering in the cramped shop and locked the door. “Wait for me here. I have to get something in the back.” When the man walked away, the Saint Bernard came up to Aydee and licked her fingers.

The shopkeeper came back holding an oversize child’s wagon. “We’ll use this to carry him back here.”

The Saint Bernard and two other dogs followed them out. The shopkeeper asked the others—the place was bustling with canines of all sizes and shapes—to stay behind. He dug into his jacket pocket and, before locking up, threw a handful of biscuits inside the shop.

He harnessed the vehicle to the two large dogs. The Saint Bernard’s companion was a powerful-looking blond Labrador. A small, thin, black terrier mutt—barely larger than a cat—jumped on the wagon being pulled by the other two dogs.

Aydee led the group to where she’d left the fallen warrior. He was nowhere in sight. “He was right here. I swear he was! I swear.”

“I believe you.” The shopkeeper knelt by the lamppost the girl had indicated. “Look,” he picked up something off the ground and showed it to Aydee. “Bone splinters—and feathers.”

“But where did he go?” Aydee bent down and carefully picked up one of the sharp feathers. She wanted to keep something to remember him by.

“I don’t know. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but try. You did your best.”

“Is he—?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe he’ll come back to the shop tomorrow to get the book again. Maybe not.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

The shopkeeper began, “I guess I should head—” He stared at the girl’s eyes. He wrinkled his brow and scrutinized her.

“You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?”

“I—I. . . . No.” She started to sniffle. The small terrier immediately ran to her. He jumped up into her arms and licked her face.

The man stood there for a few seconds, pondering, while the girl hid her face in the dog’s fur.

“My name’s Lucas.” He exhaled deeply. “I’m really hungry. Come on, let’s have some lunch.”

Not long after that, I disappeared from my parents’ world.

Despite my embarrassment at how rudely I’d behaved with the old shopkeeper, I returned to the bookshop the very next day. I really needed to get my hands on that encyclopaedia again.

Just as he’d promised, he’d kept the book for me. I apologized for the day before. He thanked me. Then, he showed me a room in the back where I could sit at a desk to pour through the
Clarence & Charles
. Those volumes were big. You really needed to set them down to read.

Anyway, I started to come every day. Mister Rafael—that was the old man’s name—allowed me to help him out. Running small errands, shelving, sweeping. I loved it so much at Lost Pages. It’s where I wanted to spend all of my time.

At first, I found Mister Rafael’s sense of humour a bit odd, a bit intimidating, but slowly I started to get it. Pretty soon, we were spending our days trading silent jokes while customers moved reverentially through the shop’s stock of incunabula and esoterica.

By then, I knew that the shop only occupied the storefront area of Mister Rafael’s large house. I had seen enough to know that I belonged here. Here. With Mister Rafael. And the dogs! And, of course, the books. Learning about everything I’d always dreamed about and so much more I could never have imagined. Making it my life’s work.

One night, after the shop closed, I told him I had something important to discuss. Mister Rafael didn’t look at me the way other adults did. I felt like a person around him, not like an annoyance to be dealt with. He nodded at me with that wry smile of his. “Let’s go in the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll make us some tea.” Drinking tea was his answer to most situations.

We sat in silence for a while, but it wasn’t awkward. He waited for me to be ready to speak, enjoying sitting around with me. I was never more sure. So I spoke to him. I told him my life’s story. I told about how I felt. I stopped short of telling him that I’d come to see him as my father, much more so than the man whose genes I carried. Those words stuck in my throat. But he understood.

No-one at home or at school knew enough about me to trace me here. And, besides, I’d already begun to suspect that Lost Pages wasn’t fully tethered to the world I’d come from.

“I was expecting something like this,” Mister Rafael said.

I went back to my parents’ house one last time. I packed my clothes and came back to Mister Rafael’s house. I came home.

He’d prepared a bedroom for me. Two walls were covered with shelves stacked with books, including a full set of the
Clarence & Charles
. There was a big, old wooden desk. The window was open to let in the cool, late-summer night breeze.

Three of the dogs—Verso, Pipedream, and Unit; they’re long gone, now—were lying on the bed, wagging their tails. I went over to them. They climbed all over me, wrestling and playing. That—

—sealed it. I’ve been living here ever since.” Lucas nodded, remembering. “Some years later, when I was old enough, Mister Rafael retired and left to explore all those—” Lucas paused, measuring the weight of the next word “—worlds he had only read about.”

Aydee waited for Lucas to explain what he meant, but instead there was an awkward silence between them.

Finally, Lucas continued, “He left the shop in my care and still sends me the occasional message. My life would have been pretty desolate without him.”

On the table, there was a spread of breads, fruit, and cheeses, on which Lucas and Aydee nibbled while Lucas recounted his story. There were large bowls of dog food and water on the floor. Aydee couldn’t keep track of the number of dogs that came in and out of the kitchen to eat, drink, or get their heads scratched.

She said, “Lucas . . . what happened today . . . does it . . . does it happen often? Is this what your life is like?” She wanted to ask him why no-one else could see the skeleton fighting the darkness. She thought of the lioness, and of learning to trust Lucas enough to ask him if he knew about her. Soon.

“No . . . not often. . . .” He winked at the girl. She giggled.

“Hey! I should get back to work. I’ve got boxes and boxes of books to sort through.” He downed some apple juice. “Wanna help?”

She nodded. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “My name’s Aydee.” She felt scared and exposed, speaking that name aloud for the first time in her life.

“Well, I’m happy we met, Aydee. I really am.” When she heard Lucas say her name, she knew she’d come home.

The giant lioness’s powerful paw shattered the front door of the apartment, which opened into the living room. She walked in, destroying the doorframe, bringing down the wall.

The lioness strolled up to the couple on the couch—a small-faced man with a big moustache and a woman drinking from a jumbo-size bottle of cola—crushing everything in her path. The couple was oblivious to her presence; they looked right through her, didn’t notice the destruction. A thundering growl erupted from deep within the creature. She raised her paw again and, in one swipe, killed both the man and the woman.

Blood and gore seeped into the spotless couch, splattered against pristine surfaces, dropped on the soft, clean carpet.

She sniffed at the corpses. She devoured the stomachs and innards first. She stripped the meat from the bones. She chomped down on the skulls and chewed out the brains, the eyes, the tongues. She shattered the bigger bones with her teeth and sucked out the marrow.

Her meal finished, she left.

Her engorged teats cried for release.

There were many who needed her.

Billy was eight years old.

He was sitting at his desk in class. The teacher was talking. Billy was looking very attentive. In truth, he didn’t hear a word of what the teacher was saying.

Monsters! His head was filled with visions of monsters. He saw himself hunting bloodsucking fiends, flesh-eating ghouls, bone-crushing brutes, would-be world-conquering despotic demons, and snickering creeps who tortured innocent victims. He hunted them down and destroyed them—or at the very least banished them to another dimension.

Let evil beware! None can escape Billy, the monster hunter!

The bell rang and snapped Billy out of his reverie.