The Door to Lost Pages

Chapter 1 - Bestial Acts





Now, most of the time, Aydee has no reason to think of the man and the woman. Occasionally, she spots someone walking down the street who for some reason or other—a piece of clothing, a hairstyle, a frown—sparks an unpleasant memory. These are not unwelcome incidents. They remind her that the man and the woman are nothing but a memory to her, that she has succeeded in stepping into another life.

Aydee: that was her secret name, the one she’d given herself. No-one knew of it, especially not the man and the woman who’d given her that other name when she was born.

For the first ten years of her life, Aydee lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment with that man and that woman. The man made good money. He had a job that required him to wear a suit and tie—he sold something or other, stocks, buildings, insurance, whatever. He shaved every morning, except for the moustache that was much too big for his small face.

Most of the money from the man’s job went into business suits and cocaine. The man and the woman rarely slept, rarely ate, and rarely thought of food at all. Occasionally, the man or the woman would order pizza or bring home TV dinners. Even then, she wouldn’t get enough to satisfy her appetite.

The woman had the habit of letting small change accumulate at the bottom of the cutlery drawer. Aydee would pilfer it in order to buy lunch at school. Aydee didn’t know if the woman noticed that Aydee took that money. Aydee was always careful to leave enough change in the drawer so that it would look undisturbed. Still, she sometimes had enough left over to buy a snack on the way back from school.

Most weekends, the woman would get on the bus to see her mother and bring Aydee along. Aydee and the woman rarely exchanged even a word during these bus rides. Aydee passed the time reading off the street signs, like a countdown to armageddon.

Fat and mean-mouthed, the woman’s mother chain-smoked so carelessly that she often had at least two cigarettes going. Every time they visited, the old crone would spew hatred from the moment they stepped in the door to when they left. She’d start with that “no good husband” of her daughter’s. Always the same litany: “Did you have to marry one of them? They look at you, and all they see is a slave, you know. That’s all they’ll ever see.” Then she moved on to immigrants, neighbours, family . . . she never ran out of spite. While the old crone ranted at the younger woman about this and that, she would serve Aydee platefuls of food: tomato-lettuce sandwiches, homemade cookies and doughnuts, fried eggs and bacon, chicken noodle soup, fruit salad, chicken with gravy, meat pie, apple crumble . . . There was cigarette ash in every mouthful. Still, Aydee ate. The old woman, chiding her daughter for Aydee’s thinness, would always insist that they take some food back with them—but that invariably angered the younger woman, who screamed back that she knew how to take care of the girl. It was an argument that the old woman always lost. Aydee knew the old woman didn’t really care about her. All she wanted was to dominate her daughter. Aydee was just the most convenient weapon. Every visit resulted in the same fight.

On weekdays, while the man was away at his job, the woman would spend the whole day cleaning, working herself into white-hot rages at the dust and grime that constantly undermined her efforts at spotless cleanliness. She shouted at the dirt in the corners; she screamed at the smudges on the floors; she hissed at the mildew on the bathroom tiles. She could not abide the slightest smear or dust. The apartment reeked of disinfectant. The woman fuelled her fastidious campaigns with a constant stream of cocaine and jumbo bottles of cola.

Aydee had taught herself to be meticulously clean and tidy. Thus, for better and for worse, Aydee was ignored, invisible.

On her tenth birthday, like most nights, the man and the woman were sitting on the living-room couch, watching television with the sound on loud. The one bedroom in that apartment was the bedroom of the man and the woman: a strictly forbidden zone. Aydee was allowed to sleep on the couch, but, often, she was forced to seek refuge in the bathroom. She would take off her shoes and lie down in the tub, inhaling the fumes of the various cleaning products the woman used to keep it sparkling white. That night, though, she just stood in the living room, between the couch and the door, watching the man and the woman. Waiting. Waiting for nothing.

