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Fiction Fragment Friday

I had an idea this week I wanted to explore. Sometimes when I do this a story forms and I realize I have something that worth developing. This is not one of those times so this weeks story is pretty short. I still think there is a seed of an idea, but it is not one that I will be developing any further. Perhaps it will inspire someone else to write a story.

     You might say that I sell magic books for a living, but I prefer to describe it as uniting people with the tomes they were destined to have.  That said I take money for those and books that hold no magical properties at all.   My landlord doesn’t take rent in destinies fulfilled.  Also, people come into bookstores to buy books not to have magic meddle int their lives.  In fact, I suspect only a few will ever realize there was something special about the book they walked away with. 

I should clarify something.  I do not sell books that contain magic spells.  These books are physical works of fiction or self-help writing that just happen to have a mind of their own.  Sometimes everyday objects become imbued with a purpose.  They are still the same items they were, but after they radiate with magical energies and find ways to influence the world around them.  Since I have the gift of being able to see this magical energy they tend to end up in my shop.

Let me give you an example.  Last year a woman came into my shop and bought a copy of Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery.  She wasn’t looking for it, but once she saw the book on the shelf, she started telling me all about reading it as a child.  She remembered things about her childhood that she had not thought of in years.  Later that day she was looking through the book at a cafe and a man walking by saw it.  He started telling her about his childhood and they realized that they had gone to the same school.  I received my invitation to their wedding last week. 

These two were destined to be together because their child is going to make amazing discoveries in the field of inertia shielding.  He will single handedly revolutionize space travel within the solar system and unmanned probes outside it.  The book’s job was to ensure that they met so this could occur.  They are usually far more subtle than that, but sometimes the direct approach works best. 

After years of study, I still do not know what causes items to become magically charged.  I’ve never seen a non-magical item become magical, but they never come from the publisher like that.  Each magical book in the shop was brought in and sold to me by a customer.  I make sure to always purchase them even if I would not otherwise do so.  It is my job to ensure they reach the right hands.  I sometimes wonder as I walk past other shops that sell used items if they have someone working there that can see the glow like I do.