The old man’s store piled books everywhere. On those weighed-down shelves dusty gems hid: a novel that exposed every human failing, a hand-written dictionary of infallible seductions, and a picture-book of leopards that, if opened at night, would turn its reader into a leopard. But I never stepped inside, even though I lived five minutes away, and the store soon vanished the way all magical places do: first sale notices, then a packing truck, then boarded windows. One cold evening I came by alone, wearing gloves. Through a missing pane, I reached for the only book remaining on the abandoned floor—a tattered Tom Clancy thriller. I slid it under my bed, waiting for my transformation to begin.

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