Arcane Delights

ARCANE DELIGHTS

Main Street

Clifton Heights

September 15th, Friday

It’s two in the afternoon when Cassie Tillman emerges from the store’s back room, wiping her hands and saying, “That’s it, boss. Sorted through all the recent donations except the box on your desk. Anything else? If not, I’m calling it quits. Got the graveyard shift at the Home tonight and the evening shift at The ‘Lark tomorrow.”

I look up from sorting tax-deduction forms at the front counter and smile. Boss. Cassie’s only worked here for two weeks, but she’s already tossing around ‘boss’ casually. Hell, she acts as if she’s in charge, half the time.

Which, of course, is one of the reasons I hired her on the spot when she inquired about my ‘Help Wanted’ sign a month ago. Her confidence radiates from her like ambient energy. She’s at ease in her own skin, content to be herself, uncaring of what others think of her . . . yet, she has class. She’s polite, friendly and respectful. Maybe a little sarcastic, but she toes the line. She takes the initiative quickly but smoothly. Since she started I’ve never once felt as if she’s stepped on my toes. She’s smart, capable and hardworking, savvy to boot . . . and she knows it. But, she doesn’t feel the need to rub anyone’s nose in it.

If she wasn’t already working two other part-time jobs in addition to this part-time gig, I’d have offered her a full-time position as assistant manager. I’ve danced around the topic a few times, wondering why she works three part-time jobs instead of settling into one full-time job with benefits. Her only answer has been a smiling, cryptic: “Naw. I get bored easy.” I haven’t pressed the matter, figuring I’d rather have her part-time than not at all.

Don’t know how she manages it. She does excellent work at all three jobs. Here at Arcane Delights; at The Skylark Diner she’s one of the most reliable waitresses, and Dad liked her best as he languished in the grip of Alzheimer’s at the Webb County Assisted Living Home before passing away four months ago.

I’ve often wondered if she wanted to work here because of her close relationship with Dad (as his nurse), drawn by the chance of helping revive his passion. This is all speculation, however. I’ve never asked her and we’ve never spoken much of Dad’s last days.

I shake my head, smiling wider. “You’ve been here since ten, helping me reorganize the shelves and sort through donations. Tonight, you’ll work the overnight shift at the Home, and tomorrow night wait tables all evening at The Skylark. How the hell do you do it?”

She sticks her hands into her pockets, shrugs and grins. With her skater-cut black hair, those dimples, sparkling green eyes and crystal nose-stud, she doesn’t look a day over sixteen, though I know she’s twenty-four. “What can I say? I eat my Wheaties and my spinach, boss. Plenty of Vitamin D, too.”

“You’ve got a full-time job here, whenever you want,” I try again, knowing my offer is futile. “Say the word.”

She smile-winces. “Nooo. Full-time job in one place? Told ya already. I get bored easy.”

“All right then. Have it your way. Door’s always open.” I glance at the tax-deduction forms various book donors have sent the past few days. “So where’d this last batch of donations come from?”

“Let’s see. Bassler Memorial Library sent over a box of discards,” she says, quickly becoming all-business, “mostly teen paperback novels from the eighties. All in good shape, but stamped BASSLER LIBRARY on the leafs, with the sign-out-cards still pasted in the back. I put those in the twenty-five cent bin like you said.”

“Cool. What was in those UPS boxes dropped off this morning?”

“A donation from the used bookstore in Binghamton that closed. Paperbacks Plus? A whole collection of Leisure Horror paperbacks. Keene, Kenyon, Braunbeck, Ketchum, Sangiovanni . . . big catch, all brand new copies. How’d you work that?”

I shrug, sorting out the tax forms for Bassler Library and Paperbacks Plus. “I’ve known the manager for a while. Used to go there a lot when I attended Binghamton University. She was one of the first people I called for advice when I decided to reopen this place, so when she learned her store owner was dropping the ax, she called and promised to send me her best stuff. So, great donation, sucky circumstances.”

Cassie snorts. “No doubt.”

“What about those two small FedEx boxes?”

“Most recent novels from Samhain Horror.”

“Awesome. Those books I bought at the Webb County Library sale last week?”

“Sorted into general and mystery fiction. Struck the mother lode with all those Mary Higgins Clark novels.”

“We cater to all tastes, miss. Unless you like Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray or James Patterson. Folks want drivel, they can drive to Utica.”

“Hey. I actually liked Twilight. It wasn’t all bad.”

I offer a smirk of my own. “Right. And James Patterson actually still writes all his own novels.”

Cassie grins. “You’re a literary snob. Aren’t you?”

