This is Round and Round Part 49, one in a series of stories that revolve around a weird bookshop and the people (and animals) who work and shop there.

Read more Round and Round stories here.

The old bookseller was mopey.

Exceedingly mopey.

He had come in early that morning. There was nothing to do at home.

Setanta and Mathilda had let themselves out even earlier and were exploring… somewhere. Probably book scouting in the van or storage building.

He was meandering through the aisles of the old bookshop, picking up books that had jumped off the shelves overnight.

There were more than usual.

“I’m bored. Old. Lonely. Bored.”

He exited one aisle and turned up another.

“…And tired. I am tired.”

It had been months since he had returned from Avalon. That had been exciting. He had helped save the Universal Library from Morgana, the evil faerie queen and sister of Arganta. Arganta, the most beautiful, magical… sigh… he had ever seen.

Oh, how exciting the battle had been.

Good versus evil, you know. Order versus chaos. Books versus ignorance. A library—the largest, most perfect library, versus… randomness.

To think of all those books, lost. Lost forever.

It was good work.

He had spent his life trying to do good work.

Believe it or not, that can be controversial amongst some.

“Jealous. They jus’ jealous,” his mom had told him so many decades ago, slipping into her Alabama accent.

No. Just unenlightened. Some people just do not get it.

“What’s this doing on the floor?” With his toe, he nudged a creamy white quarto with ribbon ties that had fallen—jumped, more likely—and ended up splayed on the linoleum-tiled floor, which was laid in a checkerboard pattern of alternating black and white one-foot square tiles.

He bent and picked up the book.

“Rackham. Vellum. Celtic Faerie Tales. The only copy produced. All original calligraphy and artwork. One of a kind.”

“How did you get out here? You’re not supposed to be in open stock.”

Though he had never caught them at it, it was pretty clear that the books, once in the shop, could move about after hours. He would often find things far from where they belonged—things that couldn’t possibly have gotten mis-stocked. 

He had, however, occasionally observed books jumping off the shelves. When there was something exciting going on in the bookstore, certain books, showing worry or excitement, would fall—leap, actually—from the shelves to the floor. A properly shelved book, pushed in spine out, can’t possibly just fall. Some mornings he would arrive to find the floor littered with inventory that needed to be picked up. Somehow, they never got damaged. A book smart enough to know how to jump probably knows how to land, as well.

He put the gleaming illustrated Arthur Rackham under his arm and moped his way to the front counter. He set the Rackham on the counter and then moved around the counter’s perimeter until he was behind it. From there, he could look down many of the aisles of bookshelves extending in the distance, the rows getting narrower and narrower until, in perspective, they came together at a point far, far away.

“A study in perspective. I should have been an artist.”

He sighed deeply.

“Or an architect. A biblio-architect.”

He chuckled, laughing at himself and his folly.

“I have been doing this too long. It is the same view I have had since… I was young.”

He recalled wistfully the first time the books had displayed their talents. It was when he and Priscilla kissed for the first time.

He pushed the button on the laptop and clicked on “Orders.” Lines of text started appearing and scrolling down the screen. When the screen filled, the first orders started moving down below the bottom of the screen as new listings appeared at the top, faster and faster. 

“Gee! …Busy day. What’s today?”

He turned and looked at the paper calendar hanging just below the big, round, white-faced clock on the wall behind the counter.

“Monday. Right. No wonder we’re so busy.”

He turned back and bent to the printer on the shelf below the counter. He pushed the “On” button and printed sheets started pouring out into the hopper.

He turned back and looked at the clock. 7:37.

“Annirosa won’t be in for an hour and a half. Where are the dog and cat?”

He turned and went into the office, switching the sign in the window facing the parking lot from “Closed” to “Open.”

“Well, I’m here. Might as well open. Maybe someone will come in and buy a book. I know plenty of book people crazy enough to go book hunting before eight in the morning. Or, better yet, maybe someone will pull into the parking lot in an old Ford F-150 pickup with its bed filled with cardboard boxes—say Brillo Pad boxes a la Andy Warhol—from the ’60s or ’50s packed full of books which haven’t seen the light of day since… the ’60s or ’50s. THAT would be interesting.”