The man was drinking beer; the woman, cola. It was past midnight; the bowl of cocaine on the coffee table was half full. They would still be up for hours, Aydee knew. They might even stay up all night. She was hungry and tired. In the fridge, scrubbed to an immaculate white inside and out, there were only more big plastic bottles of cola and cans of beer. She had tried to drink these before, but the beer smelled like piss and the soft drink felt like exploding sludge.

Her heart was a tight mess of knots, a heavy weight in her chest. She didn’t cry. She never cried.

She was hungry. She was tired. Enough; she’d had enough. There was nothing for her here.

She was ten years old, now. She didn’t need to sneak out.



Once, I was a ten-year-old boy. Father. Mother. No siblings. No pets. I begged again and again to get a dog or a cat. But my folks were firm on this one. Mom hated animals. She was scared. People can be so stupid.

The best thing my folks ever did for me was leave me alone. On days when there was no school—the whole summer in fact—I’d wander around the city, and sometimes even a bit beyond. Walking. Riding my bike. Taking the bus. Getting on the subway. The city itself was my best friend.

I never made any friends at school. I wasn’t picked on either. I was weird, but invisible. I’d learned early on to keep my weirdness to myself. I still remember the first time my mom pleaded with me to act normal, to stop embarrassing her by saying weird things no-one understood. I was only three years old. She didn’t threaten me, but the more she nagged me the less connected I felt not only to her but to everything around me, the more I retreated into my imagination. What was it about me that caused her so much distress? Was I really that different from the other kids?

It probably took her and my dad a bit over a year to begin to suspect how far I was roaming. They thought I was just playing outside—in the alley, or in the park down the street.

They made a big fuss at first. They yelled at me, something they rarely did. They made some sort of half-hearted attempt to restrict my comings and goings. For a few weeks they diligently watched over me. They demanded a strict accounting of my time. I was furious for a couple of days, mainly at the realization that they could exert such authority over me. I figured they couldn’t keep that up for very long. I was right. It was clearly more taxing for them than for me.

That was around the time I turned ten. Around the same time I discovered books. Looking at me now, you’d think I’d dropped from my mother’s womb right onto a messy pile of old, lurid paperbacks and arcane leatherbound tomes. But there were no books in the house I grew up in. The only books I remember from my early childhood are schoolbooks and dictionaries. Except . . . in fourth grade, there was an incomplete set of an old, battered encyclopaedia on top of an old filing cabinet in the back of the classroom.



Aydee was cold. She was feeling faint, hunger and exhaustion getting the better of her. She didn’t think to beg for assistance, food, or money. Nothing in her short life had led her to expect help from anyone.

She walked through the streets of the city. There were well-dressed men and women stepping in and out of cars. Brash young folk, not so well-dressed, hurried from here to there, or nowhere to nowhere, huddled in groups, hooting and shouting. In the doorways of businesses that were closed at this time of night, she noticed people wrapped in tattered blankets. Some talked to the passersby who ignored them; others faded into the shadows. Some were very old, older even than the woman’s old mother. Some were younger than Aydee.

No-one noticed her.

It was getting harder and harder for her to keep her eyes open. Her legs rebelled against her aimless wandering, urging her to stop and rest.

Aydee ducked into an alley where the intrusive glare of the city lights was diminished. Her back against a wall, she let herself sag to the ground and shut her eyes.

She was quickly able to ignore the city’s noises, letting her body slip into the drowsiness that precedes sleep. Then, another sound reached her ears. Purring. It grew louder, until it seemed to occupy all the space inside her head. The more she listened the more complex the purring grew, like layers of sound rippling into each other. Aydee could not ignore the sound. It nagged at her.

The purring came from deeper in the alley. Reluctantly, she propped herself up and walked, slowly, toward the source of the sound. She was so hungry. Every step intensified the pain in her gut. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness of her surroundings. All around her, between the two walls that defined the alley, were layers of rotting garbage: disintegrating bags spilling their contents on the ground, metal cans overflowing, dumpsters dripping foul liquids. There was distressing movement beneath the strewn refuse. Aydee continued toward the sound.

Walking became a trance state. The purring subsumed everything.

