The Nowhere Emporium

by Ross Mackenzie

  A city of books, thought Daniel.

  He stood with Ellie on a tiny island of wood, a platform no more than three metres square, black water lapping gently all around. Then, far off in the water, Daniel saw the soft glow of a lamp floating towards them. The speck became the shape of a boat, and on the boat stood a tall hooded figure in white robes.

  The boat pulled up at the platform. The figure stepped from the boat onto the wooden floor.

  “Welcome to the Library of Souls,” it said, in a whispering voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Daniel wondered if the books themselves were speaking, and he shivered. The voice continued.

  “Stories are precious. They are treasure. And the most precious story of all is that of life. Here, among these countless canals of ink, high in the bookcases, you shall find the story of everyone who has ever lived. Everyone who shall ever live. Past, present and future. Life and death. I will guide you to the tale that you seek.”

  The figure said no more.

  Daniel spoke first. “We’d like to read the story of Vindictus Sharpe please.”

  Behind the white hood, the figure gave a nod. It stepped onto the boat, and motioned for them to follow. As the boat moved off, Daniel dipped a hand into the black liquid, rubbed it between his fingers. It really was ink.

  The boat moved between great mountains of books, beneath archways and tunnels carved through the bookcases.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” said Ellie, her curls blowing in the breeze as the boat coasted on. “The story of everyone. Do you realise, Daniel, you could find your own book and read how you’re going to die?”

  Daniel swallowed.

  “I think I’ll leave it as a surprise.”

  The boat docked in one of the narrow canals, between two bookcases hundreds of metres tall. High above, several rope bridges crisscrossed.

  The hooded librarian led the way from the boat, hopping onto the wooden platform at the foot of the bookcase and up the first staircase. The climb was steep. Daniel’s legs were burning when the librarian called a halt at last.

  “Where is he?” asked Ellie anxiously. “Where’s Sharpe’s story?”

  The librarian strode to the bookcase, reached out, and pulled a very fat volume from the shelves. The cover was black leather, and the pages leafed with gold. On the cover, serious-looking golden letters spelled out Vindictus Sharpe’s name. The librarian reached out a hand, and offered the book to Daniel. It was heavier than he thought it would be.

  He began to flip through the pages, but as he tried to read, it became obvious that something was very wrong. Words were moving on the page, disappearing and shifting and merging with other words. The whole book was a jumbled, wild tangle of letters.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, handing the book back. “What’s wrong with it?”

  The librarian looked through the book. A pause.

  “This person … has committed atrocities,” it said. “He has taken from others. Stolen time. He has torn and warped his own life … his soul … so much that it has become unreadable.”

  “Brilliant,” said Daniel. “We’re stuffed.”

  “Maybe not,” said Ellie.

  “How do you mean?”

  Ellie was half smiling. “Well, this library has the story of everyone, right?”

  “Correct,” said the librarian.

  “So … that means Papa is in here too.”

  Daniel shook his head.

  “Ellie, I think I know what you’re thinking. It’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not? If Papa’s story is here, we can use it!”

  “But if we search for him, we could lead Sharpe straight to him,” said Daniel. “He’s hiding for a reason and we need to trust him. I almost got swallowed by a door full of bony hands last time I tried something like that.”

  “I’m not talking about finding him,” said Ellie. “I’m talking about reading his life to see what it says about Sharpe.”

  Daniel smiled.

  “I know,” said Ellie, “I’m a genius.”

  “Wouldn’t go that far,” said Daniel. Then he turned to the librarian and said, “Could you take us to the story of Lucien Silver please?”

  ***

  Mr Silver’s story was not as long as Sharpe’s, which only proved to Daniel just how long Sharpe’s past stretched back. When the librarian pulled it from a shelf in the remotest of bookcases and handed it to Ellie, she wasted no time in leafing through the pages.

  “How far do you think I should go? Papa’s quite old…”

  A great rumble filled the air. Several books fell from nearby bookcases.

