the hall, Minhi and Vienna whispered inaudibly behind him. Alex couldn’t make out any of it. As they emerged into the main hall, Paul accosted him.
“How was the forbidden zone?” Paul asked.
“Surprisingly manga-esque,” Alex answered.
As Alex walked ahead he heard Paul say to Sid, “See, mate? I told you he wears them for the girls.”
Chapter 6
La Librairie Fahey lay on a side street of the village square in Secheron, and though it was not vast like the book superstores Alex knew in the States, it seemed bigger on the inside than from the outside. Alex and Sid meandered through its three narrow stories looking for reference material, up and down wooden stairs that were themselves lined with shelves. On the second floor the staircase opened out into a small café, where a number of visitors sipped espresso and pored over their books. As they moved up to the third floor, Alex paused, tilting a head for Sid’s benefit. “Birks,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Birks. It’s what my sisters and I call all the random guys in Birkenstock sandals.”
Sid looked, and Alex silently indicated a blond guy with dreadlocks and the eponymous sandals. “You don’t like Birkenstocks? They’re, like, totally comfortable.”
Alex nodded as they climbed. “They are that. What’s the blond guy reading?”
Sid peered down.
“It’s, uh—”
“Don’t tell me. L’Étranger.”
“No . . .”
“À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.”
“Wow!” Sid marveled. “How do you do that?”
“Birkwatching, man,” Alex said, shaking his head. “Travel around enough, you gotta do something with your time.” He saw a paper sign tacked near the staircase that said, LIVRES EN ANGLAIS / ENGLISH BOOKS, and tapped it.
The third floor was better lit than the second, with some love seats and wooden chairs and a cushioned bay window that looked out on the street below. Past the bestsellers and necessary English translations of Camus and Proust they found collections of short stories.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” Sid asked.
“I have no idea. I probably would have done better with your library,” Alex said.
“My library is gone with the wind.” Sid shook his head in sadness.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” said Alex. “I can’t believe I keep forgetting that.” Sid had had two shelves of books, many of them nonfiction, but he had reams of vampire novels and stories. He was a connoisseur of all things vampire and was in the process of creating stacks of character sheets for a game that as far as Alex knew no one else at Glenarvon played—Scarlet World, a role-playing game about vampires. Sid liked to dig deep into primary texts, old stories. “I never rip off a movie unless I can find a book to back it up,” he had explained, and Alex wasn’t sure what that meant but it seemed to mean something to Sid. Everyone had a hobby.
Sid scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelf in front of him. “These are stories, but—if we have to write something, I mean—we need something about, you know, how to write, don’t we?”
They began to move around the shelf when they heard someone say, “That’s brilliant,” in a pronounced British accent. As Alex and Sid stepped into the Language Arts section, they saw Paul, who was rummaging through books with Minhi and joshingly fighting over one.
“I spotted this!” Minhi said.
“But it’s called Master Plots,” said Paul. “As in, all the plots. In one book.”
“What did you find?” Alex asked. Behind Minhi, he saw Vienna, wearing her jaunty green scarf.
Minhi turned around, letting Paul have the book with a shake of her head. “Hey, guys!”
“We’re looking for something to help us write a story,” said Paul. “And we just found one called Master Plots.”
“Can I see that?” Sid asked, taking it. He thumbed through, showing it to Alex. Inside were countless outlines: “The Romance,” “The Action Story,” “The Mystery.” Sid shrugged indecisively.
“There’s another one here,” said Vienna, taking another copy off the shelf.
“I don’t know,” said Sid.
“What is it you were hoping to find?” Vienna asked him. Her eyes ran past Alex, and Alex felt himself trying to make eye contact, feeling mildly crushed that she failed to connect.
“Sid’s something of a purist,” said Alex. “He reads old books, old stories. Am I right?” He looked at his Canadian friend.
“Something like that. I guess I’m looking for something less—mercenary.” Sid shrugged again.
Vienna scanned the books. Her scarf danced a little as she eyed something on the top shelf. She reached up to take the book, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. She pulled down a tattered, leather-bound book, inspecting it