The Usual Way

It really should not have come as a surprise at all when Connor found a little black book on his kitchen table that morning. It was surprising, of course, seeing as Connor lived alone and was, as far as he knew, the only person with the key to his apartment. Even then, it really should not have been a surprise. Not in the least. You see, Connor had been dreaming of that very same book, sitting there on that very same table, for upwards of twenty years now.

He had thought nothing much of the dreams until he moved into the apartment and was told the furniture came with it, because he had recognized the kitchen table the moment he saw it. Of course he had; he'd dreamt of it hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. For two years he sat at that kitchen table, waiting to find a little black book. He had finally given up waiting. Come to think of it, it was round about just last week he had said to himself it was a silly thing to be waiting around on a dream. Oh, how he felt silly now.

Connor did not open the book. He did not need to. He knew exactly what was written there, knew the exact shape of every letter. He'd tried once, many years ago, to follow the notes in the little book that haunted his dreams. He had been simultaneously disappointed and unsurprised when they lead precisely nowhere. Haverton's Antiquities did not exist, nor had it ever. The address led instead to a rather dismal alleyway in the center of downtown Minneapolis.

For three very long days after finding it on his kitchen table, Connor pretended the book simply did not exist. For three unbearable nights, Connor dreamt of nothing but the book. In the dreams, every door he passed through led him to the kitchen, where sat that damned book. Every time he opened it, he saw that same address for Haverton's Antiquities that did not exist. Every time he turned the page, he was right back at the beginning, looking down at Haverton's Antiquities.

The fourth day broke him. When he sat down at the kitchen table, he half expected something strange to happen. Perhaps someone would break in and try to steal it from him. Perhaps a wizard would appear and whisk him away. But nothing happened, and so he sat.

The moment his fingers brushed the cover, the pressure that had made a home in his chest finally melted away. It had carved out a little space inside him twenty-some odd years ago, when he realized he kept dreaming about the same little black book that he never expected to find. A part of him, of course, had always hoped that one day he would find the thing and solve the mystery of his dreams. Another part of him hoped he never would, because what good could possibly come of premonitions decades in the making? Even when he saw the book right there on the table that first morning, he wasn't sure it was real. Even up until the moment he touched it, he expected to wake up at any moment.

The book felt different than it had in his dreams. There, everything was softer around the edges, cushioned. The pages had felt like feathers upon his fingertips. That was how he finally decided this was real. The pages felt right here.

He should not have been surprised at what he saw on the first page. He'd seen those blotchy little letters and numbers more times than he could possibly hope to count. He'd seen the name so many times that it had become a permanent resident in his mind. He knew the address to Haverton's Antiquities better than he knew his own. He even caught himself giving it as his home address before. He hadn't meant to, it had just come to him faster than any other address.

The rest of the pages were blank.

It took Connor another two days before he finally decided to visit the address again. It wasn't that he believed maybe a store could have been built there since the last time he'd visited. It was an alleyway, after all. No. The night after he opened the book, his dream had changed. There was something at that address. He had seen it. The next night was the same dream. It felt like the universe was telling him all he had to do was go look.

Connor wondered at what point he would stop being surprised that his dreams were, in fact, telling the future. At first, he had thought they'd gotten it wrong this time, or that maybe it would take another twenty years for this one to come to fruition, because he stood in front of the same empty alley he had stood in front of years ago. Then, just as he turned to leave, to go home and throw away the book and go back to pretending none of it had actually happened, a memory floated to the surface.

In the dream he had not simply gone to the address and waltzed into the store that did not exist. It had not been there. At least, it had not been there until he had said it was. Connor looked back at the empty alley and cleared his throat.

"Haverton's Antiquities, two hundred South Greenlake Street."

It was there, taking up more space than he remembered there being between the two buildings on either side. Of course it was there. Had it not always been there? Connor shook his head, his thoughts suddenly feeling too heavy for his head. He stepped inside.

A bell tinkled above him as he entered the antique shop. It was cozy. Warm. It felt all at once very familiar and yet very foreign, like he had been there before as someone else.

Everything in the shop was a little odd, a little off. There were clocks with too many hands, globes that didn't look like Earth, mirrors that seemed to somehow be a few seconds ahead, like they knew what was going to happen, or a few seconds behind, like they hadn't been prepared and were scrambling to do their job. Connor made his way slowly to the desk in the back of the store, careful not to touch anything for fear he may become a little off himself.

A woman sat behind the desk, elegant cat eye glasses perched on her nose and a deck of strange cards in her hands. She looked up when Connor approached, before glancing at a clock on the wall. There were several overlapping faces and hands that seemed to be everywhere. It made him uncomfortable. The woman hummed to herself and pulled a book from the drawer of her desk. As she flipped through the book, Connor learned forward to get a better look at the cards she had been holding.

"Unless you want to lose your sanity early, I would advise against that," the woman said quietly, not looking up.

"How-"

"You have not been trained in cross-realm divination, have you?" The woman glanced up long enough to watch him make a face and shrug awkwardly. She looked back down and pointed at the page she had stopped on. "Here you are. Do you have the book?"

Connor slowly pulled the little black book from his bag, bewildered. "How did you know I had this?"

"Well it's written in the book, isn't it?"

She placed the book in front of him so he could read it. Halfway down the page was his name. Next to it was a description of the book. Next to that was a price.

"I don't have twenty thousand dollars."

With an amused smile, the strange woman shook her head. She held her hand open and Connor placed the book in her palm. She checked the book thoroughly before writing into her ledger that the parcel had been delivered. Once finished, she rummaged around in her desk for a moment.

"For your troubles," the woman said softly, pressing a wad of cash into his hand. He would later count the money to find it was twenty thousand dollars. This would come as a surprise only to him. "Hurry along now. We have another delivery in five minutes and much time and space to travel. Be safe."

She gave Connor a sweet smile and gestured to the door. Not knowing what else to do, he stumbled in the direction she indicated. He had precisely no idea what had just happened, but found he really had no reason to turn down money for a mysterious book that had done nothing but give him anxiety for the past few years.

"Oh, and dear?" the woman called as Connor reached for the door handle. "Don't take the job in Illinois. There's someone you need to meet next year and he won't move to Minnesota until after."

"What are you ta-"

"I'll send you a reminder the usual way." She waved her hand urgently to shoo him from the store.

The moment Connor heard the bell tinkle behind him as the door closed, he knew that if he were to turn around, the shop would no longer be there. So he simply didn't look. He didn't need any more bizarre things to happen that day. It took him a little longer to walk home than it normally would have. His mind was too full of questions he wasn't sure he would ever get answers to. Someone had left the book on his kitchen table. Someone had informed a shop that didn't exist that he would be there exactly when he was to hand in a book that was never supposed to exist outside his dreams. And he hadn't been offered a job. What was that about?

Two months passed before Connor spent the first dollar of the money he had gotten for the book. He had half expected strange people in trench coats to show up and vanish him away for crimes against some intergalactic federation nobody has ever heard of before. Needless to say, it never happened.

Another six months passed before he had a dream. In it, he was offered a job, which he swiftly turned down. The next day he was, to his surprise that once again should not have actually been a surprise, offered a promotion. In Illinois. Wondering if he was making a huge mistake, he turned it down.

Another five months passed before he had another dream. In this dream, he met a very intriguing man, who had just moved to Minnesota, who knew a little something about clocks with too many hands and antique stores that didn't really exist. Now why, after everything, was Connor surprised when he met that very same man in the waking world the very next day? The woman had said she would send him a reminder in the usual way, after all.