Portal Readers

Chapter 2

   In Bushburry, Washington there was a little shop called the West Side Book Emporium it was an old building smashed between two newer buildings. The first floor was crammed to the brim with books; old, new, paperback, hardcover, fiction and non, and every other piece of literature that could be thought up, the second was a small apartment.

The Emporium had a very distinct smell, it was one of pages and ink mixed with the soft scent of lemon tea, a favorite of Thomas Dellary, the store manager.

While the store usually enticed book collectors, salesmen, and the odd antique dealer, the surrounding community rarely visited. With busy lives the people of Bushburry simply ignored the existence of the place, the occasional family would pop in, inspect the musty shelves then decide to take their child to a newer store down the way to buy them a plastic toy or a piece of cheap jewelry.

Except for one family, the Willems', they took their daughter to the store nearly every week, enticing her with the promise of a new book, then an ice cream cone from a street vendor.

Veronica and Herbert Willems were two of the most adventurous people Thomas Dellary had ever met, every time he heard the small brass bell jingle and the excited squeal of little Joslyn, he knew he was in for an exciting tale of some extent. His favorite story was of the family's excursion to New Zealand, they hiked for days, exploring the beautiful surroundings. Joslyn strapped to Veronica's back and Herbert bearing an enormous pack.

As Joslyn grew older, the family's visits grew more frequent until the girl decided she wanted to work there, to help keep the store running as Thomas was an older gentleman already. With Joslyn's help, the bookstore began to become tidier, books were dusted, priced, then shelved. The decorations were updated, windows cleaned, signs made, and every other imaginable detail the store owner needed was done within the month.

Of course, this strange life that had seemingly exploded inside the Emporium drew the crowds. People from all over the town came to inspect the West Side Book Emporium; with its shiny new windows and freshly painted signs declaring things such as: "Books from Around the World!", "Travel to Another Universe Without Leaving Your Chair!", and "A Book for Every Age!".

It looked as if a circus had rolled into town and was displaying its oddities and wares to the public. And in a sense, the Emporium was like a circus. With books on wild creatures, records of people who were beyond ordinary, and tales of grandeur only a ring leader could conjure up.

Within all the hustle and bustle, a certain leather-bound novel sat. The cover embossed with spirals of silver and gold that seemed to depict a storm-tossed sea that carried a pirate ship in its swells. The book -titled something along the lines of "Wil Swallow's Adventures" – held a secret, not in its pages, but in the simple cloth bookmark sewn to the cover, inside a pocket sat a long-forgotten key. This key is how the adventure of a lifetime began.