He bent to the window and peered out. The parking lot was empty but for the old Chevy van with “Books Bought and Sold” and the shop name lettered on its sides.

He walked back to his desk and sat down heavily in his chair. It creaked in protest. His desk was sprawled with six inches of papers piled up into a little mound.

“A burial mound, haa!”

He considered the mound of paper. Depressing. He cocked his head left and then right.

“I should just clear it all off into a recycling bin and start over,” he chuckled. “Nah. Probably something important in there somewhere.”

He stared at it for a moment, and then he made a huge decision. He went out to the counter and retrieved one of the yellow plastic tubs that they used to go into the stacks and pull orders. He brought it to his desk and swept all the papers into it.

“I’ll go through these another day,” he told himself flatly. 

Then he smiled at the shining surface of the golden oak desk. “A clean slate! I can start over.”

He sat down in the desk chair again and gazed at the desk’s clear wooden surface.

“I haven’t seen that for… a long time.”

He sighed and leaned back. His eyes rose to the wall in front of the desk. The ring hung there from a pin pushed into the wall. It seemed to be swinging slowly.

“Is it teasing me? Or… inviting me?” he mused in all seriousness.

He started to lean forward and rise and reach for it, but then the bell on the front door tinkled with a soft, high, silvery sound like that of an old Viennese music box.

The spell was broken.

He rose and walked out of the office to the counter. It was Annirosa.

“You’re early!”

“I have some research to catch up on. And, uhhh, there’s something else. That vellum Rackham manuscript. I’m afraid I… I… I misplaced it.”

“Here it is.” He tapped the vellum volume. “Somehow it got out into open stock. I found it on the floor in the gardening section, of all places.”

“Maybe it was trying to escape,” she replied.

“Why?”

“I’m not quite sure it’s… ‘right.’”

“No way. Frenchie wouldn’t sell us a bent book, would he?”

“Most vellum boards bend when left out on their own,” she said, stating what is obvious to any seasoned bookseller. “But to me it just doesn’t feel right. Sure is pretty, though.”

“From your vast experience with Rackham holographic illuminated manuscripts? ‘The Case of the Bogus Rackham.’ You should write a book.”

“That’s not nice.”

“It’s not my job to be ‘nice.’ My job is to make you a better bookseller. Your generation has no clue about the value of the Socratic method.”

“You have no clue about ‘my’ generation. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

She opened her laptop and click-click-clicked: “The Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions…”

“Yeah. That.”

“You should write a book,” she riposted snarkily.

“No one would believe it. Anyway, most people would be bored with the… tedium?… of old book selling.”

“Tedium? I’m thrilled to be here every day. It is like a goldmine with new discoveries every day.”

“What did you find yesterday?” he asked grumpily.

“I… I don’t know. No home runs.”

He bent and lifted a sheaf of printed orders and handed them to her.

“I’m going out to look for Setanta and Mathilda.”

“They’re on the front porch looking at books.”

“Not another mysterious drop-off?”

“Well, kind of… There are 23 old Brillo boxes from the 1950s. FedEx delivered them very late yesterday afternoon. Just dropped them and left. Weren’t you here? The labels say ‘signature required.’”

“I must have been in the barn going through buys. The boxes in there are stacked 11 feet high. When you’ve got things caught up in here, sometimes I’ll go out to the barn and root through things for fun. Let’s go out on the porch and see what that cat and dog are getting into. I bet Setanta scared the driver off before the bell could be rung.”

“But who signed for them?”

“I cannot make out the scrawl.”

“You didn’t see them when you came in this morning?”

“It was dark. I just looked down to see where my feet fell.”

They walked to the front door and pushed it open. The little silver bell above the door sang a happy little morning song.

“That bell never sounds the same way twice,” the bookseller mused.

“It is moody. I’m glad when it rings a bit of a warning tone should someone be coming in we need to prepare for.”

“I like it when she rings golden tones signaling something wonderfully exciting is arriving.”

“She?”

“That silver bell has a soul, I’m sure. Another magical member of our team. Definitely a she—a soprano.”

