Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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"And everyone's already happy here?"

"Well, if they aren't, they think it's the town's fault and they leave. It's not perfect, but on the whole, yes. I think people are happy here."

"You left the city," he said. Then he winced, as if at his own stupidity.

"So did you. But that's two people in three years fighting the flow, and ten or fifteen going the other direction. Happy people don't steal bicycles. Unhappy people leave, if they can. Besides, nobody in this town is stupid enough to do that, everyone would notice they had a new bike. But if you really want to feel safe you could get a dog."

"I could," he agreed, and then lapsed into silence.

"I hear you bought some firewood," I said, to change the subject. "That boy's been selling it all over town. He says you offered to tutor him for it."

"It seemed fair."

"You won't mind?"

"It gets me into town. He seems smart. He wouldn't really take no for an answer."

I laughed and scraped up some soup with a bit of bread. "He's a good salesman."

"Yeah," he said, still drawing odd patterns in his soup, only occasionally taking a bite. "He gave me a ride in, too."

"Charge you for it?" I asked. He smiled.

"No, but I'll have to get back again under my own power. I don't mind."

We ate in silence for a while, his eyes flicking up to my face every so often, apparently to see if I really was fine with being quiet. I gave him a reassuring look and kept eating.

It was dark by the time we'd finished. The wind, hot during the day, was turning cold and sharp. Lucas eventually paid and left me to my coffee, turning his coat-collar up and setting out for The Pines. I lingered, watching through the window as he headed south. About five minutes after he disappeared, while I was still placidly sipping my coffee, Elaine – older sister of Nolan, and therefore a secondary spoke in the gossip wheel at the moment – slid into the chair Lucas had left.

"Hi Elaine," I said. "How's your evening?"

"Oh fine, fine. Sip of your coffee?"

I offered it to her and she drank from the other side of the cup, leaving faint lipstick marks.

"How's yours?" she added, passing it back.

"Very interesting. Had some wood delivered. Phil MacKenzie's been driving around all day, they drop any off at your place?"

"Nah, we cut our own this year," she said. "Saw they gave that new man a ride into town."

"Lucas? Well, it's a long walk in from The Pines," I said. "Boy sold him a cord of wood. Maybe more like strong-armed, though."

"Who is he?" she asked. "He's nobody's relation in town."

"Well, I wasn't when I moved here, either," I pointed out.

"But you were buying Ferry Books, that's almost like being family. Why's he here?"

"Couldn't say," I said, grinning a little into my coffee.

"Bet you could, Christopher. You had dinner with him, didn't you? Is he a friend of yours?"

I glanced around. People at nearby tables were ducking their heads slightly – subtly listening in. When a village regular has dinner with a mysterious stranger, it's almost as good as television.

"He bought a book from me about a week ago," I said. "No, not quite that long, since Jacob brought me his dad's old Farmer's Guide to be rebound right after that – you didn't hear that, though, because it's a birthday present – and that was – "

"Christopher!" she said, annoyed.

"Elaine, if you're going to pump me for information, at least be subtle and give me a chance to enjoy myself," I replied. "I don't know much about him. He moved out to The Pines from Chicago, he's pretty good with his hands but doesn't know much about carpentry, and he's shy. Leave him alone – he won't like being talked about."

"He'll just have to get used to it," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "Do me a favor. Tell everyone who asks you that Lucas at The Pines is a stranger from Chicago and if anyone starts rumors about him I'll write scurrilous anonymous editorials to the Weekly Ferryman libeling them."

Elaine smiled. "Point taken. Come have dinner at our place sometime, Nolan says you eat too much cafe food."

"I'll take you up on that. G'night, Elaine. Goodnight, Low Ferry," I added loudly, and several people turned back to their dinners without a hint of shame in their faces.

***

Jacob came to pick up his father's rebound copy of the Farmer's Guide four days later, when the glue was barely dry on the binding. He came at a decent hour this time, after his deliveries, and loitered for a while.

"Hear you had dinner with the new boy," he said, while I signed for a package delivery and set the small box aside.

"I invited myself," I replied. "I've since eaten lunch with Charles and made plans to have dinner tomorrow night with Elaine's brood."

"Grumpy," Jacob grinned. "Didn't mean anything by it, Christopher. Just curious like everyone."

