The Book of Harmony Read online

  The Book of Harmony

  The Last Oracle, Book 7

  Melissa McShane

  Copyright © 2020 by Melissa McShane

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Alexandra Brandt www.alexandrajbrandt.com

  This book is dedicated to the fans.

  Thank you for loving this bookstore as much as I do.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Auguries, and Movies Referenced

  About the Author

  Also by Melissa McShane

  1

  Wind lashed frozen rain against the plate glass window with ABERNATHY’S stenciled on it in big, gold-highlighted letters. The chill didn’t extend into the store, which had an excellent climate control system, but I pulled my sweater more closely around myself anyway. It was one of those bleak January days that made me wonder why anyone had wanted to settle in Portland in the first place, way back in the nineteenth century. Even hardened trappers and lumberjacks must have hated the incessant rain.

  I turned the page of my cookbook and skimmed down the recipes. Slow cooker pot roast. Too late for that today, but I could start it tomorrow morning before leaving for work and it would make the house smell incredible when I got home. I was never going to love cooking the way my mother did, but I was competent after six months’ practice, and Malcolm never complained or insisted on cooking more often than he already did. I added the ingredients to the shopping list on my phone. One more meal, and I could send the list to Ingrid, who would do the shopping and have it all put away before six.

  I suppressed the usual twinge of guilt I felt when I thought about Ingrid. She represented a compromise between me and Malcolm, who’d wanted a housekeeping service when we moved into our new home. I’d challenged him on it—we’d already learned our lesson about letting wealth dominate our lives with our last apartment—and Malcolm had pointed out that I worked six days a week, usually nine to six, and didn’t have time for all the chores a house that size required, not to mention shopping and all the little errands that have to happen during the day. But I didn’t like the idea of someone else doing all the cleaning when we were both perfectly capable, not to mention I felt it was a little too upper-upper-class for upper-middle-class me. That was something Malcolm could understand, and agreed with.

  So we’d settled on Ingrid, who was a Warden with a tragic past in need of a job. She ran errands and did the shopping and left the cleaning and cooking to me. I’d realized how wise a choice we’d made when the dishwasher broke and the repair place had given us one of those “we’ll get there when we get there” time estimates. Ingrid hadn’t minded waiting for them at all. Even so, employing her felt so odd, even if Ingrid wasn’t at all servile. We might even become friends if I was ever home long enough to get to know her.

  I turned another couple of pages. Fish, maybe. I could use more practice poaching fish. I made another note and pressed Sync to upload the list so Ingrid could download it, then texted her a heads-up. A few seconds later she responded with her usual smiley face emoji. I closed the cookbook and stretched. 3:45. It felt much later, thanks to the rain.

  Someone hurried past the window, and seconds later the door flew open, sending the bells jangling. “Sorry,” said the woman who entered. “The wind took it out of my hands.” She had a carton covered with a big plastic garbage bag tucked under one arm and a brightly colored scarf covering the tight black curls of her Afro.

  “Hi, Juliet,” I said. “I didn’t think anyone would come in today.”

  “I was running errands and figured I’d stop by, drop these off,” Juliet Dawes said. She set the carton on the counter and removed its plastic cover, revealing a disorganized pile of leather bound tomes. “I don’t have an augury request today, so if you could put them on my account?”

  “Sure. Judy!”

  Judy’s muffled reply was unintelligible, but shortly she emerged from the stacks. Her knee-length smock in vivid green and yellow made her look as if she’d stepped from the pages of a ’70s fashion magazine. “Oh, hi, Juliet,” she said. “Sorry, I was updating software. I didn’t think anyone would come in today.”

  “That’s what I said.” I grabbed a handful of books and set them in an irregular stack on the glass-topped plywood of the front counter. “I half expect to see Noah and all his animals poling the ark down the middle of the street.”

  “Three days of nonstop rain is excessive,” Juliet agreed. “You still think it was a good idea to plan your wedding for January?”

  Judy snorted with indelicate amusement. I lifted my chin defiantly and said, “Malcolm begins four months of training new teams in April, my parents are going to France in May, and I didn’t want to wait a whole year. And nobody gets married in January, so I didn’t have to compete hard for a venue. It was a smart decision.” How many times had I made that little speech? It was amazing the number of people who felt entitled to comment on how nuts my wedding plans were.

  “If you say so,” Juliet said doubtfully. “I’m impressed you were able to pull it together so quickly.”

  “That was Deanna Forcier,” Judy said. “Wedding planner extraordinaire. She makes Marine Corps sergeants look like indecisive dilettantes.”

  “A wedding planner? What, you didn’t have everything already decided?” Juliet leaned on the counter and propped her chin on her palm. “I had a wedding binder years before Elliot and I even met.”

  “I never daydreamed about my future wedding,” I said. “I was just as happy to let Deanna come up with options and point and click the ones I liked best.”

