Small Pocketbook Novels & Stories

My hands trembled as I opened my wardrobe. There wasn't much to pack. Unlike Selene, I didn't own expensive dresses or beautiful jewelry. Most of my clothes were simple and practical. I folded several outfits and placed them inside the bag. Then I packed a jacket, a spare pair of boots and the thick blanket I usually used during winter. After that, I opened the drawer beside my bed. Hidden beneath a stack of old books was a small cloth pouch containing the money I had secretly saved over the years. It wasn't much. I had collected it little by little whenever I received tips from visitors or small rewards for extra work around the pack house. Still, it was all I had.

The leather-bound notebook was a small rebellion. It was not his workaday tablet, nor the family schedule on the kitchen fridge. This was personal, discretionary, analog. He had bought it at a busy, dusty stationery store in the Village, the kind that reeked of ink and old paper, light-years from the glass-and-steel reasonableness of his day-to-day life. Its cover was a dark, plush navy, blank and awaiting. It was heavily weighted in his hands.

He rolled the body slightly onto its side and revealed a small, flat pocket sewn into the inside of the tracksuit jacket. He opened it with a careful slice of his knife. Inside was not an electronic key. It was a microchip, enclosed in a transparent, shock-resistant case. It was no larger than a postage stamp, but its surface was so intricately covered in nano-circuits that it sparkled in the dim light. It was wholesomely advanced. Sabe froze. He didn’t pick it up. He only stared at it, his face a mask of stunned disbelief. “What is it?” Anton asked, barely above a whisper. “The token?”

Ruby Still in deep thought about my visions, I locate my locker and attempt to open it. There’s no combination lock. I rifle through my bookbag to see if maybe Alice slipped a key in there for me, but there’s nothing except a notebook, a pencil case, and a pouch of toiletries. Inside the pouch is only a hair comb, a makeup compact, and… diet pills. I roll my eyes and zip the pouch back up again, planning to dump the pills down the toilet the next time I go to the bathroom.

Turning, I don't see what attracted my attention, but something in my head is shouting, jumping in the air and waving arms at me. What was it...? Ahhh.... Across the street is a small second-hand bookshop; the kind with tiny windows and a narrow entrance which only opens on the second Sunday of the month. The door stands open, seeming to lead no-where except dark shelf-stacks that a Victorian explorer would lose himself in. And through the entrance, just visible, a head of copper-red hair. I find myself smiling. Tossing the dregs of the soup into a bin, I follow my feet across the road and into the store.

When she sat down, she noticed Jason holding a wallet. The young man opened the wallet he was holding and then took a small prayer book from there. Jenny smiled. She also has that in her wallet. "Oh, why are you smiling?" She did not notice that Jason is looking at her. "Ah, nothing!" she said. "Oh really huh?" Jason's unconvinced response. Embarrassed Jenny laughed softly. "It's the prayer book, I also have something like that in my wallet," she said truthfully.

It didn’t look like much, faded and crinkled and tea stained as it was, but it held all of the information that would – hopefully – help us bring down our neighbourhood supernatural attacker. My shoulders felt lighter, and every breath felt easier. I relished in the feeling of my lungs expanding, holding the oxygen inside me, and then letting it out again, ever so slowly. I tucked the little book inside my coat pocket, and stuffed my feet into a pair of lace-up boots.

Inside is a gold necklace, half of a heart. There are some other, more useful items in my box spring as well: a Glock nine-millimeter and some ammunition, a Canadian passport with my picture and someone else’s name, twenty thousand dollars in cash in four neat bundles of five thousand each. There’s also a small black notebook containing vital pieces of information, among them the account number and PIN for a bank account where I’ve saved a bit of money, and the name and contact information for a man who promised me a long time ago that he’d help me disappear-for good, if necessary.

Poppy, who heard the word office and immediately assumed she had a meeting, wore a light blue dress, white cardigan, sneakers, and carried Bunny in one hand and a tiny strawberry handbag in the other. “What’s in your bag?” I asked. “Business.” “What kind of business?” She opened the little purse with the seriousness of someone about to present company assets, then showed me the contents one by one: two crayons, a piece of cookie wrapped in tissue, a silver tiara, and a tiny toy car, all of which were apparently essential for one morning at the Romano Empire. I nodded. “Very diversified portfolio.” Sebastian picked up her little coat from the chair. Poppy looked up. “Daddy, does your office h

Yet here, in this strange realm of paper money and moving paintings, the tailors had committed an act of pure genius. I pulled my hands out, reached over to the desk, grabbed the leather pouch containing Sigrun's paper money, and shoved it into my right pocket. It vanished entirely. I grabbed the black scrying mirror and shoved it into my left pocket. It disappeared without a trace, leaving my hands entirely free. I took triumphant strides across the room, my hands buried deep in my pockets, grinning like a madwoman who had just conquered a small kingdom. "Pockets," I whispered in reverent awe, executing a crisp, martial turn near the bed. "Actual, glorious pockets. I could carry three apple