Reliquary Part 1

This is a small story I've been cooking up for a while. Jsut a short story, but I'll place parts of it within here as well. Tell me what you think:

The store was simply called Hole in the Wall, and it was just that, a hole in the wall. To many, the store was actually simply a small place where many could get books. To Denis, it was a job. He liked working in the small used book store. After all, there was not much else that he enjoyed in his life. He was behind the counter, picking up a small stack of books when his hair fell into his face once more. He pushed the dark strands of brown away from his face and came back up with the books in his hands. Looking over the titles, he realized that they were mostly mystery books.

The store had been getting quite a few of those lately due to people suddenly wanting to read them due to popular authors making more books in the genre. He particularly didn’t like mysteries, but they were something to read. Hole in the Wall Comics and Used Books was actually a small house at one time. Before the current owner had bought the place to turn it into a bookstore, it had been a surf shop. How many people this far inland would need a surf shop?

The store still retained it’s useless interior design, but was now covered from top to bottom in bookshelves, and books that needed to be shelved. The front was rather crowded; a large bookcase to the left of the front entrance, and a large register space on the right covering most of the area where the houses’ porch used to be. Thought the secondary front door, one was led to the main interior, where several comic book spinners took up space, touting comics from new to old. Amongst them, a single spinner conspicuously filed with books.

In the direct center of the room, taking up most of the space was a large section of bins made out of wood and nailed to the floor. Hundreds of old comics from the 90s had been stuffed in there in an effort to try to get people to peruse them as were old copies of magazines past and present. On the right wall, hundreds of literature books managed to squeeze themselves into the walls and pile themselves into small neat and tidy piles by author’s name and then title. On the opposite wall, everything from children’s books to historical books were placed. To the immediate left of the literature books, another doorway leading to a small hallway that ran parallel with the store led to several rooms.

To one end of the hallway, the small bathroom, and alcove of hardback books was hard to miss as was the path past them to the horror books. The hall was easily only wide enough for one person to walk down, however, it too was piled with books on the floor; yet people somehow managed to get through there towards the back were the entrance to the register was without causing anything to fall over. On the rafters of the area, above all the books, even more hardback books, mostly historical fiction and authors pertaining to Arthurian Legend. Also back there, hundreds of little cubbyholes, all with names printed on anything from blue to pink to white cards. These small cubbyholes were adjustable and often filled with comics for those who had a subscription held here at the store.

On the opposite side of the hall, the most sought after section also appeared to be the most overly stuffed and never seemed to be in order as well: Fantasy and Science Fiction. The small room had shelves on the walls that were crammed to the point of bursting. It was here that people often complained of book avalanches. It was here where books, placed precariously on the stacks within the room and stacked almost waist high due to high volume would fall over at complete random or because people would upset the delicate balance system that employees had made within the room to try to keep them all upright. Denis was more often fixing things in this room than in any other place within the store much to his chagrin. It wasn’t that he disliked the books, he was simply annoyed by the massive volume of them. Thankfully, he didn’t need to worry about them at that moment. The small stack of books in his hands, he headed down the hall and turned into the main room.

Directly across from the store’s front door was another small nook that led around the back of the Science Fiction section to a set of stairs that led to the basement of the store where there were stacks of even older comics than what they had on the spinners and bins, as well as boxes of even more books. Directly on the wall leading to this stairwell was another set of bookshelves and a small pushed in set of shelves next to it. On the pushed in shelves, Romance novels spilled off the shelves. Denis always looked at it and saw nothing but large biceps, women is flowing dresses, and what he considered to be sap. If there was ever a type o genre that never had needed to be created, Romance was it.

He placed his stack of books on the floor and began shelving it. Next to him, the stairs were covered by a rather large throw-rug, or sheet, or whatever the hell the hanging cloth was supposed to be called. Since he had begun work there, the cloth had always looked rather ugly. A mish-mash of browns oranges, deep burnt yellows, and a rather disgusting garish red that made his stomach turn. He always made sure that he never ate right before he shelved the mystery books, just being in close proximity to the makeshift door made him queasy.

As he began picking at the books in accordance to the authors, he began making a mental tally of what they needed. It appeared that they had way too many of some books and not enough of others. He made a listing of the Authors in his head and made sure to keep them straight so that he could write a note to his boss. She was always wondering what they needed more of. When told, she would find the books and bring them into the store. It was rumored by many who had worked at the store previously that she had a large yellow school bus with nothing but books in it hiding out at her house. Denis knew he would have to see it himself before he believed it.

