“I refuse to grow up.”
“Do me a favor, will you? Take it back where you found it. I’ll even give you what you paid for it.”
“I never take money from women,” he said.
“You . . .” She paused and frowned. “You take money from me all the time!”
“Dinners don’t count. That’s your choice. You don’t have any money anyway.”
“I would if I got paid once in a while.”
“Yeah. Well. I’m still working on that.”
“Not very hard.”
“Here we go,” he said, and rolled his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Millie asked.
“Nothing. Look, Mill, you want to hang out and read this thing or not? I bet it’s got some good spook stories in it. Halloween month and all!”
“No, and I don’t want you to read from it, either. Get rid of that thing, Dev. Please.”
“How come you know so much about it?”
“I heard about it in college. It’s supposed to be evil. It opens doorways, portals. Rituals in black magic. Things like that. It was written by what’s his name . . . Abdul Alhazred, I think. People called him the Mad Arab. He worshipped monsters from outer space.”
“You remember a lot about it, it sounds like.”
“It left an impression.”
“Come on, Mill. It’ll be fun. We’ll light some candles, get the atmosphere all spooky.”
“No!”
“Mill, you’re overreacting.”
“I’m going home to Mr. Kalabraise.”
“What?”
“My cocker spaniel.”
“Oh. Well, suit yourself. This thing looks creepy. I thought a good spook tale before bed would be fun. I should’ve known it would be a stinker in your keister.”
“Ugh! You make me so mad sometimes!” Millie grabbed her jacket, purse, and twirled out of the office. She opened the door.
“Mill, please don’t slam the—”
She slammed the door as hard as she could.
—
He’d been taking a stroll on Lincoln Avenue the day before in mid-afternoon. He wanted to get out of the office because it had been a boring day. Some fresh air would do him good. He rolled a cigarette along the way and puffed at it. He didn’t notice the bookstore until he was right in front, seeing it out of the corner of his eye. Rhode Island Books, it read in elegant script on the small window. Buy, Sell, and Trade. A small sign underneath this said, Open.
The illumination coming from inside was the glow of a dozen candles. He’d thought nothing of it at the time. He looked at the building, then up and down the street. He was the only one on the block, which was odd for mid-afternoon.
The door creaked open. He looked down the street again. Fog misted into the city like a barely discernible ghost. He shivered with a chill, and the world darkened.
Several blocks away, a dog howled. Macky looked behind him. He couldn’t see anything. The silence was eerie. He couldn’t hear any traffic.
Macky pulled the cigarette from his mouth, smoke curling into his face.
“Hello?”
His heart was beating fast. Why was he so nervous?
He lifted the cigarette, took a puff, and blew out smoke. The shadows at the edges of his vision lengthened.
The dog howled again—a lone cry in an empty city. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“Hello?” he said, again.
The dog, or whatever it was, didn’t sound like a normal dog.
It sounded . . . bigger.
The door to the bookshop creaked again like a tiny, drawn-out eek.
He looked both ways down the street and stepped toward it.
—
Macky furrowed his brows and walked inside Rhode Island Books. He had the oddest sensation he was trapped in a dream. He was foggy headed from the bourbon he’d been drinking, though he’d only had a little. Something was watching him. Long, purple fingers curled around one the bookshelves. Eyes with thick, black eyebrows stared at him. Macky looked at the thing for a second, blinked, and it was gone.
“Imagining things, Dev,” he said, and managed to smile.
He felt good, supernaturally good, if that made any sense. He blamed it on the bourbon and the cool, October evening.
The interior didn’t make sense, though. It was an old shop. Antiquated. The books were a dead giveaway. He’d never seen anything like them. Amelia’s Used Books, on the other side of town, didn’t look anything like this. The spines didn’t have any names or titles. The colors had faded, and they all looked the same, sitting on the shelves in no particular order he could see. Dust and age made his nose itch. Heavy, aged, brittle, thick leaflets, vellum, and very old ink.
That feeling was here again, as if he’d been kidnapped from Innsport and transported here. He felt like he was halfway across the globe.
“Come on, Dev,” he told himself. “You’re letting your imagination get the best of you, buddy.”
The door shut behind him. The wolf howl sounded again before being cut off by the door. Mist gathered outside, a thick fog enveloping the street. He couldn’t see anything beyond the windows.
He turned back to the interior of the store, trying not to think about it.
Millie would love this place. He would remember to bring her, maybe get her a gift. The dustiness made his nose itch again, and Macky sneezed loudly.
“Good evening, sir.”
The voice was in front of him. A dark-skinned man stood behind the counter wearing a white turban, nicely wrapped. A pentagram symbol with various lines and configurations was carved on a medallion fixed to the turban on his forehead. His hair was long, thick, and black. A gold, hooped earring adorned each ear. He had a small tuft of black hair on his chin and a long, curling mustache. He was thin, not too tall, wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt.