They stepped out onto the wooden porch to see Mathilda perched on Setanta’s shoulders. She was peering down into an open box. Setanta was reaching in and removing one book at a time, carrying them softly in his dextrous jaws. Somehow, he never slobbered on the books. He did slobber on people, sometimes, though, and was well known for it among regular customers. But he would never drool on anyone he had not been properly introduced to.

“How did he open the boxes?”

“He’s good with a boxcutter,” Annirosa replied. “His dog maw is dextrous. That’s not good grammar, is it? I think he could pick a lock if he were given the proper tools.”

“Was that what your Irish troubles were, Setanta? Breaking and entering?”

The giant hound turned his head and looked balefully at the pair. He let out a soft, plaintive whine.

They’d unpacked three boxes, and the contents were in stacks about 17 inches high. The bookseller could discern from 19 feet away that the books were early and mid–20th century. Likely fiction. The dust jackets glowed as if they had just been printed.

He and Annirosa approached and inhaled sharply when they were close enough to read the titles.

“Why, they are all Pulitzer Prize winners up until the early 1960s.”

“Look how the colors on those jackets glow!”

“I wonder when the last time was that somebody read Edna Ferber’s So Big? We certainly can’t sell it nowadays.”

“There’s not a chip at any head or foot,” Annirosa whispered.

“Time travelers,” he replied softly. That was a term he used when he came across an old book that looked as though it had never been touched.

Just then, there was a loud crash and a bang. The distinct sound of a vehicle bottoming out heavily across concrete.

A 1957 Cadillac Coupe DeVille came crashing over the curb. Its front tires squealed when they hit the sidewalk. The engine gunned and the rear wheels spun on the street’s asphalt. The rear rubber tires screamed until they got traction, and then the rest of the steel beast bounded over the curb, its undercarriage crying in torment as it was dragged over the concrete curb. White sparks cascaded in the air behind it.

The four on the porch looked out in wonder.

The big car slewed right and left across the parking lot as if its shocks were Slinkies.

The dog, cat, woman and man all tensed as it approached the porch at high speed. The brakes screeched, and the Body By Fisher stretched forward until the big chrome bumper nearly kissed the front porch footer. The suspension pulled the body backward a half dozen inches—and, finally, the vehicle was no longer in motion.

The engine continued to roar as if the driver had a foot on the gas and the mountain of steel was in neutral.

The car was black and white, or rather, it was shades of grey. Indistinct. Its lines weren’t sharp.

The driver’s door opened with an agonized creak, and a pair of black cowboy boots swung out and pressed themselves onto the worn and cracked parking lot asphalt. There were blue jeans tucked into them—only they weren’t blue. They were black. Then a man unfolded himself, first ducking his head downward, and then rising up next to the Caddie.

“Black and white,” the bookseller whispered.

“He has no colors,” Annirosa whispered back.

The man rose and rose. His full height had to be at least 6 foot 7.

“Unless there are lifts in his boots,” the bookseller thought.

He was lean everywhere. From thin calves and thighs past narrow hips on up to the 24-inch waist and torso, the hollowed out ribcage, and the long, veiny neck with a protuberant, plum-size Adam’s apple. His face was long and narrow, and his high forehead angled upward toward his hairline. His hair was long and stringy and was trained upward and backward, but not outward.

“He’d be blond if his hair had any color,” Annirosa whispered.

“Sandy, ma’am. Same as my name and same as the grit in my boots. Tex Sandy.”

“The Texan bookseller?!” the bookseller asked incredulously. “Why you’d have to be over one hun…”

“Stopped countin’ long time ago. Why, you ask? Cuz nuthin’ started changin’ ’bout 1963. Jes the same grey-black eyes lookin’ back at me from any mirror’d cross my path. Avoid ’em now. Don’ wanna be reminded of what I am.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I reckon I got kilt when that book depository in Dallas fell on me. Not the whole buildin’, mine you. Jes, them 879 boxes of Algebra One books thet Lee Oswald pushed on top o’ me. I’s a forklift driver to pay the bills. We all know booksellin’ don’t pay for nuthin’ but more books. I’d rushed to the window when I heard the shots and was watchin’ the motorcade speed off. Too late, though. Poor Mizz Kennedy all bloody in her pink dress tryin’ to climb out the back of the convertible and catch pieces of Mister President’s head blown all to bits. Happened so fast. Seven shots from three directions.”

