The Bookseller's Secret Read online

  “A story?” I whispered to Granger.

  “Yes-s-s. He’s a reporter, here to write a prize-worthy story that will be read around the world.” Granger’s ear turned. “He wants to expose her as a fraud. Make fools out her followers and out of you. McPhee wants the magik book for knowledge and power, Mason wants it for money and fame.” Granger’s ears stopped moving. “I wonder who she will award it to? Which one will win her favour?”

  “Pardon me,” I said to Mason, “Do you have the time?”

  He looked to his wrist and said, “My watch hasn’t been working.” Then he added rather solemnly, “I keep resetting it, but it stops.”

  I wanted to tell him his watch would stop every time he opened her book, time does not exist in her world, and when you read her book, you are in her world. And so I didn’t need to see his eyes; his stopped watch told me enough.

  “Ngilahlekile,” Mason said, speaking isiZulu. Then, “Ungangisiza na?” Can you help me? He’d been speaking English in the restaurant. IsiZulu was the first language I recognized after reading the first chapter of her book.

  “Cha,” I answered. No.

  “You answered pretty fast,” he said, still speaking isiZulu.

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?” he asked.

  “Won’t,” I said. “And can’t, depending on how much you’ve read.”

  He gave me a hard stare and then turned his attention to the parcel in his lap. “I have this book, and I wanted to get it signed by the author. I hear she’s a local celebrity. Her name is …”

  “You won’t find people willing to give any information on her,” I said, interrupting him. “She’s no celebrity. Don’t ask too many questions or try bullshitting people around here. Americans might get along with bullshitters, but South Africans find them quite cheeky. As do I.”

  “She is a local author, right? She must have some following.”

  “Show me the book,” I said.

  “I’m keeping it wrapped, to keep it clean,” he said.

  “Bullshitter,” I said. “You’re keeping it wrapped because you don’t want anyone to nick it from you. I’m telling you it’s only worth something to those who hide during the day or sangomas who keep to their shops. None of the tourists or locals walking these streets has a clue as to what you’re holding.”

  “The man I was talking to did,” he said. “He wanted to buy it.”

  “He’ll kill you for the book,” I said.

  “How do you know?” he asked, tensing.

  He looked me up and down, accounting for the cut of my trousers, the collar of my shirt, and any jewelry I wore. He couldn’t see the necklace under my skin. The chain left a ring around my neck, and there was a slight bulge at my suprasternal notch from the jeweled disc.

  “You interested?” he asked.

  “Open it,” I said. “I want to see what I might be buying.”

  He tore off the wrapping paper and discarded it under the bench. He turned the tin book slightly and after reading Eva van Hollinsworth’s name aloud, he added, casually, “I thought about visiting the van Hollinsworth house. Even tried looking it up on MapQuest. I don’t have a real address, but the owner of this café seems to have an idea where it is.”

  I smirked. “That’s not a house you walk up to and ring the doorbell,” I said.

  “I figured as much,” he said. “Figured there’d be gates and security. Lot of rich people live in Llandudno, I was told.”

  I nodded. “She has a gate. And security. Of sorts.”

  “What can you tell me about the place?”

  I shook my head.

  “You keeping quiet, too, huh? She must be more famous than you say. People like to protect the privacy of the rich and famous around here. In America, they can’t invade it enough. And I can’t get much information out of anybody. I even asked a real estate company about her house. The agent there wouldn’t tell me a thing. Made it sound like some deep, dark secret.”

  “Why so many questions?” I asked. “You’re a reporter.” I said, before he could think of some lie. “I don’t care who you are. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Her father was a political figure.” If he was a decent enough reporter, he would have visited public records first.

  “Yeah, that much I was able to find out on my own,” he said.

  As I suspected he would have.

  “You know an awful lot about her,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’d like to see her house,” he said. “You ever been inside?”

  “I live there,” I said.

  9

  Mason stared at me with his green eyes and asked, “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Jeffrey Thurmont.”

  Mason leaned forward. He glanced at the advertisement printed on the backrest and read, “Jeffrey Thurmont, solicitor. That you?” he asked me.

  “It is. I became Eva’s lawyer, after my father.”

  “You married her?”

  “No. We had a daughter. Eva died after she was born. I live with my girl at the house.”

  Mason leaned back against the bench. We were silent for a while. People continued to walk past. Cars pulled in and out of parking spots. Clouds floated overhead.

  “Are you thinking about her house, imagining the story you will write?” I asked. “The pictures you’ll take? It will make for the best ghost story ever written, by Mason Barry. If it ever gets written.”

  He glared at me and said, “I didn’t tell you my name.”

  “And you didn’t tell me your buyer from the restaurant was named William McPhee.”

  Mason squared his shoulders. “You know him?” he asked.

  “Word has gotten back to me about you, Mr. Barry. You have no idea what you are getting into. I would go home, now, if I were you. But, I can tell by the look on your face that you will not. You have opened her book. It may be too late for you. What lured you here, anyway?”

  He looked down at the book in his lap and gave it a squeeze. “Well,” Mason began, “I get on these blogs and look for stories. Most reporters do. I saw something about a magik book. The more I looked for a title, an author, the more frustrated I became. Especially after I received an e-mail from someone in South Africa willing to sell me a copy.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I never got a name.” Mason shrugged.

