The Lost Bookshop

by Evie Woods

I tended to live in my imagination and so, every evening, I would race home from school and ask him to read to me. He was a civil servant, an honest man with a passion for learning. He always said that books were more than words on paper; they were portals to other places, other lives. I fell in love with books and the vast worlds they held inside, and I owed it all to my father.

‘You’re a grown woman with a brain in your head, two good arms for carrying books and two strong legs to get you where you need to go.’

‘I’m giving you the abbreviated version. My father’s alcoholism is like a footnote to every chapter of my life. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never be free of it.’

I stayed true to my word and told Armand nothing of my detective work regarding Emily Brontë’s second novel. I made a decision that morning that I would stand by for the rest of my life: the work would always come first.

As I walked away I had the clear sense that my life was like a play of two parts and the audience were just polishing off their drinks in the lobby, returning for the second act.

to convince this doctor over the coming days that I did not belong in this place. I did not know then that half the women already incarcerated had attempted the same futile exercise. I should have realised, they did not listen to women. The female sex was a curio for them; something to be studied but not understood. A nuisance to be controlled.

Lost is not a hopeless place to be. It is a place of patience, of waiting. Lost does not mean gone for ever. Lost is a bridge between worlds, where the pain of our past can be transformed into power.

‘The thing about books,’ she said, ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’