"Yes, well – hey! Hey!" I said, as several children raced into the shop, bringing a breeze and a flurry of dead leaves with them. "Backpacks by the counter! I see you, Culligan, don't think I won't tell your father if you don't listen to me."

Jacob chuckled as the children trooped back to the counter and dropped their bags, digging in them for grubby notebooks and shucking their coats and hats on top. I went to the workbench to retrieve the Farmer's Guide and presented it to him while the children flocked around the comics rack. He smoothed a callused hand over the embossed leather admiringly.

"Looks brand new," he said, opening it. "Dad'll think I threw his old one out till he sees the family page. How'd you do it?"

"A lot of paste," I said. "Careful, the cover's still curing. Let me wrap it up for you."

"Sure all I owe you's some cheese?" he asked, as I carefully tied the book up in brown paper and twine.

"It's really really good cheese," I repeated.

"Got myself a bargain, then. Thanks," he said, holding up the paper-wrapped book. "See ya round, Christopher."

I turned around to watch the children, who were still arguing by the comic books, though most of them would probably settle down in a little while and start at least pretending to do their homework. Some were avoiding chores at home, and others had parents who worked late and wanted them under a watchful eye, so they spent plenty of afternoons in the store. I didn't mind – they amused themselves, worked, scuffled a little when they thought I couldn't see, and their parents were loyal customers. It got the kids in out of the cold and kept them out of trouble and that was what counted.

The boy was there that day too, though he wasn't always. I guessed he was from one of the far outlying farms where at twelve he would already be considered a paid farmhand, doing any odd jobs his parents couldn't, and probably wanted to put them off as long as possible. I hoped he had started his tutoring with Lucas, since it seemed like it would be good for both of them. Farmers are friendly but quiet, and I thought Lucas would fit comfortably with people who didn't see the need to talk much.

When most of the kids were finally ready to leave, he seemed to hang back – stood behind the others, paid last, and insisted on going over the "book" I'd been keeping of his credit, checking the deductions for comic books against the amount I would have been charged for the firewood. By the time he'd satisfied himself most of his friends were already in their coats, hopping up and down impatiently by the door.

"Come on, come on!" one of them ordered, as the boy placidly signed off on the new deduction and packed his new comic books away into his bag.

"Are you coming or not?" another yelled.

"Keep your pants on! This is business."

"He's waiting for his boyfriend," one girl announced.

"You want to go? Go," I said. "Go on, shoo, there's no teasing in my shop."

"Doesn't matter," the boy said. "They were only playing."

"So who are you waiting for?" I asked, leaning on the counter.

"Lucas, duh," he said. "They're just jealous. He's really cool. Have you seen him?"

"Not today, but he ought to be here soon if he's coming at all," I answered. The boy's face brightened. "Have you started your tutoring with him?"

"Twice a week. Done two already. He said he'd meet me here today."

"Enjoying it?"

He gave me an oddly mature look – one I've wondered about many times since – and said, "Well...some of it's confusing."

"Such as?"

"History." He set his bag down and leaned against my counter, hands shoved in his pockets. "See, Mr. Blake – he's my history teacher – "

"I know," I said. "He likes model trains. He buys books on electrical engineering sometimes."

"Yeah, him. He says you have to learn the dates and the names and things, and then you know History."

It wasn't an unusual sentiment in preadolescent history classes, especially out in the country. I didn't like Blake, but it wasn't good to meddle in the boy's opinion of him. He still had to learn from him, after all.

"And Lucas disagrees?" I asked.

"He says History is always happening," the boy complained. "And you can't really know anything about an Event until you know why it happened, which is a bunch of other Events. It makes my head hurt."

"Good," said a new voice. Lucas, who must have passed the rest of the boy's classmates on his way up the walk, was standing in the doorway. Now he stepped inside and shut the glass door behind him. "Shows you're using it."

"Hi," the boy said.

"Not giving away my secrets, are you?" Lucas asked. The boy shook his head. "Hi, Christopher."

"Hi, Lucas," I said. "We were just talking about your tutoring. How's the roof?"

"Sealed and holding," he replied, eyes straying over the displays before he moved to his favorite defensive position, behind the cookbooks. From there he could see the doorway and out through the window, but nobody in the shop could see him unless they sat in the chairs at the front. I resumed my conversation with the boy, who had settled in a chair and was watching Lucas while trying to pretend like he wasn't.

"Which theory do you like?" I asked the boy.

"Theory?" he asked.

