#I’ve been reading non fiction at like an alarming rate for years

[mossiestpiglet]

Just finished The Spirit Bares Its Teeth and this might actually break whatever mental block was stopping me from reading novels all these years???? Did y’all know books were good???????

[ace-trainer-risu]

what are your fave diana wynne jones books that aren’t howl’s moving castle??

Oh whattt a lovely and fun question which I was definitely not secretly hoping someone would ask!!!! Yay!!

Hm okay so, not specifically in order, probably my top fave Diana Wynne Jones books would be:

Deep Secret! Deep Secret is not just one of my favorite books by DWJ but one of my favorite books full stop! It’s so good. Basically, the premise is that there is an infinite series of interconnected worlds, some of which have magic and some of which don’t, at the center of which is a vast interdimensional magical empire. Magic in the multiverse is overseen by an organization of magicians called Magids and there must always be a specific number of Magids in existence. When Rupert, a young Magid living on Earth, discovers that his mentor has died (ish) he becomes unexpectedly responsible for finding and training the next Magid, which is extremely inconvenient timing for him because the aforementioned magical empire is on the brink of civil war and chaos and its his job to stop it. And also almost all of this takes place at...a science fiction convention. It’s amazing.  I have read this book minimum four (probably more) times and every time it’s absolutely delightful and hilarious. I would like to go to the sci fi convention in this novel more than anything. It’s such a good read and its one of her few novels which is specifically aimed at adults, so I would EXTREMELY recommend it. Plus the romance in it is extremely good...not exactly enemy-to-lovers but more like ‘annoys-the-shit-out-of-each-other’ to lovers.  (**One note about this one...there’s a few very briefly mentioned side characters who are gender noncomforming and even tho they are actually portrayed very positively, it’s not necessarily ideal and 100% respectful (basically the protags comment on them being very beautiful and nice but also keep trying to guess their “real” gender). Additionally there’s a different briefly mentioned side character who is fat who isn’t portrayed very nicely. Both of these are brief incidents, just wanted to provide a warning for them)

Dark Lord of Derkholm - Okay this one is weirdly hard to summarize but it’s about this magical fantasy world which has been taken overy and is being used as a tourist destination by a non-magical world (heavily implied to be Earth) for people who want to role play at being in a classic high fantasy story, including fighting and killing THE DARK LORD...who is really just a random magician pretending to be evil. The inhabitants of the fantasy world do not enjoy this and are trying desperately to stop the tours, but unfortunately according to a magical oracle, their best hope of stopping the tours is this year’s Dark Lord, a hapless farmer magician named Derk, and his, um, eccentric family consisting of his glamorous wife, seven children (of whom five are griffins and one is a bard) and a simply improbable amount of magical animals. And also there is a very good dragon.  I think Derkholm is so great as a novel b/c it’s a very funny, loving but sharp, parody of high fantasy stories...but a lot of the time parodies only function as parodies but not as good stories in their own right, you know? But this novel completely functions as a story too, and in fact the first time I read at maybe age nine or ten, the high fantasy parody went completely over my head...but I still loved it. I also really love that this novel is very accessible to all ages, I think I enjoy reading it as an adult just as much as I did as a kid, which is rare.  For anyone who has read Howl’s Moving Castle but nothing else by DWJ and isn’t sure where to start, I think this is a great place to start. (TW: There’s a brief, non-explicit scene which has implied sexual assault.) 

Fire and Hemlock - This may be the most controversial one since it features a romance with a significant age gap where the two characters meet when one is a child and the other an adult. And I fully agree that that’s :/ and normally that trope is NOT my thing but it doesn’t come off at all creepy in this story imo, and if you think you can deal with that then this is a very weird, atmospheric, cool book about storytelling and fairy tales and growing up. The short summary (this is another hard to summarize one) is that as a child, Polly encounters and strikes up a friendship and correspondence with a young man, Tom, which mainly consists of the two of them jointly making up a silly, ongoing fairy tale type story...but things get weird when parts of their story start to come true in real life.  I’ve only read this one twice but it really stuck with me and in fact just describing it here...really makes me want to read it again!

