Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The first child onstage, dressed in faux buckskin with a raccoon cap, looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. “D-Dis-Disgusted by the Missouri Com-pro-mise in 1820, Charles Dalton led a group of 100 families west to the Oregon Country. They wanted to found a city that was true to their idea of the Yew Ess Con-sti-tooshun.”

“Sounds like somebody learned his lines by rote,” Vincent whispered.

“Hush,” hissed Charlotte.

The next kid, also in buckskin, made a better show of it. “When they reached the valley of the Ide, Dalton and his followers came across a waterfall and build a mill. That is when the lost town of Prosperity Falls was founded. The town fathers established four rules for the people to live by.”

“There’s Vickie,” Vincent said, gesturing to the second of four children in cowboy outfits entering the stage. “Hi honey!”

The young pageanters called out the founding principles of the lost town one at a time:

“Everyone’s equal: ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t matter!”

“Disputes get solved peacefully: no war, no violence!”

“Respect for the natives: settlers and Ide tribes trade and get along!”

“Self-sufficiency: Prosperity Falls makes everything it needs!”

The monestary at Los Acantilados had stood for centuries, built by conquistadors from the rubble of a destroyed settlement as the fulfillment of a promise to a Franciscan who had died in a native attack. Water had to be carried nearly two miles every morning thanks to the strategic masterstroke that had saved those men, beset on all sides by those whom they hoped to conquer: collapsing the nearby well with their stores of gunpowder. The area had been frequented by earthquakes ever since, but the Franciscans always repaired and rebuilt.

Father Domingo had been surveying the damage from the latest quake, which had roused many of the friars from their slumber, when he fell through the rectory floor. his companions mistook his cries for agonized moans, and hurried to fetch ladders. It was only when they reached the bottom that they found he had been shouting not from pain but astonishment.

The cavern was filled with golden artifacts of totally unknown provenance and manufacture–the very treasure the founding friar of Los Acantilados had perished attempting to find.

Sunrise was the time for getting things done upstairs.

Hall stood ramrod-straight on the edge, drinking in the light streaming in from the horizon. It was like a cold shower: focusing, piercing, pure, with that same bite of chilled air rattling about with each breath. Every distraction littering the mind was swept away like so much refuse, a hundred little problems put to bed so the larger ones could be tackled.

“He’ll know I’m coming,” Hall said, closing his eyes. “He’ll know I’m coming, but he won’t be ready.”

He rose off the rooftop as he spoke, levitating skyward–gently at first, but then with gathering speed and purpose.

“No one will.”

The elementary school teachers passed the booth by the hundreds, gleefully filling tote bags and backpacks they’d brought for the occasion to brimming with free books and tchotchkes. Sometimes they’d even pretend to listen to Henrietta’s sales pitch, only to slip away with a souvenir or two as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

One of the few sane design decisions in the Van Haagen Press pavilion was that, among the styrofoam buttresses and backless chairs, there was a small room isolated from the sales floor and accessible only to the sales team. It was intended to store stuff that the  conference attendees weren’t supposed to see, but Max had run all that stuff back to the hotel already to save himself a trip later, and it wound up being used as an ersatz breakroom.

“Look at them out there,” Henrietta sighed. “Filling up their bags in jeans and t-shirts while I lose half-an-inch of cartilage in these heels for eight hours. They don’t seem to realize I’m paid on a commission basis.”

“And they’re salaried at a level that a Van Haagen bigwig wouldn’t pay an illegal maid,” retorted Max. “They might not get fired for wearing comfortable clothes to work, but they also don’t get paid three months out of the year.”

“You saying we should join them?”

“I’m saying it doesn’t matter. They don’t have any money, we’re throwing it away on baubles. I just hope I can find another job before someone with letters after their name at Van Haagen realizes that.”