This is Part 2 of a Christmas experience in the weird bookstore. To start at the beginning, click here.

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“They won’t believe this,” the bookseller thought as the sleigh, now a tiny dot far away in the sky, disappeared.

He shivered and then turned to go inside. Setanta’s nose was pressed against the glass on the front door. Mathilda was perched atop the huge dog’s head, her nose also pressed against the glass.

The bookseller turned and looked back across the parking lot, which was dimly lit by one lonely light flickering down from a tall post. A very large owl was perched on top of the post. It periodically blinked its deeply golden eyes.

“Hello, old friend. Watching over us?”

He opened the front door, and the bell sleepily trilled “The Christmas Song.”

When he stepped across the threshold, the cat was slithering figure eights around both his legs. Setanta was bouncing up and down like a puppy. He had a toothy dog smile on his face. He sneezed periodically, his head shaking violently, projectile snot splattering across the floor.

“Excited to see Santa, are you? Me too. Tom will be a good one. Perhaps they wear out after a few decades and are permitted to retire. I suppose that’s what happened with Chris Nicholas. Tom will make a good Santa. Heart of gold.”

Setanta was panting happily, slobber dripping onto the floor. Mathilda stood on her hind legs and stretched as high as the bookseller’s thigh. She dug her claws into the fabric of his pants.

“Owww!” he exclaimed, though the pain wasn’t severe. “Oh, I see. You want your presents. Well, Christmas is 24 hours away. So, you’ll just have to… OWW!”

He retrieved the little tin that contained nine more lives for Mathilda from his pocket. She took it into her mouth and strutted toward her nest on a bookshelf behind the sales counter. Then the bookseller released the giant bone from under his arm, and it fell to the floor with a loud thump. Setanta was on it in a second. He grabbed it with his jaws and attempted to head into the stacks, but the bone’s length was wider than the aisle. The bookseller watched as the huge dog cocked his head one way and then the other, measuring how much he would have to angle it to get down the aisle. After a moment of deliberation, he disappeared down the dark aisle, his claws clicking on the black and white linoleum tiles, bone held aloft.

“I hope he doesn’t try to bury it somewhere. Now, what to do at 1:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve in a bookshop?”

He turned to look out the front door. It had begun to snow heavily.

“We will have a white Christmas.”

Not for the first time, he headed back into his office to sleep. He pulled on a tattered, bulky wool sweater, took his old Burberry trench coat off the brass coat rack to use as a blanket, and laid down on the old overstuffed sofa pushed against the wall. He nestled into the warmth of the coat and put one pillow over his head and another under it. The room was dimly lit from the parking lot light.

He saw a shadow trot across the room and knew it was Mathilda. She leapt up and settled on the bookseller’s shoulder.

“Here for affection or warmth, Mathilda?”

She rumbled a low soft purr and settled in deeper.

He heard Setanta’s nails clicking closer from out in the store.

“Don’t bring that bone in here. I won’t be able to sleep with you gnawing all night.”

The dog let out a disappointed, “Merrrrr?” and there was a loud thump out by the counter as he dropped his bone. Setanta flopped down in front of the sofa, and the man reached down to scratch behind his ears.

“I wonder if I’ll dream of sugar plums?” he thought. “Just what are sugar plums?”

He considered pulling his phone out of his pocket to look it up, but decided not to.

Soon, all three were fast asleep.

He awoke with bright light filling the room. The sunrise was hitting a thick blanket of snow outside.

“We have a white Christmas!” was his first thought.

When he opened his eyes again, Setanta was staring down at him. The dog’s big, black wet nose was only a couple inches from his own.

“Wanna go out?”

The dog turned and pranced across the office and out into the bookshop.

The bookseller stood, put on his Burberry coat, and followed. In winter, he kept a pair of boots near the front door. He bent and pulled them on.

Setanta was sitting patiently, waiting for the door to open.

The little bell played a bit of “White Christmas” as they stepped outside. Mathilda rushed out between the bookseller’s legs before the door closed. She, too, wanted to see the glorious morning.

Little drifts had blown up onto the porch here and there. Mathilda leapt over them, avoiding getting her paws wet.

