The Secret Christmas Bookshop (The Secret Bookshop #1)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

T he shouts and squeals and screaming wind made it hard for Sophie to think. There was no moon because of the storm clouds, which meant that everything was truly dark.

Voices called around her, high and panicked.

‘Beth! Beth, where are you? ’

‘What happened? ’

‘Is everyone OK? ’

‘Jesus, what a storm. ’

A few phone torches flicked on, but they were will-o’-the-wisps, not lighting enough to make sense of anything other than the obvious reality that people were panicking and hurrying, as if the green itself was dangerous.

A hand gripped Sophie’s arm, making her jump again. ‘Are you OK?’ It was Dexter.

‘Oh, Dexter, I’m fine. Are you OK? Where’s Lucy?’

‘Hopefully with Sabina and her parents, but I need to find her.’ He put his phone light on, highlighting them both.

‘I should take control of this,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be in charge.’ What she really wanted to do was find Harry, check that he was all right. The wind was still raging, but the crowd felt thinner, as if people had decided to head for home, where they at least knew where things were, even if they couldn’t see them.

A large, bright spotlight shone over the green, and for a moment Sophie thought the power had come back on, but then Ermin called out, ‘If you all want to make your way to the hall, we can shelter there until we decide what to do. If you want to go home, and you’re safe getting there, that’s fine, too!’

There was agitated chatter and a swell of movement, Ermin shining his torch on the door of the village hall. Above them, Sophie could just make out the rolling storm clouds, and around her, flickers of people finding each other with their phones, but that was all. The edges of the green were nothing but different shades of black.

‘I’ve seen Lucy,’ Dexter said, sounding relieved. ‘I’m going to make sure she’s OK, then I’ll find you, help wherever I can.’

‘Great. Thank you, Dex, but stay with Lucy if she needs you.’

He disappeared into the melee, and Sophie found her own phone, put on the torch and went to check on the food trucks. Natasha had a Maglite angled across her mobile bar, and was rapidly tidying everything away.

‘Are you all right?’ Sophie asked.

‘I need to get back to the Blossom Bough. I’ve left a couple of my part-timers in charge, and they’ll be having kittens not knowing what to do in a power cut.’

‘Go,’ Sophie said. ‘I’ll lock up your stand.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’ She took the keys from Natasha, used her light to make sure everything was tidied away, then pulled down the shutter and locked it. Everything was so much more difficult with limited light and a thrashing wind. She gave one final pull on the door, checking it was secure.

‘Sophie!’ Her body recognized the voice before her brain did, and she whipped round, saw a torch beam heading towards her.

‘Harry!’ He was walking awkwardly, his long strides off-kilter over the uneven ground. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Are you ? I didn’t know where you were.’

He brought his right arm around her, pulling her against him, and she buried her nose in his neck. His skin was chilled and damp, but she felt calmer immediately. She reached her hands behind his neck and he flinched.

‘Harry?’ she took a tiny step back.

‘I’m fine.’

‘What happened?’ She held her phone up and to the side, so she could see his face without blinding him.

‘I’m not sure the village hall is the best place for everyone right now,’ he said. ‘A lot of people have gone home, but there’s Frank and his bridge players. Dexter and Lucy are still here, and Birdie, Jazz, Fiona and Ermin. There’s no comfort; it’s just cold and dark.’

‘Harry?’

‘I’ve got a generator at the manor. I installed it a while ago, so …’

‘ Harry. ’ She touched his cheek, turned his head so he was facing her. ‘Why did you flinch when I put my arms around you?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘ What’s nothing?’

He clenched his jaw, irritated. ‘Something fell on me when that lightning flared. I was standing next to the village hall and something fell off – a bit of the roof, I think – but it didn’t hit anyone else.’

‘Oh, that’s OK then,’ Sophie gritted out. ‘As long as it’s only you who got injured. Where does it hurt?’ She felt sick all of a sudden, desperate to check he wasn’t bleeding, that he hadn’t broken anything.

‘My shoulder, but I’ll be fine. Let’s get everyone to the manor, wait out the storm there.’

Sophie was shivering, the icy rain hitting her skin in shards, and Harry had his hood down, his hair plastered to the top of his head.

‘Are you sure you’re happy to have everyone at the manor? The power might come back on in a minute.’ But the thunder and lightning were relentless, and Sophie reasoned that it wouldn’t be fun sitting it out with no possibility of light except candles, no heat except blankets. The manor, with all its fireplaces, was a much more welcome prospect. Add in a generator, and it was positively palatial.

‘I think we should go there and see what happens,’ Harry said. ‘Everyone’s put so much effort into this event, and I know it might be ruined now – we’ll have to wait until it’s light to see the damage – but this is the least I can do for them.’

