“James James said to his Mother,
‘Mother,’ he said, said he;
‘You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don’t go down with me.’”
From “Disobedience” by A. A. Milne

“Tim, I’m heading out to Twice-Told Tales to pick up a book they ordered for me. I’ll be back in a little while. Behave for your sister.”

Tim jumped up from the LEGO castle he was building on the playroom floor. He couldn’t let her go to the scary used-book shop alone. “Wait, Mom, take me with you.”

“No need. I told you, I’ll be right back.”

“Then take my lucky coin so you’ll be safe.” He knew the silver, quarter-size disk Uncle Edwin had given him, with a picture of a curvy, five-pointed star, wasn’t exactly a coin, but Tim didn’t know what else to call it.

His mother frowned. “Don’t start that again. There’s nothing dangerous in the store.”

“But the black hole—”

She cut him off. “That’s enough. I’ll see you soon.” After a quick kiss on the cheek, she marched briskly into the front hall and out the door, with Tim scurrying after her.

Knowing it would only make her mad if he chased her outside, he didn’t follow when she shut the front door in his face. Instead, he trudged upstairs to Cyndy’s room and lingered in the doorway.

His teenage sister glanced up from the game she was playing on her tablet. “What do you want?”

“Mom went to the scary book place by herself.” He struggled to keep from whimpering.

“That again?” She heaved a loud sigh. “Twice-Told Tales? So what?”

“There’s a black hole in the back of the store, in the middle of the shelf with the weird, old books. Grown-ups can’t see, but there’s something dangerous in it.”

“You’re seven. Aren’t you too old for that crap? Something, like what?”

He squirmed, groping for words. “I don’t know. Something shiny, but creepy shiny.” He couldn’t describe the colors swirling in the blackness, with tentacles like an octopus and eyes that glowed and kept disappearing. “She wouldn’t even take the lucky piece Uncle Edwin gave me.”

“That antique coin or medallion or whatever doesn’t mean anything. Uncle Edwin is a flake.”

“Is not!” Tim yelled. “He knows lots of stuff. He says the picture on it is an Elder Sign. It chases bad stuff away.” Whenever Mom took him along to the shop and they walked past that shelf, Tim clutched the Elder Sign coin in his pocket, made special motions with the fingers of his other hand, and whispered secret words. She didn’t know the magic gestures or words. What could stop the things on the other side of the hole from sucking her in and eating her?

“No bad stuff is going to happen in a store full of dusty old books. Go play and quit bugging me.”

It was no use. Cyndy was almost an adult. She wouldn’t believe him any more than Mom did. He stomped downstairs, wondering whether he could follow his mother to the shop. He could run after her, protect her in the store the way he always did—-

Tim shook his head, telling himself that was a dumb idea. Even if he knew the exact path to Twice-Told Tales, she would get there in the car long before he could walk all that way. He plopped down on the floor to add more blocks to his castle.

He kept on building while Cyndy came into the room later, worrying about why Mom hadn’t come back yet. He stayed there when his father got home from work and asked where she was. Later still, Tim switched on the TV to drown out the noises of clattering footsteps and frantic phone calls.

He didn’t bother trying to explain what had happened to his mother. Nobody would listen.

“James James
Morrison’s mother
Hasn’t been heard of since. . . .
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?”