The Barrows was right where the map said it was. Still, if not for the reference I never would’ve found it, not if I walked up and down the hall a dozen times. You pass doors like it all the time in the city. They’re everywhere—in alleys, at the end of maintenance corridors, outside private clubs, at the back of the pavilions in the park, and all along the street, especially around skyscrapers and train stations. They’re service entrances or emergency exits or leftovers from prior construction. You don’t even notice them. Like the tiles in the subway or the pigeon droppings on the lamppost, they’re just another affectation of city life. But once I noticed it—at the end of a blind alley off an underground passage between a shoe-shine stand and a watch repair stall—it made the little hairs on my arms stand up. It was made of tarnished brass and steel, like something from a Victorian smeltworks. The brass plate was riveted to the steel and etched in a rousing 1930s vision of enterprise. A stylized depiction of a man with his sleeves rolled strode confidently toward the future on too-long legs. Rays of light reached up from the horizon over two identical hills—or that’s what I thought they were at first. But they weren’t hills, or they weren’t only hills. I think they were supposed to be the mounds of the open book he was striding, as if knowledge were the path to progress.
There was no handle on the door anywhere, which is usually a good sign it’s not a door for the public. One tiny omission like that can cause your brain to pass over it entirely. At first, I didn’t know how to open it. And I wouldn’t have if not for the chef.
“Where’s best place to hide something?” he had asked. “Inside something that is already hidden.”
If you’re looking for a secret door and you find one, you don’t keep looking. The etching at the center, specifically the two long halves of the book the man strode, were the real door—double doors actually. All you had to do it push them in, albeit it very hard, and they opened to a staircase.
I turned to see if anyone was looking. Then I stepped inside.
At the bottom, under an archway, was a metal plaque in a window-shaped brick nook that said:
THE BARROWS
Est. 1676 (A.D.)
The letters A.D. were in parentheses and off-center, as if someone saw the original version and got worried people might get confused as to which 1676 they meant. Below that was a dedication:
REINTERRED 1848
at this location with
Generous Donations from
THE ROEBLING FAMILY
& H. Morton Ramsay & Sons
& Eleanor Peas
A second, smaller plaque was affixed to the wall just underneath:
REDEDICATED 1931
with special dispensation from
The Archdiocese of New York
At the far end of the archway was a foot-and-a-half drop to an uneven cobblestone floor. To my right and left were walled archways that suggested there was once a promenade, now blocked. Light shone from a 1930s-style wood-framed glass door. I couldn’t see much of the interior because the glass was neatly filled with gold letters rimmed in black:
THE BARROWS
Since 1676
Anson Gruel,
Proprietor
No soliciting
All sales final
The door groaned loudly, as if announcing visitors with some disdain, and right away I got that unmistakable sweet smell of must and old books. The interior looked like a Victorian library. The worn slats of the hardwood floor were the color of rich chocolate. The stamped-tin ceiling was considerably higher than in a normal shop—high enough to give the space a very faint echo. Light came from a simple chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. The loops and arms were brass. I was sure it had burned gas at one point but had since been fitted with electricity. Black wires wound around the arms on their way to the lightbulbs at the end, which poked from fluted glass fittings. The space was much longer than it was wide and bookshelves covered the walls. Spectacularly, the shelving went all the way up, although not all of it was full. A pair of narrow, wheeled metal staircases were attached to glide tracks in the middle of the wall so that people could peruse the high rows.
To my right was an old leather chair, pulled from the corner just enough to let someone browse snugly behind. The cushion was stacked with books. To my left was an old brass telescope. A curved brace marked degrees horizontal while a perpendicular one marked degrees vertical in precise ticks. The shelves of the left wall held the oldest books, or so it seemed from their appearance. They were locked behind glass-paneled cabinets whose polished brass fixtures were scuffed at the margins and around the keyholes. At the back was a high wood counter and an oak door, maybe to a stock room. There was also a pendulum clock, ticking softly, and a short, double-shelfed display full of oddities and antiques. Hanging over them in the last bit of open space under the ceiling was a line of various ornate frames—some small, some quite large. All of them had tasteful little museum lights to illuminate their contents, but all of them were empty. I could see straight through to the brick.
In the very middle of the floor was a kind of circular podium made of polished walnut that displayed books in 360 degrees—some open, some closed. The book facing the door was large and hardbound and open to colorful illuminated pages. But it wasn’t old. The pages were white and the corners crisp. The copyright at the front said 2009. I looked at the cover. The Red Book (Liber Novus) by Carl Jung. Signed by the author.
“How did you get in here?”
The door to the stock room had been opened and a funny-looking old man with an Amish beard stood scowling at me. He wore denim coveralls on top of a simple short-sleeved, collared shirt and had wire spectacles resting on top of his head, like he’d been tinkering with a clock or something and stopped to see who was at the door. His ears sprouted tufts of gray hair. His eyes, while old and wrinkled, were also quite large for his wiry frame and seemed to bulge.