The Chrestomanci Series - So all of the above are either specifically aimed at adults or a general audience whereas the Chrestomanci series is aimed at children, mainly a middle grade type audience. And tbh I started reading them as a kid (fond memory - I bought an omnibus of the first two with my allowance money...b/c it had a cat on the cover!) so I don’t know what it would be like to first read these as an older teen or an adult. BUT. Honestly they are really good and would be a quick read so I do still recommend them. There’s seven overall, with th seventh being a collection of short stories, and they’re only semi-chronological so the reading order isn’t vital. My recommended order (b/c this the order I read them in, haha) is Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, The Pinhoe Egg, Conrad’s Fate, and then Mixed Magic you can read whenever you want so long as you read it after Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona.  So the very core premise of it is not dissimilar to Deep Secret - there’s an infinite series of worlds/universes and there’s a magician, called the Crestomanci in this case, who is responsible for making sure magic isn’t abused across the multiverse. The Chrestomanci is an extremely powerful enchanter who has nine lives, and the novels are various semi-connected stories about the adventures of Chrestomanci as an adult and child. Chrestomanci is a title so it’s not always the same person, but for the majority of the stories it is the same guy and he’s...the best/worst...He’s this extremely handsome, charismatic, powerful enchanter who is very good at his job, loves his wife a lot, wears very beautiful clothes and makes, um, questionable life choices and is very annoying to everyone. I’ve thought about this very hard and I believe that he’s what happens when you take a fundamentally chaotic good person and make him do a fundamentally lawful good job; yes, he’s going to do it and do it well, but he is going to do it in the most chaotic, ridiculous way possible, and he IS going to die at an ALARMING rate, doing things that would not normally kill a person, such as playing cricket and trying to catch stray cats. He also, as previously mentioned, frequently wears very dramatic silk dressing gowns with elaborate embroidery, which the protag of Charmed Life finds deeply alarming.  It’s very odd to me how these books don’t seem to be well known, because the Chrestomanci books were some of my absolute favorite books as a child. I still have my omnibus editions of the first four novels and they are very worn and very beloved. And it’s so WILD to me that I don’t think I have ever talked to someone who also read those as a kid! Like I’m not saying those people don’t exist, I’m sure I just haven’t met them, but that’s so weiiirddddd to me. If I bring up Tamora Pierce or Garth Nix or other authors of weird, eccentric children’s fantasy novels to other avid childhood consumers of fantasy, people usually know what I mean, but Chrestomanci and its just..crickets. Is it b/c she’s British? Anyway all of the Chrestomanci books are very degrees of good, but if I had to pick a favorite, I think, controversial choice here, it would be Conrad’s Fate. Particularly in terms of recommendations to others, Conrad’s Fate works as a standalone and, unlike the other books in the series, it’s aimed more at a YA audience, so if you wanted to read a Chrestomanci novel without getting into the whole series, that’s a good way to go. It’s about a boy, Conrad, who is told that he has a terrible, possibly fatal Fate awaiting him unless he goes to work as a servant at a wealthy, and weird, estate neighboring his town, at which place he encounters things including color changing livery, an extremely annoying teenage Chrestomanci, and the greatest liminal space house EVER. It’s like a combination of an upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey type social drama with bizarre fantasy shenanigans. How could that not be good??

Also as Honorable Mentions - A Sudden and Wild Magic and The Time of the Ghost. A Sudden and Wild Magic is fun b/c it’s one of her few works aimed specifically at adults and it’s (gasp) a little bit NAUGHTY which I was very surprised and delighted by when I read it. (This may seem like an unfair statement considering that Deep Secret fully has an orgy in it, but Rupert is so fundamentally unnaughty of a character that he completely unnaughtifies the whole novel, whereas Sudden and Wild Magic embraces being a (little bit) naughty.)   The Time of the Ghost on the other hand is weird and haunting and creepy and atmospheric. I only read it once but it’s one of those novels you just think about periodically and go “wait what the fuck that was a weird novel” (Also known as the “Garth Nix” effect) 

[fletchermarple]

Quick Review of the True Crime Books I read in 2017 (Part 2)

Part 1 of 2017

Review of books in 2016 Part 1 and Part 2

Review of books in 2015

The Michigan Murders by Edward Keyes: Before Ted Bundy, there was John Norman Collins. He was also a handsome, charming, smart university student that looked nothing like a stereotypical killer, but in fact was raping and murdering women from ages 13 to 21 at an alarming rate between 1967 and 1969 in Michigan. This book was originally published in 1976, and it’s a very serious and professional exposition of the case, written under journalistic standards but not so much literary ones. By that I mean that it sticks mostly to facts and remains objective instead of adding some narrative touches to make the story more appealing. Don’t get me wrong, the case is interesting enough in itself and if like me you didn’t know much about Collins (who now goes by the surname Chapman), this is a very informative read. The problem with this book is one that many true crime novels have: since there’s not a main character we can focus on, and instead we get just “this victim disappeared, then this victim disappeared” with no remarkable investigator to take the reigns of the story, it kind of drags a lot in the first part. It gets better once Collins is introduced, and let me tell you, he’s so chilling and the way they got him is so curious it definitely makes worth the read in the end. I should also add that Keyes changes pretty much every single name in the case, including the killer’s, which might have been common practice back then, but seems ridiculous now when everything is public information and it’s something that I particularly hate in non fiction stories.