I wave her off, playing the game. “And you my dear are like the rest of your poor, deprived generation: You lack taste, Cassie. Taste.”

“Oh.” She tilts her head and cocks an eyebrow. “Taste. That explains all those trashy Mills & Boon books you have in the Romance section.”

I affect a stern expression and point at her. “Those are British first editions, young whelp. And also Martha Wilkins’s favorites, from what I understand. Martha Wilkins, wife of Bob Wilkins, owner of Dooley’s Ice Cream and Subs, and chairman of the Town Board. Friends in high places, you see.”

Cassie crosses her arms. “Ah. And I imagine those Mills & Boon novels take Martha Wilkins to high places, indeed.”

“Thanks. Gonna need brain-bleach to get rid of that image.”

Cassie chuckles and takes a half-bow. “My pleasure.”

I sigh, doing my best to repress images of Martha Wilkins (all three-hundred pounds of her) enjoying the latest Mills & Boon novel, say Midnight in the Desert, Midnight in the Summer, or, predictably, Midnight in the Harem. “All right, then. You’re free. Nothing coming until Monday morning. Got a shipment of comic books due. The York Book Emporium from Pennsylvania is sending us some of their overstock.”

“Cool. Oh, and hey—like I said. There’s a box on your desk. Didn’t touch it. Thought maybe you’d set it aside special or something.”

I frown, confused. “Wait. What box?”

Cassie smiles as she waves over her shoulder to the back room, obviously assuming I’m playing the role of distracted-but-well-meaning-shop-owner again. “There’s a cardboard box sitting on your desk. I peeked inside. Some old books and other things, like diaries or journals or something, so I left them. Figured you wanted to sort those yourself.”

“Huh. Sure you didn’t move one of the library sale boxes onto the desk to make room, and then . . . ”

“ . . . forgot?” Cassie raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

I shrug, feeling sheepish without knowing why, especially since I’m Cassie’s boss and she works for me, not the other way around. “It happens,” I offer lamely.

“To you maybe. Not to me. At least, not this time. I only touched the boxes you told me to. Didn’t move anything except for those.”

I straighten, curious, maybe a little disconcerted.

because that’s how it started for Dad

wasn’t it?

“Honestly, Cassie, no playing around. When I came in this morning there wasn’t a box on the desk.” I smile to let her know I’m not offended. “I’ll admit my brain slips a few gears now and then . . . ”

like Dad’s did

before

“ . . . but this isn’t one of those times. There wasn’t a box there this morning.”

Part of what makes Cassie so unique (and such a good employee) is she knows when things are serious. Seeing my expression, she quits her teasing and glances over her shoulder into the back room, her expression thoughtful. “Huh. Weird. Where’d it come from, then?”

“Anyone stop in while I was on lunch?”

She shakes her head. “Nope. No one I saw, anyway, unless they snuck in during one of my smoke breaks and was the quietest, quickest person ever. And invisible, too. Besides, I’m certain that box has been there since I started at ten. First thing I saw.”

“And it’s got . . . What? Journals in it? Diaries, or something?”

Cassie shrugs. “Didn’t look too close, honestly.”

“Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.”

I rub my mouth and tap my nose with a forefinger, thinking. Cassie’s a good, hard, honest worker. If she says there’s a mystery box sitting on my desk, there is. Me, on the other hand? I’m easily distracted, forgetful, absent-minded, and a step short of addled on my best days.

a lot like Dad

before

So it’s possible I received a box of donations at closing yesterday, put them on my desk and forgot. More likely, anyway, than Cassie being wrong, or even more improbably, lying. Soon as I see this mystery box, I’ll probably remember exactly where it came from and feel every inch the fool for forgetting.

I smile and wave Cassie off. “Y’know, it’s probably a donation that slipped my mind. I’ll take care of it. You scram and enjoy your weekend. See you Monday morning?”

She smiles and offers me a jaunty two-fingered salute on her way to the door. “Bright and early, boss.”

The door opens, jingling the bell hanging from the door-frame, ushering Cassie into a sunny September afternoon on Main Street. The door closes with another jingle and a click, leaving me in a soft, velvet quiet. I try to resume sorting those tax-deduction forms, but the lure of curiosity (and maybe a touch of unease) proves too much. I lay the paperwork aside and go to investigate this mystery box I don’t remember.

***

The ten years my father owned Arcane Delights (which he started after retiring from All Saints High, ironically the same institution I’ve recently left), the back room was a study in organized chaos. Homemade shelves set into the walls overflowing with surplus stock, trade-ins, duplicate copies and donations. Stacks of books, comics and magazines ringed the floor in haphazard but strangely symmetrical patterns. Books and comics always littered the big metal desk Dad hardly ever used.

