CHAPTER 1 - RASPUTIN

“Raz, wake up!!”

Raz opened his eyes to see his mother looking down at him. Her eyes were worried and she was still in her floral nightgown.

“What time is it?” Raz asked, as he rubbed his eyes and sat upright, looking at the alarm clock sitting on the table next to his bed.

“7:30,” his mother replied, her brow furrowed in worry. “Your grandfather is missing,” she said, her voice trembling ever-so-slightly.

“What do you mean, he’s missing?!” he asked, perplexed. He knew his grandfather was on a business trip in England. He used the word “business” liberally as his grandfather owned a little bookshop in town and would sometimes travel to acquire rare and old books. But it was more for pleasure than for profit. He had spoken to him on the phone a few nights ago when he called to wish him a happy seventeenth birthday, and to let him know he had sent him something special from England. He had mailed his gift, not to his home, but to the bookshop.

“The police called,” his mother said. “His rental car was found abandoned on the road in the English countryside, and the bed and breakfast where he was renting a room says he never checked in!” The concern in her voice, so normally calm and collected, was not lost on Raz, even in this early hour. “They traced his steps and said the last place he was seen was a post office in Dorchester three days ago. They are hoping it may be a clue to where else he may have traveled.”

“When he called the other night, he said he shipped me a special gift for my birthday. But for some reason, he shipped it to the bookshop?” said Raz, bewilderment in his voice. Suddenly the alarm next to his bed went off, making both he and his mother jump. Reaching over, Raz slapped the snooze button and said, “I am not sure if it would be there yet, but I can check when I open the shop this morning.”

This seemed to placate his mother for now. “Yes, okay,” she said, a bit softer than normal. Raz could hear concern still lingering in her voice.

“You know grandpa...” he said, trying to set his mom at ease, but a nagging sensation was still pulling at him. He tugged a sweatshirt over his head as she was walking out of his room. “He probably just got distracted by the possibility of some rare book he heard mention of in a pub somewhere, and forgot to check in. Let’s not worry... yet.”

“Hmmm. Maybe...” she said, her voice drifting off, as she turned to leave. But Raz could tell she wasn’t convinced.

This wasn’t the first time Pelias Fischer had disappeared unexpectedly. He traveled quite a bit for the book shop and many times would fail to call or check in for days at a time, blaming “getting lost in the hunt for rare tomes and books for the shop!” as his excuse. But never before had the police been involved. Still, he felt pretty sure he would pop up out of some small English hovel, having found some rare old manuscript he had tracked through three counties. The fact that he phoned a few nights before made him feel less worried.

He quickly got his shoes from under his bed, and slipped them on. Walking into the bathroom he splashed water on his face, and brushed his teeth. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, reflecting his tall, lanky frame. He wasn’t exactly skinny, but had the look of a boy yet to fill out into manhood. His shoulder length black hair was pulled into a ponytail. His long hair wasn’t a “look,” like most kids thought, but was simply easier and less cumbersome. The blue hooded sweatshirt he was wearing had a graphic that simply read “Pen >;;;; Sword.” He pulled a knit ski hat over the crown of his head and headed out to open the bookshop.

It was a brisk October morning in his small northwest Michigan town; the wind was whipping, blowing the leaves into great piles along his fence. Woodhaven was a small harbor town in northwest upper Michigan, right on the shores of the lake, with a population of about 1,000, depending on the season. It was actually named after his mother’s family (Woodward) who had founded the town in the 1800s. Not that that meant anything now. In the summers, people came accross the lake from Chicago and Milwaukee to vacation in their cottages. But they are all home now, back to their daily lives, while their summer homes sit, boarded up, like an abandoned village for the long midwest winter. His grandfather lived on the other side of town, in a small cabin in the woods behind the bookshop. It didn’t open until nine on Saturdays, but he enjoyed going in early and looking through all the unique and antique books his grandfather had procured over the many years.

It sounded lonely, but Raz preferred books to people. He wasn’t antisocial, and had a few friends, but he never felt the draw to certain activities that most teens were into today. He wasn’t overly athletic and sports in general bored him. There were no movie theaters in Woodhaven and he didn’t even own a cell phone. They had a television, but it used what the local residents called “harbor vision,” which is just an inside joke about the rabbit ear antennae everyone in town had. Cable and satellite TV had yet to break through in Woodhaven. It was always amusing during the summer months, watching the over-privileged kids summering here with their parents, wandering the streets, cellphones raised high, trying to get a signal, complaining about the lack of entertainment options, completely oblivious to the beauty around them.

