Bookseller

Great Grandmother told him something was going to happen if he lets the book disappear from the bookstore.

Tommy knew there would be consequences.

What he didn't know was what those consequences would necessarily be.

So he guarded the thin book – more out of habit and the mantras he had been taught for years - throwing it somewhere in the corner behind the counter, where no book lover would stick their curious, ink-stained nose.

It had no spine title. No barcode. The kind of book that made your eyes feel like they were trying to read through fog. Customers passed it without noticing. Most of them, anyway.

Then came the man in the corduroy jacket.

Soft steps. Nervous hands. A gaze that flickered over the shelves like he was afraid of being caught in the act of remembering something.

He hadn’t bought anything. Just wandered. Lingered. Touched too many books without picking one. And Tommy watched him, suspicious only because of how ghostlike he moved, as if the shop was a dream he might wake from.

And when he left, the book was gone.

Tommy didn’t realize it at first. He only noticed the odd quiet an hour later, when the air turned thick with the smell of old roses and printer’s ink. Then came the soft, unmistakable thud from the History section.

A tabby sat on the floor, staring at him like it had always belonged there.

It opened its mouth.

“You fool,” the cat said. “You let it go.”

Tommy froze. The cat blinked slowly, as if bored by his astonishment.

“You heard me,” it said again, in a voice that sounded like brittle paper and cinnamon. “The book is gone. And you’re running out of time.”

Tommy crouched slowly, eyeing the tabby like it might vanish if he breathed wrong. “I’m hallucinating,” he said. “Too much coffee. Too little sleep. Oh God. I’m talking to a cat.”

The cat gave an exaggerated yawn. “Oh, please. I’m not a cat. I’m your Great Grandmother Agnes.”

He stared. “Yeah, cause that’s so possible.”

“She reincarnated before you were born. Details.” Agnes licked a paw, then flicked her tail with growing irritation. “The point is, you let the book be taken.”

“I didn’t let anything happen!” Tommy protested. “The guy must’ve – he must’ve picked it up by mistake. I didn’t even see him take it.”

“Well, he did,” Agnes said. “And if you don’t get it back before the full moon, the wards will collapse, the bookstore’s enchantments will dissolve, and every single book inside will be forgotten. Forever.”

Tommy stood slowly, his mind whirring. “Forgotten? What do you mean by forgotten?”

“I mean they’ll cease to exist in the minds of readers. Entire stories – poof! Gone. The world will forget they were ever written. Even the authors. All because you let a man in corduroy waltz off with a book that should never leave the premises.”

Another thud echoed from the Poetry section. Then one from Self-Help. Then Graphic Novels.

Tommy turned, heart hammering.

Cats.

All kinds. Siamese, black cats, a calico with a monocle, even a hairless Sphynx wearing a sweater with sunflowers on it.

Agnes jumped onto the counter and gave him a hard look. “They’re here to help. Kind of. Depends on the day. But make no mistake: this is your mess. And you’ve got exactly three nights to find the man who stole the book.”

“Do I at least get a clue?” Tommy asked, panic creeping into his voice.

Agnes hopped down and padded toward the door. “Only one,” she said over her shoulder. “The man you’re looking for doesn’t know he took the book. And he’s already started reading it.”

Tommy wasn’t built for urgency.

At all.

He blinked behind his thick-rimmed glasses, heart thudding uncomfortably in his chest, and backed into the counter like the world might forget he was there if he just stayed very, very still.

It usually worked.

“Are you – are you sure I’m the one who has to fix this?” he asked the tabby, who was still perched on his favorite receipt printer. “I mean, couldn’t one of you…?”

Agnes let out a long, weary sigh that sounded like a disapproving librarian who’d seen one too many dog-eared pages. “You’re the Keeper, Tommy. The books chose you. Not these furballs.”

As if summoned by insult, the other cats slowly made their way into the light. They emerged from behind shelves, curtain folds, half-open boxes of unsorted donations – one even from under the register drawer, which Tommy was almost certain was sealed shut.

They gathered in a loose semicircle around him, each settling like royalty into a patch of bookstore floor. Tommy counted at least nine.

A burly Mainecoon, twice the size of the others, sat directly in front of the Philosophy section. It gave Tommy a deep, slow blink of what might have been respect. Or constipation. Hard to tell with cats.

“This is Rupert,” Agnes said, gesturing lazily with her tail. “He used to be a monk. Still won't stop quoting Tenzin Gyatso.”

“Stillness,” Rupert intoned, “is the key to clarity.”

“See?” Agnes muttered. “It’s nonstop.”

A sleek black cat with eyes like polished amber leapt gracefully onto the windowsill. “Name’s Margo,” she said with a purr. “Former thief. Best at tracking scents, secrets, and socks.”