  I turned to Granger. “Wasn’t me,” Granger said.

  Not that Granger was entirely trustworthy. Demons, I had come to learn, schemed against each other, vying for power until quashed. Their information was accurate, since they predicted it based on their collective. But their reports were often tainted or misguided, because it was in their nature to fuck with you.

  There is no such thing as coincidences, I reminded myself, wondering if the girl would have used the Internet. We have no computer at home. She rarely leaves the house. I kept my eye on Granger, watching for a twitch, a shift, or any gesture giving away the demon’s fib. Granger has been known to tell a lie or two, or a dozen.

  “No big deal,” Mason said. “I have sources, and I don’t give out names, either. I bought the book from a sangoma at a witchcraft shop.”

  “You were in an Ndumba, an unmarked sacred shop. And did you read it after you bought it?”

  “I found an empty envelope as soon as I opened it, taped to the back cover.”

  “Empty? The sangoma stole your seeds. Or you bought a used book, and someone else had profited from the seeds.”

  “It was used alright,” Granger said. “That’s your book, the one you took from Caroline. The girl sent it to the sangoma.”

  My heart dropped to my stomach. I don’t think Mason noticed the twitch in my eye after Granger delivered the shocking news. And since he couldn’t see or hear Granger, he continued right along with the conversation, as did I.

  “I read the instructions in the envelope. Turn metal into gold? I mean, c’mon. If they really worked, wouldn’t they
be all over social media by now? They’d be impossible to buy. No one would part with them, or the book.”

  “Correct. Hasn't the obvious struck you? You heard about the book. How easy was it for you to find? You had to come here, to South Africa, on a rumour or a hunch, and deal with a strange man, a sangoma. What did you give him in return?”

  “Nothing. He gave it to me.”

  “No he didn’t. There was a price, but you haven’t realized it. So you have the book. And no seeds. You didn’t attempt any of its magik. You thought it valuable enough to sell, and even though you were offered a large amount of money, you still have not parted with it.”

  “Did McPhee send you?” Mason reached into his cargo pockets.

  “He’s reaching for a switchblade,” Granger said.

  “No one sent me. Leave the knife in your pocket,” I said.

  “Have you been watching me and following me?” He kept his hand in his pocket.

  “You have been watched since the moment you stumbled upon her book. Perhaps even long before then. So has McPhee. But not by me. I can tell you where he’s staying,” I said. “Now that you and I have talked, you might want to try bargaining with him again.”

  Mason nodded.

  Granger whispered the hotel’s name in my ear.

  I gave the information to Mason.

  “And now what?” Mason asked.

  “Whatever you think is necessary,” I said, and stood to leave.

  “No, wait.” Mason removed his hand from his pocket, leaving the knife tucked inside. “Tell me more,” he said.

  “Such as?”

  “Tell me about her, the author, and about her house. I want to hear about the first time you were there.”

  10

  I chuckled and realized my mouth had gone dry. I coughed. Soon I would be in need of one of her drinks. I sat back down on the bench. Mason wasn’t going anywhere without his story, and he didn’t seem to care if it killed him. Curiosity and pride sparkled in his eyes. This book, me, the reclusive author—these were a challenge for him. If he had been able to explore and infiltrate the cartel, then why not a simple witch and her silly book?

  I had been surprised by what Mason had found on the Internet. In my way of thinking, the girl wanted to be found, otherwise, Mason never would have discovered her book. He would not have been compelled to come here. And I felt certain if I hired the most experienced Internet detective who lived, he would never find what Mason read; he would never find a trace of its existence.

  The story I assumed Mason wanted to write would never make it to the international papers. No matter. I would play along, and eventually take my book back.

  Edward and Eva’s tale was an unusual one, and almost impossible to imagine. Edward had been a senator in the Kingdom of Lesotho. Eva had called him to her because she needed his political protection. Let me remind you when Eva called Edward to her, she was not named Eva. She was not yet Edward’s daughter. Then, at the time of their first meeting, Eva was named Ehvleen.

  After Edward married Ehvleen, he moved into her house. Ehvleen came with her scads of money and her beauty geared exactly toward Edward’s liking. She’s good at discovering exactly what her target desires and then tempting accordingly. It’s been a never-fail trick. It worked on me.

  Even though I wasn’t there, I know Ehvleen told Edward exactly what he was getting into when they first married. He moved in the house. He had to have witnessed her skin bruise when he slammed a door or punched a wall out of frustration. He had to have heard the scratching behind the walls and Granger begging for release. Not to mention Mena, Guert, and Phred lingering in the house at Ehvleen’s beck and call, while they treated him like a dupe.

  Ehvleen died while giving birth to Eva and had left a will demanding her daughter be raised in the house. Edward was free to come and go, but he could not leave the continent. She forbade it in the will. And no one argues with that kind of money.

  It was about one year later when Edward told a fellow friend his wife had died during the birth of their daughter, Eva. This was where Edward’s status came in—he had diplomatic immunity in South Africa. No official or policeman could investigate his property, and Ehvleen’s property was now his.