Aydee was yanked out of her daze by strong animal odours. The noxious smells of garbage were gone, as was the trash itself. The alley couldn’t possibly be as long as the distance she had walked. Could it? Where was she? Suddenly, a short distance in front of her, there was the source of the purring.

A gigantic lioness, almost as big as a whole room, lay on the ground, blocking any possible progress down the path the girl had been following. As Aydee approached the beast, she noticed that all kinds of cubs, pups, and kittens were huddled against the giant’s body, playfully intertwined, many of them feeding, blissfully sucking on the creature’s teats. Others were climbing, sliding, or sleeping on her gargantuan frame. Aydee felt the hard knots around her heart not untangling themselves but, at least, relaxing some of their relentless pressure.

The giant creature turned her head toward Aydee. The lioness’s gaze penetrated the darkness and found its way deep into Aydee. Once more, Aydee felt the knots around her heart loosen—enough so that powerful sobs erupted from a long-neglected part of herself. A torrent of accumulated pain and sorrow gushed from her eyes.

Aydee staggered toward the lioness and nestled amongst the varied assortment of young animals. Her mouth latched onto a free teat. She sucked hungrily, sating needs and cravings she couldn’t articulate.

Aydee fell asleep, enveloped by bestial odours and comforting warmth, her mouth fastened on a nipple.



I spent as much time as I could leafing through the pages of that encyclopaedia. I hurried to finish the class assignments so I could have an excuse to go to the back of the class and lose myself in its pages. The teacher was more than happy to see one of her flock eager to spend time reading.

I used to grab a volume at random and let the pages fall. When the pages had settled, I’d look at the open spread . . . the bold headings, the black-and-white photos, the colour drawings. . . .

Inevitably, some item would grab my attention. Often, I’d be seduced by the artwork accompanying the entries describing mythical beasts. Every entry had at least one cross-reference: an epoch, a country, a civilization, an author . . . I’d hunt down the cross-references, trying to put the pieces of these interlocking puzzles together. I still remember the intense frustration I felt every time I failed to find a cross-reference because it wasn’t contained in the surviving volumes. A lot of pages were missing, too. Ripped out. How could anyone do that to these books?

I made no distinction between history and mythology. Troy and Gilgamesh, for example, cross-referenced to both historical and mythological entries. Bored and restless and wanting to believe anything that would stimulate me, I was more than happy to accept that these often contradictory readings of the past were all equally true, that reality was not flat and linear, but complex and multidimensional, allowing for many versions of the same events to exist simultaneously. For many pasts to lead to the same present.

Many of the entries in the encyclopaedia were about things that weren’t mentioned anywhere else. Things, it seemed, no-one had ever heard about. Like how the dark tendrils of Yamesh-Lot, the lord of nightmares, preyed on humanity’s dreams. The exploits of the Shifpan-Shap and their tragic, ultimate curse. The mysteries of the Green Blue and Brown God. Many of these interrelated myths contradicted each other, but that excited me even more. They hinted not only at alternate pasts of the world but at an altogether different way of apprehending reality.

One evening at dinner, I can’t remember why, I started to talk about my theories on history, myth, and reality. Maybe somebody had said something that triggered a connection? More likely, I was just eager to blurt out whatever was on my mind.

Before I’d gone very far in my monologue, my parents started interrogating me, angrily, almost viciously, about the origins of these ideas. Where did I find out about such things? Who was putting this nonsense into my head? Who? Who was I spending my time with? Who was telling me these things? Who! Why! Where! How! Why couldn’t I be like other kids? Tell us! Tell us! Tell us who’s putting all these ideas into your head! Tell us who’s making you crazy!

It was Dad who did the most of interrogating. Mom mostly cried. Usually, Dad didn’t seem to care as much as Mom about the fact that I was a weird kid. As long as I didn’t get into trouble, and I rarely did. But, that evening, he was livid. His face was red. He was lashing out at me, as if I’d done something to hurt or betray him.

