Whispers in the Bookshop: chapter 6

That night, Mara couldn’t sleep.

The journal lay on her nightstand, closed but humming in her mind like a song she couldn’t forget. Her grandmother’s words clung to her chest. Each entry had revealed a different shade of Evie—a woman who had hidden longing beneath wit, who had fallen deeply and quietly in love.

But with whom?

Caleb’s words echoed: “I already know how it ends. I was there when it started.”

Had he meant the journal? The letters? Or something else entirely?

At dawn, Mara gave up on sleep. She grabbed her coat, the journal, and headed straight to the shop.

Greystone Cove was still asleep, the sea fog curling low over the harbor. But light glowed faintly in the bindery across the alley.

The door to Rowe Bindery creaked open at her touch.

Caleb was there, hands covered in leather dye, head bent over a book that looked older than both of them combined.

He looked up, unsurprised to see her.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

“I didn’t hear one.”

She stepped forward and placed the journal on the worktable between them. “How much of this do you know?”

Caleb stared at it for a long moment, then brushed his hands clean and opened it. His fingertips paused over the first page.

“I know she started writing this the day after he left,” he said.

“Who left?”

He looked up at her. “James.”

Mara blinked. “James?”

“Her first love. A writer. He used to visit the shop every week during the summer of ’71. They shared a passion for poetry. He’d leave her verses tucked in the books. She responded in the margins.”

“So the letters weren’t one-sided,” Mara murmured.

“Not at all. They had a whole relationship stitched into spines.”

“What happened?”

Caleb exhaled. “He got a publishing deal in New York. Asked her to come with him. She said no—Greystone Cove was her home. The shop was her heart.”

Mara’s chest tightened. “And he left?”

“He left,” Caleb confirmed, softly. “But he never stopped writing.”

He opened the back of the journal. Tucked inside were several folded pages Mara hadn’t noticed. Letters, addressed to Evie—but never mailed. The handwriting was different. Male. Slanted and poetic.

“Where did you get these?” she whispered.

Caleb smiled faintly. “She gave them to me. Said if anyone ever found the journal, they deserved the whole story.”

Mara sat down, stunned. “Why tell me now?”

Caleb looked at her, his expression unreadable. “Because you’re listening. Because the shop chose you to finish what she started.”

Mara’s throat was dry. “And what exactly did she start?”

He closed the journal and looked straight at her. “A legacy. One built on stories, yes—but also on love. Quiet love. Hidden love. The kind that doesn’t demand attention, but stays long after the last page.”

For a moment, silence stretched between them.

Then Caleb added, “You remind me of her, you know.”

Mara met his gaze. “You’re too young to remember her like that.”

He tilted his head. “Am I?”

She searched his eyes, suddenly unsure of how old he really was. He had the soul of someone who had read every lifetime twice.

“Who are you, Caleb?” she asked.

His answer was soft, almost apologetic. “Someone who stayed behind when everyone else left.”

And just like that, the walls she’d built began to crumble.

Because for the first time, Mara realized something:

She wasn’t just chasing her grandmother’s story anymore.

She was becoming part of it.