Spells & Shelves: A Library Witch Mystery Book 1 (Paperback)

“Aurora!” shouted my boss. 

I closed the book I’d been reading under the desk. No customers had shown up all afternoon, but Abe hated me reading on the job, even though books surrounded me on every side and the shelves were positively overflowing. Who could resist the temptation? Besides, business wasn’t exactly booming.

“Yes?” I called back.

“I’m going into the storeroom,” he said. “Please watch the desk, and if I catch you reading, I’ll be extremely displeased.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I responded. Reading in a bookshop? Perish the thought.

I fidgeted, smoothing out the wrinkles in my skirt. Abe liked me to show up dressed respectably, which meant plain, drab coloured skirts past my knees, neat shirts and cardigans, and my hair pulled back in a bun that made me look decades older than my twenty-five years. It fitted the place’s solemn atmosphere, but considering every other shop was bursting with glittery Christmas decorations, it was no wonder everyone overlooked our gloomy little establishment. Besides, I knew for a fact that Dad used to come to work in jeans and a T-shirt all the time. When he was around, I wouldn’t have called the place gloomy or solemn, either. But that was then.

I sneaked a look over my shoulder, made sure Abe was out of sight, then opened the book again. Honestly. Resisting the temptation was like avoiding looking at a box of chocolates directly in front of me. Nobody was out book shopping on a dismal winter day like today. The Christmas shoppers all went to the big department stores in the nearby cities, not second-hand bookshops tucked into a corner off the high street of a small village in the middle of nowhere.

I had no reason to complain. I loved working with books. I didn’t have to make small talk with customers or push sales initiatives in their faces or deal with complaints. Admittedly, having complaints would require having customers. I dusted shelves every day, set up displays to look welcoming and interesting, and put up with Abe’s grumbling about my rearranging things, but each year brought fewer visitors. 

Abe had offered me the assistant job after Dad’s death in a car accident, since he’d left his entire share of the shop to his former business partner. Even after three years, Abe still paid me a shade above minimum wage. Laney kept saying he was exploiting me, and maybe it was true, but I owed it to Dad to keep the place running. The shop had been his whole life.

“Aurora?” Abe called. “You’re not reading, are you?”

“Nope.” I closed the book again.

Abe was the only person who called me by my full name. I went by Rory to everyone else, but the boss kept a professional veneer even though he and my dad had been best friends and we’d known one another for most of my life. He and Dad might have been work partners, but they couldn't be more different personality-wise. We’d already had two arguments this week about Dad’s old journal. Abe had found it in the back room and I’d caught him tossing it in the bin. I’d protested, and he’d thrown up his hands and said fine, I was welcome to any of Dad’s old junk. I’d fished it out of the bin and opened it, expecting to find an account of my dad’s courtship with Mum or even his years running the bookshop. Instead, I’d found a bunch of gibberish.

Not only was the book written in a text I couldn’t read, it didn’t match up with any language I could find either—and I’d searched the entire bookshop for possible matches until Abe had informed me the whole thing was made-up. Writing a book in code and then losing the translator document was such a Dad thing to do, but it made the journal worthless, according to Abe. I still carried it everywhere with me, on the off-chance that I found the solution to the code stashed on a shelf somewhere. 

I’d been coming into the shop since before I could read. Most of my childhood memories involved toddler-me waddling among the shelves, kid-me burying her face in a book for hours to escape the outside world after Mum died of cancer, and teen-me seeking solace in a corner where none of the school bullies could bother me. Now, adult-me sat here in the same spot I’d occupied for three years, contemplating yet another reread of the shop’s paltry collection of fantasy novels. Most of them were old coming-of-age tales of farm boys embarking on grand adventures and saving the world. My birthday had brought nothing of the kind. Then again, no twenty-five-year-old bookshop assistants got mysterious prophecies or grand destinies. Shame, because most adults I knew were in dire need of a little magic in their lives. Abe being a prime example.

The door flew open. I jumped in my seat, startled. Normally a little bell rang when someone entered, but the three people who glided into the shop made no sound at all. If I hadn’t been looking at the door at that precise moment, I’d never have heard them enter.

One of them approached the counter. He had slick dark hair and a face as pale as a piece of carved white stone. Not a typical customer. He looked like one of the wax statues at Madame Tussauds had come to life and walked into the shop.

“Can I help you?” For some reason, I had the impulse to check my bag under the desk to make sure Dad’s journal was still there.

“I highly doubt you can,” he said, in a posh accent. Not only did he dress like he’d stepped out of a Victorian novel, he also talked like it.

As for his two companions—they were suddenly right behind him. How had they moved that fast? I definitely needed a break. I'd been working long shifts for so long I'd lost track of the days. No wonder my attention span was a little rusty.