Quite simply, it looked like a “book bomb” detonated. Oddly, while the place appeared cluttered as hell its disorganization also appeared dignified in its own way. It was the store-room embodiment of the slightly clueless but highly learned man my father used to be in life . . . before Alzheimer’s took it all away.

Standing in the doorway, gazing at the barely organized chaos of Arcane Delight’s back room under my watch, I’m proud to say it appears much the same as it used to. After months of fumigating, renovating, ditching old books left to decay after Dad closed his doors, Arcane Delights is almost ready for business.

What started the decay—what I’ve spent the better part of my summer cleaning and repairing—was one of the worst rainstorms the Adirondacks has seen in recent years. Main Street, Barstow Road and many of the side streets flooded, ruining many homes and businesses. Several stores on Main Street in particular suffered significant water damage, and Arcane Delights was one of them. The back room’s ceiling leaked terribly, slowly soaking hundreds of books over the course of the storm, which lasted nearly two days.

Unfortunately Dad never caught on until it was too late, several days after. How did he miss the smell of damp, rotting books? Quite simply, he’d apparently descended much further into his Alzheimer’s than any of us suspected. For a whole week after the storm he’d probably opened in the morning, discovered the damage in the back room (drawn there by the faint smell of damp rot), frantically made plans to clean the mess before it ruined the whole store . . .

And then he’d calmly and coolly shut the back room door, locked it, forgot about it, and went on with his business. He’d closed the store (never once going out back), went home, then rediscovered the mess anew the next day only to repeat the whole damn cycle.

This must have gone on until late Friday evening, when I couldn’t get him on the phone at home (Mom had passed away a few years before). I called one of his neighbors and asked them to check on him, and if they found the house empty (which they did) to call me back. I then checked the store, where I did indeed find him.

Lying on the floor of the back room.

Curled into a ball. His pants soiled, sobbing uncontrollably while he clutched piles of ruined books to his chest.

He was admitted to the Home the next day, where he wandered through an ever thickening haze of Alzheimer’s until he passed away last Spring. For the most part—with the exception of the occasional bursts of unfocused senile rage—his time at the Home was peaceful, if muddled.

To be horribly blunt: He got off lucky. My wife’s grandmother has drifted on Alzheimer’s vague seas for the past fifteen years at the Veteran’s Home in Old Forge. She no longer recognizes anyone, spends every day asleep and can barely feed herself, but her vitals remain steady. Despite numerous close calls, she shows no signs of passing on any time soon.

There but for the grace of God, for sure and for certain.

After his admission to the Home, we emptied the store’s back room, filling a dumpster with water-swollen novels, dissolving magazines and comic books. We removed the ruined shelving, ripped up the carpet, did our best to dry things with industrial-strength fans, then locked the place, leaving all the books on the main shelves as they were.

My sister lives downstate near New York City. Though she’s a librarian and loves books as much as me, her husband owns a business and they have two little ones to take care of. She’d been in no position to move here and take over a ruined bookstore. At the time I was still content (or so I’d desperately lied to myself every single day) teaching high school English to teenagers who mostly didn’t give two farts about Hawthorne, Poe, or even Stephen King.

So the store remained closed and forgotten until Dad passed away this past Spring and his will left me everything, declaring me the owner of Arcane Delights. By then, I’d hit a threshold for my tolerance of high school education. Dad’s will provided us the start-up funds. My wife approved, hoping a break from teaching might make me a little less grumpy (it has). For my part I was ready to trade teaching teenagers who still didn’t give two farts for running a small bookstore on a shoe-string budget (and hopefully fitting in some of my own writing somewhere, too).

Looking around, I feel content. Fulfilled. The backroom of Arcane Delights is once again in disorganized splendor. The shelves are stuffed full with donations from various sources and careful purchases (staying within our modest budget) from book distributors. Things are right again, and . . .

There, sure enough, is Cassie’s mystery box. Sitting plain as day on the big metal desk in the middle of the back room. Cassie’s right. Somehow, I must’ve overlooked it this morning.

It’s an ordinary cardboard box. Not mysterious at all. Somehow, when arranging the boxes I wanted Cassie to sort, I must’ve set it on the desk and then forgot it.

Except a part of me is sure: When I opened the store this morning, that box wasn’t there.

Approaching it, I briefly wonder if Cassie’s having me on. In the short time she’s worked here she hasn’t proven herself a prankster by any means, but like I’ve already said: The girl is brimming with confidence. If we’d known each other longer, I wouldn’t put it past her . . .

