The Bookseller's Secret Read online

  I read her book many times. Interestingly enough, the more I read, the more I learned as chapters and lessons were revealed. Enlightenment is the book’s fitting title. The book first had three sections and two hundred pages. It now has five sections and over six hundred pages. If I were to pick it up and read again, another chapter would mysteriously surface, making me thirstier for more.

  Only a handful of people know exactly who Eva is. Fewer care. In her past lives, she helped finance every world power and held economies by the balls. She was invisible, like the ghost no one sees and the devil no one believes in. Until she wrote that book. Her book pulled me further into her world.

  4

  I stood over her bed watching her sleep, plotting her death as I did every morning. A pillow was in my hand, tightly grasped at both ends. I leaned forward, ready to suffocate her in her deep slumber.

  “I can’t do it,” I said, leaning back, relaxing my grip on the pillow. “I can’t hurt her. She’s a thirteen year old child. My little girl.”

  “She’s no child, and she’s not so little,” Granger said, its muffled voice calling out to me through her bedroom wall.

  True, I thought as I looked over her long form. She was not little. Eva had been tall, and her reincarnated self, this child, inherited her monstrous height. Her diamond-shaped head brushed the top of the headboard, and her white feet extended to the footboard. A nice, tight fit for her seven-foot frame.

  “Let me out,” Granger said, “and I’ll tell you how you can make her bow down to you.” Though Granger was confined in the walls with the other demons of the house, Granger never stopped taunting me.

  The voice of reason echoed in the back of my brain, Keep the dodgy beast trapped inside the wall. But Granger wore down my willpower with the persistence of an overgrown tree limb clawing against a window, begging to be cut down.

  I used a hat pin I found on her dresser. She wore hats whenever she left her property, to keep any chance of sun off her face.

  The wall bled as I dug a tiny hole. Out poked Granger’s long, pointed fingernail, followed by the grey finger, and more fingers, and more blood as the wall tore. The outstretched hand, an arm, and then a shoulder burst through, followed by a hairless chest. Knock, knock, bang went Granger’s head against the crumbling hole. The hole exploded open, and Granger tumbled out on the hardwood floor along with a mess of mucus and blood.

  I cowered against the foot of her bed.

  Granger reached out a dripping hand. “No hard feelings?” it asked in a high-pitched tone.

  I shook my head. I had been face-to-face with the creature years ago, and more than once. “I’m not touching you,” I said, gathering my courage as I stood. “I know you too well.”

  “And knowledge is power,” Granger replied. “But don’t kid yourself. You have very little power over your demon-child. You couldn’t kill her when she was born. You won’t do it now.”

  “I don’t want to end up with the others in her freezer,” I said.

  “I can help,” Granger said. “However, we have to be on the same page.”

  “She’s going to kill me if I don’t kill her. Sooner, rather than later, once she sees what I’ve done and the mess you left. Damn it. Why did I let you out?” I removed the pillow case and started wiping the floor. “Don’t just stand there,” I said, on the verge of panic. “Can’t you close the hole?”

  “Give me that,” Granger said, snatching the pillowcase. Granger threw the bloodied case inside the hole, then laid down and began licking the blood off the floor.

  “Ugh,” I said, turning away. “You’re leaving a trail of slime. How do you expect her not to notice?”

  “You worry too much,” Granger said.

  “Of course I worry. She killed Edward. He was her father. She ate him for dinner.”

  “Except his head,” Granger said, slurping.

  “As far as I know, his head is still in the freezer,” I said, remembering the grisly scene I had found. “She subsists on human beings, in every sense of the word. She’s been using me ever since we met.”

  “There, finished.”

  I turned. The floor was clean, the hole closed.

  “Edward’s usefulness was at an end,” Granger said, shrugging its grey, bony shoulders. “He destroyed his body with alcohol. Edward interfered when she wanted to be with you. He became a hindrance.”