I knew better than to talk about the encyclopaedia. I knew—I just knew—they’d arrange to have me banned from reading it, or have it taken away entirely. I screamed that they were my own ideas (they were—but my sadly unimaginative parents could never believe or understand that); I bolted out of the kitchen and locked myself in my bedroom. From that point on, I knew I would never—could never—feel connected to these people.

After that, I still spent as much time as I could devouring the encyclopaedia. It was no longer with the mad rush of a new passion, but with pleasant familiarity. I paid a different kind of attention to the volumes. I examined them not only for their content, but also as objects. I studied the wrinkled spines and scratched covers, ran my fingers over the subtly embossed letters forming the words of the title (The Clarence & Charles Old World Encyclopaedia) and the name of the publishing company (Kurtzberg, Vaughn & Jones, Publishers). I carefully memorized all the letters, digits, and symbols on the copyright page.

Around that time, I was spending more time exploring the downtown core. It had never occurred to me before that were such things as bookshops. I was so excited when I discovered that there were dozens of them in the city. I was sure, now, that I’d finally lay my hands on those missing volumes of The Clarence & Charles Old World Encyclopaedia.

I scoured all the bookshops. I had no money to purchase the books, but I didn’t let that interfere with my quest. I’d deal with that, somehow. But. . . .

I couldn’t find the volumes. Frustrated, I started to ask. Mostly, I was curtly dismissed, my query not taken at all seriously. A few times, though, some shopkeeper or clerk would take pity on me and actually look through thick volumes for the title or the publisher. But there was no trace of the Clarence & Charles anywhere. No-one had ever heard of it. No reference book even listed its publisher. But I made a pest of myself. I kept insisting, even to the ones who were nice to me, that their references were wrong or inaccurate. I knew the encyclopaedia existed. Every school day, I lost myself in its pages.

It took me a few months to think of hitting the libraries. I thought my experience with bookshops had been frustrating. Ah! That was nothing compared to the humiliation and frustration that awaited me in the city’s public libraries.

In those days, libraries—all those I went to—were segregated into “adult” and “children’s” sections—in separate rooms. Everywhere, the adult section was open to anyone twelve or older, but anyone younger was relegated to the dull purgatory of the children’s section, denied access to the adult area. No amount of sneaking, lying, or pleading gained me entry to the adult stacks or, even, to convince the strict, unimaginative librarians to find out for me if The Clarence & Charles Old World Encyclopaediawas to be found in the forbidden sections. I got thrown out of every library in town, once narrowly escaping being detained and having my parents called.

When the school year gave way to summer, it meant that I no longer had access to the >Clarence & Charles. But by then I had found something else.

I was spending a lot of time in an understaffed, overstuffed five-level bookstore. I didn’t find the encyclopaedia there either, but I spent whole days sitting on the dirty floor of that huge maze, reading, with no-one pestering me. The place was so filthy. The books were in terrible shape. Pages torn out. Covers missing. Smelly, gunky stains on the pages. But I’d never seen so many books in one place!

On the fourth floor there was, in a dimly lit corner, a row of books shelved so low they were barely off the floor. They captured my imagination almost as much as the Clarence & Charles. They were all from the same publisher, Unknown Knowledge Press. They were all paperbacks, and all the covers had a wine-red background with crude line art featuring pyramids, flying saucers, fabulous creatures, eyes in the sky, and all the usual paraphernalia of esoteric beliefs. The series name was boldly plastered on each cover in larger type than any of the individual titles or authors: Strange World.

Unknown Knowledge Press—what a ridiculous name! But, back then, just the right thing to get my attention. These books presented conflicting, contradictory theories concerning the secret history of the world. Perfect fodder for me: I believed in a fluid past where all possibilities were just as likely, just as true. Although I never came across a book in that series that promoted my theory, it seemed to be the only way to reconcile all the divergent histories and beliefs found in those pages. And I believed everything I read. It was all too fantastic not to be true.