But not this early in the work relationship, I don’t think. Thing is, I can’t make myself believe I left this box here and clean forgot about it.

Of course it occurs to me as I begin sorting through the box’s contents: Maybe this is how it started for Dad. A missed car payment here. How could I have forgotten? A skipped dentist’s appointment there. Blast if I didn’t see that on the calendar last night. Car keys mislaid, cell phone missing . . . how many small things “slipped his mind” before the end?

But I’m only thirty-five, right? Too young for Alzheimer’s or dementia, or to show symptoms.

Aren’t I?

Like I always do when my mind skitters around such thoughts, I veer away, giving them a wide berth, focusing instead on whatever else is at hand. Anything else at hand.

Like Dad must’ve done in the early stages, I’m sure.

Sorting through Cassie’s mystery box on my desk, I see she’s right. There are several black-leather journals inside. On closer inspection, they appear rather plain. One could buy them in any bookstore. We have a nice selection of them, actually.

Along with the journals are some musty cloth-bound editions of classic literary texts. You know the kind. Books which appear antique and valuable but aren’t. Here’s a damp, musty-smelling copy of Benito Cereno, next to a collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Also, several classic editions of Hemingway’s novels.

Now here’s something interesting. A diary. Upon opening it, a name scrawled on the inside cover grabs my attention: “Jebediah Bassler.” Of Bassler House? Bassler Road, and Bassler Memorial Library? This is interesting, to say the least.

But flipping through it I find mostly passages written in what appears to be Latin or some other language, maybe some sort of cipher. I’ve got a friend who’s a Linguistics expert doing grant work through Webb County Community College. I close the diary or whatever it is and set it aside, thinking it’s right up his alley.

I return my attention to one of the black leather-bound journals, picking it up, running my fingers along its pebbly exterior, wondering where this box came from. Maybe from the York Book Emporium? They deal in oddities like these. Maybe they sent this box ahead of the comics and I overlooked it?

Not likely.

unless you simply received the box, then forgot

Of course, early onset Alzheimer’s is rare, accounting for only 5 to 10% of all cases. However, in familial cases, when the Alzheimer’s is inherited, the odds raise to 13-20%. Still long odds. I’m forgetful because I’m forgetful, not necessarily because I’m predisposed to Alzheimer’s. Even so.

Even so.

However, a quick glance at the box’s open flaps assures me it wasn’t shipped here. No labels, no addresses, no remnants of shipping tape. Only a plain, ordinary cardboard box with a bunch of old books, a diary or something, and some black leather-bound journals inside.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I open the journal and begin flipping through it, noting pages filled with neat handwriting. Cursive, but easy to read. Wondering what’s written inside—and presumably, what’s written in the others—I stop on a random page, focus on one paragraph in particular, and a familiar name pops up . . .

Greene’s Metal Salvage.

I frown and tap the paragraph, reading a few lines of what appears to be a narrative detailing someone’s workday at Greene’s Metal Salvage, recognizable as our Greene’s Metal Salvage, which is on the other side of town by the lumber mill near Black Creek Bridge. Scanning the page further, I catch a reference to “Mr. Jingo’s County Fair.”

Our Jingo’s County Fair? The one which comes every August?

Intrigued, I flip ahead several pages, seeing references to Henry’s Drive-In, The Skylark Diner, Yellow Cab, Paddy’s Place, The Commons Trailer Park on Bassler Road . . .

I close the journal and again examine its plain, black leather-bound cover. Stories about Clifton Heights? Real stories? Or someone trying their hand at fiction?

Either possibility fascinates me. Especially because I’m ready to begin a classic rite of passage for all small-town authors: the ubiquitous “coming of age novel which is a thinly veiled account of the author’s childhood.” Whomever this journal belongs to, it’s not lost on me how much inspiration these stories could provide, possibly kick-starting my own childhood recollections.

I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s only two-thirty in the afternoon. Things are put away enough for now. The Grand Reopening of Arcane Delights is still a week off. I don’t have any more shipments coming in until those comics Monday morning. Abby and the kids are spending the day at Raedeker Park Zoo with some other mothers and their kids, I’ve got a few hours to kill, and something of an enigma on my hands. Which, suddenly, I feel compelled to investigate. I’m intellectually curious in a way I haven’t been for quite a while. Also?

Maybe a little . . . nervous.

Frightened?

Which is silly. Whatever is written in here is harmless, surely. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I take a seat and kick up my feet next to Cassie’s Mystery Box.

It’s a journal filled with stories.

What’s there to fear?