Page 1 of The Midnight Book Club
1
Ithadbeenadifficult day at the end of a difficult year.
Maybe that was why Aurelia’s nerves were on edge that night when, awakened once again by noise from the flat next door, she threw back her covers and clambered out of bed.
“That’sit,” she muttered to herself as she fumbled around the room, trying to find something to wear for her march over there.“If they think they can party all night and keep the rest of the neighborhood awake, they can just…” Aurelia struggled to come up with what, exactly, they could do before finishing lamely, “Think again!”
Voices from next door echoed through the room in a steady drone, clearly oblivious to her half-hearted threats.The noise had woken her every night since she’d moved in a few days ago, and the lack of sleep had worn her usually cheerful demeanor to the breaking point.She’d never had the courage—or the need—to yell at a disrespectful neighbor before, but her mind was made up and she was determined to put an end to it.
If only she could find something to wear besides her pajamas, which Aurelia was fairly certain would undermine the authoritative look she was aiming for.With a final peek under one of her moving boxes, she sighed and gave up the search.The flat was her aunt’s old place and was in total disarray now that she’d moved in.She kept meaning to unpack, but she’d been busy running the bookshop downstairs, which, like the flat, had been her aunt’s and was now hers.
Aurelia stomped out of the bedroom, earning a scowl from Fezz, the tuxedo cat she’d also inherited.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she watched him stalk past her.
She moved more quietly as she followed him through the open kitchen and living area.He was headed for the sofa, while she went down the stairs to the door that led into the shop.She pulled a jacket off one of the pegs on the wall and then froze, one arm halfway through a sleeve.From where she was standing, she could now hear that the voices were coming frominsidethe shop, not the neighboring flat.
Aurelia’s anger drained out of her in an instant and her eyes widened.Could it be burglars?There wasn’t much to steal in the shop, apart from old books.But maybe they knew there was a flat upstairs?She put her ear to the door, though she could barely make out what the voices were saying over the sound of her heart slamming against her chest.Then it suddenly occurred to her—there were voices, plural, meaning more than one burglar was downstairs.
Time to call the police, she told herself.Just as soon as I can move my legs again.
Struggling to find her courage from moments ago, Aurelia stepped away from the door, ready to head back upstairs for her phone.That was when she spotted a strip of light coming through the gap at the threshold.Had she forgotten to turn out the lights when she’d closed up?Or were these people bold enough to turn on the lights while doing their burgling?Only… their voices didn’t seem all that rowdy or threatening.Aurelia hesitated, then leaned toward the door again.There was a woman’s voice mixed in with the deeper male voices—two or three, in fact.No one was whispering; it seemed like they were all just having a chat.Her eyebrows drew together, and she pushed her ear full against the door to listen.
“Oh, yes, I am sure you would find much to recommend Pemberley.What a pity we cannot find a way to bring you there.”
Aurelia jerked back.Pemberley?
Deciding she must have misheard, she felt her body relax for a moment before she stiffened again.Whoever these people were, the door was the only thing separating her from them.They might be harmlessly chatting now, but there was no telling how long it would be before they wondered what—or who—was on the other side of the door.
She pulled her other arm through the sleeve of her jacket as she climbed the stairs to the flat, then found her phone and quietly padded back down again.But as her fingers hovered over the buttons, ready to dial the police, she heard a chorus of ‘goodbyes’ and ‘farewells.’Were they leaving, then?She leaned against the door and registered a sudden hush just as the light at the threshold faded away.
Aurelia dialed the police and then unlocked the door and slowly pushed it open.She stepped onto the shop’s mezzanine and swept her eyes past its bookshelves and down to the ground floor.For a split second, she thought she saw a small puff of smoke hovering above the round table near the front of the shop.Her breath caught in her throat at the possibility of a fire, but when she stepped forward and looked again, there wasn’t any smoke at all.
Though it was dark inside, the first light of dawn was just visible through the large window at the other end of the mezzanine, and she could see the shop was empty.Hearing a noise, it took Aurelia a moment to register that someone was speaking to her through the phone.
“Hello?”she asked, bringing it to her ear.
“Yes, what’s your emergency?”
“I’m sorry,” Aurelia said, shaking her head.In her confusion over walking in to find the shop deserted, she’d forgotten she’d dialed the police.“No—I… There’s no emergency, actually.Everything is fine.”
Then, remembering those voices, she wondered,But is it, really?
2
Despiteherexhaustion,Aureliacouldn’t fall asleep after going back up to the flat.Those voices had seemed incredibly real.And yet, the way they’d disappeared almost instantly… She would have heard the bell over the shop door if people had filed outside.But instead, they’d vanished within seconds.
All evidence suggested that it was a very vivid dream.Or, Aurelia acknowledged, perhaps it was the emotional by-product of a tragic and terrible year.
She made herself a cup of tea and sat in one of her aunt’s cozy armchairs.Fezz the cat, having apparently forgiven her for waking him up in the middle of the night, hopped up and created room for himself at her side.Aurelia petted him absentmindedly as she looked out over the square that bordered the front of the building.She’d grown up loving her visits to the bookshop and had worked there on and off over the years.True, she’d always imagined she would take over the shop one day, but it was all too soon.Her aunt was supposed to retire in a dozen or so years, giving Aurelia time to write a few novels of her own before she started selling other people’s books.The shop, once as beloved as one of her favorite novels, had become an anchor weighing her down, tying her to a future she wasn’t yet ready to face.
All the same, Aurelia hadn’t written so much as a haiku recently.Her aunt had died three months ago, and her mother nine months before that.One year ago, yesterday, in fact.It had been an unbearable year; each week brought a new high or low as first her mother and then her aunt worked their way through various treatments that seemed promising before, each time, they failed and cancer took its hold.
Grief seemed to ooze out of her every pore these days, and she was afraid of the very real possibility that it might spill onto the page.She was sad enough living through it all without subjecting an audience to her misery.Part of her longed to write again, but another, stronger part of her felt almost repelled by the thought of opening her emotional floodgates any further.
A year’s worth of grief—maybe that’s what had brought on last night’s hallucination.She’d spent the day walking around the city and visiting her mum’s favorite spots: Chelsea Physic Garden and tea in the café; a walk down the hidden lanes tucked off ancient Fleet Street; then sitting alongside the Thames at dusk.Aurelia and her sister, Antonia, had debated whether to travel to Yorkshire to spend the day with their father or meet in Paris, where Antonia lived with her husband and three children.In the end, they’d decided to wait to see each other at Christmas as it was just over a month away.
Trudging home yesterday in the chill air of late autumn, Aurelia thought maybe she should have spent the day with her father and sister after all.Now, after last night’s misadventure, she felt certain of it.Those voices, that light under the door—her mind returned to it all again and again.Could it have been real, as it had seemed to her then?But she’d heard them talking about Pemberley, which wasn’t a real place at all.