He took one look at me and asked, “Is it Tuesday again? Already?” He turned about as if looking for a wall calendar.
“Excuse me?”
“Ah, wonderful. You are excused.” He said it with relief and raised his hand to the door, as if he expected me to turn around and leave at that exact moment.
I took Bastien’s book from Lily’s handbag and held it up.
“I’m sorry, but I think my, um, friend and her stupid ex might’ve stolen this.”
The wrinkles of his face magnified every expression, which in this case seemed to be confusion. And disgust.
“Ah. Now I see how you found the door.” He had a faint European accent. Not quite German. Dutch maybe, or some Nordic language.
“I’d like to return it.”
“This isn’t a library,” he said with a snap in his voice. He pointed to a small sign above the punch-key register at the back:
THIS IS NOT A LIBRARY
It hung above another small sign that said:
CASH ONLY
Both signs were next to a much larger one that said in very clear letters:
BEWARE OF TROLLS
There was some legal-looking smaller print under it that I couldn’t read, as if that sign was required by city ordinance.
“You take the books,” he said, “you buy them.”
“But I didn’t take—” I sighed at his indignant eyebrow-raise. Those suckers were like brooms. “Fine. How much?”
He walked to the counter and tossed his glasses on it. He pressed the heavy, levered keys of the antique register until a bell chimed.
“That will be two hundred and five dollars and nineteen cents.”
I sighed and set the book on the counter and dug in my purse.
“Your friends were clever,” he said. “Working in pairs to distract me.”
I handed him two hundred and ten.
“I don’t have change,” he said.
“What?” I started to object. Then I took a breath. “Fine. Whatever.”
I called it a theft tax. The register dinged loudly and the drawer slid open. He put the money inside. He totally had change.
He eyed me eyeing the drawer, like I was a thief as well, and shut it hard.
“Thank you for your business.” He raised an arm toward the door. “Good day.”
“I don’t suppose you could help me find something?”
“Probably not.”
“Dude. Can you at least pretend to be helpful?”
“It wouldn’t be very convincing.”
I held up The Compendium of Lesser Travesties. “This is, like, an encyclopedia or something.”
“It’s not ‘like’ an encyclopedia,” he said. “It is an encyclopedia. Of lesser heresies. Hardly proper reading for a young lady.”
“I’ll be sure to keep it away from them. So, is there a volume of Greater Travesties?”
“Of course there is,” he snapped. “But no one’s seen it in an age.”
“Do you have any books on—” I stopped myself from saying ‘like’ again. “—daggers? Or—shit, what did he call it? Covens or stone tables or something like that?”
He stared coolly, like I had just asked if they carried snuff films.
“I’m sorry?” he said finally, like he had no idea what I was talking about,
“You heard me,” I replied calmly, making it clear I wasn’t going to leave.
“If you’re referring to the red dagger, you’ll find nothing on it here. And certainly nothing about the stone table. All materials on the black arts were forbidden—collected and buried in a place of forgetting.”
“Forbidden? By who?”
“Whom,” he corrected. “This is a respectable establishment. If you’re looking for forbidden arcana, I suggest you try the mizzen.”
“You know what my next question’s gonna be.”
“The Row,” he said curtly.
“You mean Beggar’s Row.”
“Do you know another?”
“What is a mizzen exactly?”
“Thank you for returning the stolen book, and for your patronage. I believe I have amply discharged my debt. If you’re looking for further information, I suggest you buy another book.”
“Fine. Can you at least point me in the right direction?”
“This is a bookstore,” he chided. “Not a library.”
I waited. I hate people like that.
He scowled, deeply, and shuffled toward the back door. “With the exception of the volumes under glass, which will be beyond you, the books are shelved alphabetically by author. Where an author isn’t known, by the Erskine Codex reference number. If you are not going to make a purchase, I will kindly ask you to show yourself out through whatever doorway you came in. Good day.”
He shut the door hard to emphasize the point.
Jerk.
I turned slowly in a circle. It was books all around. I had no idea what I was looking for and started opening volumes at random. Most were giant walls of text that went on for hundreds of pages. Half of them weren’t even in English—although I did find one in Chinese. It was so old, I couldn’t make it out. It wasn’t long before I started appreciating the ones I couldn’t read. That at least gave me a reason to rule them out quickly. After a while, I heard the door to the back open again and the old man stopped with an audible exclamation. I’m pretty sure he thought I had left ages ago. I was squatting in front of the bottom shelf holding a very heavy book I had hoped was some kind of encyclopedia. It wasn’t. It described itself as a bestiary. Cool pictures, though.