"Of history."

"Um." His eyes darted to Lucas. "I dunno. Memorizing a bunch of names seems a lot easier."

"Not according to your grades, I bet," I said. He grinned.

"It's not as much fun," he said.

"Admitting history is fun? Lucas, what have you done to him?" I called. He put his head around a shelf, smiled at me, and went back to his browsing.

"I guess..." the boy said slowly, "I mean. I've got to learn the names and dates for school. So I might as well do that. But I can remember them if I know other stuff about them, you know? They're more real."

"They're stories," I agreed.

"Yeah."

"Does Lucas like history?" I asked mischievously.

"I think so," the boy answered.

"What kind?"

"I can hear you, you know," Lucas called from the back, where he was adventuring into Horror and True Crime.

"Well, you won't talk," I answered. That earned me a soft laugh as he emerged into an aisle, still keeping the edge of a shelf between himself and the open space around the counter.

"I like stories," he said. "I don't mind if the books aren't completely true. A little truth in a lot of lies makes for the best stories, I've found."

"Try telling Mr. Blake that," the boy muttered.

"Which reminds me that we should go," Lucas said, tipping his head at the doorway. "Come on."

"Man," the boy whined, but stood and shouldered his bag, following Lucas like a puppy. "Where're we going?"

"Out to the river."

"What for?"

"What do you think?"

"Biology class," the boy said.

"Come along. See you, Christopher," he added.

"You know where to find me," I said, and gestured to the rest of the shop.

Lucas nodded to me, and I watched him put a hand on the boy's shoulder as they left. I stayed, surveying the shop and thinking about what Lucas had said.

I'm not so blind to my own nature that I can't admit impure motives. Information is power in a little town, and I was a keeper of information. As much as I didn't want people talking about Lucas, that made the tidbits I could get out of him all the more valuable.

But also I just plain...wanted him to like me. I liked seeing him in my shop. The only way I really knew to make people like me was to give them information. There's a reason I sell books for a living.

I went into the back room and picked up a trade catalog, the kind I was sent five or six times a year by various publishers as an encouragement to order from them. I opened it and began paging through it, waiting for something to catch my eye. When it did, I smiled and set down the catalog to make a phone call.

Chapter THREE

It wasn't long before Low Ferry was in the full grip of autumn weather. A few days after Jacob's father's birthday we even lost power briefly. High winds, probably; they sometimes knocked down wires or blew debris into the energy transformer. I brought my bed-roll out from the closet and spread it out near the fireplace, then lit a fire and settled down to sleep in the reflected glow of its warmth.

I almost thought the winter had begun, then – well, it was definitely coming – but the windstorm wasn't quite the start of it. When the power came on the next morning it was to a heavy blanket of humidity lying on the town, making everyone wish for rain to break it up.

We could feel that there was something brewing, especially those who had lived in Low Ferry a long time. It was the last calm before what promised to be a terrific thunderstorm, and it wasn't a true calm at all.

Not even the children stopped in the bookshop anymore. Having been raised in the Low Ferry, they knew instinctively what was in the air and they didn't want to be caught out in the storm. Those that could go home did, and those whose parents didn't want them home alone found friends to spend the afternoon with. Even the boy was usually with his friends now as they hurried down the street, though sometimes he paused and glanced my way.

I wondered how his lessons were going and whether he was causing trouble in school yet because of his growing awareness that teachers did not know everything. I wondered how the walk from The Pines, along the rutted dirt road, was treating Lucas. It was hard to go outside when the air was too thick to breathe.

The humidity lasted past three days, then four, stretching for a full week. Tempers ran short. The owner of the grocery store punched the chef at the cafe, in a matter of honor apparently concerning the price of milk. A couple of the farmers fired up old land feuds, though thankfully none of them involved rifles, just sharp remarks and one slightly vandalized tractor.

Paula fired her store assistant and the poor young man's mother came around and shouted at her until they were both hoarse and I had to intercede. Paula and I sat and drank coffee in my store and talked about how some people in Low Ferry weren't as safe as we were – how sometimes kids were the ones working to support the whole family. She grudgingly gave him his job back, but they snapped and snarled at each other a lot. I privately thought an air-conditioner would have solved most of their problems.

Nolan and Michael got into some kind of fight, too – some said over the fickle Sandra, some said because Michael was saying nasty things about Nolan's sister. Apparently there was a subsection of the town that thought Michael might be dating said sister. Sandra seemed to keep out of it, which didn't always give people a good opinion of her, either.