Silent Witness by Don Weber and Charles Bosworth Jr.: This book is about the murder of Karla Brown, which I wrote about here, and the hunt for the killer. Although the book is co-signed by Don Weber, he’s presented in a third person style within the narration. He was the prosecutor in the case, and he comes across as a guy who takes his job very seriously and was willing to take risks with new technologies and techniques so he could get justice for the victim. The case itself is very twisty and interesting, since it took investigators four years to point to the right suspect, so the story is very riveting, especially if you, like me, enjoy the investigation and judicial part of true crime. Just keep in mind that the book was written by someone who is certain of the killer’s identity and there’s no room left to doubt his guilt, as opposed to the reality, where there are some people that have tried (unsuccessfully) to find proof of his innocence.

The Man from the Train by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James: I really enjoyed Bill James’ book Popular Crime and I got this one as soon as it came out. James is not really a true crime writer, his main area of expertise is baseball, but just like us he’s very enthusiastic about true crime and has spent a lot of time researching, reading and formulating theories about it. In this book, he tackles a series of unsolved murders that happened in the first decade of the 20th Century in the US, when several families were hacked to death with an axe for no apparent reason. James and his daughter do a very thorough research into old archives to try to determine which murders are linked and were likely committed by the same person, who in their theory is also the guy behind the infamous Villisca Axe Murders. The book is really a very well done exercise in speculation, amateur profiling and connecting the dots, because there’s no way we can really know if what James is saying is true or not, and he knows it and acknowledges it several times through the extensive book. I’m not sure The Man from the Train is for everyone, I’d recommend it mostly to people who really enjoy unsolved mysteries and old American history, because there’s a lot of interesting analysis of those times. James is very entertaining in his writing and speaks directly to the reader while adding some humor and worthy anecdotes here and there. ( @congenitaldisease I know someone recommended this book to you, I think you’d enjoy it as well).

My Story by Elizabeth Smart: It pains me to say this, because I’ve met Elizabeth Smart and she’s an amazing and inspiring person, but of all the true crime books I read this year, this is probably the worst. I find it hard to believe that she worked with an actual writer, because the book reads like the journal of a 12 year old in both narration and content. The story is, of course, terrible and haunting, and Elizabeth tells us in detail about being kidnapped from her bedroom when she was 14 by the seriously disgusting Brian David Mitchell and his mentally disturbed wife Wanda Barzee. She also talks a lot about her determination to survive through the horrible ordeal and her faith... She’s pretty heavy on the faith side, at points the book can read like a Sunday sermon so if you’re one of those people who frown at religion, this is definitely not the novel for you. Like I said earlier, the book is written in a very childish way, which would be ok if Elizabeth had written it right after her kidnapping but this was done when she was already an adult and a decade had passed. There’s no deep insights or much new information and on paper Elizabeth does not communicate as well as in person. Her experience is worth to know, but objectively, as a piece of literature, this book is bad. I would suggest watching any of her interviews instead of picking up this (and definitely don’t get the audiobook because she’s not a good reader).

Waiting to be Heard by Amanda Knox: Now this is the complete opposite to Elizabeth Smart’s memoir. It’s a well written book that gives a very clear and thorough account of the ordeal Amanda Knox went through when she was accused and wrongly convicted of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy. Amanda is very candid and represents herself very well, with a lot of material from the trial and details of her life behind bars. You can tell by this book that Amanda was a very naive, inexperienced girl who lacked self awareness. Even when writing this book she doesn’t seem to understand why her behavior was inappropriate and bothered the italian authorities, and while she doesn’t give a satisfactory explanation of why she involved Patrick Lumumba, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s innocent of the murder and was horribly railroaded by unethical investigators, prosecutors and journalists, who built a case on nothing but a twisted fantasy. I imagine if you somehow believe she’s guilty (and I really would like to hear a good argument for that) this book would be extremely annoying to read, but otherwise you should add it to your list and expect to get your blood boil over the injustice. It’s scary to think that under the right circumstances anyone could experience what Amanda did. 

