Page 19 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
He asks if I was the one who rescued him. He asks if I know the fate of his friend aboard the ship. He doesn’t realise that I cannot answer his questions, even though I know the answers.
He starts to cry. I have never seen a man cry before and my arms ache with the desire to slip them around him, like I have so often wished someone would do for me when I am upset. Like my mother used to do when I was little.
Afterwards, he is shaking, and his voice is unsteady when he speaks. He apologises to the water, even though I have not surfaced. Maybe he can sense that I am still here, still listening.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I am in agony. I am lost. I am alone. I don’t know if John is alive or dead. Please do not think me weak. If I am going to die here, please do not let me die alone.’
It tears apart something inside my heart. I can feel my resolve breaking. I want to reassure him that he will be well, that help will come, but I do not know that. Help may not come. He may not be well. The thought takes my breath away with the force of how desperately I want him to be well. I must do everything in my power to save him.
‘Awwww!’ Ava and I say the same thing at the same moment, and I continue onto the next entry without waiting to ask.
27 January 1899
‘I just want to talk to you. I mean you no harm. You must be the one who has helped me – so you know what a state I’m in, and you know that I’d be unable to harm a crab, should one happen along. Show yourself, please. I only want to know what you know. I want to thank you for what you have done for me.’
For days now, he has been talking to me. I have taken him food and water at night, and I am almost positive that he is just pretending to sleep, but he has not tried again to catch me. Maybe he is trying to show me he can be trusted, and I feel the tendrils of goodness in me reaching out towards him. He asks for nothing except my company.
I want to sit beside him on the sand, but when he sees me fully, when he sees me for the monster I am, he will know that there is only one creature responsible for his predicament, and for the death of his friend. He will blame me for luring him to his doom, like mermaids are rumoured to have done to sailors for so long.
I have always been scared. I have lived a small life, afraid of what I am and what people will think of me, but now, I can feel the pull to be bold stirring inside of me. To show myself fully, as I am. To give him the company he asks for.
To be brave…
Ava has got hearts in her eyes and the look of someone with a major crush on a new book boyfriend. ‘This is amaaaaazing. It’s soooo romantic!’
We’re about to read another entry when we’re interrupted by the librarian coming over to politely let us know that they close at lunchtime on Saturdays, and my desperation to find out what happens next is cut short as we have to leave.
‘Of course, we might know more if Mickey knew where this came from…’ Ren says as I slip the bookmark into the old book and close it gently.
‘I know where it came from.’ I slide it back into my bag and pad the blanket around it. ‘It was a house clearance, I’m almost positive.’
‘Yes, butwhichhouse?Wherewas this house? If we knew that, we might have a hope in hell of tracing someone who knows something about it. What other items came with it? Was there anything else of oceanic origin? Any papers? Any photos? Anythingthat might giveanyclue as to the legitimacy of this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit, annoyed with him for being right again, and with myself for not keeping on top of things like this. Because heisright. The one thing that would help more than anything would be knowing where this came from and if there were any other related items that might be connected to it in the same lot, andIshould know that, but I don’t. Because when new stock arrives, I push aside sensible things like paperwork and organisation and get lost in imagining the stories behind it, and now it seems like we’ve found a truth that might just be stranger than fiction, and I’ve failed in the one thing I could have done to help uncover the reality behind it. I’ve always known I should be more business-minded and stay on top of things like paperwork and record-keeping, and I always feared it would come back to bite me in the backside, and now it has, big time.
5
‘We should come back to your shop and go through every single thing to see if there’s anything else from the same house clearance,’ Ava says as the three of us walk along the road after being kicked out of the library. It’s a warm summer’s day and she’s suggested we walk through town to the park, get ice cream, and read more diary entries.
‘Or you’re just nosy and want to know what’s lurking in Mickey’s shop so you can persuade me to buy it all for you.’ Ren goes to ruffle her hair but she ducks out of his reach with a scolding, ‘Daaa-aad!’ like he’s the most embarrassing human on the planet.
I can’t help smiling. I didn’t intend to go anywhere else with them, but none of us knew the library would be closing before midday, and the lure of reading more of the mystery mermaid’s diary is impossible to refuse. Given the lack of customers lately, this seems more important than opening the shop today. If we can prove that evidence of a mermaid existing has been found inmyshop, it would lead to ahugeincrease in customers. And honestly, this unplanned diversion is not the worst way I’ve ever spent a Saturday morning. I glance at Ren. Not the worst way at all.
Suddenly Ava gasps and lets out a wail under her breath, and her eyes shoot to a group of girls on the other side of the street, carrying paper bags with various shop names on them. ‘My friends from school! Oh my God, I can’t be seen dead with you! You’re a teacher outside of school!’
‘I’m also your father,’ Ren protests as Ava grabs both our arms and hauls us down a side street in a flurry of panic.
‘No one cares about that! Do you know how uncool it is to hang out with your history teacher in the summer holidays?’ She shoves her dad until he crashes into me and we both get bundled into the recessed doorway of the nearest shop. ‘Go away! Just go away! Not you, Mickey, you’re awesome! I’m so sorry!’ She glances back across the street to where the girls are gathered outside Claire’s Accessories and then looks back at us, and I can see the dread on her face. ‘Stay there! Don’t come out!’
With one last panicked look, she backs away from us slowly, takes a deep breath and smooths her hair down, and then turns to run over the street and greet her friends. There’s a lot of squealing and more air-kissing than you’d expect to see with fashionistas in Paris, never mind schoolgirls in Herefordshire.
I hadn’t noticed Ren’s height before, but at this proximity, I realise he’s around six foot tall and I have to crane my neck to look up at him. I go to take a step away, but the small doorway doesn’t allow for it.
He’s got his arms up against his chest in a protective stance, and we’ve been shoved so closely together that they’re also against my chest, and his aftershave is in my nose, but his eyes are still on the group of girls gathered across the street. ‘Why do I feel like a naughty dog who’s just been given a “sit and stay” command?’
‘Oh, come on, you must remember being that age,’ I say without taking my eyes off the gathering either. ‘The worst thing you candois anything that makes you stand out, and the worst thing you canbeis different in any way. All you want when you’re a young girl is to be exactly like every other young girl, so no one has any excuse to pick on you or single you out. A group of schoolfriends going Saturday-morning shopping on their own – she’s not going to easily live down being spotted out with her history teacher.’
‘Also her father.’ He holds up a finger as if trying to make a point, and I jerk my head backwards when it nearly pokes me up the nose. ‘She’s way too young to be shopping on her own.They’reway too young too, but their parents must be more laidback than I am.’