“Seven?”

“Yezzer. Seen the whole thing like a bird’s eye view.”

“But you said you were killed.”

“Yep. Kilt but not dead. Yep, cursed to be wandrin’ ’til I find it.”

“Find what?”

“Oswald’s diary, o’course. Tells the whole tale. Names names. Lays out plans. Who paid for it all. Where they all went.”

“Wow!”

“Yep. It was there. Last thing I seen ’fore I’s buried in books. Layin’ on the floor below the window. He must’ve dropped it. I’s able to reach it and slip it in my jacket. Had a special pouch made in it. Fer, ummmm, ‘safe transport’ of rare books when I’d get ’em.”

“Then what happened to it?”

“Dunno! I’s dead and buried purty soon after. Nope. No books in my coffin. I done checked. Dunno how them resurrectionists did that kine of work. Ain’t pretty seein’ yourself all dressed and knowin’ you ain’t a goin’ nowhere.”

“And what have you been doin’—umm, doing—since?”

“Searchin’. Followin’ leads. Wandrin’ the 48 states.”

“There are 50 states,” Annirosa corrected.

“Them last two are too new. Don’t count ’em. Can’t drive to ‘How-are-yee.’ Don’t wanna drive to the north pole state, neither.”

“Hawaii became a state in…? Alaska?”

“Yep. Jes a few years ago. Yer AnnyRosey, ain’t you?”

“How would you know?” asked the bookseller.

“She’s a legend in my days. Say, you ain’t aged a bit. Kinda purty.”

“Maybe you knew my grandmother.”

“Nope. Cain’t fergit a face. Seen yer pitcher in the A. B. Bookman plenny a times.”

“Why, she’d have to be…”

“WHOA, podner! My mamma allays said you never ask a lady her age. Don’t tell it neither.”

The bookseller gave Annirosa a side eye look. “I wonder…”

“Weel, that’s neither here nor ther. I got some books in my trunk. Ya heerd my tail draggin’?”

“Seen… SAW. We saw it, too.”

Setanta and Mathilda had both hopped off the porch and were aiming their noses Tex. They weren’t moving closer, however.

“We are always interested in looking at books. Want any help unloading them?”

“Better not. You reach in my trunk and you might get stained black and white. I’ll jes set some boxes on the parkin’ lot. Iffin’ I get ’em a few feet away, they’ll color back up right smart…  Sayyyy, what’s in them boxes on your porch? Thar right behind ya!”

“We haven’t bought these yet.”

“We don’t even know who dropped them off,” Annirosa added. “The boxes were here on the porch when we came in this morning.”

“Betcha the dog knows. Dontcha, Big Red?”

“His name is Setanta. And he is here in exile from Ireland,” she said defensively. 

“Weel, he’s big and red fer shur.” Tex leaned down closer ’til he was nose to nose with the dog. 

“See, I know them boxes. Means she’s right on my tail.”

“She…?”

“Why, I’ll give you five hunnert dollar. Cash money. Silver certificates. Greenbacks.”

“You ain’t got… ummm… you don’t have anything green in that car.”

“The money will color right up soon as it leaves my grey dead hands.”

“We can’t sell you books we haven’t even bought yet,” the bookseller opined. “And the bookstore could face legal liability concerns should the owner return and have unreasonable expectations.”

Setanta rose onto his four very long and strong legs. He shook his whole body violently. Dog slobber flew in every direction. The bookseller’s khakis got some direct hits. One slobber blotch was unfortunately placed, and the dark spot was spreading. The slobber that flew in Tex’s direction passed right through him and landed on the pavement behind.

“C’mon, Setanta!” he chastised. 

The dog spoke, saying, “ReWour whir yowl BLUFF!” Then he prostrated himself and looked balefully at the humans looming above.

“Setanta’s correct. The owner might want the books back,” Annirosa translated.