Tommy gave a meek little wave. Margo winked at him.

A one-eyed ginger cat limped in from the back office and dropped a chewed-up ballpoint pen at his feet.

“Don’t mind Tater,” Agnes said. “He doesn't talk much. Got his tongue cut out in his fourth life. But he’s good with doors. Even the locked ones.”

Tommy sank onto the stool behind the counter, clutching a faded hardcover copy of The Book Thief like a comfort blanket.

“This is a lot,” he whispered. “I just wanted to run a cozy shop. Sell poetry. Recommend forgotten authors. I didn’t sign up for – feline ghost librarians and magical theft.”

Agnes softened, just a little. She padded to him and nudged his hand with her head.

“You were born into this, Tommy. Your love and admiration for books – that’s not just some quaint hobby. It’s protection. Preservation. The stories, they need you.”

He swallowed. “But what if I mess it up?”

“Then the stories will die,” Rupert said gravely from the Philosophy shelf. “And the world will grow dimmer, word by word.”

There was a heavy silence.

Tommy adjusted his cardigan sleeves and exhaled through his nose. Slowly. Quietly. Then he stood, clutching the register for balance.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, then. I’ll find the book. Before the moon.”

“Atta boy!” Margo purred.

Tater headbutted his ankle approvingly.

Agnes stretched and flicked her tail. “First things first,” she said. “We track the man who took it. And for that…”

She turned toward a small cabinet near the Occult section, one Tommy had never dared open despite its strange humming and the occasional burst of incense.

“…we will need the Index.”

***

The cabinet in the Occult section was no taller than Tommy’s knee, made of dark wood with inlaid brass patterns that shifted when he wasn’t looking directly at them. It had no handle, only a small circular indentation in the center, like a fingerprint waiting to be remembered.

Tommy hesitated. “I… I’ve never opened this before.”

Agnes flicked her ear. “That’s because it only opens when the bookstore is in danger. Which, ding ding… it is.”

He crouched and tentatively pressed his thumb into the indentation.

The cabinet clicked. Then sighed, like an old man waking from a nap he didn’t ask for.

It opened an inch on its own.

Inside, nestled in velvet and flickering with a light of its own, was a book no thicker than a pamphlet and bound in what looked like pressed leaves and copper thread.

“The Index,” Agnes said softly. “It knows the location, condition, and memory-echo of every book that has ever passed through these walls. Including that one.”

Tommy reached in and gently pulled it free. The book was warm to the touch and thrummed with something… ancient.

He opened it.

The pages were blank.

“…It’s not working,” he said.

“Ask it,” Agnes said. “Politely. And use the name of the book.”

Tommy frowned. “But the book didn’t have a name.”

Agnes gave him a sharp look. “You do know the name. You’ve just forgotten it.”

Tommy closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, searching through the fog of memory. He could almost hear his great grandmother’s voice, whispering bedtime stories in languages that no longer had countries. She always ended with the same phrase:

“Never forget the root of stories. Even if the leaves fall, the root remembers.”

He opened his eyes. The name came like a soft knock in the back of his mind.

The Storm

The moment he spoke it aloud, the Index flared with golden light. Words spilled across the page, written in ink that shimmered like morning dew.

Title: THE STORM

Status: Stolen

Last Holder: Unregistered Visitor – Male, 30s, corduroy jacket, scent of rain and pine.

Location Trace: Parkside Quarter - Tram 7 - Residence above Rainbow café.

Memory Imprint: Book partially opened. Binding shift begun. Contents leaking. Risk: HIGH.

Tommy stared at the page, his mouth slightly open.

“He opened it,” he whispered.

Agnes nodded grimly. “And now the book’s story is bleeding. If it seeps too far into his mind, it’ll root itself there – and disappear from here. Forever.”

Tommy looked up at her. “So we go to the café?”

Margo hopped onto the counter. “We’ll guide you.”

Rupert shook out his fur. “You’ll need more than guidance.”

Tommy blinked. “Like what?”

Agnes padded to the supply closet and nosed it open. Inside was an umbrella, a messenger bag, a small vial of ink that glowed faintly blue, and a single brass library token with an infinity symbol carved into it.

“Take these,” she said. “And bring Tater. You’ll need his… locksmithing.”

Tommy gathered the items with shaking hands, slung the bag over his shoulder, and turned to the door. The shop felt heavier behind him, like it was holding its breath.

He paused.

“What if he doesn’t want to give it back?” he asked.

Agnes met his eyes. “Then convince him. Or take it back before it convinces him to keep it.”

***

The bell above the café door gave a polite little ring as Tommy stepped inside, followed by the soft pat-pat of Tater’s paws.