  “Helena’s not a romantic,” Judy said. “Surprising, given her taste in movies.”

  “I am so a romantic,” I protested.

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Your idea of a romantic evening is pizza and a movie. And since you put jalapeños on your pizza, you smell like hot peppers the whole time.”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. And you’re not romantic either. You’re the most sensible person I know.”

  “Thanks. I think.” Judy hauled another stack of books out of the box. “Hang on, I’ll get Juliet’s file so we can record these.”

  “It’s going to be beautiful, though,” Juliet said when Judy was gone. “Are you nervous yet?”

  “I still have two weeks before I can justify feeling nervous. Everything’s planned and on schedule. I just have to show up.”

  Juliet shook her head in mock despair. “I think half the Wardens were betting you’d turn out to be a Bridezilla, with how relaxed you are all the rest of the time. I should have started a pool.”

  Judy returned with a manila folder and a pen. “My money is on Viv for that.”

  “Is she engaged?” Juliet exclaimed. “I hadn’t heard!”

  “No, she’s not engaged.” I opened the book at the top of the stack. “Viv doesn’t believe in marriage. And no, I don’t know what Jeremiah thinks about it. It’s not something I want to ask her. Or him. This one’s $100, Judy.”

  We went through the rest of the books and added the total to Juliet’s account. While Judy carried a stack of books away to shelve them according to Abernathy’s rigorous system of not having a system, I said, “So you’re coming to the wedding, right?”

  “Of course. Even Elliot is excited about it—well, not excited, most men don’t feel that way about weddings, but he’s looking forward to the dinner. The Warwick does a great spread.” Juliet wadded up the garbage bag and stuffed it into the carton atop the few books Abernathy’s had rejected. I had no idea how it decided how much books were worth in trade and wasn’t inclined to pursue the question.

  “I sort of wish it was over already. I feel as if I’m in limbo,” I said. The truth was I felt like Malcolm and I were married already, what with sharing a house and joint finances and all the rest. I already had trouble not referring to him as my husband. The wedding ceremony was just a formality as far as I was concerned. But my parents were thrilled, my sister had already made plans to bring her little family from New York for the big day, and everyone around me acted as if I should be eager for it, so I put on a good face and reminded myself that all the important things had happened months ago.

  “That’s how I felt,” Juliet said. “Don’t worry, it will be here before you know it.” She waved goodbye and pushed her way through the door, ducking her head against the rain as she ran for her car, parked in Abernathy’s magically reserved spot.

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and it won’t rain on your
wedding day,” Judy said, emerging from the stacks to retrieve another pile of books. “Even if the ceremony is indoors, rain is still gloomy.”

  I picked up the third pile of books and followed her to the shelves. “Or I could get really unlucky, and it will snow like it did last year and no one will be able to reach the hotel because the streets will be impassable.”

  “Let’s just hope for the best, shall we?”

  The bells over the door rang again. When I reached the front counter, the newcomer had shed his hat and scarf and unbuttoned his coat. “It’s really coming down out there,” he said. He looked surprisingly overheated and was breathing heavily.

  “Welcome to Abernathy’s. Can I help you with something?” I’d never seen the man before, and it was possible he was one of the rare ordinary people who sometimes found their way to the store. I always let those customers browse until they realized the store wasn’t organized at all, at which point they generally left without any prompting from me.

  “Augury,” the man said. “I usually send my requests by mail, but I’m in town on business and I wanted to see the store.” He made a big show of turning around in a slow circle, his head tilted back. “It’s not at all as I pictured it.”

  “I hear that a lot,” I said. Well, not a lot, but often enough that I was used to the reaction. Abernathy’s shelves weren’t aligned in neat rows, but stood at odd angles to each other on the ancient linoleum floor spangled with gray blisters that had once been silver stars. Books were crammed onto those shelves sideways, or on their faces with the spines poking out like tiny staircases for book-loving pixies. Though the store never smelled the same two days in a row, the oracle being fond of experimenting with fragrances, underlying the scent of the day was always the smell of dust, no matter how often I cleaned the shelves. The high, white ceiling kept the place from feeling claustrophobic, but it was definitely no ordinary bookstore.

  “Did you write your question down?” I asked. The man dug in his rear pocket and came up with a much-folded sheet of lined paper. “I’ll take care of this right away, Mr.…?” The oracle didn’t need to know his name—it seemed to know without being told—but after the time the oracle had come under the influence of a confusing illusion, I always asked the customer’s name so I could compare it to the one on the augury. It might be paranoia, but I wasn’t interested in taking a chance.

  “Sean Willis,” the man said. “Thanks.”

  I nodded, and took three steps and entered the timeless peace of the oracle.

