Tom

The chilly morning breeze rolled over Tom as he bummed around Main Street in Blackstone.

It would be summer soon, and he’d have to avoid this place like the plague.

He was too old to seem cool if he ran into any teens who knew him, and too young to get any respect from the neighborhood olds.

Yeah, he’d hibernate all summer like the bears did in the winter.

But on a Thursday morning, he could do some window shopping in peace. Maybe he’d see what Kat was up to. A little shopping excursion wouldn’t be too forward.

Right?

Two years before, he’d have already asked her out. Girlfriend or not.

He sighed; he had been more confident, but he’d also been the kind of person Kat wouldn’t want to hang out with.

Arrogance isn’t confidence.

He’d always been scared; he just ignored it before. Displace that fear onto others.

He stopped in front of a little cafe called “Bubble and Squeak.”

Maybe she was free for a coffee…it couldn’t hurt.

“Hey Tom, what’s up?”

Tom turned to see Lucy strolling up beside him.

“Hey Luc…shouldn’t you be in school?”

Lucy looked away.

“It’s a holiday…some government thing, I guess,” she said, finding her ground and meeting his eye. “I guess the teachers couldn’t wait for the summer to take a break.”

So much for hiding.

Tom looked around. The coast was clear, but he should probably get off the street.

He turned back to see Lucy frowning at him.

“So, are you getting a coffee or?”

“Oh, no, I’m just window shopping.”

“Window shopping at a cafe?”

Tom smiled.

“You caught me, I’m just that poor.”

“Well, I don’t mind getting you one if you’d like,” she said, balancing on her heels.

“No, honestly, I’m good. I think Id rather go looking for something to help kill the afternoon with.”

He was thinking he could buy a video game or something like that. But Lucy didn’t give him time to explain.

“Oh, I know just the thing!” Lucy said, hooking her arm around his and dragging him down the street. “It’s this quaint little bookshop.”

Tom laughed.

“I’m touched you think I can read.”

“I know you can read; it’s not like comic books don’t count.”

“You noticed then…”

He was still in the closet about being a nerd.

“Please, how long have we worked together? You leave them out on the counter sometimes.”

He was just happy she hadn’t given them a read.

I have abysmal taste.

“Those horror zines are right up my alley, you know.”

Shit.

“Oh, so you read them?”

“No, but I know the titles. Witchfinder is well known in the Wiccan and occult circles. The magic is pretty accurate…but we don’t get out tits out every time we cast a spell…”

Oh fuck me.

“I think it’s meant to be artistic…”

“Sure, sure.” She said, smirking up at him. “I’m not offended; real witches aren’t exactly prudish. I did say we don’t get them out every time.”

Tom could feel his face getting red.

“Oh! This is it.”

Tom looked up at what must have once been quite a handsome colonial manor, now jammed between two more modern buildings and crumbling at the seams. Below the jagged wooden shingles was a fading sign.

Caravan Books.

“Kind of a hole in the wall, eh?”

“Wait till you see the inside.”

Before Tom could protest, Lucy took his hand and pulled him past the threshold and into a world of dust and stacked tomes.

Stacked 12-foot was an apt description; what was once a large sitting room was now a collection of bowing shelves and stacks of books reaching up to the 12-foot ceilings.

Behind the books and dust, the wallpaper was peeling wallpaper yellowed with age, and far too remote for regular cleaning. Beside the door was a rickety old chest of drawers that now served as a makeshift desk, fit with an antique cash register… and an antique store owner.

The old woman smiled at Lucy.

“Hello Miss Wagner, who’s your friend?”

She eyed Tom with suspicion.

“This is Tom; we work together.”

“Oh, I see. My name is Dawn.” She said, reaching out to shake his hand.

Tom gently grasped her soft hand before shaking it.

He wasn’t prepared for how firm her shake would be and suddenly found his knuckles grinding against each other.

“Nice to meet you. Looking for anything in particular, son?”

“Maybe some comic books if you have any?” he asked, shaking out his hand.

Dawn moved to lead the way.

“We have a small section over—”

“It’s okay, Dawn,” Lucy interrupted. “I know where it is, thanks though.”

She pulled Tom away and towards the back left corner of the shop, hidden behind multiple rows of tall shelves.

Still, even with the cover, he could feel the Dawn’s eyes on him.

“You know the store that well?” he asked once they were out of earshot.

“Yeah, I come in here all the time. Besides, the comics are near the occult books.”

Tom laughed.

“You really have a type.”