  One of Granger’s wandering eyeballs stopped to look me up and down. “I made a deal with you, and I will keep my end of the bargain, since you let me out. Barely. Still, here I am. Tired of being pushed around by a teenager? I have the perfect name for her—none. Don’t give her one. Ever.”

  5

  I stared at Granger for a moment, absorbing what was said. “No name? But I haven’t given her one, yet.”

  Thirteen years had passed without me naming my daughter. Every name I considered had a face or a personality unsuitable to her. I didn’t want her named after anyone I liked. She didn’t deserve a title that conjured beauty or bred familiarity.

  “As her father you are the only one who can name her,” Granger said. “I’m telling you, don’t. Your daughter was born omniscient, but without a name, she has no authority over the supernatural. If she dies, she dies without her ability to reincarnate.”

  I took in a deep breath. “It’s too easy. Why didn’t you give that advice to any of her previous fathers?”

  “I did,” Granger said. “No one was wise enough to listen. It will be harder than you think, holding out on giving her what she wants. But if you listen to me, you will have the world at your hands.”

  When Eva gave birth to herself as our daughter, when her life lay in the balance between death and life, while her soul moved from one body to another, Granger had said to me, “You will take her place. The anti-Christ is supposed to be a man, not a woman. You will live out the prophesized role.” Mr. Granger was suggesting mutiny.

  I didn’t want to take her place then or now. I feared the retribution sure to follow if she were to discover Granger and I had arranged an insurrection.

  I was surviving under fear. Fatherhood was not supposed to be like this. This was not my way to raise a daughter, having a child with no need or want of learning, no human mistakes, or everyday concerns. It was terrorizing living with and hearing the things behind the walls, seeing shadows move, knowing hell lay under her floorboards.

  And I was wracked with guilt over Caroline’s death. Eva had told me I was her Samiel—the devil. She said she saw him in me, and I was the fruition, the beginning of the end. Nothing would stand in her way, not her father, not Caroline. Not even me. I had gone along with everything she wanted, and hated myself for it.

  Just when I was beginning to think Granger’s plan might work, I looked at Granger and said, “She could get pregnant by another man.”

  “She could,” Granger said.

  “Then she doesn’t need me to name her. He could name her as the baby before it’s born.”

  “It doesn’t matter what another man names her,” Granger said. “He could name her Mephistopheles, but your daughter, with no current name, has lost the ability to reincarnate. If she were to have another baby, it would not be her.”

  I cleared my throat. Trusting Granger was dangerous. Granger was not giving advice out of gratitude or loyalty. There was a selfish motive, for certain. What mattered was this; would Granger’s motive benefit me, or was Granger setting me up? The ole’ saying—damned if you do, damned if you don’t—went through my head.

  “I have to think about this idea of yours,” I said, picking up my pillow and turning to the door. “I’m leaving.”

  “As usual,” Granger said. “You don’t have the balls to stick around here at night anymore, do you? You’re always running into town, hoping you’ll run into someone who can save you. You didn’t save yourself when you had the chance, and now it’s too late. Time for you to toughen up. I know what you need. Your drink. I do believe the recipe is in the barn.”<
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  “Eva used to make it for me,” I said.

  “The girl doesn’t, does she?” Granger asked.

  “Because I can’t stand swallowing her potion,” I said, disgusted, knowing someone had to die to provide the ingredients.

  “No, it’s because she hasn’t the power. But I do.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said. “Eyes are in the muti. Dead eyes mixed with dirt from her garden, a flower from the tree of life, and ground into a paste. She formed it into a ball and crumbled a bit at a time into each drink.”

  “Don’t dwell on the ingredients,” Granger said. “There’s still too much humanity—guilt—inside you. We have to work on that, you and I, before you’ll ever be capable of killing her. Think about what the muti did for you. How did it make you feel?”

  “Her drink made me feel strong.” I clenched my jaw, grinding my teeth. “I’ve been awfully thirsty for it.”

  “Let’s go see if I can whip you up one of those drinks.”

  “No, not now,” I said, heading out the door, dragging my naked pillow behind me.