  “Um. Ellie. Flip faster.”

  “Yeah, yeah, give me a sec.”

  Another rumble, and the sound of distant splashing. The ink was growing choppy.

  “What’s happening?” asked Daniel.

  The librarian raised a hand. “I do not know.”

  And then the hand was gone, and the librarian’s robe was filled only with black ink, soaking into the white material. The empty robe crumpled, the ink splashing back on Daniel and Ellie, who looked at each other with wide eyes.

  “The library’s falling apart!” said Daniel. “We need to get out. Now.”

  When they climbed back into the boat, the wind gathered pace, blowing stronger and stronger, whistling through the bookcase canyons, whipping the surface of the ink canal. The boat was tossed around like a toy. There were great groans and splashes from deep in the library. The boat bobbed in the swell as Daniel grabbed the oars and began to row. Then, as they hit the open water in the centre of the library, there was another rumble. Behind, a great mountain of books was collapsing, like a glacier, into the ink. As the weight crashed into the surface, a tall black wave formed, tearing towards the boat.

  The boat was lifted high, carried faster and faster. Daniel held on to the side and linked arms with Ellie. And then the boat was upturned, and everything was spinning, and there was nothing but cold, wet blackness.

  Daniel’s head broke the surface just as another wave crashed down on him, and he was pushed deeper into the ink. He felt like his lungs were about to burst. He did not know which way was up. The ink was thicker than water, and the weight of it seemed to be pushing and squeezing him. A desperate flailing of arms and legs, and he was back on the surface, gasping and gulping the cold air.

  “Ellie!”

  “Daniel! Here! Over here!”

  He followed the voice, and spotted Ellie climbing up onto the wooden island that led back to the Emporium. Swimming against the tide was not easy. He knew at any minute he might be crushed like a bug by a falling bookcase. He tried to ignore the groans and creaks, and at last he reached out an exhausted hand and grasped Ellie’s arm. He half climbed, was half pulled from the ink.

  To the doorway they fled, ducking as wild books tore through the air overhead. Then the door was open, and they were falling onto the cold Emporium floor, scrambling up to push and push with everything they had against the door. As they fought the wind, a mountainous bookcase pounded into the water, a gigantic wave rose from the surface and swept towards the door. Daniel’s eyes widened, and he pushed harder. The door began to give, inching closed as the wave hurtled towards them…

  The door slammed shut. The crashing wave roared against the closed doorway, making the entire Emporium shake. Far away, in the hall of staircases, several sets of stairs collapsed to rubble.

  Daniel and Ellie fell to their knees, panting, covered from head to foot in ink.

  “I lost Papa’s life story,” said Ellie.

  “At least we’re alive,” said Daniel. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the Book of Wonders. Though he was soaked through, and his skin and clothes were stained with black ink, the book looked somehow untouched.

  “I guess it’s back to the drawing board. I just wish someone would help us, someone who really knows every part of the Emporium.”

  He opened the Book of Wonders at a r
andom page and skimmed the contents. After a few pages of nothing particularly helpful, a familiar chattering interrupted the silence. A flash of silver. The surviving magpie hurtled towards Daniel. He ducked his head as it swooped, knocking the book from his hands.

  “Hoi!”

  The bird paid him no attention. It landed on the open pages of the book and sat as if it were incubating a clutch of eggs.

  “Away you go,” said Daniel. With a half-hearted wave, he dislodged the bird. It hopped to the side of the book and twitched its head towards the open page, then fixed Daniel with a ruby stare. He gazed past the bird, to the page, and narrowed his eyes. Then he picked up the book and read. After a moment, he smiled a small smile. He stroked the magpie’s head.

  “Clever girl,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Then he turned to Ellie, who had been watching with bemusement, and said, “I know where we have to go next.”

  CHAPTER 31

  MEMORIUM

  On route to their destination, Daniel and Ellie made one detour, visiting Mr Silver’s apartments and collecting a long brown hair from his pillow. The hair was not difficult to find. Mr Silver had enough of them, after all.

