The Bookstore
In a small town surrounded by rolling farmlands and thick with nearby woods is a bookstore whose staff will swear to you that it is haunted. Surrounded by buildings far past their prime, and nestled between two far more imposing facades, is our red bricked shop, with its wide ground floor windows and neat wooden trimmings. If one were to happen upon this town, a place few head in search for but many come upon as if invited by some mystical being, I would direct you to our quaint shop—its windows bursting with Halloween decorations. After you let the creak of the door slam shut behind you, and you gazed upon the cobwebs and spiders that decorated the spooky interior, an ancient woman might greet you, a warm smile in a sea of weathered lines. Friendly as she is, she will warn you about that front door.
“Oh yes deary.” her voice would croak with age. “Do mind that door, it’s haunted y’know.” She might even flash a wink.
The staff who work there, faces who rarely change—with inside jokes only those who had worked there many summers would know—would regale you with a tale or two should you ask about the door.
“Oh indeed, definitely haunted.” They might say, knowing looks in their eyes. They might even tell you about the long-standing belief that a ghost inhabits this space. Later that ghost may become two or three—a whole fright of them by the end. They would tell you of how one summer they could hear noises like rats in the walls from all over the ceiling. Or when one winter day, after a long stretch of no customers, the front door had begun to slam without cause as if the store were angry that no one was buying books. Naturally the door had ceased its protest when a group of youths had bought a few tales of terror. You would think the staff were being seasonable, plainly trying to entertain themselves in their boredom. But a younger man eager to convince might speak up.
“Once,” he would begin nervously, anxious to please, “I saw that door play a trick on someone who used to work here.”
“A trick?” you might ask, doubt deep in your bones.
“Oh yes!” his voice full of the upmost seriousness.
“Saw it with my own two eyes, I did.” He’ll tell you all about it. The story of a bygone employee’s penchant for hating old philosophers. Once time, he’d say, he could sometimes catch mutterings of the person grumbling. Aristotle did this, Aristotle said that, inflamed by the injustices of the past and today’s celebration of those who were part of it.
“One day,” the young man begins, “the store received a shipment of books written by Greek philosphers—Digones or something—and she became so incensed that she grabbed the boxes and made to throw them in the trash outside, and so she went to the front-door that had been fixed to stay open and just as her nose crossed the threshold, the door unlatched and came swinging in and slammed on her face. Had to go to the hospital for a broken nose.”
“What happened to the door?” you might ask.
“Fine. Perfectly fine and without a scratch or broken glass.” he would say with a smug expression.
“But the door isn’t all bad!” an employee who had overheard the young man would wander over. “I’ve seen it do good sometimes.”
Befuddled, you would ask, “Good? How can a door do good?” To which the employee—a spindly thing with a nose that makes her face look like a mouse—would draw herself up, all haughty and self-righteous-like and tell you of the story when it once let a homeless person make off with a book. She would tell you of how this young man, clearly in his 30s and down on his luck, would come in every other day to sit and read the books.
“You could really tell he loved them. He would smile, laugh or cry when he read them. A true reader if I’ve ever seen one. He had quite the nice eyebrows—but that’s besides the point. One time he walked in and tried to purchase a book, the poor man had little to spare but what he scrounged together he had brought to buy a favourite of his.”
A spike of interest might prod you to ask this question, “What was the book?”
“Moby Dick.” Her face elated at your question, like a comfortable breeze on a cool day.
“Unfortunately for the him he hadn’t enough to buy it, so I told him it was okay and to take the book anyway—you should have seen the look on his face, I will never forget it. I hope he’s alright these days. Anyway, my boss—not the owner,” she would sharply say after the look upon your face, “—he’s no longer working with us, terrible person.” She would then say how her former boss had attempted to chase away the homeless man, who in a fit of panic ran.
“You see the door had been locked and so my boss felt assured he could apprehend Moby Dick, but when the young man reached the door, it just opened clean on its hinges. The man hadn’t even touched the door and it had opened!”
When you ask whether the lock was broken, she quickly replies, “We relocked the door and tried and it wouldn’t budge!”
Yet still your mind would doubt, for who would so quickly and earnestly believe in such superstition? The old shop owner would see this, as she usually does, and having overheard the commotion of her employees telling yet again tales of the store and the door—and seeing the suspicion in your eyes—the elderly owner would feel possessed by a sense of responsibility to ensure that you would leave believing in the supernatural quality of her shop. She would creak over to where you were, her movements slow but sure and put a gentle hand on your shoulder, looking you kindly in the eyes.
“Deary I can see we’re not going to convince you, so why don’t I ring you through and you can be on your way.” Uncomforted by the others’ need to convince you of the haunted-ness of the store, you would seek solace in the older woman’s respectful attitude towards your opinion and follow her to the cash. She would hum and fuss over wrapping your book and ensure you found everything you would have been looking for. When you turned to leave you would be met with a shock. All of the Halloween decoration was gone. No more were there pumpkins, bats and witches in the windows or cobwebs and spiders in the store. They would have all been taken down.
You would exclaim, “That’s not possible! How is it that the decorations are down, I was only in here for a few minutes.”
The older woman would look at you with eyes satisfied and simply say, “It is no longer Halloween, the store cannot abide something overstaying its welcome.”
You might panic. Or perhaps you are a steady fellow who would walk swiftly out the store so as to hide your fear. Regardless, you would pause at the closed front door and wonder for but a moment before you broke the tension and pushed on it. The door would let you out of course—it loves a person who enjoys a good read—and you would gasp for breath after you left, for you had been holding your air and had not known.
Goodbye Halloween, till next year.