Aydee was awakened by a feather falling on her face. It cut her cheek, just slightly, but enough to make her wince. It was a long feather, almost as long as her arm. And sharp. Picking it up, she nicked one of her fingers. Its colour was a shifting shade of green, blue, and brown. Aydee had never seen such an elusive colour. She wiped the thin wound on her cheek with a finger and then tasted her blood.

The smell of rotting garbage reminded her of the previous night, of her journey through the alley, of finding refuge with the lioness. She looked around her and discovered that she wasn’t really in an alley. The night before, the shadows had misled her, and she’d ducked into a crevice between buildings that was barely any deeper than it was wide. The lioness had only been a dream, she thought, could only have been a dream. And yet . . . she wasn’t at all hungry anymore. She pushed herself up from her bed of garbage bags.

Still holding the feather, she walked out onto the sidewalk. It was morning rush hour. The streets were filled with people and cars. What were those frenzied shadows moving across everything?

She looked up in the sky. A winged skeleton was brandishing a flaming sword against a mass of darkness from which oozed both clusters of tendrils and a tangible aura of menace. The skeleton, whom she thought of as male because of its size, hung in mid-air, his thick wings—of the same ethereal colour as the feather in her hand—beating rapidly. The darkness had no fixed shape. It erupted from a rip in the sky, blossoming in many directions, sprouting tendrils and limbs of various shapes, only some of which were directed toward the winged creature. Sometimes, a dark tendril succeeded, briefly, in wrapping itself around one of the skeleton’s limbs. The winged warrior fought back ferociously, wielding his sword at lightning speed, hacking away at his attacker. It was the most exciting thing Aydee had ever seen.

Aydee tore her eyes away from the conflict. Why wasn’t anyone reacting to this? Everyone on the street seemed oblivious to the duel raging above their heads.

A shadow fell across her face. She looked up again to see a dark tendril shooting straight at her. She felt a rush of wind as the skeleton swooped down, chopping off the tentacle before it could touch her. It was then that she noticed the leather satchel strapped over his shoulder and across his chest, his free arm clutching it protectively.

The darkness shaped itself into a funnel and attacked, trying to wrap itself around the skeleton’s head. The winged creature’s sword cut through the oozing mass.

The skeleton took advantage of the respite in the dark substance’s assault and dove, his sword a fiery spearhead, into the heart of his malleable foe. A thick column sprang out of the darkness and swatted the winged skeleton. The swordfighter temporarily lost his balance. More tendrils and funnels burst out of the dark mass, but the winged warrior’s sword slashed through the enfolding darkness, slicing ever closer to the spot from which the darkness emanated, hacking away at the oozing mass with increasing ferocity.

The darkness wrapped a cylinder of itself around the skeleton’s head. It savagely twisted its opponent’s neck, shaking the winged creature’s whole body. It enlaced its tendrils around his legs and wings. The entrapped warrior fought blindly, desperately, his sword cutting through the darkness. It sprouted more and more tentacles, each darting out with increased urgency. But the warrior hovered at the heart of the dark mass. Holding his sword with both hands, he plunged his weapon into the darkness.

There erupted a screeching wail that knocked Aydee off her feet. By the time she regained her bearings, it was over. All she could see was the winged skeleton lying on the ground, partly propped against a lamppost, his flaming sword nowhere in sight. Of the darkness, there was no sign.

She ran to the skeleton. She stood over him and examined him closely. Passersby studiously ignored her.

The warrior’s bones were badly splintered. His wings had lost much of their splendour. They were now ragged and sparsely feathered, their colour fading. She looked at the feather in her hand. Its colour, too, was fading.

Overcome with compassion, Aydee reached down to touch the fallen warrior. She wanted, needed to help. She whispered: “What can I do? What?”

The eyeless skull turned toward her. His empty gaze fell on the young girl’s worried face. The warrior opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped was a slow, quiet hiss.



I was grateful for the fact that no-one seemed to notice me in that bookshop. In my mind, it had become an extension of my room. It was a private place where reality didn’t intrude.