‘OK.’ Sophie squeezed his right arm, frowning when he tried to rotate his left, then winced. ‘And I can have a look at your shoulder.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said again.

‘Except it’s obviously not. Come on, let’s get out of the deluge.’

Harry was right: the village hall was cold and inhospitable, with the rain drumming against the glass, the hard wooden floor and the meagre flickers from the battery-operated tea lights. In the light of Ermin’s torch, Sophie was met with a sea of anxious, unhappy faces.

‘OK everyone,’ Harry said, managing to sound both direct and soothing, ‘anyone who wants to can come back to the manor. I’ve got a generator there, so we should be able to get some light, and at the very least I’ve got fireplaces.’

‘Ooh lovely,’ said a voice.

‘Mistingham Manor? It’s like bloody Narnia, that place. Not sure it even exists.’ Sophie was sure that was Valerie, one of Frank’s more forthright friends.

‘How will we get there?’ someone else asked.

‘I’ve got my car,’ Ermin said.

‘I can get the Land Rover,’ Harry added. ‘If you’re happy to wait fifteen minutes.’

‘I can go.’ May stood up and put a hand on Harry’s arm. ‘You rally the troops.’

She gave Sophie a quick smile, her features shadowy, then she was gone, out into the cold night, the door banging behind her.

‘Will Felix be there?’ piped up a young voice that Sophie thought must be Lucy.

‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘And the dogs.’

‘Darkness and Terror!’ Lucy shouted, jubilant.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ Harry murmured, so only Sophie could hear. ‘I am never going to live that down, am I?’

She slid her hand around his waist. ‘Never in a million years.’

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said simply.

‘Me, too.’ There was something about the exchange that made her chest ache, the drastic turn the night had taken knocking her off-kilter, somehow. She wanted to fast-forward half an hour, until they were all safely at Mistingham Manor, with proper light to see by and a fire crackling in at least one of the rooms. She wanted, more than anything, to make sure Harry was OK.

Against the backdrop of the storm, the pelting rain and howling wind, the thunder an intense, constant rumble and lightning taking bleak, intermittent snapshots, Mistingham Manor looked like the starring attraction in a 1950s horror film.

It was still in darkness when Sophie clambered out of the Land Rover and helped Frank, then his friend Valerie, then Birdie, down from the high vehicle, and she could just make out their apprehensive looks.

‘I’ll get the generator going,’ Harry called over the rain, hurrying to the side of the house. ‘Take everyone into the lounge.’

‘OK!’ Sophie called, but it was May who led the small, bedraggled group through the large hall, everyone murmuring excitedly as they went, and Sophie realized that she’d never been in the lounge, because Harry had always taken her to his study.

It was at the back of the house, May’s sweep of the torch revealing a huge room with two floor-to-ceiling windows. It faced away from the sea, and Sophie wondered why that was, but she didn’t have time to ponder the architectural anomaly, instead helping Frank, Valerie and Birdie to the sofas arranged around the fireplace. May knelt in front of the hearth, trying to get a fire started.

‘Let’s get settled here,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m sure Harry will have the power working in a moment.’

‘This is a bloody castle,’ Valerie announced. ‘This room alone is bigger than my bungalow.’

‘Harry’s family have owned it for generations,’ Frank told them. He sounded sad, and Sophie wondered if he’d been friends with Bernie Anderly.

‘Here we go!’ May sounded as cheerful as always, much brighter than the situation warranted, but then a whoosh of flames filled the fireplace, the light and warmth softening the shadows. It made the raging storm seem less sinister, and Sophie felt some of her tension slipping away.

‘Does Harry need help with the generator?’ she asked.

‘My dad’s helping him,’ Lucy piped up from one of the sofas. Darkness and Terror had found her, Clifton was already scooting onto her lap, and Sophie wondered where Felix was.

‘We could do with some more wood,’ May said, poking at the fire.

‘There’ll be some in Harry’s office.’ Sophie squeezed the other woman’s shoulder. ‘You’re incredibly calm about all this.’

May shrugged. ‘A little bit of drama never hurt anyone. It’s sometimes when the best things happen – as long as nobody gets hurt.’

‘Harry’s hurt his shoulder,’ Sophie said, a flutter of concern in her chest.

‘I’m sure once he’s got the power back on, he’ll let you play nurse.’

Sophie didn’t miss the amusement in May’s voice, and she hoped the other woman saw her scowl before she turned on her heel and, using her phone to guide her, left the lounge and went back into the hall, then through to Harry’s study.

She felt better in here, because it was such a familiar room to her now. But it was freezing, and the sound of heavy rain hitting the windows, the wind screaming through the trees outside, was overwhelming. She tried not to think about what the sea might look like right now; how big and terrifying the waves must be.