  “The Book of Wonders says we need one of his hairs for this to work,” said Daniel. “I’m not really sure why…” he squinted at the page in question. “His writing gets pretty bad sometimes. I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  The Emporium was becoming impossible to navigate safely. Patches of creeping nothingness were appearing more and more, sucking Wonders into the void, weakening the rest of the Emporium, which was decaying like a row of bad teeth. Not only were there dangers in the form of fallen bridges, caved-in passageways and flooding tunnels, but Daniel also found that his sense of direction was almost completely gone. Thankfully, the surviving Magpie became a guide.

  When they arrived at the door, in a corridor full of mirrors, Daniel leaned close to the gold nameplate.

  “Memorium. This is it.”

  From somewhere deep in the Emporium came a rumble. The floor trembled. Daniel ran his fingers along the wall, tracing hairline cracks.

  Through the door lay a movie theatre with a carpet the colour of fresh blood, and row upon row of seats padded with red velvet, all facing a huge screen.

  Something happened to the air beside Daniel, and the shadows moved, turning into the shape of a man. The man was tall and gaunt, with sandpaper-rough skin and a patch over his left eye. He wore a black uniform with gold piping and carried a torch. He smelled of dust and sugar.

  He said, “I am your usher for this evening. How may I be of assistance?”

  “Erm … how does this work?” asked Daniel.

  The usher smiled.

  “We show you the past, plucked from memories. The true past, mind you, not coloured by bias or age or worn away by time. Everything, exactly as it happened. The price is a single hair.”

  “What we want to see…” said Ellie, “it’s not our own past. It belongs to someone else.”

  The usher’s good eye flicked between Daniel and Ellie.

  “Do you have a hair that belongs to this person?”

  They nodded.

  “Then we do not have a problem,” said the usher. “Take a seat if you please.” He led them to the front row, directly beneath the screen, and signalled that they should sit. He held out a hand. “Payment.”

  Ellie took Mr Silver’s hair from her pocket, placed it in the usher’s hand. He brought it up close to his good eye. Then he took off his hat, revealing the strangest head of hair Daniel had ever seen. A large section of his head was completely bald. But there were places, here and there, where hair sprouted. The hair was many different colours and many different lengths.

  The usher took Silver’s hair. He produced a sewing needle from the pocket of his uniform. He threaded the hair through the eye of the needle. Then he raised the needle to his head, pressed the end into his scalp, and proceeded to sew Mr Silver’s hair into his own head. When he was satisfied that the hair was in place, he replaced his hat and sat in the empty seat next to Daniel, who had watched all of this with horrified fascination.

  “Now we can begin,” the usher said. “What exactly would you like to see?”

  “We need to find out the story between Mr Silver and Vindictus Sharpe,” said Daniel. “Anything from Silver’s memories that can help us understand Sharpe a little better – and if there’s anything in there we can use against him, all the better.”

  The usher gave a thoughtful nod.

  “Very well.”

  He sat back in the chair beside Daniel, raised a hand to his face, and lifted his eye patch.

  Daniel could not help looking; he caught a glimpse of the usher’s hollow eye socket, just as the lights of the theatre died away, leaving the place in darkness. Then the usher’s body straightened out, became rigid, and a beam of white light erupted from his empty eye socket and thundered onto the screen.

  A crackling noise tickled Daniel’s ears, like the scratching of a record. The screen was filled with flashes of white, which slowly resolved into a grainy picture: a snow-covered city in the dead of night; a lone figure climbing the steps of a serious-looking building covered in gargoyles…

  …and they saw it all: Lucien Silver, the frightened little boy teased by the other children, rescued from loneliness and torment by a mysterious stranger on a freezing Edinburgh night. The years of teaching, of perfecting the art of magic, of mistakes and missteps punished by beatings, and rainy days spent gazing through the narrow windows of a mansion, wishing that he did not have the gift, longing to be like everyone else.