Jacob faithfully brought me the news, and Charles just as faithfully showed up a few days later to tell me why I shouldn't tell anyone any of it. Paula commented on every rumor with a dry wit that made her brief visits to the shop a pleasure.

The boy actually came into my bookshop on a Saturday, which was a miracle in itself, and as he browsed the racks he told me that all his teachers were arguing with each other over matters of discipline. He bought nine comic books.

"Trying to corner the market?" I asked, as he laid the thick stack of comics on my counter. "The investment isn't worth it, y'know. Comic books are a renewable resource."

"Everyone gave me money," he said, producing the entire amount in small change.

"Do you want to pay with that...wealth, or keep it and put the whole amount on your tab?"

"It's not a tab," he said, rolling his eyes. "It's credit."

"Sorry. And?"

"I want to pay with the money. I'm not lugging all those quarters around."

"Much obliged," I informed him, and counted it out into the cash register while he straightened the stack and reached across to grab a plastic bag from my counter.

"Why are you acting as everyone's agent today?" I continued, studying the grime left on my fingertips by the change.

"Gonna storm soon," he said, while I rummaged for some clean-wipes stolen from the cafe the last time they did a barbecue. "Everyone's going to Neil's house."

I smiled. "Storm party?"

"Mmhm. They got a generator."

"What luxury. Hot baths for all."

"Okay," he said doubtfully, not quite old enough yet to think hot water was more important than electric light for comic book reading.

There was a deafening crash of thunder outside. The boy tucked the comics under his coat.

"That's it," he said excitedly.

"Go on. Say hello to everyone for me."

He ran out and nearly collided with Lucas, who was coming up the walk to the door. With a hasty apology he backed up and continued on his way.

"If you come in, be prepared to stay," I said, turning to the comic books and straightening them slightly.

"Oh? Why's that?" Lucas asked, closing the door behind him.

"Didn't you hear that?" I asked. "The storm's about to break."

"Is it?" he said, turning to gaze out the glass door. "Should I have stayed home?"

"Well, lightning strikes the tallest thing around. If you walk home, you'll take your life in your hands."

"Funny expression, isn't it?" he observed, leaning against the counter. He was staring at the new-release shelves across the aisle. "Who wouldn't want their life in their hands? Why do we think that's something we ought to consider dangerous?"

I looked at him, surprised. Unusually talkative, and philosophical as well.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I drop things all the time," I managed, sitting down behind the counter and counting my receipts. "Did you want something?"

"No, I – just felt like a walk. Will it be a bad storm?"

Thunder rolled again. He looked startled.

"There's your answer."

He walked to the door and looked out again. A bolt of lightning broke the sky. "I always thought lightning came before thunder..."

"Wait," I said without looking up. The crack and boom came just after I said it. A second later, the rain started.

"Will it last long?" he asked.

"Don't know. Probably not many in town do."

"What about the weathermen? The hotel down the road has a television in its bar."

"It's all from Chicago, though. Does it really matter?" I asked. He hesitated.

"No, I guess not," he said. He looked at me curiously. "It's just I automatically thought that if it were raining I should know for how long."

"City thinking. You were raised there?"

He nodded. "Parents're still there. Dad teaches. Mom's retired, she used to sell...things."

"Things."

"I never paid much attention."

"Do you get to see them much?"

"No," he said briefly. "You know, if I knew the storm was going to let up soon, I'd eat my dinner now and then go home. If I knew it was going to last all night, I'd get a room down the road and save myself having to sit in a hard cafe chair for hours."

"Well, you could go down to the hotel and check the TV, like you said. I don't have one. Cafe might have the radio going."

"I wonder what they did before weathermen," he said, still staring out at the rain.

"Oh, there were ways. Red skies at morning, sailors take warning, that kind of thing. That reminds me, I found something I thought you'd like."

His eyebrows lifted. I held up a finger and ducked into the store-room, digging on the shelves to find the book I'd stashed there. It had come in the last mail delivery before the storm, and there probably wouldn't be another for a while if the rain washed out the bridge. They'd sent it free as a sample after I requested it, which was a bonus.

"It just came in," I said. "I remember that you liked the child's version – this is Ovid's Metamorphoses with concordance and notes by a translator. The Latin is on one side, see, with the translation on the other."