Setanta jumped over the railing, clearing it by a couple feet. He landed on the snow-covered parking lot, his paws sinking into the snow, and began galloping joyously, frolicking like a puppy.

The bookseller estimated that the snow was over a foot deep.

“I wonder if I should close today?” he thought. “That would disappoint a lot of people. But if they don’t plow the roads…”

His thought was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a snowplow, its chains clinking; steel scraping on the pavement out on the road.

“Well, if they can clear the roads, I can clear the parking lot. Or at least enough to get some cars in here.”

Setanta and Mathilda looked at him quizzically. They seemed to say, “We would help if we could…”

He pulled on his coat and boots. Wrapped a scarf around his neck. Pulled gloves onto his hands. Then he headed out onto the porch.

He started by shoveling off the front steps. He pushed the shovel on the ground all the way out to the street, creating a path about a foot and a half wide. Then he turned and began widening the path by tossing shovelfuls out from the edges.

Then he turned and went back to work on the other side. His goal was to get a path cleared wide enough for cars to enter and exit. Once he was done with that, he could start clearing parking spaces along the front porch.

He worked and worked, arms and back straining.

Periodically, he would take a short break, stopping and leaning on the shore handle.

He’d been doing this for about an hour when an odd vehicle drove into the lot. It was a vintage Renault Dauphine.

It pulled in as far as it could go, but stopped where the path to the porch hadn’t been widened. Out hopped a strange group of women. They were swathed in shawls and scarves of many colors. Their contrast against the white snow was dramatic.

Last out of the driver’s door was Annirosa. She, too, was swathed, but not to the same extent. Beneath the shawls and scarves, she wore jeans and a puffy jacket.

Each woman had only a small shovel, but the group worked very fast and rhythmically. They were like a dance team. They attacked the snow as if they had choreographed it.

The bookseller walked out to greet them.

“Annirosa, where did you find all these people?”

“Oh, these are just some of my… ummm… weaving group.”

He looked more closely, and amongst the scarves and wrappings, he could see odd facial features peeking out. Pixieish visages. An occasional pointed ear.

“Thank you all for coming!” he called to them. They turned as a group and bowed in unison, said not a word, and then got back to the shoveling.

“I didn’t want the shop to lose its Christmas Eve sales,” Annirosa said. “When the snow started last night, I asked them to stay over. It was great fun. We wove all night. I put a cauldron onto the hook in the walk-in fireplace and made a traditional melange. When the dawn came, we cleared out my little drive and headed over here. The roads are already pretty clear. I think we will be busy today.”

The odd women made quick work of everything. Soon there was enough room for cars to drive in and out, and about 11 parking spaces along the front porch were clear.

Annirosa went to them and thanked them. They began putting their shovels into the Renault.

“Are you going to give them a ride home?”

She chuckled a bit.

“They don’t need a ride from me. They are going places that the Renault could never go.”

“Can I pay them something?”

“No. Money means nothing to them. But they did ask me to keep an eye out for certain kinds of books. History and mixology and spelling.”

“Spelling?”

“You do not want to know. Are their clothes not magnificent?”

Indeed, he was struck by colors he had never seen and fabrics unknown.

“We weave them ourselves from the coats of many creatures.”

“I bet we could sell some of those in the shop.”

Annirosa laughed again. It was a laugh one might make when a naive child asks the impossible.

“They would never part with them, and the rarity of the material would make them impossible to price. I am just an apprentice. They are all masters.”

“Can I get them something to drink or eat? Maybe some of your famous cocoa.”

“They do not eat anything like we would have inside. But they did ask if Mathilda and Setanta could come out to say hello. They are all old friends.”

The bookseller turned and hustled up onto the porch. He opened the front door, and out bounded the cat and dog. They sprinted to the group, and there were generous hugs and ear scratchings for both of them. Then the women clasped hands, made a circle, and began a dance with Mathilda and Setanta in the center. They didn’t chant or sing the dance tune, but rather “cooed” it. In the center of the circle, the dog and cat rose on their hind legs and danced a Gavotte.

After 17 turns, the dance stopped. All bowed to one another, and the troupe began walking out to the road.

“Are you sure I can’t give them a ride in the van or something?”