Never See them Again by M. William Phelps: A gripping account of the Clear Lake Murders, a massacre in 2003 in which four young people were gunned down in a house in Texas in the middle of the day by then 17 year old Christine Paolilla, a close friend of two of the victims, and her boyfriend. Phelps, an experienced writer that used to host the show Dark Minds, does it right and finds memorable characters to narrate his story through, including the victims (especially Rachel Koloroutis, whose family was clearly one of Phelps main sources), the main investigator and Christine herself. Christine’s life is well researched but even after you’ve read so much about her, she remains an intriguing figure. It’s clear that her self portrayal of a victim that got forced to commit the crime is a fake and she’s a master liar and manipulator, but it’s hard to know for sure what drove her to kill the two girls that had made efforts to improve her life. Like Edward Keyes in The Michigan Murders, Phelps also uses some fake names but only in witnesses and he lets you know when it’s a pseudonym, which I appreciated.

Law and Disorder by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker: Any book by John Douglas is worth the read, because not only he talks in depth about very interesting cases, but his perspective, whether you agree with it or not, is always well informed and fascinating. He makes an excellent writing team with Olshaker, who lets Douglas’ voice come through in a way that lets you know what kind of person he is through the pages. This book, the most recent he wrote, published in 2013, is no exception. Here he tackles famous cases of miscarriage of justice, from the Salem witch trials to Amanda Knox. It’s not always about wrongfully convicted people, he also talks about how some clearly guilty convicts abuse the justice system. Douglas talks about his views on the death penalty, which he’s in favor of although not a passionate advocate: he just believes that if the sentence exists, and is decided after a fair trial, the family of the victim has a right to see it through. His main point throughout the book is that a theory should never be above the evidence, meaning some investigators get so obsessed with trying to prove someone is guilty that they ignore the actual evidence and use only what fits their idea of how a crime was committed. He gives several examples, but I found the chapters on the JonBenet Ramsey and West Memphis 3 the most illuminating. Really, when analyzed by Douglas, an agent whose experience in crime is not to be dismissed, it sounds ridiculous to think the Ramseys killed JonBenet or that the WM3 are guilty. Even if you think they are, I would ask you to please read this so you can have a wider perspective. (I also got some mild pleasure at all the shade Douglas throws to investigator Steve Thomas, whose book on the JonBenet Ramsey case I reviewed here). However, I will say that if you’ve never read a Douglas book, this is not the one to start with. You should at least read Mindhunter first.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: The Darkness Within (7/?)

Summary: When washed-up paranormal investigator Rum Gold meets Belle French, he does not quite know what to make of her claim of a supernatural presence in her life, but sensing her genuine fear, he begins to investigate. What he uncovers shakes the cynicism he has so long held to its very core, and he calls in the help of disgraced ex-priest Father Macavoy to help him lay some demons to rest…

A slow burn, eventual rumbellavoy. The rating may increase in later chapters.

Rated: T

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [AO3]

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Seven

They received a few looks as they entered the diner together, but Gold was used to receiving looks wherever he went and Belle was too abstracted to care, sliding into a booth in the far corner as Gold went to order their drinks.

“It looks like we’re going to be the talk of the town for the foreseeable future,” he said as he returned with the mugs. “The town curmudgeon having tea with the beautiful new arrival. They’re probably going to think that I’ve got you under some kind of spell.” Belle laughed. It was good to see her with a genuine smile on her face; she’d had precious little to smile about during their previous interactions, and she did have a beautiful smile. It lit up her whole face and made the lines of worry and the dark shadows beneath her eyes fade a little. He wished that their interactions didn’t have to be so dark and draining on the both of them, because he really wanted to see her smile more often. Perhaps as they got to the bottom of the mystery and they discovered the clues and patterns that would help her, she would gain peace and confidence from knowing that they were doing something, and she would smile more.

That said, it might have completely the opposite effect and make her even more worried. Whatever happened, he hoped that they could find a solution in the end and then, definitely, she would smile.

Or she’d be dead.