I offered it to him and he craned his neck, studying it. "Do you read Latin?" he asked.

"No, but I think it looks nice," I replied.

"You're right, it does."

"Take it home and read it, see what you think. You don't have to keep it if you don't like it."

He frowned. "No, I'm sure I will – thank you," he said, taking out his wallet without even looking at the price. I felt a little proud, and then a little foolish for feeling so proud. "And a copy of the golf magazine, please."

"Of course." I rang up the cost of the magazine. "Book's on the house, it was a sample. I didn't have you marked down as a golfer, Lucas."

"I like the drawings of the greens. May I have a bag? No, wait," he said, a sudden amused look in his eye. I'd never seen him so animated. "Wrap them in brown paper instead."

I raised an eyebrow, but he looked uncomfortable at that so I didn't pursue it any further. I had brown paper below the counter and it was a moment's work to wrap it, tie it with twine, and present it to him. With a little thought, I understand why he wanted it wrapped – then, when he finally did get home, he'd have the pleasure of unwrapping a package for himself.

"Will you come eat with me?" he asked as I presented it to him. I shook my head.

"I just ate, and the rain's bound to bring people in. They'll want reading material while they wait out the storm in the cafe," I said, gesturing to his book.

"Oh," he said, looking a little crestfallen. "All right. Can I bring you something, then?"

"Just make sure you get home all right, or stay in town if it's not safe."

He left just as another bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. I saw him stop on the front porch, probably in surprise. He stood there, tall and awkward, with a pack on his back and his parcel under his arm. He was staring up at the sky as if he'd never really seen it before, with such an expression of thrilled wonder that perhaps he really hadn't.

In flat country with no skyscrapers, you take the sky for granted. The same's true in the city, since you can't see enough of it to really understand it. But, in that space between times, before you're a resident but after you're a stranger, everything is new and remarkable. I envied him.

***

The next day, I opened the shop at seven with a plate of waffles in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. I hadn't even finished breakfast before Lucas returned.

"Didn't go home?" I asked, around a mouthful of food.

"Rain never stopped," he said, jerking his thumb at the wet street outside. His hair was wet too, and the shoulders of his coat.

"Hopefully soon. It looks like it's about blown itself out," I observed. "One benefit of living where you work, the commute is easy."

"You could sell books in your pajamas if you wanted to."

"I've often considered it, but it's a little too gentleman-of-leisure. I don't want to be the town eccentric." I washed a bite of food down with some coffee. "You stayed at the hotel last night?"

"I thought it was probably smart. There's so much I don't know about this place, and I've learned to listen when people warn me."

"It's not a battlefield, Lucas!" I laughed.

"No, but..." he spread his hands. "There are rules for survival everywhere. And they change."

"I like to think I've moved past survival, but I see what you mean. You wouldn't have walked around Chicago at midnight wearing a Rolex."

"Not some parts, anyway."

"At least you weren't a cheerful idiot who went home in an electrical storm and got struck by lightning. Though fate protects fools. Charles told me about this one time..." I trailed off, because he'd ducked behind a shelf.

A second later I knew why – there was a creak as Leon pushed the door open and stepped inside. Leon's farm lay two south from Jacob's, and we rarely saw him in town.

"Morning, Leon," I said, turning away from where Lucas was pretending to be absorbed in cookbooks again. "How's things?"

"Muddy," Leon answered sourly. "Can't get a truck through."

"You come in on horseback?"

"Yup. She's stabled in the pastor's garage."

"What can I do for you today?"

"Couple of romance novels for my wife, you know the type," he said, consulting a slip of paper from his pocket. "And...Teen Pulse?"

I lifted an eyebrow. Leon blushed. "It's for Maureen. Can't fathom sixteen-year-olds."

"They're a mystery to us all," I agreed, crossing to the shelf of romance novels and pulling down some of the less lurid ones. Leon's wife liked them, but she always insisted she didn't want the Naughty Ones. Which really translated to the fact that she did want the naughty ones, she just didn't want the covers to proclaim to her whole family that they were naughty. Bookselling is a delicate art.

"Here you are, and one...Teen Pulse," I said, grabbing a magazine featuring the young hot pop star of the moment from the rack. "Got any news I can pass along?"

"Seen Nona recently?" he asked. I shook my head. "She's starting to show the babies." He cupped his hands in front of his stomach to emphasize it. "Little tiny thing to be carrying twins."