“Them books are in boxes near 70 years old. Who do you think drops off somethin’ like that and don’ mean to unload ’em?”

He pulled a long, flat, decorated leather wallet from the back pocket of his jeans—which were black now but were certainly originally blue. An 11-inch chain linked the wallet to his wide leather belt. The belt was adorned with what had to be silver badges alternating with large turquoise stones. He withdrew a thick wad of grey U.S. notes.

“I can give a thousand. Final offer. Hell, you can buy a nice low-mile caddie like mine here for that kinda dough.”

“Not anymore. Vehicles, even secondhand, are in the mid–five figures.”

“Damn! That’s jes crazy money. I can buy a big retail store in downtown Dallas for that kinda dough. I’d be the Book Baron of Texas!”

“If you were not…” Annirosa reminded him.

“Iffin’ I weren’t dead. Thanks for ’mindin’ me. I don’t feel no diffent. Just a little pale and cold… WEEEL! If I cain’t buy nothin’s here, how bout lookin’ at what I got t’offer.”

He walked around to the back of the caddie. The engine was roaring and grey smoke was blowing out the exhaust like a sideways chimney.

“Come round an’ look what I can sell ya. True time time travelers. These books ain’t been touched—hell, they ain’t been seen—since ’63!”

The four of them ambled around the car, keeping their distance lest they become “un-hued.”

Tex turned the key in the lock and raised the very large trunk lid. It made a loud, screeching-groaning metallic sound as it rose.

“Ooh…” was Annirosa’s involuntary response.

“Wow. Just wow,” The bookseller said under his breath.

The books were tightly packed, spine-up in wooden Dr. Pepper soda crates.

The enormous trunk had a very deep well, and it was difficult to tell how many crates deep it was.

Mathilda had leapt atop Setanta so she could look down at the load. She started purring excitedly.

The books were apparently crated alphabetically, as the nearest row of spines were books by authors whose last names began with “F.”

“Faulkner…” the bookseller virtually exhaled the name.

Tex followed his eyes and reached in to extract a book. His long forefinger crooked under the head of the spine of a book in the center.

“CAREFUL! You’ll tear the jacket!”

“Never could read Fokner. Take this one,” he said, holding out a perfect copy of Light in August. “Too damn big and nuthin’ happens and when somethin’ does happen, he makes it too damn long. Got a nice long letter innit this. Fokner to his brother talkin’ ’bout inspiration and his ma and pa and some lady named Hattie.”

“Gatsby…” the bookseller breathed the name.

“Now, that’s a good read. Lots happenin’ an’ happenin’ fast! I like how them eyeglasses keep watchin’ that action fly by. That there’s a hunnert dollar book every day o’ the week.”

“A hundred thousand…” the bookseller’s voice trailed off. “No. Three hundred thousand.”

“What’s that you’re sayin’? You’re mumblin’. Lest I’m goin’ deaf. Dead AND deaf, to boot. I tell ya, this wanderin’ jes ain’t no fun. Sayyyyy… you ain’t hirin’, are ya? I’d come cheap. Don’t eat. Work all day and night cuz I don’t sleep, neither.”

“Your books… they’re perfect. They should be battered by the way you drive, banging over curbs…”

“Bad shocks. Need changed. But how the hell can I take this into a garage? No mechanic can touch it!”

“Your books… They’re perfect…”

“Yessir… some kinda spell on ’em, I ’spect. Jes like me. Doomed to drive through eternity, seems like. Guess you could call me the Drivin’ Texan Book Man.”

“Kind of like the Flying Dutchman?”

“Helluva of a good story, that one.”

“Tex, you said you know who sent these Brillo boxes?”

“Yep. Yessiree. The Babushka lady. She was there with a movie camera. Recorded the whole thing and then got kilt on the grassy knoll. Them agents smuggled her body out, but they dint get the camera.”

“Who did?”

“That’s who I’m a’lookin’ fer. Wanderin’ jes like she is, too. Searchin’ fer the answer.”

Tex then got dreamy.

“I’m hopin’ I can find I can rest and go where the books are all fine firsts, and I can read every one through eternity.”