She padded over to the fireplace and crouched next to the log basket. She picked out a couple of the larger logs, and was about to stand up when there was another noise. It sounded as if it was inside the room, a creak, followed by a rat-tat-tat. Sophie shivered. She knew there were rumours of a ghost at the manor, but she’d been here so many times now, and had never felt anything remotely eerie. That’s because you’ve always been with Harry , said a little voice in her head.

She glanced over to the far corner of the room, but she couldn’t see anything except shades of grey and black, shapes that looked like they were moving, but couldn’t be. She returned to her task, choosing a couple more logs. The noise came again, louder than before. A long, slow creaking, as if something was gradually ripping open. All the hairs prickled up on the back of her neck, and goosebumps covered her skin.

Sophie put the logs down and raised her phone to illuminate the far side of the room, where there were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Was there a mouse, or some other small creature? Was this room falling apart? Harry had told her it wasn’t finished, but she thought he meant it needed new furniture. It had always seemed structurally sound when she’d been in here.

She panned her light over the bookshelves, and froze. There was a gap, right in the corner of the room. Shining the light on it, she could see a black, impenetrable void. It made no sense, but there was a gap between the bookshelves. The rat-tat-tat came again, followed by another creak, and Sophie swallowed her fear and got to her feet.

She tiptoed across the room, holding her phone up in front of her. She got closer, closer … and then she saw what was going on. Part of the bookshelf was also a door. The shelves were real, the books arranged on them were real, but a portion of it was on a hinge, and the door was ajar, revealing a void behind it.

Sophie pressed her palm against the books and pushed, and the door moved slowly inwards. She was hit with a waft of cold, damp air that was nothing like the air in the study.

She blinked, her brain trying to make sense of what she was seeing, and then there was a flash, and all the lights came on: the side lights in the study lit her from behind, and in this new, hidden space there was one large standing lamp and a smaller lamp, both of which were now glowing, illuminating everything.

The first thing Sophie saw was that this was an annex, a single-storey room bolted onto the side of the house, and that it had been damaged in the storm. A thick branch must have snapped off a tree in the high winds and crashed through the roof, landing in the centre of the space. Rain fell through the gap, swirling to the floor, drenching everything inside. The next thing she noticed was Felix, standing frozen next to the fallen branch, as if unsure how he’d ended up there. Sophie swallowed, wondering how close he’d come to being hit by the bit of tree. He was wearing a blue jumper covered in silver snowflakes, and when he saw her he let out a plaintive bleat.

Sophie held out her hand to him, but her attention was snagged by the walls, all of which were lined with books, rows and rows of them, on built-in shelves. Some looked new but a lot of them were old, tatty, falling apart. Some didn’t have covers, their spines visible, glue covering the pale lines of the sewn signatures.

Her eyes fell on the wall to her right, and the pine desk that looked like a workstation. It was covered in tools that Sophie was so, so familiar with. There was a carpenter’s square and an awl, a cutting board, a ruler, and a sharp-looking craft knife. She could see a wooden book press and a roll of mull, the fabric used to strengthen the spines of books, fixing the adhesive but leaving them flexible so they could open properly. These were all things she used to create her casebound leather journals, and seeing them here, in a secret room in Harry’s house, made her brain stutter.

And then, right in the middle of the desk, spot-lit by the lamp sitting on a shelf above it, there was a single, beautiful book.

Sophie’s breath stalled.

It was bound in a rich blue cloth, and had bronze foil details – they looked like dandelions – scattered over the cover. The colours were different, but it was so similar to her copy of Jane Eyre , to Winnie’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont . On the front was written, in bronze foil to match the dandelions: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen .

Her heart in her mouth, Sophie stepped forwards and picked it up, tipping it so she could see the spine. The title and author were printed down the side and then, at the very bottom, there was the same logo she’d puzzled over on her own book, wondering what it meant.

Suddenly, it was obvious. The little house with two chimneys, its roof a perfect, symmetrical triangle, was an H laid over an A. H for Harry. A for Anderly. Her book had come from him: he had lied to her. She gently placed Northanger Abbey back on the desk, her thoughts scrambling as she turned away from it.

Harry was standing in the doorway, holding his shoulder, his expression a confusing mix of pain and panic.

‘Sophie.’

In that moment, all her hopes of staying in Mistingham with him fell away, leaving behind anger, and hurt, and sad resignation.

‘What is this?’ she asked, emotion clogging her throat.

She stood there, with Felix’s warm, damp body pressed against her leg, and waited for Harry to somehow explain all this away, so she didn’t have to give up on the future she had only just found the courage to hope for.