Whispers in the Bookshop: chapter 4

The next morning, Mara came to The Inkwell earlier than usual, driven by something she couldn’t name—restlessness, maybe. Or maybe it was the pull of the unread.

She stood at the center of the shop, a steaming mug of tea in her hand, watching the early light pour through the tall windows, catching the dust in golden beams. Everything felt softer in the morning. Quieter. Like the shop was holding its breath.

Listen to the books, Caleb had said.

So she tried.

She started where the fiction shelves leaned the heaviest—shelves she hadn’t organized since arriving. As she ran her hands along the titles, she noticed something strange. One book was wedged oddly between two others—Wuthering Heights. It looked untouched but was shelved backwards, with the spine hidden.

Curious, she pulled it free.

Another note.

This one was folded neatly and pressed flat inside the back cover.

“Do you remember that storm in ’96? You read to me by candlelight when the power went out. I never told you then, but that was the moment I realized I loved you.”

Mara exhaled.

These weren’t just romantic. They were memories. Real ones. Echoes of a relationship that had once existed between these very shelves. A love story folded into fiction and scattered like breadcrumbs.

Whoever had written these—he had loved her grandmother. Deeply.

Was it someone Evie had never spoken of? Or someone Mara already knew?

She didn’t know why, but her thoughts drifted to Caleb.

He seemed too young to be part of this past, and yet… there was something about him. Something familiar and quiet. Like a man built for secrets.

Later that afternoon, the shop bell rang.

Mara looked up from behind the register to see an elderly man shuffle in. He had a slow, careful gait, a thick gray beard, and wore a sweater that looked hand-knitted. He held a small paper bag in one hand and a battered book in the other.

“Miss Bellamy?” he asked, voice raspy but kind.

“Yes,” she said, stepping forward. “Can I help you?”

“I was a friend of your grandmother’s,” he said. “Name’s Harold Lynn. I used to come by every Thursday. We’d have tea and talk Shakespeare.”

Mara smiled, already warming to him. “She mentioned a Harold. The ‘only man who ever beat her at literary trivia.’”

The old man chuckled. “She let me win.”

He handed her the book. “I wanted to return this. It’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She lent it to me the week before she passed.”

Mara opened the book—and found yet another folded paper inside. Her heart kicked up.

This one wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t a letter. It was a map.

Drawn in pencil and ink, with scribbles in Evie’s handwriting. It mapped out the store’s layout, but with strange markings—circles around specific shelves, arrows pointing to spots on the floor.

“What’s this?” she murmured.

Harold peered over her shoulder. “Oh, I remember that. She called it her ‘Story Hunt Map.’ Said every good bookshop should have one hidden mystery.”

Mara raised an eyebrow. “Was she serious?”

“She was Evie,” Harold said with a grin. “She was always serious about her stories.”

After he left, Mara sat cross-legged on the floor, map spread beside her, surrounded by books. The arrows led her to a low shelf near the back—children’s books, old fairytales, the kind with gold-embossed spines and crinkled pages.

One book had no title. Just a blank, leather cover.

She pulled it free.

Inside, there were no printed words—only handwritten pages. Dozens of them. And they weren’t stories. They were journal entries.

The first one read:

“June 4th. I saw him again today. He brought me a broken book of poems and asked if I could heal it. I said yes. What I didn’t say was that I already wanted to know if he could do the same for my heart.”

Mara’s breath caught.

This was her grandmother’s handwriting.

The journal went on—short entries, pages filled with the beginnings of a love story that had never been told aloud. It wasn’t just notes. It was a diary of secret affection.

Mara read late into the evening, lost in Evie’s hidden past.

By the time she looked up, the sky had gone deep blue.

And for the first time, she wondered if she wasn’t just reading a story…

She might be living one.