He loved boating and spent many hours sailing in the harbor, but once the weather changed, his little Sunfish had to be put away until the spring. Books were good year-round and their stories didn’t have a care for tourist season or offseason.

Raz and his mother had lived in Woodhaven since he was born. Grandpa Fischer was his father’s father, stepping in after Raz’s dad died to help support he and his mother. He never met his father, having died before he was born, but Grandpa Fischer always said he was a man to be proud of. Whatever that meant. Raz knew that his parents met while his mother was visiting England, sometime after she graduated from college. It was a whirlwind romance, quick courtship, and wedding. Other than that, Raz didn’t know much more. He asked once why they had married so quickly, to which his mother said with a distant smile, “When you know you found the right one, why wait?” Sadly, the marriage itself was just as fast, as Raz’s father died unexpectedly shortly after, leaving his mother pregnant and widowed in England. The only evidence of this was a wedding photo taken on the steps a magistrate’s office somewhere in England, that sat on the mantel in their livingroom.

In fact, if it wasn’t for this picture, Raz wouldn’t even know what his father looked like. He was a tall man, with olive skin, dark almost black hair, and a matching unruly beard. You couldn’t tell in the photo, as it is black and white, but he was told his father had striking blue eyes; all traits Raz shared (minus the beard, of course). As his grandfather was much shorter and stockier in build than his father, Raz always assumed he must have gotten these traits from his mother, although that was pure speculation, since his grandfather never talked about her. All he knew about his paternal grandmother was she died when Raz’s father was a young man, and his grandfather did not discuss her.

His father’s name was Tristan, which was an odd name, though not as odd as Pelias, or Rasputin. Whenever he asked his grandfather about this, he would simply say with a coy smile, that they were “descended from a long line of weirdos.” This always made Raz laugh. He and his grandfather were very close, and shared a love of reading and history. You would think an owner of a bookshop that specializes in rare and old books would be stuffy. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Grandpa Fischer was a hoot. Never taking himself too seriously and, in turn, teaching Raz to do the same.

This never seemed to rub off on his mother, however. She was always serious - almost to a fault, often commenting that if Raz wasn’t careful, he would grow up an old eccentric bookshop owner like his grandfather, which was entirely fine with him.

Raz was a senior at the local high school, and college had never really appealed to him, anyway. Only his mother was pushing for it. His grandfather always said there wasn’t anything Raz would learn in college that he couldn’t learn for free from picking up a book. Raz thought his grandfather expected to pass the bookshop to him one day - a point of contention between Grandpa Fischer and his mother. His mother was a part-time science teacher and part-time bookshop worker, just like Raz. She was tall, and thin with blonde shoulder-length hair and deep brown eyes, like the beechnuts that grew on the trees in their backyard. Technically, Morgan Fischer held the title of “Manager” at the bookshop, but it was in name only. She hadn’t been spending much time there at all since Raz was about thirteen and able to join his grandfather after school and on the weekends. And now, at seventeen, he ran the store when his grandfather was away.

In the offseason, running the shop wasn’t hard since, from September through April, there was so little walk-in traffic, what with all the vacationers back home, that the shop was only open afternoons and weekends. Besides, a majority of the business was actually done online now, and since his grandfather called computers “that infernal box,” Raz handled this part of the business, too.

The bookshop and the winding road behind it that led to his grandfather’s cabin, were on the other side of town, about a fifteen minute walk from the small cottage Raz shared with his mother, closer to the lake. There was plenty of room at the cottage for all three of them, but Grandpa Fischer valued his privacy, and always said Raz’s mother “didn’t need him interfering with raising a son.”

This time of year in Woodhaven was beautiful, but it always made Raz a bit sad. The people, like the leaves from the trees, were scarce. It wasn’t just his grandfather’s bookstore that was slow in the offseason; almost all of the shops that lined the cobblestone street through downtown were the same, except for the grocery store, which kept the same hours, and the ice cream and fudge shops, which were closed until May. There were no supermarkets or chain stores here. Woodhaven was too small for those, and besides, the residents of Woodhaven wouldn’t stand for any business not locally owned. Raz walked past the stairs to the other bookshop in town, not yet open for the day. A cute basement shop that focused on modern books for casual readers. Raz would sometimes journey down the stairs to see what the “modern world” was writing about, but overall he preferred the old tomes only found in his grandfather’s shop.

As he walked passed Gurney’s Sweet Treats, he took a deep breath through his nose, enjoying the sweet smell of sugar and cinnamon from the sticky buns Mr. Gurney, the baker, must have just taken out of the ovens. Raz reminded himself to come by before the shops opened to grab a few to pick at for the day.