“Were you looking for a book?” I asked, since he didn’t seem inclined to break the silence. “We have a large selection of—”

He smiled. His teeth were perfectly even and blindingly white. For a moment, his face blurred, showing me pointed canines. Then in another blink, he looked normal.

Normal? Nothing about these three men was normal. The other two moved closer, crowding my desk. Boxing me in.

I sat completely still. I should call Abe, but my throat was dry, and my mouth felt too numb to open. My sweaty fingers dug into the sides of my wooden chair.

“Yes,” said the man. “I was looking for a book. It belonged to a man named Roger Hawthorn.”

Dad. Had Dad known these men? “That’s my father,” I managed to say. “He died three years ago.”

“My condolences,” said the man. “Yes, I know he died. I’m looking for his journal.”

My heart missed a beat. “Excuse me?”

“Did you mishear?” He enunciated each word. “I’m looking for the journal that belonged to Roger Hawthorn.”

The journal’s weight in my rucksack pressed into my leg. I might not be able to read it, but I did not want to give it to him.

“Sorry, I don’t have it,” I lied. “We only sell books, not journals.”

“You’re lying,” he said, his words precise, certain. As though he’d looked into my mind and plucked my thoughts right out. Sweat gathered on the back of my neck, and my legs itched to run. I’d just celebrated my birthday, and I wanted to survive to see my next. 

I opened my mouth to call Abe, and he shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “If you call your supervisor, Aurora, he won’t come. Trust me, it’ll be much easier if you hand me the book.”

I rested a trembling hand on the desk, my fingers snagging the book I’d left out on display, titled The Beginner’s Guide to Horticulture. It’d been there for years and nobody had ever bought it. 

The waxwork man’s gaze dropped to my hand on the book and he took a step back. Fast. This time I couldn’t blame my tired eyes—he’d moved faster than any human being had the right to. 

“Are you sure you won’t be persuaded to give up the journal?” he asked.

My hand remained clenched on the book. Something in his expression shifted. He raised a hand and I froze, but all he did was scatter a handful of something on the desk. It looked like… sand.

“You’ll regret your decision,” said the man, as calm and matter-of-fact as though we were chatting at the supermarket. “Remember my name. It’s Mortimer Vale.”

And in a blink, the three men were gone. Only the sound of the door closing behind them showed they’d been here at all.

You’re officially cracking up, Rory.

I stared at the fragments of sand scattered on the desk for an instant. Then I got up, grabbed the wastepaper basket, and used a piece of paper to brush the sand into it. Bits of sand clung to the paper. From this angle, they looked orange-red. Kind of like—

Fire.

The paper was on fire. So was the wastepaper basket. I dropped both with a cry of alarm, and the flames leapt perilously close to the desk.

“Aurora?” came Abe’s muffled voice from the back room.

This can’t be happening. Paper didn’t spontaneously burst into flames. I looked wildly around for a fire extinguisher. What had Abe done with it? We didn’t even have a working fire alarm.

An image filled my head, of the ornate bookshelves engulfed in flames. Of Dad’s legacy burning to the ground.

No. I backed up into the desk, knocking over the Beginner’s Guide to Horticulture. A pen rolled off the desk and I caught it on instinct, and a weird tingling sensation ran up my arm. At the same time, the Beginner’s Guide to Horticulture began to glow, its pages turning gold. Please tell me that’s not about to catch on fire, too.

A second shiver went up my arm, stronger than the last one. I froze, gripped by an uncontrollable urge to scream—no, write. The pen moved in my hand, scratching out my last desperate thought onto the open page of the record book—Stop!

The fire in the wastepaper basket went out, the flames vanishing from existence. I stared, stupefied. I couldn’t have done that. Scribbling the word stop on a page didn’t make fires go out.

Right?

I stood stock-still. The Beginner’s Guide to Horticulture was no longer glowing, the tingling in my arm had disappeared, and the lingering smell of flames from the wastepaper basket was the only reminder that it’d been on fire at all.

I jumped when the door at the back of the shop opened and Abe walked in. “What happened here, Aurora?” he asked. “What’s that smell?”

“A fire,” I gasped. “That paper—it caught fire. By itself. But it’s okay, the fire went out.”

His steps halted. “Caught fire? Were you playing with matches?”

“What? No.”

He strode over to the bin, peering into it. “Did you think you could smoke in this shop?”

“No,” I said. “Three men, strangers, they came into the shop.” If I said ‘I think they used magical sand to set the bin on fire’, he’d think I was bonkers. “They used a lighter,” I lied. “On the paper in the bin.”

“Three men?” He dropped the bin and marched over to the door, yanking it open. A cold blast of winter air rushed in, but nobody was outside. As I’d expected, the men had vanished, leaving no trace behind. 

I swallowed as Abe let the door swing shut, his face stern, demanding an explanation. 

