“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Good afternoon. I came to ask about that book I dropped off. The one with the curse on it? Or that’s what I thought.”
“Yes, sir. I was able to work out Abigail Bergoo’s handwriting. And it IS a curse.”
“Is it just another one of those curses on people who borrow the book and don’t return it? If that’s what’s causing the noises in my house….”
“Are those still going on, sir, even though I was taking care of the book?”
“Yes. I assume that since I still own it, and the old woman was considered a witch, I may have to return it to wherever her papers or other books might be. I know there are a couple of her things in Salem, and there’s a house in Portland that….”
“I wouldn’t recommend that, sir.”
“No?”
“It is a curse, but not a curse on anyone who fails to bring her book back. That sort of ‘book curse’, as it is known, goes back as far as recorded history. Examples exist from Ancient Babylon and Ancient Israel, as well as medieval libraries and those of the great book collectors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. You’ve seen the sort of thing: ‘Return this book; my world is whole. But keep it and you’ll lose your soul.’”
“Yes, I looked that up. Then is it anything I can fix? Is it….”
“You have an exceedingly rare book here, sir. It is one of the few remaining copies of this seventeenth century text…and now I know why.”
“So what did Abigail write?”
“She calls forth a malediction on any who borrow this book and do not heed its warning.”
“Yes, that was the only part I was sure about.”
“She calls on demons to block the bowels and burn the groins….”
“That was harder to read, but I got most of that. But the noises….”
“Of anyone who dares return this book to her.”
“What?”
“She goes on, and I quote, ‘This thrice-blighted book is the most infernal waste of life’s precious minutes ever set to paper. It is offal, the ill-chosen words of a mind too feeble to create even engaging waste. May the forces of evil visit an eternal stench on your nostrils if you force this book upon me again. My eyes are dimmed by the very existence of the first sentence.’”
“I’ve read books like that. Is that all there is to it?”
“She becomes a little more explicit with what she wants to happen, partly to the author, but mainly on those who refuse to steal the book. I’ve printed out a full transcription.”
“But that doesn’t solve the problem. Why do I have something banging around my bookshelves and moving things on my desk?”
“I can only offer up a theory. Among the collectors whose bookplates or signatures we find in the book is one of a certain Gunther, who had the income to collect historical oddities. A typical businessman of the late nineteenth century, there is no mystery at all about his death, as he died in his library with a decanter of whiskey on the table and the remains of four cigars in his ashtray.”
“So it wasn’t Abigail’s curse. Just the curse of living large.”
“One obituary notes that he was a bookman to the end, as he was drafting an order for two hundred bookplates with a text beginning ‘My malediction on he who…’”
“You think that’s this curse? Abigail’s curse?”
“His heirs probably assumed it was one of the usual book curses, but Gunther was known for his sense of humor. Abigail’s curse could have been his final project, and he MAY be regretting that he never got to use that bookplate.”
“So maybe if I print a little box of bookplates with her curse on it, that’ll put him to rest?”
“It’s worth a try. And possibly lucrative, as there are plenty of people who’d buy them. I have a few books I’d paste one in.”
“I’ll give that a try, then.”
“I’ve wrapped the book securely, sir. And here is the translation of Abigail’s curse.”
“Thanks. And your bill? Great. Now…you know, I have never been so tempted to read a book with a curse on it.”
“Well, there’ll be no danger to YOU whether you do or not…except for the waste of your time.”
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