As he passed the alleyway between the bakery and his grandfather’s bookshop, he saw Mrs. Gurney, the baker’s wife, sweeping leaves off the back steps.

“Good morning, Mrs. Gurney,” Raz chirped cheerily.

“Good morning, Rasputin,” she sang back, happily. “Opening the bookstore this morning? Grandfather out of town again?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “England. Has a good lead on an original Dickens manuscript.”

“Well, make sure you stop by and grab a couple sticky buns for you and your mother. On the house!” she said with a wink.

“I will! Thanks!” Raz said, as he waved good-bye to Mrs. Gurney and walked out of sight, to the front of the bookshop.

His grandfather’s bookshop was the very last shop at the very end of Main Street. The road from that point wound uphill and out of town. This was the only way in and out of Woodhaven, and sometimes in the winter, the road became impassable from a heavy lake effect snowfall, isolating the residents from the rest of the world. The shop itself looked out of place, even in a town where 100-year-old buildings are still considered “new.” Two large glass windows took up a majority of the face of the white building, a red door tucked in between. But, unlike the rest of the storefronts on the street, the door and windows were slightly crooked, leaning ever so slightly to the right. The single-story, flat-roofed building wasn’t crooked at all, but level like any building should be. It was as if the builders just framed the windows and door at a slight right angle. While many would find that odd, Raz knew no different, as it had just always been that way.

In fact, none of the residents of Woodhaven could remember a time when they were straight. His grandfather built the shop just before Raz was born, and no one could remember a time it wasn’t there. He once heard an older resident telling a tourist who inquired about it, that the shop just “sprung up one day,” yet no one remembered what was there before, or even remembered his grandfather building it. It was just there, and nobody seemed to have a care to know more about its construction.

The same was said for his grandfather’s cottage, tucked back in the woods behind the shops. It was a small, fieldstone cottage with a thatched roof and round wooden front door and windows. It would have been right at home on an English countryside, but a little out of place in a Michigan harbor town. “We never knew it was there before your grandfather showed up all those years ago and moved in!” the residents had laughingly said to Raz on more than one occasion. “Must have been built and forgotten when your mother’s family founded the town.” Yet no one ever seemed to give it any more thought than that. Just like the bookshop, it just was.

Gold painted lettering adorned the windows, reading “Antique Books”, “Rare and Hard to Find Manuscripts”, and “We Specialize in First Editions”. A small wooden sign hung perpendicular to the building above the door that read “The Fischer King, Fine Books & Bindings, est. 1998,” carefully written in green paint. Weathered and greying from the long winters, it creaked slightly whenever the winds blew. The door was windowless, with an antique brass knocker and door handle, unpolished and faded to an almost-green by the rain and snow. The blood-red paint on the door was now weary, chipped, and faded. Digging into his jean pocket, he pulled out the key. Putting it in the lock and turning, he pressed the lever with his thumb and opened the door. The small bell, used to alert Pelias that a customer had entered, rang gently as it opened.

Immediately, the smell of old parchment mixed with soot from the fireplace, which was used to help warm the shop in the cooler months, wafted around his senses; like a familiar fog, it enveloped Raz as he entered. Shutting the door behind him, the door chime singing its customary jingle as it closed, he walked toward the front counter, having to step over a few books that had yet to make it to the shelves.

This was not uncommon in his grandfather’s shop. Books and loose pages covered almost every surface, with thin walkways formed by tables, shelves, and disheveled manuscripts piled on one another. Nothing in the shop showed any semblance of order. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books of every shape and color. On top of the shelves, you could find crumpled and creased pages, looking as though they were trying to escape, piled in ways that seemed to have little rhyme or reason. A thin layer of dust covered every surface, save the counter, which was a fine polished mahogany. Behind the counter was a tall grandfather clock, a loud tick-tock accompanying each pendulum swing, which was the only sound in the shop when customers weren’t present.

In the center of the room hung an old crystal chandelier, cobwebs crisscrossing the ornamental candle-cup arms; the kind you expect to find in an old, abandoned dining room, not an old bookshop. Lamps of every shape and size were strewn about every few feet or so - the only source of light besides the chandelier after the sun went down.

Depending on where you looked, you may see a worn leather chair or two sitting, so buried in books, you may not know they were there (or that they ever were meant to be sat upon). In all four corners of the shop, perched on a small shelf, was a statue of a different bird.; an eagle, a crow, a hawk, and a dove. Each looking as if they were watching the goings-on in the store. A hand painted sign hung below each, reading: “This shop is under bird surveillance. You have been warned.” The only break in the bookshelf-lined walls was the fieldstone fireplace on the wall, directly adjacent to the front counter, and a staircase against the back wall. As this was a one-story building, the stairs simply ended at the flat white plaster ceiling; it, too, was used as a makeshift bookshelf.