He cleared his throat. “This is a bookstore. NOT a—”
“Library. Yes, I know. You said that. Twice. Can’t I just—”
I was turning my head to argue my case when my eye caught the title, in between all the others. I reshelved the giant book in my hand and pulled out a dictionary-sized hardbound volume one shelf up.
The Long-Vacant Cupboard. It was such an odd title, it caught my eye.
“Hmpf. Should have done that the first time,” he said.
“Done what?”
He squinted at me for some sign of recognition.
“You really don’t know anything? You’re not even a Wiccan or one of those girls who cut themselves to feed the vamps?”
I shook my head.
“How did you—” He stopped himself. He harumphed again. “A book, young lady, is the most magical thing there is. It is the only spell”—he lifted a faded leather-bound from the shelf—“that’s patent.” He slapped the cover as if to show it was real. “A spell you can touch.”
He shook it.
“A spell?”
“Yes. A spell. You know what that is, don’t you?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Words,” he said, “that make magic.”
“I know what a spell is.”
“They’re about the only magic left. That regular folks can touch, anyway.” He looked at the shelves. “But even they’re going away. No one reads anymore.” He started mumbling to himself as he reshelved the tome in his hand.
“If a book is magic, then how is magic different than anything else?”
“Who said it was?” he asked, as if I’d just told him people were spreading nasty rumors about him.
He started to speak again but I interrupted him. “Bastien stole the books when you were giving her boobs the speech, didn’t they? Did you even look in her eyes?”
He walked over and snatched The Long-Vacant Cupboard from my hands.
“The books are for sale.”
He turned to put it back on the shelf.
Seeing him up close, all his features seemed exaggerated. His fingers were long. His ears drooped and had too much hair. His bald head seemed blunted and had odd little liver spots. His eyes bulged, kept at bay only by his wire-frame glasses, which hung too far down his sharp nose.
“Fine. How much is it?”
He checked. “You’re in luck. All I have left is the third edition with the rambling introduction by Sprague. Eighty-nine ninety-nine. Plus tax.” He shelved it.
“Jeez, dude. I need to eat.”
“So do I,” he objected. “We buy books as well.”
I looked at the one by my feet. The one I’d just bought. Truth was, I had no use for it anymore. I handed it to him.
He took it and examined it thoroughly, like he’d never seen it. He flipped through the pages.
“I’ll give you forty dollars for it,” he said, moving it behind his back.
“WHAT? I just gave you two hundred!”
“Depreciation,” he said. “I don’t know what damage you’ve done.”
What. An. Asshole.
As if to prove his point, he took out the tarot card and handed it to me with a stiff arm. It occurred to me then that one of the pages had been torn out.
“A hundred,” I replied.
“No.”
I held out my hand. “Then give it back.”
He looked at it. “Fifty.”
“Eighty or I walk.”
He scowled. Then he turned for the back.
“Criminal,” he muttered.
“Dude, I’m not the only one.”
I took money out of my purse, added it to what he handed me, and grabbed The Long-Vacant Cupboard from the shelf.
“I’d like to buy this book,” I said all innocently.
He shuffled to the counter and retrieved a calculator with fat buttons. He tapped. “With tax—”
“Tax?”
“With tax,” he repeated, louder, “that will be ninety-seven dollars and twenty cents, please.”
I counted out a hundred dollars in fives and twenties and handed it to him. We walked to the register where he recounted them in front of me.
“I don’t have change,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Just give me the damned book.”
He scowled again. “Language.” He handed it to me.
“Manners,” I retorted with wide eyes. “Can I sit? Or are you gonna charge me for that, too?”
“It would seem so.”
“So it’s alright if I move the—” I stopped.
The chair had been cleared. The books had all been stacked on the floor.
I looked around. I didn’t see or hear anyone.
“Thank you, Charles,” the old man called sarcastically. “Always did have a thing for young girls,” he muttered. He turned for his workshop, then snapped back to me. “We close promptly at 5:00.”
“Five? Who the hell closes that early?”
He looked at his watch. “That’s one hour and forty-seven minutes.”
I flashed the clock on my phone. I waggled it and pursed my lips like “Oooooooo, a magic lighted timepiece!” That was when I noticed I didn’t have a signal. Nothing.
“Shit.”
He just squinted in disgust and retreated to his work room. The door squeaked in annoyance before slamming shut.
The Long-Vacant Cupboard was a primer on magic written in English by a German woman living in Newfoundland. The title was a reference to magic’s breadth and usefulness, and also to its disappearance from the world. After perusing the introduction, I thumbed to the index, past a bunch of text-heavy tables that seemed to have been assembled in old movable type, with strong lines and a highly serifed font. There was nothing about daggers, athames, the sacred marriage, or the stone table, but the word “warlock” had two page numbers after it. “Mizzen” had about two dozen, none of which gave me a definition. At times, it sounded like an occupation, sort of like “blacksmith,” but then it also seemed to be the name for an ethnic group derived from the same, or perhaps their descendants, such as all people named “Smith.” All I got for sure was that they were founded by those whose ability to cast magic had been stripped—by force, it seemed—and that instead they stole the magic they used. Apparently, they were quite good at it, which lots of people didn’t like and they were often persecuted and kept to themselves for protection, as the persecuted always do.
