It was a crime. Actually, I wasn’t sure if “crime” was the right word or if the victims were indeed “victims” or simply the consequences of the unseen judicial system that Amanda defined to be “forces and entities from other dimensions operating beyond our normal perception.” Nevertheless, wether the crime was justified or not, that early morning I froze in bed, sank deeper into my sheets, and contemplated what to do with what I’d been given. With a jolt, I sat up and silenced my cell phone’s blaring fire alarm ringtone. I felt a shiver in the back of my head as the memory of the previous night’s events flooded back. Trying to focus on the task at hand, I turned my gaze to my great grand-mother’s mahogany bookshelf whose air of mystery and elegance stood in stark contrast to the modern New York City apartment where I lived. With trembling hands, I reached for the bookshelf. And there, on one of the shelves, lay the item I had been entrusted with: the third copy, of only 50 published, of a 1646 first edition of The Alchemical Chronicles of Hidden Realms, published in Edinburgh, Scotland. I reached out and brushed against the worn, lanky spine; its cover smelled of musty paper and aged wood. Dust still clinged to its surface and the faint lettering hinted at the many hands that had held it. I wasn’t sure what to do with the old tome. Her last words had been to take it and keep it, and that there was something inside that I needed to read—something that would change my life and allow me to be be free of the tethers of my life. In other words, the peace and sense of stability that had settled after months of routine tasks and the predictable cadence of schedules, vanished; just one event, one moment to break the fragile equilibrium I had managed to maintain even if that equilibrium was based on a lie. Her voice, filled with a combination of dread and excitement, continued to haunt me. Only fifteen hours before, Amanda had phoned me and begged to come by the shop immediately. “You have to keep something for me,” Amanda whispered urgently. I hesitated, unsure of what to say. “But what—“ “Just come, Clara. Just take it. And read page….” The reception was bad and Amanda’s voice kept breaking off. “I can’t hear some of the words you’re saying, Amanda!” “I said, come…make sure…have you…?” I tried to make out what she was saying. Guessing, by the tone of her voice, that she was asking me about John, I replied, “No, I haven’t told him yet. I can’t just end things like that, even after the betrayal. You don’t understand.” “Okay, but you don’t need to anymore,” the reception was suddenly clear. “Just come pick this up. Trust me. Trust me, Clara.” Twenty minutes after hanging up, I stood next to the old, massive sycamore tree that seemed to cast its protective shadow over the imposing Victorian. The house had been remodeled to serve as an antique shop of used and very old books, as well as a repository for those who needed to store their volumes for lack of space, or privacy. The top floor served as her own library containing the many specimens that Amanda had collected during her travels around the world looking for unique and arcane editions. I was simply her archivist assistant and best friend; perhaps, her only friend. Stepping closer to the house, I noticed that the front door with its brass owl knocker had been left ajar; I pushed it open and tried to find my way through. But it was too dark and only slivers of moonlight pushed through some of the windows. “Amanda!” I called, feeling a little unease at the silence of the environment and at the fact that door hadn’t been closed. Amanda usually had some kind of instrumental music blaring. But the first rule in the house was to keep the door closed and locked at all times. I switched the light on, but the power was out. “Amanda!” I yelled, as my voice echoed through the meticulously organized rooms of the house. And that’s when I stumbled on the first body: a man dressed in a black suit, his eyes open in fright, his countenance fixed on an eternal sleep. There were no wounds, no signs of having been assaulted; he just layed there with a tag on his suit: “Department of Darkness.” Quickly, I looked for my cell phone to call the emergency line, but, of course, I’d forgotten my phone, as usual. “Amanda!” I yelled again in a panic, afraid that something similar had happened to her. A sudden chill ran up my spine and a feeling of dread descended on me as the room seemed to close in. The shadows grew darker and ever more alive, the music more oppressive. I sprinted through the foyer and to the land line, but before I could get to it, I noticed that in the center of the shop, surrounded by burnt out candles, lay the body of another victim with the same tag on his suit. I felt a wave of nausea, my hands trembled as I stepped closer. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something about three feet away from the second body—a package wrapped in brown paper bag paper, tied with a simple lasso-like string. My name, “Clara,” was written on the cover in Amanda’s neat handwriting. I rushed to pick it up and a little note, written very fast and carelessly, fell loosely on the ground. I read it: “Clara, take this with you and run. There’s no time to think. and don’t call the police. Don’t waste your time. When you get home, and when you’re ready, open the book on page thirty. Read the words silently.” And that was all. Fighting against my own instinct to call the police, I left the old Victorian and decided to trust my friend’s words. When it came to strange happenings, Amanda was a master and on the way back to my small apartment, the eerie silence of the early morning apmplified the feeling of uncertainty. That’s what I remembered. Finally, standing in front of the bookshelf with the book in hand, I read the words: “Shift the veil, hold your ground. Make way through the labyrinth of time.” Suddenly, fragments of the night before began to dissolve. The more time that went by, the less I remembered, as if the details were being deleted or erased. Maybe, the purpose was for me to look forward, not back. The edges of memories continued to grow fuzzy, like a half remembered dream slipping away with the dawn. Faces blurred. Voices became indistinct murmurs, and even the details of my small apartment faded into an indistinct image, losing its sharpness and rendering it an overexposed memory. Each attempt to grasp the fading memories felt like trying to catch smoke with bare hands. Even John’s abusive behavior seemed far and almost unreal, a fiction of sorts. Only the book in my hands and my great-grandmother’s bookshelf grew more solid, more intense. A sense of purpose began to replace the confusion. At last, I opened my eyes, the air was crisp and cool, carrying the scent of pine and fresh earth. Mountains loomed in the distance, their peaks dusted with snow. Before me stood a quaint Victorian store with a sign that read: “Clara’s Curiosities.” Inside, stood my great-grandma’s bookshelf and a customer. “Can I help you? I asked. “I am looking for a book?”