Gold shook that thought away. He was absolutely, definitely not about to let that happen on his watch. He was going to find whatever it was that was sharing her mind, make it leave, and allow her to live in peace again. Hopefully in Storybrooke. She said that she had been drawn to the town, just as she had always been drawn north to what Gold was now accepting - with a calmness that surprised him - was himself. He could only hope that once she no longer had that compulsion on her, she would remain. He had been serious in his suggestion of them talking about anything other than the bleak facts of her case; he really did want to get to know her as a person outside of her condition.

“So how are you finding the town so far?” he asked lightly.

“It’s nice. Small and homely, out of the way. Not too many people. I feel safe here - as safe as can be expected I think, but we’re not talking about that. It’s a far cry from Florida in terms of weather though. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the snows when winter comes.”

“Oh, you’ll love it when you see it. I’m sure that Ruby will gladly take you tobogganing on plastic diner trays if you ask her.”

Belle peered over his shoulder to where Ruby Lucas was ensconced behind the counter, watching them with undisguised and morbid fascination, and Belle gave a little wave.

“I think she’s working out the best excuse to get you away from me,” Gold said. “She’s got it into her head that I’m some kind of demon that can’t be trusted around beautiful young women.”

“I would never have put you down as a ladykiller, Mr Gold,” Belle said playfully.

“I’m not. You’re the first woman I’ve ever brought in here. Maybe that’s why she’s so worried. She thinks I’m going to eat you.”

“I think I can defend myself.”

They fell into silence as they drank their tea, and Gold watched Belle out of the corner of his eye as she looked around the diner. She was so bright, and it was such a shame that her light was constantly dampened by the things going on in her nocturnal life.

“How long have you been here?” Belle asked presently, making small talk in the absence of any other topic that didn’t really lead into her own troubles.

“A while. When the industry didn’t really hold any appeal for me anymore, I decided it would be a good idea to shut up shop and take a break. I’ve made enough to live comfortably on my own. I keep telling myself that I ought to work on another book, but so far since I’ve been here I haven’t written a word.”

“What would this one be about?” Belle asked. “Debunking all the things that you couldn’t cover in your first one, or something different?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I have all these ideas in my head but none of them ever really seem to come to anything. I was thinking of going in for something fictional, that way it wouldn’t matter how fantastical the circumstances seem, I know that I have complete control over what any of the participants are going to do at any given moment. Or perhaps a collection of the unsolved cases of my career.”

“Really? I didn’t think that there were any such cases. Your reputation has always been so cast-iron. Surely it would be terrible for anyone to find out that there were cases you hadn’t cracked.”

“Well, believe it or not I wasn’t always as cynical as I’ve grown to be. I was an investigator first and foremost and like Mulder, I wanted to believe.”

“What made you change your mind? It’s a pretty big u-turn.”

“My naive young self discovered that the world is cruel. But there are a few cases that I would like to return to, and maybe see if there is a real-world explanation for them. Not necessarily to say that the perpetrators were frauds, which is what I spent so much of the latter part of my career doing. More trying to set the record straight. Still, those things are all in the past now; ultimately I don’t think there’s any use in dragging them up.” Gold thought again of the shadows outside his window when he was young, and he wondered if they would ever return and allow him the opportunity of a thorough investigation now that he had the tools to do so.

“Well, whatever you do end up writing, I would love to read it,” Belle said. “I suppose that’s an occupational hazard. I want to read everything. I was determined to read every book in the library when I was working down in Florida.”

“Every single book?”

“It would have taken me about three centuries, but I had the determination,” Belle said. There was a cheeky little grin on her face and Gold couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. “A good librarian should always be able to recommend books to her patrons, no matter what subject they might be about. I will admit, I was planning to leave the heavy science textbooks till last though. I didn’t really mind if I didn’t have time for those.”

“What made you become a librarian?” Gold asked.

“My mother. She instilled the love of books into me, and I always knew that if I didn’t end up doing something where I could work with books then life wouldn’t be worth living. There’s something magical about a well-written book, I think. A good story can take you to places and you can live vicariously through these books. We might never ride dragons or have sword fights, but we can imagine what they might be like, and every author has a slightly different way of telling these stories. Everyone says that there are only about seven basic plots in the world - the quest, the rite of passage, the cycle and so forth, but there are an infinite number of tales to be told. They can make us forget who we are for a while. What we are. You can never feel weird when you’re reading a book because you know that somewhere out there in the great big fictional universe, there’s someone out there who’s got it worse than you. There’s some comfort in that, I think.”

“Yes, I can imagine that there is.”

