He was about halfway through
the second bin when Gabe poked his head in the door. His hair was still curly
and wet from the shower.
“Hey, Packrat. What ya got
there?”
“Books. Granny gave them to
me.”
“Oh yeah?” Gabe inched
through the door. “She send anything for me?”
“Nah. This is what good boys
get for going to help their poor old grandmothers.” Timmy pulled out another
handful of books. “When I’m done, you can look through the bonepile.”
“Gee, thanks. What do I want
with a bunch of old books?”
“Oh, you never know. When
football is done, you might need something to fill in your lonesome hours.”
“When you’re on the football
team, you got no lonesome hours. Always something to do. With somebody.” He
grinned. “Have fun, Packrat.”
“Ah,” Timmy waved his hand
and took out another handful of books, running his eyes over the spine. “This is
fun.”
“Well, you’ve got a funny
idea of fun, bro.” Gabe waved. “Good night.”
Timmy looked up as he left.
“That pile will still be
here tomorrow if you like. Night, Gabe.”
He had got to the bottom of
the third bin before he decided to stop for the night. His hands felt gritty
and dry, and there was a peculiar musty smell in the air, not unpleasant but
papery, he supposed. Timmy had found the books arranging themselves into natural
categories, by author, age, and design.
There was an ancient batch
that bore the designation “Adult Fantasy,” decorated with a unicorn head and
weird psychedelic illustrations. There was a run of series that boasted
multi-colored volumes with the square logo, “DEL REY” on them with more
realistic art, but still on fantastic subjects. Flowery Bantam Books, obviously
juvenile series by Laurel, handfuls of Ace, Daw, Popular, and Avon. There was a
run by someone called Lovecraft whose volumes seemed to span all the ages and
publishers and a half-dozen at least different editions of something called The
Lord of the Rings. That sounded vaguely familiar; there used to be a
run of movies by that name that had played everywhere where he was a little
kid.
He was starting to pack it
all away for the night when he noticed an ancient bookmark in a volume by an
author called James Branch Cabell. Its cover seemed anomalous; more like one of
the ancient romance novels Aunt Delia kept in her potpourri-scented house than
a fantasy novel. He checked the inside date: reprinted in 1979 but from a 1927
book. He opened to the bookmark and found a block of text highlighted in
yellow. His scalp prickled and his spine tingled as he read:
"And besides,--so
Kennaston's thoughts strayed at times--, these massed books, which his
predecessor at Alcluid had acquired piecemeal through the term of a long life,
were a part of that predecessor's personality. No other man would have gathered
and have preserved precisely the same books, and each book, with varying
forcefulness, had entered into his predecessor's mind and tinged it. These
parti-colored books, could one but reconstruct the mosaic correctly, would give
a candid portrait of "your Uncle Henry in Lichfield," which would
perhaps surprise all those who had known old Henry Kennaston daily in the
flesh. Of the fact that these were unusual books their present owner and
tentative explorer had no doubt whatever.”
What – here was almost an
exact description of what was happening to him today. Timmy’s mind boggled.
Uncle Samuel could have had no idea, but here he was. The boy looked around.
The room suddenly seemed darker, the pool of light cast from the bedside table
portentous. Was the old man’s ghost actually looking at him over his shoulder,
or was he looking over a dead man’s shoulder?
He very carefully finished putting the books away. There was a pile, about half a bin’s worth, that he could muster no interest in; he left those out. Perhaps things would look different in the morning, when he could start fresh. He went to the bathroom, washed his hands, put on his pajamas, all very normally. He jumped into bed and put on one of his music mixes to help him get to sleep. But he left the lamp on, and the bins sat hunching like a shadow in the corner of the room, their ancient smell as dusty and spicy as the contents of a mummy’s tomb. Sometime around midnight he fell asleep.
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