I was scared when someone eventually spoke to me. It was one of the clerks. He was wearing the ugly brown and yellow staff uniform. Adult alert! But, really, he must have been only seventeen or eighteen. Twenty at most. Adult enough for me back then.

“You love those books, huh? I’ve been noticing you for a few weeks now.”

I must’ve looked like he was pointing a gun to my head. That’s how I felt.

He chuckled, “Hey, don’t worry, kid. You can read all you want. No-one cares here. The bosses never come into the store. No-one’s gonna bother you.”

He stretched out his hand. “I’m Alan.”

I managed to bring myself to shake his hand. I immediately felt much better. He shook my hand firmly, making me feel like a real person.

I gave him my name, and we started chatting. It didn’t take long for the conversation to become one-sided. I was starved for attention, and here was someone willing to listen to all my outlandish ideas without laughing at me.

I must’ve paused for breath because Alan managed to say something. “Hey, listen, Lucas, have you ever heard of Lost Pages?”

From his shirt pocket, he whipped out a stack of bookmarks, flipped through them, and selected one. “Here. I’ve never heard of this encyclopaedia you’re looking for, but if any store can find it for you it’s this one. You should go sometime. Really.” This was a familiar scene for me. Booksellers were always trying to fob me off on one another, hoping I'd leave. In the same breath he quickly added: “Hey, I gotta get back to work. See ya, Lucas. Okay?”

I could see in his face that I’d kinda freaked him out. I was much more than he’d bargained for. He was too nice a guy to be anything but polite, but, even back then, as socially inept as I was, I could tell he was relieved to be rid of me.



The winged skeleton raised his arm and, trembling, wrapped his fingers around Aydee’s wrist. Despite his wounds, he had a strong grip. The fallen warrior brought Aydee’s hand to rest on the satchel he carried. Then, the skeleton’s hand clattered against the ground. Aydee put the feather across his outstretched fingers.

She flipped open the satchel and found inside a thick leatherbound volume. She took out the heavy book. There were strange characters embossed on its cover and spine. For all she knew they could have been the letters of a foreign language, like Arabic or Japanese, but she suspected their origin was less mundane. Aydee looked through the book, hoping, but doubting, that it might point to a course of action. Was the skeleton dying? How could she help?

Inside, the book was filled with the same sort of symbols as on its cover. It was no help; she couldn’t understand anything. But then she found a bookmark tucked between the endpapers and the front cover. Printed in English, in the same colours as the skeleton’s feathers, it read “Lost Pages”—with a street address and a phone number.

She knew the name of that street. She remembered sitting in the bus with the woman, on the way to the old crone’s house, reading street signs through the window. She could recite the name of all those streets, in order. Getting there would be easy.

She was reluctant to leave the skeleton unguarded. But, she reasoned, no-one else could see him, and, if the darkness—or some other threat—returned, what could she possibly do against it?



As it turned out, I didn’t even have to ask for The Clarence & Charles Old World Encyclopaedia. It was right there on the shelves of Lost Pages.

The tables, shelves, and counters were packed with books that I had never seen anywhere before. Illustrated bestiaries in arcane languages. Histories of places I had never heard of. Theological essays on mysterious religions with equally mysterious names.

And the dogs . . . there were dogs all over the place. Big and fat. Little and furry. Cuddly and goofy. Slobbering, with their tongues hanging down to the floor. Sleeping, with their paws stretched up into the air. And they were all friendly. This place was heaven. Everything I wanted was right here.

I sat down on the floor, hidden (or so I thought) from the old man at the desk. I flipped open a volume of the Clarence & Charles that I’d never seen before, and, instead of frantically flipping back and forth, incessantly checking cross-references as I usually did with the encyclopaedia, I started reading on the first page. A brown Lab mutt trotted over to me, sniffed my nose, and put her head in my lap.



Aydee’s quest to help the fallen warrior, to find Lost Pages, filled her with a sense of purpose. Never in her life had she felt moved to do or accomplish anything. She’d existed from day to day. Waiting. Waiting for nothing, because nothing ever changed.