“And I love to learn.” Belle shrugged. “Even the non-fiction books, I still find them fascinating for the most part. There’s so much out there in the universe that we know nothing about, and books provide that gateway, allowing us to learn about the world that we’re part of. And the worlds that we’re not a part of.”

Gold thought back to Belle’s comments when she first met him, about how his book had not been helpful to her. He wondered what other textbooks on the subject she had studied in the quest to solve her problem, but he was trying to steer their conversation away from such things, and he left it aside, asking her about her father, her childhood in Australia, whatever he could think of to gain a broader picture of her life and through it, how this dark shadow in her life had affected her. She was reticent at first, asking more questions than she answered, and Gold could respect that. They had come to know each other in very strange circumstances and despite all that had passed between them in the last few hours, they were practically strangers still. But by the time their tea was drunk, she was chatting animatedly, and Gold thought that he’d managed to perhaps lift the shadows of doubt from her mind for a few minutes at least.

Ruby was still eyeing them from the counter, but there was less suspicion in her face now and more curiosity.

“I think she’s more interested in me than in the fact we’re here together,” Belle said. “I haven’t really been out and about much since I came here. She’s probably wondering who the mysterious stranger is and why she hasn’t introduced herself.”

“Well, do feel free to go over and make her acquaintance. She has a certain exuberant quality which can be a little alarming to the uninitiated, but she’s a sweet girl as far as I can tell.”

“Not a social butterfly, Mr Gold?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, neither am I. Perhaps now’s not the time for making a lot of new friends. I think I’d rather find my feet here first.”

There was a melancholy tone in her voice, and Gold wondered how many friends and acquaintances her condition had driven away over the years. It made him even more determined to stick with her through to the end, and to help her get back to living a normal life - not that she had ever really had one. This presence, the dark shadow that the psychic had warned her pregnant mother about, it had been with her for her entire life, always looking over her shoulder and warning off potential contacts.

Suddenly, Gold had an epiphany.

“Mr Gold?”

Belle was looking at him with a worried expression.

“Sorry, what?”

“You zoned out there. I thought you’d done a me.”

“No, no, I had an idea.”

“Well, ideas are good.”

“I certainly hope they are.”

Their tea was drunk and although it seemed cold to suddenly leave Belle, he was anxious to follow through this train of thought before he lost it, or something else happened that could throw a spanner in the works. Belle seemed to understand though, and they left the diner together, walking back in the direction of the Cadillac.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your idea,” Belle said.

“Call me if anything strange happens,” Gold pressed. “Anything at all.”

“I’d never be off the phone,” Belle warned. “Strange is my default at the moment.” She paused. “Before you go, can you tell me what I said whilst I was out?”

Gold didn’t want to tell her. She was already so scared and exhausted by the night and now the day’s occurrences, and he didn’t want to add more worries to her plate. But she deserved the truth, and considering that she was the one whose mind this was affecting, there was no use in trying to hide it from her to protect her.

“After saying that your shoes weren’t important, you said that you were not Belle. When Archie asked who you were, you said that wasn’t important either. He asked you what was important, and you said ‘the connection’. Then you woke up.”

“The connection. I remember talking about the connection when I first went under.”

“Any idea what it means?”

Belle shook her head. “Not a clue. But I’ll let you know if anything occurs to me. I’ll call you soon.”

Gold nodded. “I’m looking forward to it.”

And he was. Even if she just called to say hello rather than giving him any new leads in the case. He just wanted to hear her voice and make sure that she was all right. He’d enjoyed talking with her this afternoon, and he really wanted to do it again.

But first, there was an idea to follow up on, and Gold returned to his study with renewed vigour. His eyes alighted on the window where the handprint had appeared a few days prior. He still had not mentioned the fact that this morning’s visit to his garden was not Belle’s first, and he wondered if it was something that he ought to tell her before pushing that thought to the back of his mind.

The revelation he’d had was that he was approaching this problem from entirely the wrong angle. He had spent so long in his life debunking paranormal phenomena that his automatic instinct was to assume a real-world solution to everything, and in his defence, it was a real-world solution that Belle was seeking. But his conversation with her this afternoon had made him remember that he used to investigate these things from the opposite point of view, seeking out a supernatural solution. Perhaps if he came at it from this angle, and he could rule out a supernatural cause to Belle’s problems first, the real-world solution would present itself.

Gold sat down at his desk and reached for his contact book again. Time to call in the cavalry for an entirely different approach.