Books

The party boiled around Quentin, filling his ears with white noise. He had dived deep into a book and only surfaced to chat, and smile at someone else rather than himself, when someone addressed him directly. That person usually was Fay, but as the evening went on even she left him alone in favour of talking to friends she met rarely.

So late in the evening it was turning into early morning, her approaching laughter, much louder than usual, had him look up. Fay hung on the arm of a taller woman, face flushed and movements just a little erratic.

"Here, Quen, this is Eve. I told you about her, right?"

Nothing good, actually, but since Fay seemed to be having fun, he smiled, shook hands, and did smalltalk that quickly grew into goodbyes.

Fay snuggled into the passenger seat, seeming to nod off, but when they turned onto their street she said, "Sometimes I wish you'd enjoy these things more. But since you don't, thanks for tagging along."

"Oh, but I enjoyed myself." Quentin stopped the car and leaned over with a twinkle in his eye to kiss Fay. "I finished another book."

Metal rattled gently as Freya rooted through the content of the tin. Wardrobes, suitcases, savings boxes long destroyed had left their keys in the collection, probably to be forgotten, or maybe to be reused. What the girl was looking for was - ah! A small slip of brass-plated tin, a triangular head.

Diary locks had been always the same, or nearly so, for decades, or if there was a slight difference, the locks were so badly made the key worked, anyway.

Freya stayed sitting in the storeroom dust and tried the key. She smiled and relaxed happily when her hoard of secrets opened.

Her breath caught as she caught sight of the writing. Blue ink instead of green gel pen. That's mother's handwriting! In my diary! A look on the cover confirmed it; even the signs of wear matched.

Freya locked and unlocked the book again, still seeing the cursive writing instead of her own rounded block letters.

She bit her lip and looked towards the door. It would be a while before her mother came home, so Freya might as well have a closer look.

Sylvie leafed through her diary, which was more than two three quarters full, wondering how small she could cramp her handwriting while still keeping it readable to strangers.

Denise never had taken to reading, much to her father's chargrin. His claims that books were magic that could take you anywhere did nit impressed her, and she only read fiction when she could not avoid it.

When she inherited her father's estate, she did not know what to do with the books, but the smell of paper and dust awoke nostalgia, accompanied by curiosity. She unlocked the one bookcase with doors and ran a finger tentatively over the spines, cracked leather with gold lettering on most. She pulled out a small volume, opened it in a patch of sunlight, and started reading.

When she suddenly stood in ankle-deep snow, wind cutting through her summer shirt, she realised the "magic" part had not been a figure of speech.