This was Raz’s favorite thing in his grandfather’s shop. The “stairs to nowhere” as the residents called them. Raz spent many an hour perched, like a observant bird on the middle steps (any higher and he hit his head on the ceiling, which had happened on more than one occasion) reading books, doing homework, mentally creating absurd stories about customers, or just watching his grandfather work. When asked why he had a set of stairs in a one-story building, essentially dead-ending at a ceiling, his grandfather would say with a wink, “I like to be reminded everything is on the up and up!” His grandfather was always reminding him that not everything needed to have an obvious purpose, and if you waited long enough, and had a sufficiently open mind, it would be revealed to you in time.

Raz walked over to the fireplace, stepped over a pile of books needing to be shelved, and knelt down. Grabbing yesterday’s newspaper, he wadded it up under the remaining wood, then, taking a long match from the tin next to the hearth, struck it on the stone, placing the now lit match to the newspaper. The warm glow of flame slowly illuminated Raz and the room behind him.

The grandfather clock behind the counter rang its familiar melody followed by nine chimes, alerting him to the nine o’clock hour. Raz walked to the front windows and turned the wooden sign over from CLOSED to OPEN. Not that he expected any customers today. In the prime season, they stayed relatively busy, what with foot traffic from the summer out-of-towners.

They loved looking through the quirky bookshop, asking questions and hearing his grandfather’s tales of hunting for manuscripts and books, occasionally buying a few to put in their cottages to brag to their guests about the rare first editions they owned in an attempt to make it look like they weren’t as shallow as their exuberant cottages, ski boats, and cars made them look to the average observer. It even became a competition between a few as to who would be the first to buy the ‘new’ rare books his grandfather would bring back from his trips. A competition his grandfather was happy to foster. But in the offseason, they were lucky to have one walk-in customer per week.

This is why Raz was so startled to hear the door chime ring as he walked back toward his stool behind the counter. He turned to see a young woman coming through the door. She was small in stature with short cropped blonde hair. A streak of purple ran through it, tucked gently behind one ear. She had fine features, like an elf from the fantasy books he had read in his youth. Looking slightly sullen, the girl was wearing a long grey wool jacket, buttoned up against the cold, a black and blue wool plaid skirt, black leggings and untied black Doc Marten boots. Raz guessed she couldn’t be much older than he was. He figured she was either lost, or a Chicago summerer whose family still hadn’t closed up their cottage for the winter.

“Running a bit late getting out of Woodhaven for the winter?” he asked as she walked in.

She turned to look at him, as if she just realized Raz was there, “Sorry?” she asked in a thick British accent.

Definitely not from Chicago, he thought to himself as she walked toward the counter. She stopped just feet from him and Raz noticed that she was very pretty, with dark brown almond shaped eyes, framed with purple eyeshadow, and long eyelashes, darkened by black mascara. “I just meant, we don’t usually get many people from out of town this time of year,” he said, as he sat down on the stool, taking his usual place behind the counter.

“Why do you assume I am from out of town?” she asked, a bit cooler than he expected.

“We don’t have a lot of town here, and I think I would remember seeing you,” he said with a smile, trying to sound more confident than he felt. But she seemed not to take notice, walking past the counter, looking around the shop curiously.

“Fancy little shop you have here,” she said sarcastically, still looking around everywhere but at him. “Just books, then?” she asked.

“That’s what the sign says,” he responded a little shorter than he had expected… or intended. The fact that she wasn’t looking at him, as though he wasn’t there, struck him as kind of rude. “Are you looking for something special?” he asked, trying to take the slight annoyance from his voice.

“I’ll let you know if I am,” she responded dismissively, as she walked toward the back of the shop, looking curiously at “the stairs to nowhere.”

“Those stairs are just for show,” he called after her. She didn’t respond, though he knew she heard him. Tourists, he thought and, hearing the door chime again, turned to see Mr. Ewing, the postman, coming in.

“Good morning, young Rasputin,” he said cheerily. “How are things at the shop this morning? Grandpa still gone?”

That’s the thing with a small town, thought Raz, Everyone knew what was happening with everyone else. “Good morning,” Raz replied. “Things are good. Grandpa is in England until Wednesday.”

“On the hunt!” said Mr. Ewing loudly, with a smile, his arm raised above his head, holding the mail in his hand aloft, as if it was a sword.

“Yes, sir,” said Raz, smiling politely.

