"What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore it knows it's not fooling a soul."
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

There were three shops. None of them had any names or identification of any kind. Two were boarded up with big, purple sheets. One was open.

Or at least it looked open. An "OPEN" plaque dangled around the doorknob. There was a light on inside. And somebody (say something say something something) was moving around inside.

I walked inside, my hands curled around the doorknob. It was cold. I wiped sweat off my brow and opened the doors.

I saw books lining the walls. I turned to the counter.

A woman stood there. She was very beautiful (I of the beholder or is it eye eye don't know).

"Water." I asked her.

She pulled a fob watch out of her pocket. "Hmm. Yes, I suppose it's time." She put her hand under the table and pulled out an apple.

I reached for it like a baby. She held it just out of reach.

"This" She twirled her arm around. "This is not an apple. It is a commitment."

I reached. She did not relent.

"If you eat this, you agree. You are committed. There is no going back."

I nodded. Ravenously. "Give it to me. Please."

She frowned. "Are you sure?" I began another violent fit of coughs. I think I managed a nod in between, because she stretched her hand out.

I took it and bit. My thirst was quenched.

The woman bit her lip. "Congratulations. My name's Laura."

"Hello Laura. I'm Priyanka Chopra."

"I know. You shouldn't have come here."

"Where am I? What is this place?"

The woman checked her fob watch again. "Soon enough. For now, why don't you look through the shelves. See if there's something you like."

"I don't have any money."

"Who said anything about money?"

I went around the shelves, looking, running my hands through the spines of the books. Letting my finger-tips bask. It felt amazing in its familiarity.

Most of the books were poetry. There were a lot of big names, Dickinson, Keats and such. But most of them by writers I had never heard of.

My hands closed around one at random and I pulled it out. It was called 'That Dangerous Journey into the Abyss'. The book was new and unopened. I opened it and heard that crack that all new hardbacks make. The author's name wasn't listed.

I turned it around, looking for a price-sticker. Nothing.

"How much does this cost?" I asked Laura.

"Cost? I don't understand. Why would a book cost something in a library?"

"A library."

"Yes. This is the Wolf Hall. The only functional private library in the in-between."

"Do I need to make a subscription?"

She bit her lip again, her eyes went up. "Subscription...No. I don't think so. No, I'm quite sure all you need is to make a commitment."

"So that was what the commitment was for?"

"Not just that, I'm afraid. The commitment is...well, I'll try to explain. The commitment is kind of like an agreement to adhere to certain rules. There are certain rules here that you are capable of breaking. The commitment is a sort of promise." She put her hand on her chest. "You know, like 'I promise to do no wrong.' Do you understand?"

"Not really." I told her.

"I suppose you'll find out soon enough. Anyway, you can sit down and read that book, for now. You can even keep it. Just promise to bring it back when you're done with it."

I nodded and walked over to a plush armchair tucked away into a corner and opened the book. I read.

Maybe a couple of hours later, the doors to the library opened. A man with a wolf's head walked in, holding a huge cardboard box.

"Treasure! Give me a hand with this." He said. His voice sounded perfectly normal.

Laura wove her way out of the counter and grabbed the other end of the box. The two of them hauled the behind the counter and set it down. Then, the man with the wolf head turned around to look at me.

He came toward me and stretched out a perfectly human (haha you wish) hand. I shook it.

The man was dressed in a lab coat, underneath which was a blue tie, a white shirt and brown, pleated pants.

"My name is Peter. You?"

"Priyanka Chopra." I told him.

"Alright. If that's what you want to call yourself. Where did you was up?"

"Wash up?"

"Where did you reach the in-between?"

"On top of the hill in the park. On that bench. A cat found me."

Peter was walking around the shop, straightening out the books. "Oh. Really? Which cat? Not Socrates, I hope?"

"No, Nostradamus." I told him.

"Ah. The prophet."

He looked around and apparently satisfied with his work, he sat cross legged on the ground. Laura pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

"Treasure, did she accept the commitment?"

Laura stroked behind his ear. "Yes. She did. I'm not happy about this."

"Can you tell me what all these things mean?" I asked.

"What things?" Peter growled.

"The in-between. What is it?"

"The in between is a plane of existence. Some phenomenon you observe in the place you were before, those are reflections of what goes on here. There are two ways to breach. One way is to kill yourself in certain areas around the other place. The other is if they call you."

"I didn't kill myself."

"So they called you." He said. "If you kill yourself, you become a ghost. So you last here without any corporeal binding to the dirt. Because, you're not under this dirt, are you?"

"So heaven and hell, they're all myths? The soul ends up here?"

"The soul? No. Not the soul. The mind. The body enters the dirt. The soul goes...somewhere. And the mind usually disintegrates. But, if you kill yourself in certain places on the dirt, you end up here."

"I don't understand."

"Think of it like an intellectual waiting room for unlucky minds. The mind does eventually disintegrate, but you do last a long time."

"So who called me here?"

"We don't know. The mouthpiece told us to wait in our shops today. The Wolf Hall, the Nail-Scissors shop, the Barber's shop and the club."

"Nostradamus told me he was taking me there."

"Yes. You were quite close to the club. But then there was a jump."

"A jump?"

"Yes. That happens a lot, I'm afraid. Time and place are relative concepts here. You are the first entirely corporeal beast to grace the in-between. We don't know how things work for you."

"So how do commitments work?"

"We don't know. We've only seen a few while we were here. The mouthpiece told us to give it to you."

"So Laura's a ghost?"

Laura giggled. She turned around and twirled a bushy tail around in the air. "I'm a sort of cat. Probably because of a few entries I wrote for Veterinary journals."

"That's enough for now, I think. We'll have to move soon. I've heard the Yakuza are interested in why the mouthpiece wants you.

Laura's eyes widened. "Who told you?"

"Voltaire. I got him to bring her here." Peter said.

Laura nodded. "That cat wouldn't lie."

I looked at her, and wondered why I hadn't grasped something inherently feline before. The way she tilted her head when she spoke. The way she frowned. She was frowning now.

"Airy Fic!" Peter said. Laura jumped.

"What? What is it?" She asked him.

"Another one? How long?"

Peter sat with his eyes shut, brows burrowed into dark. "I don't know."

He looked at me. "Listen. You'll shift somewhere. I don't know where, hopefully not into the Yakuza's back pocket. Wherever you land up, look for a cat..."

I could hear him, but I couldn't understand what he was saying.

Then, I felt a sharp stab of pain. I looked at my left hand. I had no little finger.