Endsley is different, too. I had caught a glimpse, like a flickering photo that won’t come into focus, but it’s enough. I see dark forests that neither threaten nor welcome. Hot, humid nights trapped among trees and branches, wolves that may or may not be friendly, and streams of black water promising nothing. It looks like the perfect, most frightening hiding place one could create.

This is how I finally meet N. E. Endsley—the best seller, the recluse, the enigma. Not at the festival, but here. Wherever here is.

Clever wind.

chapter seven

After Alex apologizes to his mom at least three times for Endsley’s behavior—“I’ll talk to him. I’ll talk to him,” he tells Valerie—and an imploring glance at me, he and Wally follow Endsley down the gravel path into darkness.

Valerie again insists that I stay the night in her guest room. I am too terrified of displeasing her and too tired to argue, even though I’ve only just met her and she could be the bookshop equivalent of the old witch in the candy house, luring innocent bookworms in with her promise of endless stories and tea before cooking them in her oven.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that I will most definitely not fit in a standard-size oven.

She relocks the large wooden door at the front of the store, mumbles about Alex not shutting down the computer system—“I’m not a technical wizard, for heaven’s sake”—and presses a few buttons on the wall, which dim all of the visible lights in the store to a dull glow.

What would Jenna do? I wonder. I dig through my memories for an answer, which, after the lack of air in the travel room, feels like running barefoot on gravel. When I find nothing remotely similar to spending the night in a stranger’s bookstore to guide me, I turn to my imagination, trying with all my might to turn the black hole beside me into a Jenna-shaped thing. That doesn’t work, either, so I let my mind slacken and instead count whales floating in and around the kelp of the darkened bookshelves while Valerie closes the store.

“Well,” she says, coming from behind the counter, sending the whales swimming from view. “I suppose this is as good a time as any for a proper introduction. I am Valerie Stroudsburg. I run the store, I teach piano, and I do not suffer idiocy, my dear, so try to keep that to a minimum. You aren’t predisposed to idiocy, are you?”

Here, a wry smile and an arched eyebrow from Valerie. From me, a thin upward turn of the lips and a shake of my head as I fight every impulse to ask a string of questions about N. E. Endsley, the book, and Alex.

“Good,” Valerie says. “This is the part where you offer a name and intention, dear.”