  6

  Outside on the stoep, I shielded my eyes from the South African sun with my hand. The ingredients were in the barn’s garden. I had to look to the sun to gauge time, to see when darkness might arrive. As long as the mountain’s shadow stayed off her house, she would sleep.

  Time does not occur on her property. Time is human stuff. Movement corresponds to phenomena, like jumping. Cause has effect, like overeating and gaining weight. Sequences, events, and spaces occur while plunged into hell’s dimension.

  Time still exists outside her gates, and I tried keeping track of it. I did love the house, once upon a time.

  Years and months ago when I first saw her, I had fantasized about walking her halls, opening her doors, trailing my finger up her wall. Everyone wanted inside her. But few ever were. The ones who were have lived to regret it. I managed to kill everyone who stepped inside this house; some indirectly, some not so much. All except one—Mena, her former housekeeper. Mena’s still out there, somewhere.

  I was glad to be rid of her household. Sick of her lies, I had cornered Mena in the bathroom. Ready to pummel her as I had Phred, her former driver, she shifted into a lion-dog and pounced on all fours as she ran off through the front door. Guert, the cook, had served me the bodies from the freezer, creating stews and roasts from Phred’s kills. Phred was the real twisted freak of the bunch. He was a kidnapper and a cruel killer. He nipped people from the streets, careful to take only those who would not be missed or reported. I never knew what I was eating until I found Guert choking to death over a rubbish barrel. I dragged her dead body into the walk-in freezer, where I had discovered Edward.

  Like Eva, the house was not really beautiful. In the sun, everything on the property was undisguised, a veil lifted. The house, a dilapidated wasteland, was about to slide off its foundation and crumble. Ancient baobabs, succulents, proteas, blue-green guarri pines; those unique plants made the property appealing, but they were not alive. The illusion of beauty and grandeur came when the sun set. But I preferred reality, so I thought a match would make a great improvement, and I tried to light one once, but no match ever struck. Eva never liked fire. Neither does my daughter. No candles, no gas furnace, no fireplace. I guess it’s because she’ll be surrounded by it, once she’s in hell.

  7

  I drove into town and stopped at The Albert, an English pub. People walked past me as I stepped out of the car, and I couldn’t help but watch them go about their business, oblivious to what was living next door.

  Granger was right. I needed to toughen up. I had almost everything I wanted.

  I wanted more time. She was capable of giving me anything. Time to stop fighting her. The clever girl liked to make deals. She was smart, smarter than me. What if I got the shorter end of the stick? What if she played me for a bloody fool, again?

  Damn all these stupid doubts, I thought as I nonchalantly stuck out my foot to kick the curb in frustration. I tripped a man walking beside me on the cobblestone sidewalk. He stumbled, and I saw a blur of green and white and grey—the colors of his cargo shorts—as he hit the pavement. I kept on going, not bothering to turn and apologize.

  The Albert was a family spot. With jealousy, I watched mothers, fathers, and children sip sodas. How people managed contentment amid the fact that they would one day be ashes in the ground, confounded me to no end. They giggled at the names of the local cuisine, and grimaced if the taste was not to their liking, squealing in delight if it was.

  “Evening,” said the owner. I was hungry enough to eat through the entire menu. I asked about the locals and the vacationers. When he left with my order, I kept an ear on the telly in the corner of the restaurant, listening for missing persons. Phred, Eva’s driver, had been a necessary forager of food. Tatwaba was Phred’s replacement; it was Tatwaba who hunted for the food. She was as smart as Phred had been, careful not to take anyone who would capture the local authority’s attention. Yet Edward had never been mentioned as a missing person. Edward had been a senator, a diplomat, and a prominent businessman. No news in Die Burger newspaper and nothing on the telly. I had Googled him at the library, once. Nothing about his disappearance.

  I was more surprised when no police officer came asking about Nkumbi, their comrade. Officer Nkumbi had been investigating Eva. When I found out he was dead, I refused to eat anything else served from Eva’s kitchen.