Annirosa laughed the laugh of joy at naivety.

“Just watch.”

As they got nearer to the road, the dozens of scarves and shawls each woman wore reshaped themselves into iridescent wings. One by one, they took flight. They circled the bookshop, cooing before they peeled away and headed to the west.

“Where are they going?”

“Into the West. The celebrations there… and the feasts… perhaps someday you would like to see them.”

“Maybe. If you think I’m worthy.”

“You are a legend among them. They would be honored. And you should meet some of the guards you have around you.”

“I need guards?”

“Sometimes. And this place—always. There are books you do not know you have. And then there is the ring.”

“Are those women the large owls I see around here so often?”

“They can be if they wish. But enough questions. I heard you had a special visitor last night.”

“Yes! It was Tom Hubbard, as I live and breathe.”

“It was once Tom,” Annirosa said. “He agreed to accept a great gift and challenge. His body was failing quickly in many ways, but his spirit was strong. Chris Nicholas had been Santa Claus for 50 or 60 years. He was worn and ready to find peace. Last night was the perfect evening for the reins to be passed. I would say that Tom, who is now Nick, is somewhere over Europe now. He will pass by here again later.”

“But he already gave us presents. I got my dream book, a Shakespeare first folio. And Setanta got an enormous bone from a long extinct Irish Elk.”

“Extinct? I do not believe so. Tir Nan Nog had herds of them last time I was… last I heard…”

“And Mathilda was given nine more lives.”

“That is good. I was concerned she was running low and needed to be topped up.”

“Now, we should go inside and get the store ready to open. It is Christmas Eve!”

The four booksellers turned and trudged up onto the porch. The bell over the door rang “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” as they entered.

In they went and began getting the shop ready for customers.

And the customers came and came and came.

The day was a blur.

“So much last-minute shopping,” the bookseller remarked.

“I believe 31 percent of them are buying books for themselves,” Annirosa replied.

“It is good to be busy—to be an old bookstore and still be relevant.”

It was one of the rare days that no one brought books in to sell. The shop was bright with all the sunlight bouncing off the snow outside. Annirosa had Christmas carols playing on the sound system.

In midafternoon, business started slowing, and the determination was made to close early—4:30.

At 4:23, the door opened. The bell tinkled “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” In walked a bent old woman. She had a ragged, very large, black shawl wrapped around her. It covered her head and shoulders and much of her body. She wore black hobnail boots and a worn and torn red peasant skirt.

The store was empty but for her and the four booksellers.

The bookseller, Annirosa, and Setanta were behind the sales counter. Setanta, the dog, was standing on his hind legs and was the tallest by 17 inches. Mathilda, the cat, was working on the laptop. She stopped typing and looked up at the last customer of the day.

The woman limped past the counter and headed back into the stacks. The shawl covered all of her face except her nose, which protruded five centimeters beyond it. At the end of her nose was a large black wart. The wart had seven bristly hairs sticking straight out from it.

“Merry Christmas,” the bookseller said. “We are closing…” Annirosa surreptitiously stepped on his foot. “But we will stay as long as you wish to shop.”

The woman nodded slowly and continued past them. The bookseller was sure he could hear her bones creaking with every step.

“That’s an odd customer,” the bookseller said under his breath.

“Not really. She does not work until the eve of the Epiphany—January 5th.”

“I’ll turn the ‘OPEN’ sign around.”

“I will make us some cocoa, and then I really must fly. My family is getting together tonight, and it is ever so far away.”

“Will you have enough time to drive there?”

“Time? Drive?” She laughed merrily. “No problem.”

She turned and headed to the tiny closet-sized pantry.

Setanta gently picked up a 19th century omnibus edition of Dickens’ Christmas Stories and trotted down an aisle to stock it.

Mathilda rose, stretched, and used two paws to pull down the top of the laptop. She nimbly jumped off the counter onto the floor and scurried away to her litter box.

The bookseller went into his office and ran the gauntlet of piles of books that had filled it up so much the day before. The once-red big velvet Santa sack had been dragged to a corner. It was bulging with books, and indeed, a few dozen had spilled out of its top.

“What will I do with a bag of books that never empties?” he wondered.

