This isn't weird.

McKiller

For the next week, Millie cursed herself again and again for one stupid, terrible mistake. In all the excitement of her incredible find, she had failed entirely to remember which fucking shelf she had found it on. Her gut told her that if it really did come from a collector's library, the rest of the collection must be in close proximity to it. After all, Eliza had simply been opening up boxes and shelving their contents without much thought to any order. But there was nothing memorable about the shelf to distinguish it from any of the others, and she couldn't recollect anything about what path she had followed through the winding aisles to get there. She couldn't even remember one single neighboring title.

Every moment she could possibly spare was now spent hunting for literary treasure at the church. She started by slapping blank white stickers on every last bookcase and assigning each one a number in blue sharpie; she was not going to make the same mistake again.

The next day she brought in her laptop (and was honestly a little surprised to find that Eliza did, in fact, have wifi), to better research any books that gave her that slight extrasensory tingle. The results varied. Her instincts were good—most of the titles that caught her attention were, in fact, collectible—but most she appraised for less than a hundred dollars. Nothing to scoff at, but unremarkable compared to her first discovery.

Still, some were impressive in their own right. Stumbling upon a paperback with Ray Bradbury's signature led her to a cache of rare science fiction and fantasy novels, some first editions, some signed, some both. Robert A. Heinlein, T. H. White, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Arthur C. Clarke—nearly all the early legends of the genre. Their values varied between hundreds and thousands, but the only thing appraised anywhere close to the Harper Lee novel was a first printing of The Hobbit, though its missing dust jacket, brittle dog eared pages, and cracking spine devalued it to a far more modest sum.

She had to convince Eliza to invest in a larger safe.

"What are we going to do with all of these?" Eliza asked her one morning as she watched Millie scouring the Internet for clues on the going price of an inscribed copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

"You're going to sell them, of course," Millie replied, glancing up from her screen. "Congratulations, you're a rare books dealer now."

"But nobody's going to find them all the way out here."

"That's why you're going to list them online. I'm making you a website, and accounts for the major Internet marketplaces. They take a cut, so it's better if you can sell directly to the buyer, but it'll get your business's name in front of the right people. We need to figure out a business name, by the way. Do you already have an LLC?"

"Slow down a minute, dear. I don't know how to do any of that!"

"Don't worry. I'll teach you."

It was all so gloriously distracting. Millie wouldn't describe herself as happy per se, but she had a purpose. A reason to get out of bed that hadn't been forced upon her. It also made Arthur's upcoming visit that much more frustrating.

She hadn't told Arthur anything about the bookstore—if he found out, he would want to see it for himself. This was hers, the one part of her he couldn't touch, and when he flew down to stay for the weekend she resented being deprived of it. Molly understood without this without being told. She was careful never to mention it in his presence and asked Shleby for the same discretion.

Still, something clearly had changed, and it was impossible to prevent Arthur from taking note. Millie put on a good show of amiability toward her sister when Arthur was there, but there had always been a coldness between them that no amount of thin smiles and small talk could conceal. Now, seemingly overnight, the ice had thawed. Now Millie's posture remained relaxed when Molly entered the room. A good-natured familiarity had crept into the little jabs they were prone to taking at each other. They made each other laugh.