The entries on Warlock led to a chart near the back labeled Orders of Practice. It had script titles in the first column and block descriptions in the second, with a third reserved for notable examples, not all of which were filled. A Warlock, it told me, is a servant or priest of the “Old Ones,” typically but not exclusively male and organized into various schools, called covens, whose high elders sit collectively before a stone table. SEE: RASPUTIN. I turned to the index and found the entries. Unlike the Compendium, The Long-Vacant Cupboard was not an encyclopedia. It was meant to be read in order, like a maths primer. Rather than covering a topic completely, it introduced only as much as was needed for the lesson in that chapter, and I found myself reading a lot more than I had intended.
Rasputin was a servant of the Nameless Ones, six ancient gods whose names had been deliberately forgotten long ago in the hopes that they would be forgotten as well. Nothing was said about them, nor much about Rasputin, except to create a counterpoint to the proper uses of magic. The warlocks used magic, black magic, to create abominations and pervert the natural order for their enrichment. The repercussions were often severe, but they avoided them by casting them onto others. “Scapegoating,” for example, which is even in the Bible. I didn’t think there was magic in the Bible, nor the summoning of demons, but there it was.
I heard the scuff of the old man’s feet on the floor. At first I thought he was coming to shoo me out. But when I lifted my head to defend myself, I saw he had a teacup and saucer in his hand. He set them carefully on the broad arm of the chair.
“Charles thought you might like some tea.”
I looked at the time on my phone. It was almost 5:30. Shit. It didn’t seem possible that much time had passed. I still had no bars.
I looked at the tea. It was hot.
“Ceylon,” he said from near the rear door. “I’m afraid it’s all I have.”
“I thought you closed at five.”
“We do.” He nodded to the front.
It was shut and a shade pulled over the glass. I scrunched my brow. How had I not noticed?
“It seemed a shame to break the spell,” he said without facing me.
My eyes were tired from reading, and I perused the tables at the back. I turned from one to the next: Schools of Magic; Classical Symbology; Mystical Doctrines; the six basic summoning circles; several timelines, including a list of all reigning Masters, minus a handful of gaps, “from the fall of the Templars to the destruction of the Great Eye;” and then back to Orders of Practice. This time, I read them all.
A Magician, it said, was any practitioner of magic. However, it also said that term tended to be avoided because it didn’t distinguish from the stage magician, who offers nothing but mechanical sleight-of-hand. A Conjurer is anyone who brings forth that which was not there. A Summoner, then, is a Conjurer that brings forth a creature from another realm, such as a demon or evil spirit. SEE: FAUST. Diviner is the formal name for fortune teller. This includes the “low” variety like palmists and tarot card readers as well as the more specialized schools, which usually have the suffix -mancy in the title. Most of what historians know about the ancient Shang dynasty, for example, comes from their widespread practice of plastromancy, where they inscribed questions on turtle shells before piercing them with hot irons and interpreting the cracks that ran through the characters.
A Seer is anyone who has visions, which don’t always have to be of the future. Most of your run-of-the-mill psychics fall into this category. SEE: CASSANDRA. Similarly, a Medium is anyone who carries messages from one place to another, such as between the dead and the living. The table also noted that Mediums, also called Sensitives, are also particularly prone to possession since they’re basically living receivers.
A Witch is any practitioner of witchcraft, which got a bad rap because it never bothered to separate light from dark. Despite the common misconception, though, a witch isn’t necessarily evil, or female. Rather, it’s simply that “earth magic” attracted more women than men, first, because women were historically excluded from the more arcane schools, and second, because the Druids, the founders of the art, had no such chauvinist proscriptions.
Here there was an asterisk pointing to a footnote at the bottom of the page where the author admitted to omitting “the Shamanists and Witch-doctors.” As practitioners of the most ancient form of magic, he said, there was no agreed-upon definition, nor did the shamans themselves adhere to one or another school but preferred instead to “salt and pepper their practice” with bits from every tradition “like leeches.”
On and on it went: Wizard, Sorcerer, Thaumaturge, Alchemist, Magus, Malefactor . . . to the second-to-last entry: Enchanter/Enchantress.
I read it aloud.
“A master of mind-magic; a caster of charms, often with the help of sprites and fairies, whom they keep as fam—” I stopped at the first syllable, just as Bastien had. “Familiars. SEE: PROSPERO.”
I got up and practically ran out the door, nearly spilling the tea, which wobbled precipitously before righting itself at the last moment.