The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1)(30)

They were the first words Finch had spoken since he’d touched my elbow and said, “This way,” when we got off the subway. I mustered a close-lipped smile. I kept seeing the bird’s flat black eyes.

Finch rang the bell beside the wrought-iron door. Half a minute later, we heard someone undoing a series of locks on the other side.

The man who opened the door looked less like an antiquarian bookseller and more like a bookie. His tie was a loud yellow, his suit an exhausted brown. He had a napkin tucked into his collar that appeared to be covered in barbecue sauce.

He squinted suspiciously at Finch—all wild hair, unzipped jacket, one restless hand stuck out for a shake. “You Ellery Finch?” he said out the side of his mouth, like he was trying to sell us drugs in Tompkins Square Park.

“I am. William Perks?” The guy agreed and finally took Finch’s hand, giving it two good pumps. I held mine out, but he kissed it instead. I resisted the urge to wipe it on my wrinkled uniform skirt.

“Come in, come in. Would you believe I just got the book you’re looking for this morning? I knew it wouldn’t be long before the collectors started sniffing me out—it’s the first one I’ve ever had in stock, and only the second I’ve seen. I’ll be damned if the quality on this one isn’t high, high, high.”

His patter made him sound like a county-fair auctioneer, but at least he wasn’t treating us like children. I’d anticipated a tidy little bookshop, lined with leather volumes and looking a bit like Finch’s library, but what I got was a mind-boggling riot of bookshelves that started a few yards from the door, standing at all angles and punctuated by free-range stacks rising from the ground, in a room that smelled like paste and paper and the animal tang of vellum. And barbecue. Perks led us to a glass case in the back, full of books lying open like butterflies. Finch frowned. “Bad for the spines,” he muttered.

“So I’m gonna wash my hands real good, then I’m gonna bring you what you seek.” Perks put his palms together, bowed to us, and exited the room.

“Do you think he really got it this morning?” I asked Finch, low.

He shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Like, recently.”

Perks zoomed back in before I could reply. I had the idea he was as eager to sell as we were to buy.

I was right, but not for the reason I thought.

“Here she is,” he said softly, slipping the book from a paper sleeve.

The sight of its embossed leather cover, dull gold on green, made my breath catch. It was the book at last, soft and inviting and perfectly sized for holding.

Perks saw my expression and laughed. “I thought you were just along for the ride. But it looks like you’re the one who’s buying.”

“Are there any missing pages?”

The bookseller made a show of looking horrified. “Not on your life.”

I relaxed, a little. “Did you really get it today?”

“I did indeed, and within the hour you all called me looking for it. You might think it’s strange, but you get used to those karmic moments in the book business. Books want to be read, and by the right people. There’s nothing surprising in it, not to me.”

“Who sold it to you?”

“Someone who said he bought it at an estate sale. But I can’t double-check everyone’s story.”

“What did he look like?” Ellery asked.

Say he had red hair.

Perks mulled it over. “He was young, almost as young as you. White kid, dark hair, mug on him like he’d sell you your own mother. And he was…” He hesitated, his eyes flicking between us.

“He was what?”

“An odd bird. A little shifty. He had that air to him, like a man out of time.”

“What do you mean?”

My voice must’ve had a warning note in it, because Perks threw up his hands and smiled disarmingly. “It’s the look these days—the train jumper look. That Brooklyn thing, girls your age must like it.” He beckoned our attention back to the book. “Want to take a look?”

What I wanted was to know for sure if the boy who’d sold him the book was the same one I’d seen outside of Whitechapel, and again in the diner. And whether it was a different copy from the one I’d seen at my café, in the hands of the red-haired man.

Perks slipped on white gloves that made him look like an off-brand Mickey Mouse. “The binding is in near mint condition.” He deftly flipped the book over and back again. “No foxing on the pages. Some discoloration, of course, but that’s to be expected.”

As he opened the book, a scent rose from its pages, the homey must of old print and something else—something sweet. It was there and gone in an instant. Some yearning part of me wanted to believe it was Althea’s perfume.

“This title’s first print run was quite small, as you probably know—” Perks began. He stopped talking as the book fell open to a Polaroid photo stuck between its pages. It was flipped so we could only see the white of its backing.

He grinned. “Didn’t see that before. You wouldn’t believe the things you find in old books. When it’s a photo, odds are ten to one it’s an arty one, if you know what I mean. The young lady had better avert her eyes.”

He flipped the photo in his Mickey hands and examined its front. Then frowned. His eyes flicked up to us, and back down to the photo. He shoved it over the counter. “What the hell is this?”