  Diplomatic immunity did not mean impunity. Not that Edward had been suspected of murder, but if tried and convicted, he would have been expelled from the country as a persona non grata. Nothing was ever recorded in papers or at the courts. It should have been. But she had deep pockets, and Edward had political contacts. Together, they paid, bribed, and blackmailed. And if that didn’t work? She resorted to other means.

  Edward was a lonely, old man, getting older because he left the house as often as he did. Leave the house, and you will age while off the property. Except for her. She will always age. Ironic. Death does not age, and we live in the house of death. But she is the only living thing holding the house together. They are one. This is the bottom line: time does not exist on her property, and it physically affects no one but her; she lives in eternity; clocks do not work; the sun still rises and sets, and life continues as usual outside her property.

  It’s a difficult concept to explain and understand. I have only recently given up trying to do so. Accept the situation. Analyze the options. React accordingly. Brilliant solution.

  Because Edward was lonely, he wanted another wife. He met Lindsey Stockley and married her. Edward brought Lindsey to live in the house, but the front gates would not open. Why would he want to bring another woman into that circus? Maybe the scene had become his new normal. I don’t know. Lindsey thought the house was haunted.

  Ghost stories thrive in that part of the bay. Ferocious winds have wrecked ships over the ages and anguished people have suicided off cliffs shaped from hundreds of years of storms. Those murderous rocks washed away vacationers who stood too close to the cliff’s edge. The house wasn’t haunted. It was inhabited.

  Edward and Lindsey moved into another home, and he had to split his time between two houses, much to Lindsey’s disappointment.

  Edward and Lindsey had a daughter named Caroline. He didn’t want to choose one daughter over the other. I suppose he did, in the end.

  Normally, Ehvleen/Eva would never have allowed a blood relative. However, her need for Edward’s connections and political asylum superseded her disassociation with relatives. Besides, she had everything figured out before she met Edward. She had always been a great forward thinker. She mapped out how she would rid herself of Caroline, her half sister, and Lindsey, her stepmother.

  Lindsey came with money of her own. Her family owned a mining company in Johannesburg. Lindsey was the Stockley Gold Mining heiress. In the few years after Edward married Lindsey, gold became harder to reach. They needed more capitol to dig deeper and keep their business alive, yet Ehvleen had bequeathed a set amount of money each year to be released to Edward as long as he continued to raise his daughter, Eva, in the house. The mining business had provided Edward and Lindsey with an affluent lifestyle. When you are rich, you learn to live well. When a well-lived life is threatened, most people will do anything to avoid the oncoming demise.

  Edward borrowed money from Ehvleen’s estate. Lindsey’s silence was bought, and she argued no more with Edward about his other home and his estranged daughter.

  Edward eventually retired from the Senate and was rarely seen in public. Phred, Ehvleen’s long-time-employed driver, became Edward’s and Eva’s, and the black Rolls Royce purred through Llandudno and Cape Town with them aboard.

  11

  Caroline was the first blood relative. I met Caroline through Edward, and I met Edward through my father, as my father was the solicitor for the van Hollinsworth estate. I was called to Eva’s book signing—Eva had it all prearranged years ago to bring me to her. I thought I was there on behalf of my father, who had embezzled from the estate and was missing. Caroline thought she was there to support her estranged sister. Wrong. One thing led to another through the simplest way. We had
both been warned by our fathers. Neither of us had listened.

  Caroline thought the place was beautiful. I remember thinking something different. Eerie, for lack of a stronger word. Glum. Dark. Quiet. Hot. I wanted to leave. I couldn’t think straight because of the noise inside my head.

  Caroline had asked to take in the scenery, but once Eva entered the scene, she was all I saw. She was beautiful, tall, and creamy white. Strong and resilient. She exuded wealth and power. I forgot Caroline. I had to have Eva. And I did. I succumbed to her in every way.

  The staircase greeted me when I walked through her door. A dining room was just beyond the front door. The room was shaped in a circle, yet had five corners depending on where you stood. Beyond the dining room was an industrial-style kitchen with human remains stored inside a walk-in freezer for dinner. Upstairs, the dark halls were labyrinths. They forked and twisted and turned leading to madness. The house grew whenever I walked through it like the flowering, giant hogweed with toxic branching stems. The house sprouted long halls, unopened bedrooms, locked closets, and masked windows. Bathroom mirrors showed more than reflections. Bedroom windows gave false views of the outside world. There were empty rooms big enough to land a plane. False doors didn’t open. An outsider would only be able to see this at night.

  During the day, it was nothing more than an empty shack teetering on its foundation. The light exposes her for who she really is. It can also kill her.

  Xeroderma Pigmentosa. The disease is a genetic disorder in which her DNA fails to repair damage caused by ultraviolet light. Exposure will accelerate her melanoma exponentially. Hundreds of years ago she married someone who unknowingly had the recessive gene. It is dominant in her. Ironically, she needs light for her supernatural powers to work. She doesn't require much, and the source does dot matter. It's the colour in the light that allows her to pull off her illusions. Since the sun is a danger to her, the moonlight suits her just as well.