Page 10 of The Bookshop Book

“Stop giving me ideas!” The Smith shakes his great head. The lantern on the floor behind him casts his shadow into the alcove where the Muse stands on the far side of the half-constructed wall as he bricks her into her prison.

The Muse raises one thin eyebrow as the Smith lowers both his bushy ones in a frown.

“Of course I need ideas. I’m a man of science, after all. But I have enough to keep me busy.” Another brick, another trowelful of wet mortar slapped in place, smoothed out. Shadows shifting with every move. “A man needs clear-cut ideas, suited to his purpose. This deluge you’re trying to drown me in is water off a duck’s back. You’re trying to give me enough rope to hang myself with—I understand that well enough.”

The Smith bends for more mortar. His hammer lies beside the wet pile. A sledgehammer, a battered block of steel at the end of a long haft. His tool of choice. A blunt weapon that doesn’t get snarled up in niceties.

The Muse, eloquent in her muteness, retreats into the shadows, wrapping them around her to add to the wisps of silk that seem wholly unequal to the task of keeping her warm in this cold, dank cellar.

“If I let you go, you’ll just follow the girl and try to help her. This is all your fault really. If you hadn’t let her slip away, if you’d just done your job as guardian and guarded her…I’d have her now, and this unpleasantness wouldn’t be required.”

He works fast, this Smith, and the wall rises between them, or rather yet another wall rises, for they have never spoken, these two. The Muse is old and her kind are powerful, but the Smith has learned many secrets in his turn, and the walls he builds are not for breaching.

Chapter 6

Rose

Toad looked ruefully at the wreck of his automobile and its gently steaming engine, then brightened. “Come on! Come on!” And already he was hurrying down the lane.

“Where are you going?”

“To Toad Hall, of course! With any luck his motor’s in perfect shape!”

“Whose motor?”

“Mine of course. The other me. We’ll have to unite.” Another frown. “Could be a sticky business.” The frown deepened then faded into a smile. “But if he has a working motorcar!”

The longish walk was made considerably longer by Mr. Toad’s complaining about its length, a lament he repeated every hundred yards or so. The heat didn’t help either of them, but what made the journey seem near infinite for Rose was the fear that at any moment the world might change again, the sky darken, and what had seemed both safe and familiar would become both strange and hostile.

At last, over the fields and hedgerows, the chimneys of Toad Hall edged into view, and then the rooftops, and then the many little windows with their quaint green shutters. They approached up the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the heels of Rose’s shoes.

Mr. Toad yanked on the bell of Toad Hall, causing a distant jangling. And then a long, pregnant silence.

“Well, that’s just rude,” Toad declared. “What’s taking him so long?” He dabbed dramatically at his brow. “I’m fainting in this heat.”

Rose bit her lip and resisted pointing out that Toad had never taken anything less than an age to answer his door on the occasions that she had come calling with the Rat and the Mole. Except that one time when he had opened the door as soon as the Rat’s hand had touched the bell and had bodily dragged the poor fellow in, so excited was he to show off his new fishing rods and tackle.

“How dare he keep me waiting!” Toad yanked on the doorbell again, then stood, hands on hips, his face just an inch from the door paint, huffing with impatience. Some moments later, he turned away to address his frustrations to Rose when the door jerked open.

“How very dare y—” The second Mr. Toad gulped down that last “you,” and replaced it with “Great Scott!” before turning tail and fleeing into the house with a high-pitched wail.

“Get back here!” The first Mr. Toad flung down his cane on the steps and gave chase. “Get back here right now, sir!”

Rose followed them into the dusty entrance hall where a large vase with an umbrella in it rocked dangerously on its plinth in the Toads’ wake. At the far end, the suit of armor, that Toad claimed his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather had worn to battle, crouched facing the door, cobwebs stretching from halberd to helm.

Upstairs, a great clattering and slamming of doors proceeded from one end of the house to the other. Rose considered interceding, thought better of it, and went on into the dining hall. She spent a few minutes pondering the fruit bowl while the battle overhead crashed and shuddered from room to room.

“He’s quite mad!” Toad—which one she had no clue—burst in through the doors from the kitchens, which he must have reached via the servants’ stairs. Not that he had any servants at Toad Hall. Even the old maid had handed in her notice, and the cleaners came mob-handed from the village once a week. “Quite mad.”

Rose, who already had her fingers on her chosen apple, took the fruit quickly. Toad, with an admirable leap, gained the top of the oak table that ran the length of the hall and began to race down it.

“Bounder!” A second Mr. Toad appeared at the doorway through which the first had come, this one wearing a saucepan helmet and wielding a rolling pin. “Cad!”

“Monster!” The first toad snatched a stray plate from the table and threw it discus-style toward the second. “Ostrogoth!”

“Vandal.” The second toad made no attempt at dodging, and the plate skimmed past the side of his head with half an inch to spare. “Ingrate!”

First Toad vanished into the entrance hall while Second Toad paused in front of Rose to gesture dismissively at the green pair of heels being shown. “Not only an imposter but a damnable cowardly one at that!”