He crossed to the window and turned the “OPEN” sign around to read “CLOSED.” He stood and stared out at the snowy expanse leading into the woods, where bare black trees rose in spindly contrast to the white carpet.

“Another Christmas. More adventures. I wonder what next year will bring?” he thought. “More books, I expect.” He chuckled to himself.

He stared into the woods and reflected.

“I’ve had this view for four decades now. It hasn’t really changed. Woods on all four sides.” Across the street out front were more woods. “I should have called this place ‘The Black Forest Book Shop.’”

Birds were flitting to and fro around the feeder atop a squirrel-proof pole at the edge of the parking lot.

The bookseller mused on the state of things. He saw himself as a child, all bundled up and tussling with friends in the snow.

“Snow wasn’t so cold back then.”

He thought of Christmases as a teen and young man. With his parents there. So long ago.

“They gave great Christmases. I was very lucky.”

Christmases with Priscilla before she crossed over.

And the Christmases since—which seem to have gotten more and more bizarre.

“What next?” he mused. “Or is it me?”

He turned and walked around stacks of books to leave the office. As he passed his desk, he noticed the old mailing tube lying there. He picked it up as he passed and walked out to the counter.

The counter was covered with piles of books that had evidently been set there by the old woman with the shawl. They were all children’s books, by the looks of them.

As he approached the counter, Annirosa emerged from the pantry closet with a mug in each hand.

Mathilda looked down on the scene, perched on her pillow on a shoulder-high bookshelf. Her eyes glowed gold, and her countenance was serene.

Setanta came clicking up to the front end and let out a confused “Errrup?” when he saw all the books.

Annirosa had to set the mugs on a shelf under the counter—there was no room on top.

“We were only gone a few minutes,” the bookseller mumbled.

“Not even that,” Annirosa said. “Look at the clock.”

It still read 4:23.

“Has time stopped?”

It was then they heard the metal nails of the old woman’s boots scraping closer. She was not visible behind the solid mass of books covering the counter. But her two crooked and gnarled hands appeared and set a stack of 11 books atop the pile.

“Did she carry all these books up here, Mathilda?”

The cat cocked her head up and away aloofly, as if to say, “I am not telling”.

The bookseller and Annirosa went around the counter so they could actually see the woman. She was just a few inches taller than four feet.

“Did you want to take these today? I didn’t see a truck or car out in the lot.”

The woman replied in extremely rapid Italian. Had she spoken in English, the bookseller likely still wouldn’t have been able to keep up.

“She says she does not need them for a couple weeks. Just please box them up and leave them on the porch, and she will have them swept away.”

“Of course you speak Italian,” the bookseller said to Annirosa.

“It is not really Italian, but an ancient dialect from Urbania.”

“How will she be paying?”

The woman began gesticulating with her hands. Her fingers and her nose were the only long things about her.

“She says the money is already in your bank and that unless you need something else, she must sweep away. She has many more stops.”

“But these books are all in English.”

The little hag spoke rapid fire again, using her hands profusely. When she was done, she gave Annirosa a shrug of her shoulders.

“They are being translated as we speak. Unless you have any more foolish questions, she has spent too much time here already. She was referred here by colleagues who recommended you for your competence. Now she is not so sure.”

“I’ll open the front door for you, ma’am. These will be packed and out on the porch by tomorrow afternoon. Setanta is a fast packer.”

She headed to the door but gave the bookseller a little kick in the shins as she passed him. She opened the door herself and scurried out.

The bell above the door played some “Caro Gesu’ Bambino.”

“What was that all about, Annirosa?”

“That was Befana. And you were not very polite to her.”

“Me? She was mean!”

“That is her job; her gig. Now can we finally close up? I really must fly.”

“Sure. You’re sure you don’t need a ride?”

Annirosa groaned and turned, headed for the door.

“Don’t you have any bags?”

She gave the door a little slam behind her.

The bell played “Little Drummer Boy,” with a “rum pum pum pum…”

“What did I say? Should I go apologize?”

When he got out on the porch, there was no one there. But there was a witch’s broom leaning against the railing by the front steps. The porch was meticulously swept clean. Not a leaf or twig was anywhere to be seen.

