The Book Place Novels & Stories

BUT THIS ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅• IS PRESENT DAY. ANYWAYS, PLEASE ENJOY! ༻☆✫☆༺ The Goodwill library was a sanctuary of knowledge and silence. Tall wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with countless books that whispered secrets of the past and promises of the future. The soft hum of the air conditioning and the occasional rustle of pages turning created a soothing atmosphere. Students were scattered throughout the library, some hunched over their computers, others buried in textbooks, all lost in their own worlds of study and contemplation.

I clenched my teeth as I hurried past the place. The smell of old books thickened in the air. Books were stashed into every part of the racks; you could tell some were even forced in. The library was silent, with only a few people reading. I didn’t know where I was going or what books to pick first, but I kept walking, my eyes wandering over the books one after another. When I reached the end, my eyes caught a particular book placed in a different spot—The Chronicles of the Moonbound. It wasn’t on the rack like the others; it sat alone on a table.

I found him in a bookstore on Green Street, wedged between a tailor and a florist. The kind of place that smelled of aged paper and the particular dry intimacy of rooms that have held a lot of human thought for a long time. Shelves floor to ceiling, the spines of things pressing against each other in the comfortable disorder of a space that had stopped apologizing for itself. Everything slightly cramped. Everything exactly right.

They had always been able to maintain the innocence of their bond, but it was couples like Asha and Young that added a little kindling and a lot of reminders as to why those moments were so important. As Young stacked the mountain of books on the counter, the older woman rang them up while the man gently bagged them in their custom tote bags. Young was surprised to find that the actual name of the shop was ‘Book Haven.’ It came extremely close to Asha’s description of ‘book nook.’ “Find everything alright?” she asked. Young paused his unloading to watch Asha’s face light up like the sky on 4th of July. “Yes! It was so hard for me to pick just a few,” she excitedly relayed.

Greta and Gabby made their way to Page Turner’s Bookstore just down the street from the Blue Moon Inn. Once inside the warmth of the large shop, Greta was surprised to see a bright modern shop, which included not only a metaphysical section, but my children’s section, too. With soft upbeat music playing in the background, it didn’t take long to find the shopkeeper chatting away to a rather wild looking dog by a fireplace.

she gets her own plate and sits on the opposite side of the island and we eat, damn her food is always so damn good. " There is a place, it's a chamber of sorts a place I can not take you or anyone else nor will I tell you or anyone else where it is but this place has a gate way so to speak that can take you to other places and I went to where those creatures dwell, I was shown a book by my friend and at first the book was empty, I flipped through the pages and there was nothing, just a few words on the very first page of the book "

It was a strange size, looking more like a journal, jammed between Whispers 2 and his hardcover edition of Dark Forces. He touched the book’s spine, fingers trailing down its pebbled surface. He was about to pull it out, had his finger hooked on the spine’s edge, but he figured it was probably a collector’s edition he’d bought at Arcane Delights, the used bookstore in town. That’s all. Scanning the shelves unsuccessfully for something else interesting, John brushed off his knees and stood. Something swished down the hall.

The address was a bookshop. Not open. Not at five-thirty in the morning. But lit from inside with the specific warm light of a place that had been someone's home before it was anyone's business. The kind of light that said someone was awake in there and had been awake for a long time. Elena stood on the pavement outside it with Alexander on her left and Emeka on her right and felt the specific sensation of a story arriving at the place it had been moving toward all along.

No direction I could point to on a map. But it was exactly what I’d expected him to say. And more than that … it was exactly enough. Because I’d already suspected where the Book was. The pieces fit too well to be anything else. An old place. Far from here. Hidden away by the old Alpha, sealed because of what it had done. A place no one disturbed because no one dared. The Valley of Kings.

I dump my bag on the floor and read through the shelf while pulling books out and mumble as I go. ‘Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands.’ ‘Ignite.’ ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here.’ ‘You’ll make bad choices. Sometimes you’ll choose the best of bad ones.’ ‘Tuesday is Fucked.’ ‘Everything’s a game. And now it’s your turn.’ I have a stack of about 10 books before I abruptly stop. "Next isle." I say and we walk up and down the library isles. I climb and jump to get books off of shelves and Aidan has to catch me a couple of times when I fell.