  The air was blue-tinged, not with the chill of a rainy winter afternoon, but with a clear light like that of a full moon, if moonlight could be as bright as the sun. Even so, the oracle felt darker than usual, and I couldn’t figure out why. I strolled among the shelves, not dawdling, but not in a hurry either, my shoes making quiet taps against the linoleum. Spending time in the oracle always left me relaxed, and I sometimes used my recently developed ability to enter its space without an augury slip to calm myself after a long, demanding day. “I wonder why you let Mr. Briggs keep the temperature so cold, back when I first arrived,” I said conversationally. “Do you not feel it the way a human would? And it stank of onion, too. That’s a smell you’ve never used since.”

  I sometimes wondered about Mr. Briggs, custodian before me, who’d been murdered when he refused to falsify an augury. He’d chosen me as his successor despite my knowing nothing about magic, or the war between humanity and monstrous invaders from another reality, or how to be a custodian of an oracular bookstore, for that matter, and I’d never figured out why. It might be as simple as my apparently innate ability to see through illusions, or as complex as how I’d twice become the oracle to defend the store against attacks. Or it might just have been that Mr. Briggs needed someone who wouldn’t ask questions about his blackmail activities. It probably didn’t matter, but I didn’t like mysteries and I really didn’t like mysteries centered on myself. But I had no idea how to solve this one, so mostly I just idly wondered.

  Ahead and around a corner, I saw a brighter blue light, like the corona of a star. The augury stood on a shelf in a gap where several books ought to have gone. Juliet’s trade-ins were just in time. I walked toward it, my mind already drifting to what I’d make for dinner. Soft tacos, probably. I hated the mess the hard-shelled ones made.

  Something was niggling at me, something more than my idle thoughts about Mr. Briggs and soft tacos. I took a few more steps and stopped a couple of feet from the augury. Footsteps. My steps never made noise when I was in the oracle, but the tapping sound had followed me all the way from the front of the store. I experimentally took a few steps in place. Tap, tap, tap. That was weird. I backed up and listened to the sound of my shoes on the pale pink linoleum. Weird, in the oracle, was never good.

  Pale pink linoleum. Abernathy’s floor was yellowish cream.

  I dropped to my knees and ran a hand over the floor. It was cool and slightly bumpy to the touch, and very definitely pink. Grit clung to my fingers. I’d swept inside the stacks that morning, but this felt as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a few days. This wasn’t my floor. I looked around and finally registered what else was different—the bookcases, normally made of yellow 2x8s, were oak, solid and sturdy, making everything look darker by comparison.

  I stood and tried to calm my breathing. All right. So the floor and shelves were different. Maybe this was Abernathy’s new way of exerting control over itself, the way it produced a new fragrance every day. Maybe it was tired of the gray blisters, and who could blame it? Or maybe something is seriously wrong.

  I left the augury where it was and walked away, heading for the heart of the oracle. If the oracle needed to communicate with me, it could do so wherever I was—even, as I’d learned six months before, through my dreams. But I always felt most comfortable when I was at its heart, the center of four bookcases facing each other like ancient monoliths. I imagined it let the oracle focus its attention on me, if that’s what it was—that sense of being looked at by some entity stranger than I could comprehend.

  I rounded a corner that should have led to the center. Three bookcases stood there, aligned sideways to each other, not four forming a square. I turned and went back, taking a different route. Bookcases laden with books surrounded me, mazelike, the smell of dry paper and old leather filling the air. It had smelled like ripe apples only moments before. The new route took me to a dead end, one I’d never seen before. I backtracked and sidled through a narrow gap, brushing up against a couple of oversized gazetteers bound in yellow buckram. The feather-light touch sent a thrill of fear through me. I was lost inside the oracle.

  My hurried steps turned into a run as I took turn after turn, desperately looking for an exit. I felt as if I were trapped on the set of some experimental film, built entirely of books and plywood, hidden cameras recording my increasing terror. Finally, I came back to the same dead end and leaned, panting, against the shelves, not caring that I was getting dust in my hair. I closed my eyes and breathed in the smell of the books. It calmed me somewhat. This was ridiculous. Abernathy’s wasn’t big enough to get lost in, and I needed to calm down and think rationally. The augury. I’d left it on its shelf, and when I looked up I could see the blue glow a few “rows” over.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and made myself walk slowly through the aisles and around the corner. The augury sat patiently waiting, its blue glow undimmed by my fear. I reached for it slowly, approaching like I might a wounded animal, assuming I were stupid enough to try to touch a wounded animal that might well bite my finger off.

  My hand closed around the spine. The blue glow faded, disappeared, and the book tingled with the live-wire buzz of a live augury. The smell of ripe apples brushed my cheeks and nose. I looked down to see the familiar dull yellowy cream and gray blisters of the linoleum. Silence fell over the space where I stood, surrounded by unfinished pine shelves.