She would find the shop. She would help the warrior. She had to. For the first time in her life she felt needed. She could not ignore that.

She ran toward Lost Pages, hugging the big, heavy book to her chest.



I completely lost track of time. I was harrumphed out of my reverie by the old man, who, standing at the front desk, had been sorting through a pile of books when I’d come into the shop. He was round-faced, with a big nose, a mischievous smile, and a thick, grey beard. He was wearing the trademark “old bookseller” cardigan.

He was holding a stool in his hands. He put it down close to me and sat. Several of the dogs came to see what was going on. All of a sudden a bunch of them were sniffing and licking my face.

The old man clapped his hands, and the dogs stopped. “I’m afraid we’re closing up. You’ve been reading that book all day.”

Uh-oh. This time I was really caught, I thought. There was no way I could pay for this book. He was just gonna throw me out. I wouldn’t get away with this again, I was sure. So close. I was so close. I was holding it in my hands!

He laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll put the book aside for you. You can come back tomorrow and read some more.”

I was halfway back to my parents’ house when I realized that I hadn’t said a word to him. I’d simply handed him back the book and bolted out. I just ran. Ran all the way to my parents’ house and into my bedroom and shut the door.



The shopkeeper looked anxious. He listened carefully to the young girl, all the while petting a large, goofy-looking Saint Bernard. The shopkeeper’s other hand was resting on the skeleton’s book, which Aydee had brought with her.

“You’re very brave. And smart. You did the right thing. I’ll close up, and we’ll go right away.” He shooed out the few browsers who were loitering in the cramped shop and locked the door. “Wait for me here. I have to get something in the back.” When the man walked away, the Saint Bernard came up to Aydee and licked her fingers.

The shopkeeper came back holding an oversize child’s wagon. “We’ll use this to carry him back here.”

The Saint Bernard and two other dogs followed them out. The shopkeeper asked the others—the place was bustling with canines of all sizes and shapes—to stay behind. He dug into his jacket pocket and, before locking up, threw a handful of biscuits inside the shop.

He harnessed the vehicle to the two large dogs. The Saint Bernard’s companion was a powerful-looking blond Labrador. A small, thin, black terrier mutt—barely larger than a cat—jumped on the wagon being pulled by the other two dogs.

Aydee led the group to where she’d left the fallen warrior. He was nowhere in sight. “He was right here. I swear he was! I swear.”

“I believe you.” The shopkeeper knelt by the lamppost the girl had indicated. “Look,” he picked up something off the ground and showed it to Aydee. “Bone splinters—and feathers.”

“But where did he go?” Aydee bent down and carefully picked up one of the sharp feathers. She wanted to keep something to remember him by.

“I don’t know. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but try. You did your best.”

“Is he—?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe he’ll come back to the shop tomorrow to get the book again. Maybe not.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

The shopkeeper began, “I guess I should head—” He stared at the girl’s eyes. He wrinkled his brow and scrutinized her.

“You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?”

“I—I. . . . No.” She started to sniffle. The small terrier immediately ran to her. He jumped up into her arms and licked her face.

The man stood there for a few seconds, pondering, while the girl hid her face in the dog’s fur.

“My name’s Lucas.” He exhaled deeply. “I’m really hungry. Come on, let’s have some lunch.”



Not long after that, I disappeared from my parents’ world.

Despite my embarrassment at how rudely I’d behaved with the old shopkeeper, I returned to the bookshop the very next day. I really needed to get my hands on that encyclopaedia again.

Just as he’d promised, he’d kept the book for me. I apologized for the day before. He thanked me. Then, he showed me a room in the back where I could sit at a desk to pour through the Clarence & Charles. Those volumes were big. You really needed to set them down to read.

Anyway, I started to come every day. Mister Rafael—that was the old man’s name—allowed me to help him out. Running small errands, shelving, sweeping. I loved it so much at Lost Pages. It’s where I wanted to spend all of my time.

At first, I found Mister Rafael’s sense of humour a bit odd, a bit intimidating, but slowly I started to get it. Pretty soon, we were spending our days trading silent jokes while customers moved reverentially through the shop’s stock of incunabula and esoterica.