  The young man wearing long camouflage shorts and a white tee shirt—the one I accidentally tripped—sat at the table next to me. He was American, according to his New York accent. He raised his voice while talking to his companion, an older and more distinguished American. They were talking about a book.

  “The book changed after I bought it,” said the younger man in the camouflage shorts. “The cover had been made of leather when I picked it up, but when I walked out of the store with it, the cover turned to tin.”

  Damn. I almost left, pretending I never heard a word. But how could I? Two Americans sat in the same pub I patronized, talking about Eva’s book. That was no coincidence. What did it mean? Did she summon them? Was this her doing? Ugh, too many questions. “Toughen up,” Granger had said. There was only one way to get answers, and that was to listen in on their conversation.

  I wondered if camo-man had read the book. I looked up to see his face, to see his eyes. If they were green, then I would know.

  “When did you buy it?” asked the older man.

  “A few days ago,” said camo-man. “But it’s not available anymore.”

  “Precisely why I’m talking to you,” said the older man.

  “The book is magik,” said camo-man.

  “Where did you get it?” asked the older man.

  Camo-man kicked at a brown-bagged parcel under the table. “From one of those sangomas, and I paid a shit-load for it. It’s heavy.”

  I could tell them the book changes with ownership, and the reason it’s so heavy is because the volume is filled with demons. Take the key attached to the book and unlock the cover, releasing the book’s secret—demons empty out of the book and fill the reader. The transfer is painless. True, there is a strong, unpleasant odour. And yes, as the book becomes considerably lighter, the reader becomes heavier. But that detail often goes unnoticed. Oh, and one other thing; your eyes turn green. People think the devil has red eyes. Wrong. On earth, they are bright green. I would know. I’ve seen them. And so I had to see camo-man’s eyes.

  “I’ll buy it for one hundred thousand,” the older man said. If camo-man sold it for only a hundred thousand, then he was dimmer than I had ever been.

  “The man wearing camouflage shorts is named Mason,” Granger said in my ear, appearing out of nowhere, as Granger often did. “He’s a reporter. He heard about the book on the Internet while searching for his next story. He wanted to see how much this man, a very rich banker named William McPhee, would be willing to pay.”

  I had thought Offic
er Nkumbi destroyed every bookstore copy, although I still had mine, the one I nicked from Caroline. The tin-covered book sat on a shelf in the house’s library. Its spirits had flown into the woman who first bought it—Caroline. Her brown eyes turned green, and I hadn’t noticed until she was on her deathbed. Eva’s were bright green. My daughter’s were exactly like hers. Exactly like mine.

  Mason stood. I hadn’t heard everything, but Granger said they stopped without an agreement on price, and their friendly rhetoric ended. The banker called Mason an “Idiot!” and spat at him. A few restaurant patrons turned to stare, and the owner cast a concerned glance in their direction. Mason dragged the parcel out from under the table, hoisted it in his arms, and stomped out the door.

  I jumped from my seat, dropped a few Rand on the table, and followed.

  8

  Tendons rippled in Mason’s forearms as he cradled the book’s weight with both hands. He walked quickly at first, but the weight of the book slowed him, and he paused to take a breather, sitting on a wooden bench. A bright advertisement covered the bench’s backrest. I didn’t hesitate to sit beside him. We both watched cars stop at lights, people cross the road with children, shoppers walk past with packages in tow.

  His breathing sounded heavy and irregular. His hands trembled. I couldn't tell if the trembling was from carrying the load, or if they shook because part of his mind was already gone. Those demons were parasites, and they ate away at the brain. Were the tremours hitting him the same way they had hit me and Edward?

  “Mason doesn’t believe in the book’s power,” Granger said, ears rotating slowly like satellites while listening to the whisperings of invisible demons inside Granger’s ear. Granger then relayed their reports to me. “Mason realizes others believe enough to be suckered by its worth. After he found out how much McPhee was willing to pay, he knew he had a good story. He wants to learn more about the author.”