The Christmas Book Hunt

by Jenny Colgan

Heartbreak and penury were quite the combination.

‘Books change the world,’ said the old man, blinking behind his spectacles.

Then she remembered how Violet had begged, and looked again at the expression on the bookseller’s face, and she vowed to herself that she would carry on. ‘Books ARE the world,’ said the old man. ‘Be very careful.’

It smelled not unlike Great-aunt Violet; an aura of books, of reading, of curling up and being cosy, of deciding, in a queue or on a train or a bus, just to step out of your normal world for a little while, go visit Narnia, or medieval England, or Persia, or the cockpit of a fighter plane; a hot air balloon; crime-ridden streets of Victorian London. To sit and blow the dust off something, then be transported elsewhere. It was magical. She couldn’t think of another word for it.

Even though the room was cold and hardly used, she had decorated it anyway, with beautiful lights, to please the eye, to make children happy passing by on the snowy road; to celebrate a time of year for family.

For the long nights you lay awake And watched for my unworthy sake: For your most comfortable hand That led me through the uneven land: For all the story-books you read: For all the pains you comforted:

Now in the elders’ seat We rest with quiet feet, And from the window-bay We watch the children, our successors, play. ‘Time was,’ the golden head Irrevocably said; But time which none can bind, While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.

He does not hear; he will not look, Nor yet be lured out of this book. For, long ago, the truth to say, He has grown up and gone away, And it is but a child of air That lingers in the garden there.