"What's Dr. Kirchner say?" I asked.

"Well, he don't say anything to me directly, naturally, but he told Mr. Harrison she oughta be in town if she can when the babies are due."

"Want me to ask around about someone she can stay with?"

"Sure Harrison'd appreciate that."

"Consider it done. That's...sixteen-fifty even for the books."

He paid with a crisp twenty-dollar bill, out of a roll of twenties. "Got to stock up on groceries," he said, when he caught me eyeing the roll. "Snow won't be far behind all this."

"No, I don't suppose it will. You see Nona, tell her I'm looking around," I replied. "Have a nice day, Leon. Stay dry."

"Look after yourself," he replied with a grin, zipped the bag of books into his coat, and doffed his hat as he left.

I pretended to be distracted by tidying the counter until Lucas emerged.

"They're really friendly, you know," I said, when he'd relaxed a little. "Everyone in Low Ferry. We're nice people."

"Thought I saw a book I wanted," he said sheepishly. I let the polite fiction pass. "They gave me some good advice about the storm when I checked in last night, though."

I glanced up. He looked wistful. I wondered what it had cost him to ask a stranger about the weather.

"They said if I were ever in an open field in a storm I should lie down in a low part so that I wouldn't attract the lightning, but not so low that it might flood if it rained for too long. Although one of them said that anyone struck by lightning is a natural dowser and can see ghosts."

"They believe a lot of strange things out in the country. Ever seen a dowser work?"

"No, but I'd like to."

"I can't really approve of that kind of thing."

"Really?" he asked, looking interested. "Why not?"

"Well, it's silly, it seems that way to me. I mean, I'm as ignorant as the next man about the mysterious workings of the universe, but I don't believe in crystals and talking to bees and stuff."

He smiled a little. "It sounds interesting, though."

"I like sources and facts."

"And now you run a bookstore. Kind of fitting."

"I like to think so."

"I actually came in for something yesterday, then forgot about it," Lucas said awkwardly, into the silence that followed.

"Oh? What can I help you with?"

"I need to order a book. It's kind of uncommon, I was hoping you knew where I could find a copy."

"Do you mind getting it used?"

"I don't think you'll find it any other way. It isn't in print anymore." He took a sheet of tightly-folded paper out of an inside pocket of his coat and opened it, smoothing out the creases before passing it across the counter to me. There was a title, an author, a date and a publishing house. Enclosed in the paper was a photograph as well. Dark blue, hard-cover, and rather small.

"It has some interesting illustrations," he said, as if to explain away why he needed it. "I used some of them as models when I was in school."

"Models? Are you an artist?"

"Not really," he replied. I looked down at his hands and saw that there were calluses on the inside edges of his forefingers and thumbs, and that the cuticles of his fingertips were discolored with paint stains. "I'd like to get it before real winter sets in. I didn't think I'd need a copy of my own – that's a copy I took out of the library in the city, that photograph – but now I think I will."

"No problem. I'll put the order in today and we'll see if we can't get it before the roads close again," I answered. "Is that the only one? If you order a few at once, it saves on postage."

"Does it?" He looked down at the photograph thoughtfully. "Yes – whoever you buy it from, ask if she has other volumes she'd recommend as companions."

"Or he," I said with a smile.

"Or he," he agreed. A little too quickly, looking back.

"Any price limit?"

"Well, the book shouldn't cost much, it's not that valuable," he said. "That and one or two recommendations. Before postage and whatever fees you charge."

"That's a decent budget," I said, making a note of it on the paper he'd given me.

"I like books," he answered. I saw a fleeting grin cross his face before he adjusted the strap of the bag he was carrying on his shoulder. "Looks like the rain's letting up, doesn't it?"

I glanced out the window. "Some, yes. Heading home?"

"I should, as long as there's no lightning."

"Dowsing is probably fun, but getting struck by lightning isn't," I agreed. "I'll call around about the book. Want me to call you when I know?"

"No," he said, glancing around the shop. "I'll be in town pretty regularly, I'll check in."

"Your tutoring," I guessed.

"Yeah. He's doing well," he added. "I should go. Thanks, Christopher."

"My pleasure. Safe journey, Lucas."

He smiled a little, thanked me again, and walked out into the street, where the rain was nothing more than a light drizzle and the sun was even threatening to emerge.