It was not that Edith was not a good boss, but she seemed defiantly often lost in thought over what it was that she was doing. She often would hold a book and sometimes forget that she was shelving and wind up carrying the book around the store for hours before she realized it. The good thing though was that her mind had memorized every book that was within the store. If she was working while Denis was on his shift, he would often ask if they had a book and Edith would be able to tell instantly if they had it in stock, where it was on the shelves and how many copies they had, hardback or paperback. That made dealing with calls where people were looking for something in particular a lot easier to work with.
Denis shoved an Agatha Christie book into the shelf and sighed at himself. Reaching down for another mystery book, he saw the curtain door shift slightly as if in a breeze. He narrowed his eyes and then reached out and pulled the curtain to the side. Looking down the stairs that lead into the darkness of the basement, he looked for anything that was out of place. Down the stairs went and then ended on a little landing, which then had stairs running down to the left into the actual basement. To the right of the landing, the back door stood locked firmly against intrusion. Denis frowned and then closed the curtain and continued to shelve mysteries. He had finished shelving the first pile when the phone rang.

He muttered silently to himself and then ran over to where the phone was next to the register. Leaning over the counter, he picked up the little black phone and spoke into the receiver. “Hole in the Wall Books. How may I help you?”

There was a crackle of static and a loud roaring noise on the other side of the phone. He pulled it away as the phone made a keening noise that was obviously a cordless phone’s feedback. He tried to stay with it, but wound up hanging the phone up instead. As he hung up the phone he was walking back to the mystery section when the front door opened and the cowbell that was attached to it rang. He turned around putting a smile on his face.

“Welcome to hole in the Wall. Anything that I can help you with?” His voice was cheerful and almost a little jumpy at its insistence. A familiar voice called back in response.

“I already know what I want. I just want to know if you have it in stock.”

“Mrs. Clarens. I thought you would be stopping in today.” Denis smiled even wider as the old woman came into view. Her dark skin was covered by a rather large shawl and she smiled a rather toothy grin at him and waved. In her mouth was a large unlit cigarette and her green eyes danced as she spoke back to him.

“Do you have a light then?”

“Now you know better,” Denis chastised. “Edith doesn’t like anyone to smoke in the store.” Denis moved himself down the hallway so that he would get behind the register to help the woman who was a regular at the store. The old woman had been coming to the store for almost as long as Edith had owned it. She had around fifteen grandchildren in various stages and was often getting them books because she believed that reading was healthy for a good mind as well as a good standing in the world. Denis had personally met every single last one of her grand children and had discovered that all of them were exceedingly smart.

Mrs. Clarens chuckled slightly and removed the cigarette from her mouth and smiled at him in a rather disarming way. “Well, there was always the chance.”

Denis shrugged his shoulders. “I doubt it will ever happen. So what can I help you to find today?”

“I was coming in for the Nancy Drew book that my young granddaughter Audrey had wanted.” She good naturedly tapped her hand at a book in the shelves behind her. If someone had walked in, they would have thought that the old woman was ignoring Denis.

Denis walked into the small back section where they stored some of their anthologies and stored books that people had called for and were coming in to pick up. Digging around he found two Nancy Drew books and called out to Mrs. Clarens. “We have two books. Are both of them yours?”

The woman’s voice floated back in surprise. “Two? Well, I’ll take a look at both of them. Perhaps Edith took out two of them for me.” Dennis nodded at her idea and then walked straight to the front counter where the old woman was adjusting her shawl, her cigarette was absentmindedly tucked back into her mouth. He placed both of them on the wooden counter and she smiled as she looked at them, her eyes lit up.

“I remember reading these when I was younger. They bring back good memories.” Denis nodded his head almost absentmindedly, not quite sure at what it was that she was trying to say. She smiled and then placed both books on the countertop again and said, “I will get both of them. She’ll love them both.”

Denis nodded and looked on the inside covers where, written in pencil, was the discounted prices for the books. He totaled them up on the register and cash exchanged hands with the books. “Do you want a bag for them?”

The woman shook her head. “No. I can carry them myself.” Mrs. Clarens started towards the door and then pulled the cigarette out of her mouth. “If you like, I can tell your future.” Denis froze and looked at the woman, narrowing his eyes. The old woman merely stared back at her and smiled at him.

“I could do it you know.”

It was a well known to some of the people that worked at the used book store that the old woman was a bit of an eccentric, and she thought she could tell the future, but many people swore by the old woman’s skills. Many still didn’t believe her in the first place and thought that she was just trying to get attention. She had proffered the chance to have his future read by her many times, but he had always turned her down. Denis was more than content to not know what was possibly in store for him.