By then, I knew that the shop only occupied the storefront area of Mister Rafael’s large house. I had seen enough to know that I belonged here. Here. With Mister Rafael. And the dogs! And, of course, the books. Learning about everything I’d always dreamed about and so much more I could never have imagined. Making it my life’s work.

One night, after the shop closed, I told him I had something important to discuss. Mister Rafael didn’t look at me the way other adults did. I felt like a person around him, not like an annoyance to be dealt with. He nodded at me with that wry smile of his. “Let’s go in the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll make us some tea.” Drinking tea was his answer to most situations.

We sat in silence for a while, but it wasn’t awkward. He waited for me to be ready to speak, enjoying sitting around with me. I was never more sure. So I spoke to him. I told him my life’s story. I told about how I felt. I stopped short of telling him that I’d come to see him as my father, much more so than the man whose genes I carried. Those words stuck in my throat. But he understood.

No-one at home or at school knew enough about me to trace me here. And, besides, I’d already begun to suspect that Lost Pages wasn’t fully tethered to the world I’d come from.

“I was expecting something like this,” Mister Rafael said.

I went back to my parents’ house one last time. I packed my clothes and came back to Mister Rafael’s house. I came home.

He’d prepared a bedroom for me. Two walls were covered with shelves stacked with books, including a full set of the Clarence & Charles. There was a big, old wooden desk. The window was open to let in the cool, late-summer night breeze.

Three of the dogs—Verso, Pipedream, and Unit; they’re long gone, now—were lying on the bed, wagging their tails. I went over to them. They climbed all over me, wrestling and playing. That—



—sealed it. I’ve been living here ever since.” Lucas nodded, remembering. “Some years later, when I was old enough, Mister Rafael retired and left to explore all those—” Lucas paused, measuring the weight of the next word “—worlds he had only read about.”

Aydee waited for Lucas to explain what he meant, but instead there was an awkward silence between them.

Finally, Lucas continued, “He left the shop in my care and still sends me the occasional message. My life would have been pretty desolate without him.”

On the table, there was a spread of breads, fruit, and cheeses, on which Lucas and Aydee nibbled while Lucas recounted his story. There were large bowls of dog food and water on the floor. Aydee couldn’t keep track of the number of dogs that came in and out of the kitchen to eat, drink, or get their heads scratched.

She said, “Lucas . . . what happened today . . . does it . . . does it happen often? Is this what your life is like?” She wanted to ask him why no-one else could see the skeleton fighting the darkness. She thought of the lioness, and of learning to trust Lucas enough to ask him if he knew about her. Soon.

“No . . . not often. . . .” He winked at the girl. She giggled.

“Hey! I should get back to work. I’ve got boxes and boxes of books to sort through.” He downed some apple juice. “Wanna help?”

She nodded. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “My name’s Aydee.” She felt scared and exposed, speaking that name aloud for the first time in her life.

“Well, I’m happy we met, Aydee. I really am.” When she heard Lucas say her name, she knew she’d come home.



The giant lioness’s powerful paw shattered the front door of the apartment, which opened into the living room. She walked in, destroying the doorframe, bringing down the wall.

The lioness strolled up to the couple on the couch—a small-faced man with a big moustache and a woman drinking from a jumbo-size bottle of cola—crushing everything in her path. The couple was oblivious to her presence; they looked right through her, didn’t notice the destruction. A thundering growl erupted from deep within the creature. She raised her paw again and, in one swipe, killed both the man and the woman.

Blood and gore seeped into the spotless couch, splattered against pristine surfaces, dropped on the soft, clean carpet.

She sniffed at the corpses. She devoured the stomachs and innards first. She stripped the meat from the bones. She chomped down on the skulls and chewed out the brains, the eyes, the tongues. She shattered the bigger bones with her teeth and sucked out the marrow.

Her meal finished, she left.

Her engorged teats cried for release.

There were many who needed her.