“I’m going to park here. We’ll get there faster walking.” Fuentes pulled into a spot right in front of Soothe, and he and Nora got out of the car.
Nora’s heart lurched when she saw a woman peering into the shop while a man and a little girl waited by the statue of Juliana. The girl, who was five or six, was clearly beguiled by the marble woman.
“What happened to her wing, Daddy?” Nora heard her ask.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
The girl threw her arms around the statue’s thighs, embracing the cold stone. “Can she still be an angel if she only has one wing?”
Her father said, “Absolutely. Her heart makes her an angel. Not her wings.”
I wish Celeste had seen this, Nora thought.
Celeste had been so proud of her familial legacy. All those women named Juliana. All those healers.
Healers. Not angels. Not witches. Women who healed.
Not spells.
Celeste’s words were repeating on a loop in Nora’s head. If the symbols on the Potion Page weren’t spells, then what were they?
He lies.
She had to be talking about the man with the tattoos on his arm. He’d torn Bren’s house and Celeste’s apartment apart in search of what? More pages like the one left under Nora’s mat. An entire book of old pages. Celeste had said “don’t let him” and “get book.” Who was him?
Wolf.
Was this a man’s name? Part of an avatar or online identity? Or was there something in Celeste’s apartment with a wolf on it? Something that would reveal the man’s identity. Nora didn’t remember seeing anything like that, but Celeste could have kept it well hidden.
These days, when Nora thought of wolves, she thought of Connie Knapp and her pack of female fearmongers. And now here they were, standing on the sidewalk in front of Miracle Books. They held signs with inflammatory slogans like, PROTECT OUR KIDS! MORAL FAMILIES DON’T SHOP HERE! I CHOOSE WHAT MY CHILD READS! BAN SATANIC BOOKS!
It hurt to see former customers waving these signs. The hurt was personal, but Nora also felt pain on behalf of the books she sold. Those incredible books. After what she’d been through that morning—after seeing Celeste die—the condemnation of her beloved books was too much for Nora.
She went lightheaded, stumbled, and nearly fell, but Fuentes’s hand shot out to steady her. Keeping hold of Nora’s arm, the deputy barreled his way through the knot of protestors.
“You can’t be in the street!” he bellowed. “I see your foot on asphalt, and you’ll spend the day in lockup. You know the rules. You’re only allowed on the sidewalk.”
“There isn’t enough room!” someone complained.
“No touching the bookstore’s display or the merchandise. No going inside the store!” Fuentes continued. “You have the right to a peaceful protest. On the sidewalk. If you prevent customers from entering the business, I will place you under arrest.”
The crowd was smaller than Nora expected. Clumped together, waving their signs and shouting, thirty people seemed more like fifty. Though they yelled louder as Nora passed, their words didn’t reach her. She was deaf and dumb to everything except what she saw in front of the bookshop.
Steph and Sid had taken a few pieces of cardboard and transformed them into magical portals. Five towers of shimmering color invited readers to wander into a fictional world.
The first phone booth had become the wardrobe leading to Narnia. One door was partially open, giving the viewer a glimpse of a snowy landscape, a lamppost, and a smiling Mr. Tumnus.
Next to the wardrobe was a brick wall with a PLATFORM 9 ? placard. Half of a luggage cart and most of a Gryffindor scarf had been swallowed up by the wall. A white owl perched on the cart handle, its yellow eyes shining in the sunlight.
The portal to Hogwarts was so popular that a line of people waiting to take selfies with the luggage cart blocked the bottom half of Tolkien’s Doors of Durin. The closed doors had silver columns, trees, and runes made of silver glitter.
“Speak, friend, and enter,” Nora said, repeating the riddle Gandalf had to solve in her favorite fantasy series of all time.
The door from Coraline featured sparkling purple text on a field of dark blue. The text read, WHEN YOU’RE SCARED AND YOU STILL DO IT ANYWAY, THAT’S BRAVE.
Finally, there was a tollbooth manned by Tock the dog. Electric blue letters over Tock’s head declared, THERE ARE NO WRONG ROADS.
Deputy Fuentes pointed at the tollbooth. “My little sister loves The Phantom Tollbooth. Man, she must have read it ten times. I have to send her a pic!”