“This place sure attracts a lot of strange women,” he thought to himself. Then he turned and went back inside.

“Well, it is just us three. Cocoa, anyone?”

The dog and cat signaled their displeasure.

“Anyone know what a Befana is?”

Then he noticed the ancient craft paper mailing tube atop a stack of Befana’s books.

“I guess we can call this my Christmas present. I wonder who sent it?”

He picked it up and inspected it.

“Addressed to me. Here. I’d say a hundred years ago, judging from the stamps,” he thought.

“What do you think, Mathilda?”

She threw her left hind leg straight up into the air and began chewing on it in response.

Setanta had retrieved the huge Irish Elk bone and was assiduously gnawing on it on the floor in front of the counter.

The bookseller looked under the counter until he found a yellow and black box cutter. He cut through the paper glue tape at the seam and pulled the tube apart.

The contents were a roll of paper backed with protective linen. He slid the roll out of the wrappings, and a small piece of paper with fountain pen ink notes fluttered to the floor. He unrolled the linen a bit to what it protected.

“A map!”

Mathilda leapt from her perch and landed on a stack of books so she could observe.

“There’s no room on the counter. And there’s no room in my office—except the desk.”

He went in there and unfurled the map onto the desk.

“Well, I’ll be! A map to Fairyland, and an old one at that!”

“Look how long it is! It must be four feet long!”

Mathilda hopped onto the desk. She had the handwritten note in her mouth. She held it daintily by its corner.

He retrieved it and read: “I’ve been told that in the next millennium—a century from now—you may have a way of finding Fairyland. I’ve tried and damned if I got a sniff of it. Cheers! Chris Nicholas.”

The bookseller flushed a bit and raised his eyes to the ring hanging upon the wall.

“I wonder…” he pondered.

“Well, it is Christmas Eve, Mathilda. What shall we do? Watch a movie?”

She hopped down and exited the office. He heard her rattle her empty saucer.

“I’ll bring you some milk. Irish whiskey, Setanta?”

The dog gave a howl of assent.

“Maybe we should read some? Dickens?”

He pulled open the liquor drawer—bottom left—on his old carved desk. He retrieved a bottle of single barrel so old the label was handwritten.

“Eighteen forty-three,” he said. “I’ve been saving this. But what for?”

He poured two fingers into a tumbler—neat.

He set two saucers on the floor. One for the dog. One for the cat.

He had retrieved a small red duodecimo from his rare book glass case.

He sat on the couch, his legs stretched out between the two animals.

“Well, let’s try again. It didn’t turn out well last night, did it?

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

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Christmas Day dawned to reveal a fresh blanket of snow. A lot of snow. But there was no need to clear it today. The bookshop only closed on Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day.

Setanta was up early packing Befana’s boxes.

The bookseller spent the night in the office curled under a heavy dark brown, faux-fur sled blanket.

When he rose, he went to the window.

“Look at that! Three feet at least. And over in the woods, three giant owls on three beeches. Mathilda, come see!”

But she didn’t hear him. She was busy printing orders.

“Ca-chunk. Ca-chunk. Ca-chunk…”

He turned and headed out of the office. As he passed his desk, he tapped the ancient map.

“Chris, I know how to get to Fairyland. It is hanging right there. Do I have the courage?”

At the sales counter, about half the books had already been packed by the dog.

“I suppose I’ll have to schlep them out to the porch.”

Setanta was very strong and very dexterous with his big mouth. But there was no way for him to get hold of a box.

The bookseller picked up a book from the counter. Strega Nona. He opened it. The text was in Italian. He opened a few more. Italian.

“I wonder how… Maybe she likes American bindings.”

He put the teakettle on the burner and turned it on.

“So, Mathilda, people actually order books on Christmas Eve?”

She looked at him and squinted her eyes—giving him her “laser look.”

He pulled on his old Burberry trench coat. He pulled on his boots. He wrapped a muffler around his neck. He retrieved the old steel two-wheel cart and began rolling boxes out onto the porch.

“Happy families are all alike,” he said to no one in particular.

He looked at his magic cat. He looked at his magic dog.

“I wonder if there’s any magic hiding in me anywhere?”