Editor’s Note – Once again, Nana von Reichenau is on the move. Once again, she travels with a man who has no name in this story and is, of course, not the same companion as in any of her previous adventures. Nana is no longer as free as she once was. Perhaps it was a mistake to leave Professor Goya to the academic dating market and, once more, strike an unspoken understanding with a near-stranger. Yet the moment wanderlust takes hold, Nana is helpless with herself, and her current lover seems up to the task.

Rare Books and Curiosities

For two days it has rained and fogged. The sea begins—barely visible—just across the street, behind a low, salt-streaked wall. Windblown, storm-lashed, weathered, the town, advertised in guidebooks as a North Atlantic coastal gem, is in truth a granite-gray jumble of ramshackle buildings.

In gilded letters, a sign promises Thistle & Fox – Rare Books and Curiosities. The display window holds a map of Atlantis, a well-thumbed copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, and a silver compass trembling in all directions, as if unsure where west ends.

“Let’s go in there,” I said, fed up with the relentless weather. You brushed the water from my hair with tender care, then followed me across the threshold, once likely part of a ship’s hull.

Inside, warmth enveloped us. The air smelled of dust, mold, old paper, leather, tea, cold hearthstone, a trace of vanilla, and a tangle of harder-to-place notes. How does memory smell in Irish? The dust here came from another millennium.

Behind a cluttered table sat a man with snow-white hair. He barely nodded. I wandered through narrow aisles, my fingers sliding over spines: Witchcraft in the North, The Celestial Atlas, Macbeth – annotated. You stayed close behind me.

In a shadowy corner—behind a row of Victorian herbarium folios—I paused. Rain tapped against a small, uneven glass pane, letting in almost no light. I felt you behind me and leaned into your warmth. You bent forward; your breath brushed my neck. Not a word was spoken, yet everything happened in a silent understanding older than language.

Between shelves heavy with out-of-print editions and well-worn sea charts, a heat arose that had nothing to do with the gas heater on the wall. Your hands slid beneath my rain-soaked parka, finding tender purchase on my hips. I surrendered to your touch, making only the smallest adjustments to accommodate your movements. It was a quiet, familiar dance of energy. Outside, the rain fell like applause from the elements. A book toppled to the floor. I noticed the embossed thistle on its olive-green cover.