“As I said, the fire went out. No harm done.” I didn’t sound convincing. My hands shook with tremors, while the word stop stood out on the page behind me like a brand. I felt lightheaded, too, as though I was about to faint. 

He shook his head. “Aurora, there’s nobody outside.”

“They left a… minute ago.” And they’d moved impossibly fast. “I don’t smoke. And I’d never risk damaging the books.”

He paced back to the desk, eyeing the word stop on the record book’s open page. “Did you write this?”

I opened and closed my mouth. Abe knew my handwriting. There was no use feigning ignorance. “I…”

He ripped the page out of the record book. I flinched at the noise. “Aurora, I’ve made a lot of allowances for you. But this—” He threw the paper into the bin—“it won’t do at all.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “The men who came in said they were looking for Dad’s journal.”

His brows shot up. “Journal?”

“The one he gave me,” I said. “I don’t know why they wanted it.”

Abe shook his head vigorously. “Aurora, you’ve been working too many long hours. Nobody was here.”

“But the first man said he knew Dad—”

“Aurora.” The word was sharp. Cutting. “You’re clearly in no fit state to work today.”

My throat closed up. “It’s the truth.”

“Aurora, take a seat.”

That did not sound promising.

I walked behind the desk and sank into the chair. Dad’s journal bumped against my legs in my rucksack. I’d never have given it up to the strangers, but how could I convince Abe I wasn’t lying when every moment that passed made me less certain that I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing?

“Aurora, the last three years have been difficult for both of us.” Abe gave a pause, and I dipped my head in acknowledgement. “Since your father’s death… I admit, I didn’t expect him to leave the shop entirely to me. And I understand why you felt the need to take his place. But the truth is, I can barely afford to keep an assistant. And when you do things that damage our reputation…”

My heart beat so fast it nearly escaped my chest. I blinked repeatedly, and a glow caught my eye. The Beginner’s Guide to Horticulture’s pages shone, their white pages glowing golden from within.

I pointed at the book. “Do you see that?”

His gaze jumped to the book, then back to me. “What is it this time?”

“Do you not see it? It’s… glowing.” I trailed off. The glow was already dying down. Maybe I really was losing my mind. 

Abe shook his head. “The truth is, your father would want you to strike out on your own,” he said. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to stay here forever.”

But I want to. 

He tried a smile which was more of a grimace. “I really think it’s for the best that I let you go.”

“Please,” I said. “I don’t—”

“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” he said. “Go home, Aurora.”

Dismissed. No—fired. Fired. Like those flames, which had vanished into nothingness.

Who set fire to a bookshop? What kind of sick monster would do that? I’d never seen the waxwork-looking man before in my life, but he’d spoken like we knew one another or were in on a shared secret. And now, thanks to him, I’d lost my job.

Abe watched as I retrieved my rucksack, checking Dad’s journal was still there. What was so important that those men had felt the need to threaten me over it? I couldn’t even read it. Nobody could.

The bitter air wrapped around me as I left the shop, cutting through my thick cardigan. I shivered, hoisting my rucksack higher on my shoulders. I was jobless. How would I pay rent? Employers in a small town like this one didn’t care about my MA. I’d have to get a minimum wage job, in which case, I could say goodbye to my flat. I’d barely been able to pay the deposit as it was. Most of my friends had moved to Leeds or Manchester or Birmingham. Big cities with job opportunities. I’d only stayed here because of the shop, and now I’d lost it.

Tears froze on my cheeks. I wiped them away, reaching in my pocket for my keys—then stopped dead.

Three men stood outside my apartment block, looking up at the third floor. Specifically, at my window. It was the same men who’d been in the shop. I knew from their heights and the eerie way they stood. Absolutely still, like they were statues fused to the pavement.

Who were they? And how had they known where I lived?

I looked around. Nobody else walked around the high street on a freezing Wednesday afternoon in December. They were inside in the warmth or at work.

I backed up a few steps, and my phone started to buzz with an incoming call. 

The first waxwork man turned in my direction. “Ah, Aurora,” he said. “I thought you might have reconsidered your decision.”

“Get away from my flat.” My voice sounded high, scared, and I cast a desperate look at the windows of the other flats in the hope that someone might look outside. Nobody did.

The man—Mortimer Vale, he’d said his name was—smiled. “Just give us what we need. Give me the journal.”

“I don’t have it.”

The journal’s weight in my rucksack pressed against my spine. Maybe if I threw it at them, it’d buy me enough time to run and call the police. But something in me rebelled at the idea, and besides, they’d easily catch me if they moved as fast as they’d done in the shop. My phone was still ringing, its traitorous buzz giving me away.

“Then I’ll have to take it by force.”

The man moved. I turned and ran, grabbing my phone as I did so. To call the police, not whoever’s epically bad timing had sent three loonies on my tail. What had I ever done to tick them off? I was just a bookshop assistant. No, ex-bookshop assistant. I’d never done anything illegal or odd in my life.

