Eighty Days to Elsewhere (An Exlibris Adventure, Band 1) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

kc dyer resides in the wilds of British Columbia where she likes to walk in the woods and write books for teens and adults. Before Eight Days to Elsewhere, her most recent novel for adults is Finding Fraser, a romantic comedy published by Berkley Books. For teens, kc’s most recent work is FACING FIRE, a sequel to the acclaimed novel, A Walk Through a Window, published by Doubleday.

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chapter one

Image: Bookshop Reflections

IG: Romy_K [NYC, March 14]

#TwoOldQueens #ShopWindow

#AnUnexpectedProblem

13 P

Almost there.

I type the last few letters of the caption, hit the upload button, and flick the app closed. Glancing at the time, I see I'm late, but only a little. Still, it's at least a week since I've uploaded anything to Instagram, so it had to be done.

It's been a long morning already. Up since before six, I've been toiling over the bookshop's social media accounts. Two Old Queens Books & Tea has been operating in this same unfashionable East Village location since long before I was born. Since before my uncles were born, in truth, though in those days the name over the door was different. Bagshaw's Books, maybe? I think there might be an old photo somewhere in Merv's back room. I should try and find it. Might be a nice visual counterpoint to the piece I added this morning. But not today. I'm late enough already.

Luckily, I don't have far to travel to work. My studio apartment is three flights of stairs above the shop. I've lived here almost two years, since the-literal-professional clown who used to rent the space disappeared overnight, leaving behind a disturbing number of popped balloons and sprays of confetti.

At least, I hope they were balloons. That's what I told myself as I cleaned them up off the floor, and out of the tiny closet. And from inside the shower drain.

Anyway, this morning I got caught up posting a few new acquisitions to the shop's #Bookstagram account, and lost track of the time. Generally, I agonize how to best present the latest book, shoot a few dozen possibilities, then narrow it down to my favorite. I post the shot first to Instagram, which auto-feeds it to Facebook, and then I post it separately to Twitter and Snapchat, so the full image appears, and not only a link. All of this takes time, but it drives more traffic to the bookshop's site, and ultimately to the bookstore. At least that's what I tell myself. And Merv.

Right about the time I graduated from college and started working full time at the bookshop, I promised my uncle that a few decent social media accounts would help us build our community. He grumbled that pictures in the ether didn't sell books on the ground, but I know it's made a difference.

But this morning? It's only made me late.

Trying to keep the sound of my heels to a minimum, I hurry down the back stairs. These lead to the lane behind the building, but also to the rear door of the shop, which is always kept locked. Going this way means I can't avoid the smell of the dumpster parked outside the back door, but it also means I might be able to sneak past the unblinking eye of Uncle Merv's partner Tommy, who is never averse to pointing out my shortcomings.

As I slip into the back room, the warm aroma from Tommy's old coffee urn supersedes the dumpster stench, and-bonus!-there's no one around. Immediately, I hurry over to finish a job from last night: sorting through a pile of books bequeathed to us by an old patron.

This happens a lot at the Two Old Queens-somebody dies, and their kids or grandchildren aren't readers, so they dump all the family books on our doorstep. Most of what comes our way in this fashion we can't really use. I mean, we already have a full shelf of Jacqueline Suzanne paperbacks with lurid seventies covers, right? So, as low girl on the employee totem pole, it falls to me to sort out the dregs, and then take any titles that appear even moderately appealing to my Uncle Merv for the final decision.

By the time I finish culling the pile, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. I've got social media locked in for the bookstore, finished my assigned task, and mapped out my plans for the week in my bullet journal, all without being called out by Tommy for showing up a little late. There's a long workday still ahead of me, it's true, but tonight I've got a plan for a night in. It involves a giant bowl of pho and a Black Panther DVD I found in our discard pile, loaded with outtakes of Killmonger with his shirt off.

Don't tell me I don't know how to live.

Flipping open my bullet journal again, I cross off all the tasks I've accomplished for the morning. Then, making a careful largest-to-smallest pile of books to take out front for my uncle, I ass-backed my way through the swinging door and onto the sales floor.

I need to pause here to give a sense of what it is to work in the Two Old Queens. I mean, if you peer in through the glass of the front window, I guess it looks normal enough. There's a lovely wooden sign depicting Queen Victoria gazing disapprovingly at Queen Elizabeth-who stares serenely back-in the transom above the door. The store's located on a corner within sight of Tompkins Square, which is pretty much the center of the East Village in New York City. This means we're far enough off the tourist trail to be generally pretty quiet, and not close enough to Soho or Greenwich Village to be hip. Our window display, courtesy of my uncle's partner Tommy, changes seasonally, and sometimes even monthly, when he's feeling creative. You might also spy the wee tea bar, tucked into one corner; leaf tea only, darling. And there's the standard cash desk, mostly filled by an old register with buttons so stiff it hurts my fingers to press them.

The register does, however, make a satisfying cha-ching when I complete a sale.

Supervision is provided by Tommy's cat, an elegant, aloof, green-eyed tabby called Rhianna. Literally all the boxes ticked for a self-respecting indie bookstore, right? But where Two Old Queens sets itself apart is in our merchandise. You know how in the library, they refer to the bookshelves as stacks? Hey, don't mind me, I'm only heading over to the stacks to look up a book on paleontology.

Well, when we talk about the stacks in our shop, it's literal.

Every surface is stacked high with teetering piles. Until they stop teetering, and tumble-usually Rhianna's doing. When this happens, everything comes to a halt, and all hands converge until a new pile appears once more. Faster when a customer is underneath, of course.

It's a chaos with which I've battled as long as I can remember. I have spent my time-So. Much. Time.-trying to organize Uncle Merv and his systems. Whenever a tiny bit of progress is made-I find a new computer program for arranging book intakes, or an inventory system relying on something more comprehensive than the alphabet-inevitably, the wheels fall off again.

Still.

The shop is always warm. Every reader is welcome. It smells of old books and sweet tea and the heady scent of ten thousand stories, trapped between the covers.

And a little bit of cat.

Currently, the front of the shop boasts a dozen 'book pillars'; floor-to-ceiling spirals of new acquisitions. I've been laboring over them for weeks, and have managed to work my magic and stack three of them from largest to smallest. Still, with having to sort Merv's most recent acquisitions, it's been slow going.

By the time I take a final pivot around the waist-high stack of family bibles-there's been a run on funerals in the neighborhood recently-I stop in surprise to find two men standing beside the cash register with my Uncle Merv.

As noted, our little shop is definitely off the beaten path. We have what I like to think is a pretty typical amount of foot traffic-mostly regulars, and once in a while the...