The Bookshop on Fernside Road

The bookshop on Fernside Road is a quiet place. It is open only on Wednesdays. Customers take a book, leave some money and go home. They do not ask questions.

One Wednesday, Ava goes into the shop. She is a student, and she wants an old atlas. A young woman sits at the counter. “The owner is away,” she says.

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

Ava asks the woman about the paper. “I don’t know,” she says. A man near the door speaks. “Those are houses,” he says. “The owner leaves books there for strangers.”

The next morning, Ava goes to the first address. 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.

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