The Ship-Like Shop

It felt like a dream. Two sisters traveled in the late hours of the night. Few shops were open and the streetlights had remained lit for some time. The building resembled a cargo ship made of copper turned green from exposure with the second story made of wood. The lights were still on. The two sisters entered. It was a modest shop toward the front, a few simple dresses and boots for sale. The mannequins with faces asked the sisters questions and encouraged the girls to come back later to check again if they did not find anything of interest now, all while the plump old shopkeeper read a book behind the old cash register. 

The first sister admired some of the dresses while the second looked further into the shop. Behind the wooden front section were shelves of books that spread into a colosseum with no roof above. The upper half resembled that of a shift with it’s masts and sails, rain not a bother despite the open sky above the books. Whether a bookstore or library remained uncertain, but the books spread out farther than the girl could view. A coliseum of books, indeed. 

The books she grabbed and looked through varied, but the one she found most intriguing seemed familiar in some way. The book was a children’s book based on Colin Morgan’s portrayal of Merlin, exploring Merlin’s adventures while awaiting King Arthur to rise again. The map inside included booted footprints visibling moving across the page and fading where no longer visible on the map. Flipping the pages brought her to Merlin on an old ship at sea, fighting an undead drowned spirit he claimed shared the name of the Greek god Triton, one of Poseidon’s sons. Merlin appeared occasionally from the water, grappling with the creature who kept trying to drag him under like a siren. Merlin dragged the creature on board and dragged him across dry land once the sailors landed. The sister could see these events before her, coming alive from the pages to the point if she reached out she could touch them. The water rising within the coliseum to set the scene and lowering the more Merlin was on land.

She snapped the book shut as Merlin walked out of sight and found herself back in the bookstore. She hurried to find more books similar to the one in her hands when she looked down to see the book had transformed. No longer a children’s book, it was a magazine pamphlet only holding the small pieces she had just read. The book itself was no more, just multiples of the same pamphlet, multiplying in her hands and not providing anything more. Annoyed and frustrated, the sister dropped the pamphlets and hurried back to the front section of the store where her sister was still admiring a pair of boots. The sister who had been reading grabbed the other and ushered her out. Night and day seemed to shift and the sisters watched the store, now closed. The sign on the door read the shop was only open Monday through Wednesday, but the sisters knew that the night before had been a Friday and it was not Saturday morning. 

Looking around nearby revealed familiar faces to the sisters. Old friends and colleagues who had arrived to help get the sisters back inside. There was something the sisters needed in there, though what remained unclear. Perhaps the children’s book that had disappeared. Perhaps something else. The dark skinned woman led the charge, using magic to bring some of the small statues and markings on the store to life as the group climbed the front of the building, hoping to reach the colosseum behind the locked doors. Before they climbed further than the start of the second story, the front of the building sung open like metal doors and everyone climbing fell to the ground. The colosseum beyond the from was in view, and water was pouring in over the sand. The drowned creature Merlin had fought the night before was crawling toward them through the doors, its lower half missing while Merlin was running across a section of bookshelves further on, and sails were spreading out over a wooden ship. Through all the chaos the sisters watched, waiting for the action to begin.