“I guess I do,” Lucy said before pointing to a shelf so bowed it was resting against the scratched-up floorboards. “You see those milk crates? There are comics in there.”

Tom crouched down and pulled out the first crate.

“Crazy that people used to get milk delivered,” Tom said, waving away a puff of dust. “Who even drinks that much of it?”

Lucy laughed nervously.

“My mom does; she loves the stuff. There’s still a delivery service on the island.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah, there is a big dairy up by Greenvale that supplies it. Crazy production levels, though I don’t think there are all that many customers…”

“Outside of your mom.”

“Yes, besides my weird mom.”

Tom sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Having a weird mom sounds nice, actually. My parents are super straight laced, I have to hide things like this from them, or they get judgy.”

“Of comics? Frig, better not let them find your porn stash.”

Tom laughed, but he was feeling a bit embarrassed again.

“No one has a porn stash anymore.”

“Sure you don’t.”

Tom tried to shoot her a look, but she had her nose buried in a large, leather-bound book.

“Does your mom’s weirdness apply to all the…you know.”

“Witchy stuff? Yeah, kind of. She’s not into exactly this stuff, but she’s a major hippie. She’d be way more judgmental if she caught me going to church.”

“Sounds nice, I still have to go…”

“No shit?” Lucy said, turning away from the book, “Sorry, don’t mean to be disrespectful if you’re…”

“No, I’m not. Never got the appeal.”

“Thank God, thought I’d put my foot in my mouth there.”

Tom crossed his arms.

“Hard to give up the terminology though, eh?”

“Yeah, if I started thanking Nodens or something like that, I’d look like an even bigger freak than I do now.”

“You’re not a freak.”

Lucy frowned.

“And yet, still dateless for the prom.”

Tom looked down into the crate before Lucy could catch his eye. He knew where that was going.

“I went stag to the prom; it’s not as bad as you’d think.”

He started leafing through the comic to avoid really engaging. There were loads of them, but mostly silver and golden age superhero stuff. Each one was closed up in a plastic sleeve to protect it from the surrounding detritus.

“This is a really interesting collection,” Tom said, trying to change the subject. “Some of it might be worth something…”

Then Tom noticed the prices.

“Oh, yeah, I can’t afford these.”

“Dawn might be old, but she doesn’t miss a beat. She knows the real worth of everything in here. But she might be willing to cut you a deal if you want one of them.”

“Not the greatest business model,” Tom said, smirking at his friend.

“This is more of a hobby for her than a business. She sells to the odd tourist or academic, but this is her family home, so she doesn’t have to worry about making rent.”

“Do a lot of tourists stop in?”

“Some, and the odd academic from the mainland.”

“Why?”

“She’s been collecting for a long time; most of these books are rare, even one of a kind.”

She leaned down to him and showed him the book she was reading.

“Like this one, it’s a statistical analysis of the island’s population, self-published in the 80s, likely the only one left.”

“Why is it in the occult section?”

“Because his theories are wild,” Lucy said with a laugh. “He thinks the government is hiding the real population numbers for the island and that the seasonal number of visitors is higher than reported.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because it also hides how many people go missing every year.”

“We already know that number is way higher than normal,” Tom said, thinking about how many classmates he’d lost over the years.

“Yes, but he thinks that is the lowest possible estimate already. He thinks the number is actually exponentially higher, and that it’s self-balancing. That the Island wants a certain number of people on it, and that number ebbs and flows as the Island itself tries to keep the number balanced.”

“So he’s crazy.”

“Maybe,” Lucy said with a shrug, “we’ll never know for sure.”

“Why?”

“Because he went missing shortly after this book was published.”

“Holy shit, that’s spooky as hell.”

“I know, right? And there are way more stories like that. Lost cases of curiosity, misery, and death, just waiting to be forgotten.”

Tom followed her eyes as they scanned the shelves.

Many of those books looked like one-off passion projects. Collections of foxed paper, some hand-bound, others simply stacks of paper stapled together.

“How many have you bought?”

“Few, I can’t afford them, but I’ve skimmed most,” she said, tapping the book in her hand. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

She got a wild look in her eyes that made Tom nervous.

“What is it?”

She leaned even further down; her face just inches away from his.

“How straight-laced are you?”

He swallowed, suddenly aware of the fact that he wouldn’t be able to get up without touching her.

The shelves were too tight. They were too close.

“Well, you know I’m pretty flexible. But…”

He had to let her down easy. He didn’t mean to be, but maybe he was leading her on.

She flashed him a wickedly mischievous smile.

“How much do you know about the crossroads?”