  The scene shifted. Lucien gave his first performance in the grand sitting room of a townhouse, in front of only Sharpe and an old woman named Birdie.

  And then the performances began. A whirlwind lifestyle of travel and fame. Packed theatres across the globe were transfixed by the magic of Sharpe and Silver. But it was easy to see that a shadow was growing in Sharpe’s heart, fed by jealousy of his protégé’s talent. Lucien’s invention of the Book of Wonders seemed to be the final blow, and by the time Daniel and Ellie had watched Birdie’s funeral, Sharpe had abandoned Lucien, cast him back to the harsh reality of the world.

  A cloud of steam filled the theatre, and when it had cleared, the screen showed Edinburgh once more. Lucien Silver stepped from a train, and he was much more like the Mr Silver that Daniel knew, confident and proud. When he opened the doors of his Emporium for the first time, his customers were afforded a view of a magical world unlike anything they had ever seen.

  And then Sharpe was back, and Silver was walking the Emporium arm in arm with Michelle, and he was happier than Daniel had ever seen…

  But the good times did not last.

  Daniel gasped when Michelle betrayed Mr Silver. Ellie grabbed his arm tight when she witnessed her father drop to his knees, his Book of Wonders gone, stolen by the love of his life. Ellie’s grip only tightened when Silver answered the door on a rainy night one year later to discover a baby on his doorstep, a note slipped between the blankets.

  Next they were following Lucien as he strode with purpose up a street lined with maple trees and huge houses. Lucien paused at the gates of the largest house, beside a nameplate bearing the name Vindictus Sharpe. He stared through the bars. Then he ran his fingers over the locks, and the gate was open, and Lucien was striding up the steps towards the front door…

  Something happened to the picture then. It began to stretch and distort and break apart. There was a familiar face, a sneering Vindictus Sharpe who made them jump in their seats, and after that neither Daniel nor Ellie could make out anything besides the muffled sound of voices, and a scream, and a flash of red…

  ***

  The lights of the theatre blinked softly back to life, casting the place in a warm amber glow.

  “What happened?” said Daniel. “We need to know what happened next!”

  In the seat beside him, the usher, whose expression
had been vacant throughout the showing, blinked his good eye. He sat up. He replaced his eye patch and gazed around the theatre as if seeing it for the first time. Then he looked at Daniel, and his eyebrows knitted.

  “Well, that’s never happened before,” he said, removing his hat and scratching at the patchwork of hair on his scalp.

  “Put it back on!” said Ellie. “Fix it!”

  “Can’t do it,” said the usher. “There’s no way to play back the final scene. It has been tampered with. Someone does not want it to be seen, simple as that. Whatever it is you wished to uncover, I’m afraid it’s going to remain a secret.”

  Something stirred in Daniel’s brain…

  A secret.

  The world faded around him. In his mind, he was no longer in the theatre. He was back in his early days at the Emporium, on the night he first wrote in the Book of Wonders.

  Back in a room full of secrets.

  “May I have the honour of leaving the first secret in this room?” Mr Silver had asked.

  Daniel leapt out of his seat, grabbed Ellie by the arm, and began to pull her back up the aisle towards the exit.

  “Daniel, let go! Would you please tell me what is going on?”

  They clattered out of the door, leaving the old theatre in silence once again.

  The usher climbed from his seat, and watched after them. He scratched his chin.

  “What a strange pair,” he said. The lights died once more, and with a flutter in the darkness, he was gone.

  CHAPTER 32

  SILVER’S SECRET

  Daniel had not visited the room of Secrets since the night he first scribbled it into the book. He feared that it might have crumbled away, and he was relieved to find it still standing. Most of the snow globes were still empty, but there were a few, scattered here and there, that had been filled by customers. Their secrets lay inside the glass domes: a single white flower, a torn love heart, a clockwork bird, waiting like lost treasures.

  “So every one of these is a secret?” said Ellie, plucking a globe from the column and stuffing it straight back when she realised that it contained a miniature skull.