Old bookstores are the best place to buy old books, I figured. I didn't know if I knew enough to consider myself a veteran used-book hound, but I'd seen enough fantasy movies to be well-versed in the fact that it was in the hole-in-the-wall places where the best stuff lurked. The stuff that had the most chance to be magic.
Call me a dreamer, call me crazy, but I still believed in that magic somewhere deep inside. Yeah, I could put it away for a long time, bury it under school and work and other grown-up obligations, but there was no denying the tantalizing thrill that I got from finding some musty tome tucked away somewhere, gently turning the pages and searching eagerly for the copyright date like I was an archaeologist doing carbon-dating. It was kind of sad that most of the "ancient artifacts" I found only came from as far back as about the nineteen-twenties, but that didn't matter so much to me as the thrill of the hunt, and I secretly dreamed of the day when I would be gently puttering through some pile of books in a dimly-lit shop that smelled like wood and paper and patron cats, and find something out of a fantasy, something that would transport me to another world, literally, as I perused its pages.
Although that didn't mean I, Terra Thatcher, wasn't completely flummoxed when it actually happened.
I wish I could say it was summer or winter, because then I would have been between semesters and a whole lot of stress would have been abated, but no. It was mid-May, the time of year when it starts to get really hot in Los Angeles, not just April's kind of teasing, going-back-and-forth-between-sunny-days-and-rainy-ones hot, but the real, brutal stuff that makes you just want to stay inside in air-conditioned comfort until the sun goes down. And of course, finals loom on the horizon.
I can't really remember how I stumbled upon the bookstore—was probably driving somewhere, slowed down by traffic, and happened to take long enough passing it that I realized it was a bookstore and it specifically advertised old books. I knew those came with a hefty price and my college-student pockets were painfully shallow, but I figured just going in there and looking around would be a fun diversion, and hopefully I wouldn't get kicked out for loitering. Maybe the proprietor was old and slept a lot.
The place turned out to be very promising when I returned a few weeks later, needing something to clear and de-stress my mind after an exam (as you can probably tell by now, my social life is utterly negligible). From the moment I creaked the wooden door open and heard the tired jingle of a real, non-electronic bell announcing my presence, I knew I'd struck paydirt. The owner (who was, as I had prognosticated, an older woman, albeit with a very awake look in her green eyes) was overeager to welcome me, which was awkward as I didn't have the heart to tell her that I probably couldn't afford anything in here that I wanted, and I was in fact not a young-but-successful lawyer living in Bel Air with a superficial interest in literature. (Although, I think my fraying jeans and video game t-shirt kinda gave that away at first glance.)
I was relieved to find a pleasant array of austere parliaments of encyclopedias (still managing to look authoritative even with several of their members missing) and thick, drably-bound volumes that looked as though they'd never seen the light of the twenty-first century. Needless to say, I was ecstatic.
I didn't even know quite what I was looking for, I was just enjoying sharing space with so much human brainpower crammed into one tiny shop. My tennis shoes padded against the unassuming concrete floor as I wandered the thin aisles, taking note of anything that looked to be unusually old or otherwise remarkable, and I was delighted to discover that the copyright dates went further back than anything else I'd encountered so far—and the books were in beautiful condition, to boot.
I had just about reached the back of the store (and the unfortunate end of my foray) and was going to turn and commend the owner for such a lovely establishment (and somehow slip in an apology for not buying anything), when a sliver of light caught my eye. Looking down, I saw something gold-leafed and pointy sticking out from the bottom of a pile of books. Interested, I crouched and began carefully re-stacking the pile from the top down to uncover its bottommost occupant. What I saw made my eyes go wider than I think they ever have.
It was a large, thick, and most singular book. Leather-bound like nothing's been since maybe the seventeen-hundreds, its front and back covers were decorated with intricately beautiful golden crests that looked like spoked wheels, the spokes sticking out beyond the dimensions of the binding (no wonder it hadn't been shelved properly). A thick strap of leather fastened the back cover to the front on the outside, slotting into a lock. There was no key to be found anywhere. What fascinated me the most, however, was the writing on the front cover's crest, as it looked like no writing system I had ever seen. The closest I could compare it to, maybe, was proto-Hebraic (it was kind of sad how I knew what proto-Hebraic looked like, but what I lack in social prowess I more than make up for in amounts of knowledge that probably qualify as obscene in an undergrad student).
The next thing I knew, I was lugging the thing over to the counter and placing it down with a grunt. (It was somehow a just-right sort of heavy, weighty enough so that one felt important while carrying it but not so much as to be a liability when strolling with it for long distances.) "What is this?" I asked the proprietor, hoping that wasn't too weird a question.
She looked up and over her glasses at me from something she was writing on an old notepad, and then spied the book on the counter. "That? No idea, hon. Some old Arab sold it to me years ago. If he had a key, he didn't give it to me." She sighed and stood up slowly from the plastic folding chair she had been sitting in, bending over the counter to trace the gold plating. "Who knows what's in it, but I'm not about to ruin the binding cutting it open. Obviously why no one's bought it. That, and as you can see, it doesn't exactly fit easily on a shelf." She chuckled.
"How much is it?" I suddenly blurted out before I could stop myself, wincing afterward and waiting for a three- or even four-figure price.
"Fifty bucks."
I did a double take. "Seriously?"
"Look, by now, I kind of just want to get it off my hands." She smirked, her face creasing with wrinkles. "Besides, you're the first person who's come in here in a long time. I'm feeling generous."
I obviously didn't carry that kind of loose change. "…Do you take debit?" I asked, hoping beyond all hope as I dug into my pocket for my wallet.
One hurting bank account later, I was carrying a package securely wrapped in old newspaper out to my car, grinning with possibly an illegal level of glee and feeling like I'd been reunited with an old friend. I still had no idea what I was going to do with the thing, but it felt right in my arms like it was the subject of some cheesy love song and I was a tux-wearing crooner.
Not having the heart to deposit it in the trunk like it was a bag of groceries, I gingerly laid it in the passenger's seat and it was my acting co-pilot the entire way home. When we reached our destination, I sat down with it on my bed and slowly unwrapped it like it was a prized Christmas present, scarcely believing that such an old and beautiful thing was mine. I felt like the most awesome person in the world.
As I held the tome in my hands, wondering if there was some way to pick the lock open, or if the shop owner hadn't already tried or had refrained to prevent breaking the lock mechanism, suddenly I heard a soft "click" and the binding strap slid out of its holder, flopping down to rest on my leg.
My breath caught in my throat. Magic, my mind echoed from the wishes of a childhood past. It's real magic this time.
Brain, as much as I'd love for that to be the case there could still be a logical explanation, I reminded myself rather coldly (perhaps I hadn't gotten adequate sleep the night before, that always makes me a little grumpy). The lock's old and maybe it just got jiggled loose by the car ride home. Nevertheless, that didn't stop me from taking the next logical step and opening the heavy front cover.
What awaited me was not a normal frontispiece or title page, or even something considered normal by the laws of physics, but a blinding white field of light whose radiance poured into the room, causing me to give a small cry of surprise and throw up my arm to shield my eyes. At the same time, I suddenly felt myself falling into whiteness and my cry turned into a genuine scream.