The Custodian of Marvels Read Online Free PDF Page B

perhaps, to a stage magician. But nothing that I could convert into money.
    Conjurors have a peculiar way of looking at the world. My father taught it to me from infancy. He encouraged me to turn things around so that I could look at them from a side that no one else would see. Wherever there was a statement, he would cast it as a question. There was nothing settled for him that could not become a puzzle if rearranged. Reading the book was like hearing his voice.
    A flash of blue and orange beyond the willow curtain jolted me from my thoughts. A kingfisher had dropped into the water with a splash. Then it was up again, a speck of thrashing silver in its beak. It flitted away to land on the opposite bank. I watched as it beat the tiny fish against a stone. When the fish was still, the bird upended it and swallowed it whole.
    The distraction had broken my chain of thought. When I looked down to the book once more, it came to me that I had been blinded, such was the emotional intensity I felt when holding it. I had accepted it as a book when I should have been asking if it was one. I had opened it and read the words when I should have been turning it around and finding an angle to see it from that no one else would consider. I had avoided doing precisely what it and my father had urged.
    The covers were thick and heavy. Thick enough, perhaps, for something to be concealed between the leather and the board. In a daze, I carried it below. Thoughts tumbled as I waited for the kettle to boil. There was room for a sheet of gold or platinum to be hidden. Yet it didn’t feel heavy enough. Perhaps some forbidden technology could be slim enough to fit in such a space. If so, I could understand the Patent Office being bent on its recovery.
    Water rumbled in the kettle. I held the front cover above the spout. At first the steam was only a wisp, but as the water began to boil, droplets condensed on the ancient leather and the glue that had held it in place began to soften. I grabbed a knife and started working it under the edge. The leather made a cracking sound as I peeled it back. More than once, I scalded my hand in the steam, but carried on through the pain, turning the book to unpeel the second side. I had got the knack of it now, and was quickly on to the final edge. Then the entire covering folded back, revealing a blackened board below. My pulse thudded in my ears as I held it up to the lamp, searching for a mechanism or hidden words or anything else that might carry the book’s secret value. Seeing nothing, I turned it over, knocked my fingers against it, took it in both hands and flexed it. My fingers slid on the hot glue.
    There was nothing. It remained as it had first seemed – a thin board, blackened with age.
    I don’t know how long I was standing there, but the trance was broken by the tilting of the boat and the padding of feet on the aft deck. The hatch opened and Tinker jumped down into the cabin, where he crouched, staring at me.
    “Everything’s well,” I said, suddenly aware of how unwell it must look. Strands of my hair had worked free and now hung limp from the steam. My hands and one sleeve were smeared with black. And the book’s cover dangled from my hand like a dead thing.
    He wrinkled his nose. “It stinks.”
    “That’s just the glue,” I said.
    “What is it?”
    “A book. An old book.”
    This put the matter beyond his interest.
    “Pour water for me,” I said, holding out my blackened hands for him to see. He whistled tunelessly about the task, half filling the washing bowl from the jug then topping it up from the kettle. He was not usually so biddable.
    The water clouded and my hands began to show pink once more. The dark mood that had gripped me was also beginning to recede. I took a brush to my fingernails but found my eyes returning to the boy, as if they had detected something out of place, though I had no idea what it might be.
    “How has your day been?” I asked.
    “Not bad.”
    “Did