Rainbow was the kind of place that looked expensive without trying – warm wood, low lighting, and shelves of mismatched mugs behind the counter. The scent of espresso mingled with toasted cardamom and rain-soaked stone.

Tommy’s eyes scanned the room. Afternoon light filtered through rain-streaked windows, casting lazy shadows over half-filled notebooks and humming laptops. And then he saw him.

Corduroy jacket. Early thirties. Stirring sugar into his tea with the kind of concentration most people reserve for open-heart surgery.

Sitting alone in the far corner, a book open in front of him.

Even from a distance, Tommy recognized the copper thread in the spine. The faint, unnatural shimmer around the pages.

The Storm

Tater growled low.

Tommy approached slowly, knees wobbling. When he reached the table, he cleared his throat as quietly as humanly possible.

The man looked up. His eyes were distant, unfocused – as if waking from a dream he wasn’t done dreaming.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I – um – I think that book doesn’t belong to you,” Tommy said, voice thin and high. “You… you accidentally took it. From my shop. Yesterday.”

The man blinked, looked down at the book. His fingers tightened slightly around the pages.

“Oh,” he said. “That was your shop? I…I didn’t mean to take it. I don’t even remember picking it up.” He tilted his head. “It was just… in my bag. I thought I bought it.”

“You didn’t,” Tommy said gently. “And it’s not like other books. It’s…well. Dangerous.”

The man frowned. “Dangerous? It’s just a bunch of half-formed sentences and broken stories. But…”

He looked back at the page.

“I feel like I know it. Like it’s writing something I forgot I lived. Places I’ve never been but still remember. It feels like it’s mine.”

Tommy’s stomach sank.

Agnes’s voice echoed in his head: If it seeps too far into his mind, it’ll root itself there – and disappear from here.

“Please,” Tommy said softly. “It’s not finished yet. And if it leaves the bookstore before it is, it’ll unravel everything. All the books. Every story. They’ll fade.”

The man hesitated.

Behind Tommy, Tater gave a sharp yowl. The lights flickered.

Then the book on the table began to hum.

A low, vibrating sound, like a tuning fork struck in the marrow of the earth. The copper thread on its spine glowed red-hot. The pages began to ripple, as if caught in an invisible breeze.

Tommy reached forward, hand outstretched.

The man didn’t stop him. He looked like he couldn’t move even if he wanted to – held in place by the book’s pull.

Tommy touched the cover.

A shock jolted through his fingers, and in a flash of images – too fast to make sense of – he saw fragments of forgotten stories, broken plots, missing characters weeping in inkless silence.

He gritted his teeth. Closed his eyes.

Whispered the title again.

The humming stopped.

The light went out.

And the book, docile once more, let itself be lifted from the table.

Tommy cradled it like a bird with wet wings. The man across from him sagged in his seat, pale and blinking, as if waking from anesthesia.

“I… I don’t know why I felt like I needed it,” he murmured. “But it was beautiful.”

“It still is,” Tommy said. “But it doesn’t belong to just one person.”

Tater meowed softly. Tommy nodded.

“Thank you,” he said. “For not fighting me.”

The man gave a weak smile. “You sure you’re just a bookseller?”

Tommy hesitated, then tucked the book into his bag.

“Yes” he said. “That’s what we booksellers do”

***

The rain had stopped by the time Tommy stepped out of the café.

The sky was bruised purple, the kind of color that meant something was either ending or just about to begin. Tater trotted ahead, tail high, leading the way as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

Tommy, still clutching the bag to his chest, felt… different. Not braver. Not stronger. Just more awake.

The streetlights flickered on one by one. He looked at the bookshop across the road – his shop – its windows glowing softly like a hearth. The door, which he’d locked that morning, now stood ever-so-slightly ajar.

Agnes was waiting inside. He knew it without looking.

As he stepped through the doorway, the hum of magic settled back into his bones. The air smelled like old paper and dust again. Safe. Familiar.

He gently placed The Storm back behind the counter, exactly where it had been. For now.

Agnes sat atop the register, tail wrapped neatly around her paws.

“You did well,” she said, voice quieter than before. “But the book was opened.”

“I know,” Tommy replied.

“It will remember that.”

Tommy nodded.

In the back, one of the cats knocked over a stack of plays with a deliberate crash. No one moved to fix it. Tommy sat down behind the counter and picked up a pen. Scribbled a title on a scrap of paper:

Unwritten Storms and Thunders

He wasn’t sure why. It just felt right.

From the Poetry section came the sound of soft, slow purring. Something shifted in the walls – too deep to hear, too old to name. The bookstore exhaled.

Tommy sat very still, listening.

Outside, another customer paused at the window, peering in.

Above the door, the bell gave a tiny ring.

And somewhere in the back, a book was waiting to be opened.