The Bookshop on Fernside Road

The bookshop on Fernside Road is a quiet place. It is open only on Wednesdays. The owner has a name, but nobody remembers it. Customers take a book, leave some money and go home. They do not ask questions.

One Wednesday in November, Ava goes into the shop. She is a student, and she wants an old atlas. A young woman sits behind the counter. “The owner is away,” she says. “I only look after the shop.”

Ava looks at the shelves for twenty minutes. She finds the atlas between two cookery books. Inside, there is a folded paper with a red circle. It has seven addresses in small letters.

Ava asks the woman about the paper. “I don’t know anything,” she says. A man near the door speaks. “Those are houses,” he says. “The owner leaves books there for strangers. Nobody knows why.”

The next morning, Ava goes to the first address. The curtains are closed. There is a shelf by the gate with twelve books and a note: “Take one. Leave one. Say nothing.” She takes a thin book. She leaves a postcard from her university.

Ava never meets the owner. But every Wednesday, she walks past the shop and thinks about the strangers and their books.