Except stop fires with my bare hands?

The phone’s buzzing ceased, and a female voice said, “Hello, is this Aurora Hawthorn?”

“Sorry, I'm in the middle of an emergency,” I gasped out. “Can I call you back?”

“I’d keep running,” said the female speaker on the other end.

“Excuse me?” 

“Keep running,” she repeated. “Towards the river or the nearest source of running water you can find.”

I looked up. The river was across the road from me. How did the caller know where I was? I shoved my phone in my pocket and picked up the pace, flat-out sprinting.

“I wouldn’t run that way.” The voice came from my pocket. Her voice was so loud, it was like she was standing right next to me. “Go to the water. Before they catch you.”

“Who are you? Why are you watching me?” My breath came out in pants. My footsteps hammered on the road, and when I risked a glance behind me, the man was close enough to catch my eye and smile.

They could catch me in a heartbeat, but they were toying with me.

“Keep moving,” said the voice on the other end. “You’re almost there.”

I veered to the right, towards the bridge. There were no cars around—and in a blink, the man appeared in front of me, blocking my path.

I gasped, skidding to a halt.

The woman’s voice rang out from my pocket. “Don’t panic, love. Get into the water.”

There was a path down to the bank, but it was a drop a couple of metres off the ground. The other two men were closing in behind me. Nowhere to run.

“They're vampires, love. They can't cross running water. If you get in, they won’t be able to touch you.”

“I—what?”

Total strangers calling me ‘love’ and talking about vampires was the last thing I needed when my life was in dire peril. I gave a last desperate look at the nearby road. Nobody was coming to my rescue. I had nothing to lose.

I jumped off the bank, my feet hitting the shallows. If nothing else, they might hesitate to follow me into the water. Or maybe they’d drown me. They’d already tried to set me on fire today, after all.

I waded into the water, my feet dragging, the two strangers watching from the bank. They looked angry—and they weren’t following. I glanced at the bridge and saw the third man eyeing me with his lip curled. He didn’t move to follow me, either.

“Are you in the water?” the woman’s voice came from my pocket.

“Yes.”

“Good. Stay there. This isn't the best place to explain, but you're probably feeling very confused right now.”

You think? “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Got the sharp tongue from your father, I see.” The woman chuckled.

“Look—who are you?” I asked. “I'm standing ankle-deep in water with three madmen who tried to burn down my place of employment staring creepily at me.”

“I’ll come and deal with them once Candace gets here. The short answer, love, is that you’re a witch. And I'm Adelaide, your aunt.”

“You—what?”

A shout of triumph came from the other end of the line. “I knew I put that transporter spell somewhere.”

“Ready?” said another female voice in the background. “Estelle, are you coming?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

The call cut out. The next thing I knew, there was someone else standing in the water behind me. I jumped, tripped over a rock, and sank into deeper water to my waist. Holding my phone out of reach of the water, I righted my balance, staring at the odd woman behind me. She wore what appeared to be a long black cloak, which billowed around her in the murky water.

“Cold, isn’t it?” The woman, whose voice matched the one I’d heard on the phone, waded forwards a few steps. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”

She was tall and curvy with thick dark red hair bouncing to her shoulders in waves. Pale skin. Freckles. Like me.

Like Dad.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” she said gently.

I must be dreaming. I waved helplessly at the vampires—no, they were not vampires—and said, “They tried to break into my flat.”

“I know, dear,” she said. “Don’t worry, Candace is on her way.”

“Who’s Candace?”

With a popping noise, two more women appeared on either side of the men by the water. There was a flash of fiery light and I cringed back, remembering the burning shelves and the close call I’d had.

The two men fled, their figures blurring as they disappeared from sight. The third, still on the bridge, moved his gaze to me. His eyes narrowed.

“Leave,” said the woman in the water behind me. “If you come anywhere near my family again, I will see to it that you regret it for the rest of your existence.”

Without a word, the third man vanished, leaving nothing but the bare concrete bridge behind.

I was saved. I wanted to lie down. Problem: I was still waist-deep in the river, surrounded by strangers who claimed to be my relations.

The woman in the water said, “Don't just stand there shivering. Come with me. I'll get you out of this place.”

I didn’t move. “Who are you? What in the world is going on?”

“I told you, I’m your Aunt Adelaide,” she said. “That’s Candace and Estelle. And you’re Aurora. I’ve heard all about you.”

I shivered. If not for the icy water drenching me to the waist, I’d be certain I was dreaming. None of this made sense.

“Don’t worry,” said the woman she’d called Candace. “I gave them a good scare. They won’t bother you again, especially when you come to the library.”

I frowned. “The what?”

Adelaide waded to the shore. “The library, of course,” she said. “Your new home.”