The sound of books being moved came from the back of the store. “Customer?” asked the postman, craning his neck to try to see who made the noise.

“Tourist,” said Raz, non-plussed.

“Little late in the season, wouldn’t you say?” he replied.

“Yeah,” said Raz, turning to look towards the stairs in the back. “I guess so. Probably took a wrong turn and thought she would make a day of it.”

“She, huh?” he said, craning his neck even harder to try to get a look at the autumn intruder in their summer town. Turning back to Raz, he put the mail he was holding down on the counter. “Here you are. Have anything for me this morning?”

Realizing he hadn’t checked the computer yet for any online sales, he said, “Nope, not yet. I’ll take a look and, if we do, I’ll drop them in the box on my way home.”

“Sounds good!” said Mr. Ewing. “See you Monday,” and turning, on the spot, he opened the door and left.

Raz looked down at the mail, seeing an envelope with a foreign stamp and postage from England. Suddenly remembering the events that woke him up, he quickly grabbed the envelope, which read:

Master Rasputin Fischer

℅ The Fischer King Books

Woodhaven, MI 49740

United States

He ripped the envelope open and pulled out a small folded piece of thick parchment. Opening it, he saw, written in shimmering purple ink, the long flowing cursive he recognized as his grandfather’s:

Remember Raz, everything is on the up and up!

Raz stared at this for a long time; the confusion in his head mirrored on his face. Repeating the words in his head, he glanced over to the stairs, then back down to the parchment. He read it again, this time out loud to himself, as if it would start to make more sense. But this time, as he read the words, the writing began to disappear, like a fuse being lit that followed the words as he spoke, until when he had finished, and the page was blank. Raz stared, mouth open, dumbfounded. “What in the world?” he said aloud to himself.

“What in the world what?” asked a female voice with a thick British accent. Raz jumped, startled. He had completely forgotten he wasn’t alone. Looking up, he saw the girl had come out from the back of the shop, and was looking curiously at him.

“Nothing,” he said “Just a letter from my grandfather. I think it was a joke. The writing seemed to disappear as I read it.” This was so like Grandpa Fischer, he thought to himself. Nothing was ever what it seemed.

“What did it say?” asked the girl, much more interested than she should be.

Raz looked at her curiously, but decided to answer, “It said, ‘Remember, everything is on the up and up.’ It was what he used to tell me when I would ask about the stairs in the back,” he gestured with the parchment toward the stairs. The girl looked at Raz, slightly disconcerted. He continued, trying to make more sense of the words, “Uh, you know, ...as to why he built them. He always said it reminded him to remember everything was on the up and up. I think it’s supposed to be a joke.” He turned the parchment over in his hand to see if there was something he missed. “Probably some prank parchment he picked up in England for my birthday…” He trailed off as the girl had already walked away as if he wasn’t still talking.

She was now walking toward the stairs, looking like she saw them for the first time. She walked around them inquisitively, as if inspecting them for something in particular. Then Raz watched confounded as she started walking up the stairs, running her thin fingers along the railing as she went. He noticed her nail polish matched the streak in her hair. He called after her, “They only lead to the ceiling!” But she kept climbing. “Watch your head!” he shouted as her head was about to make contact with it. But then, just as she was about to bump her forehead, she vanished. Raz’s jaw dropped and he fell backwards off his stool, hitting the dusty floor and knocking the wind from him momentarily.

Catching his breath, he jumped up from the floor and, not believing his eyes, he walked around from behind the counter, and apprehensively started toward the stairs. “Hello?” he called out. “Hello?!” he said louder. Where did she go? he thought to himself as he turned past the railing and glanced up the stairs. She was gone. The books that were strewn across the stairs were still there. As was the ceiling that had been there his whole life. “Hello?” he said again, hoping for an answer. He gradually began climbing the stairs.

Slowly, as though each step led him closer to danger, he continued up, until finally his head was inches from the ceiling. He reached his hand up slowly to touch it, and even though he had touched the ceiling here more times than he could remember, he felt a sense of apprehension, as if it would reach out and bite him. But, rather than the rough plaster ceiling he expected, his hand passed right through it, as though it was made of water. The ceiling rippled around his arm, much like when a stone is thrown into the lake. He stared for a split second, his arm seemingly ending at the wrist, looking like a stump, his hand missing. But before he could pull it back, he felt a hand clasp his own and pull him up to standing.

There was a split second of darkness, as though he blinked his eyes, and, even though his feet were still on the stairs in the shop, he surprisingly found himself face-to-face with the missing girl, and in a room he had never seen before.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 - The Hidden Room