Chapter One

First Editions

“All good books have one thing in common—they are truer than if they had really happened.”
— Ernest Hemingway

The bell above the door gave its usual tired rattle as I stepped into Blackwood Exchange.

The place smelled exactly the way a used bookstore should smell—old paper, dust, leather bindings, and wood shelves that had been carrying too much weight for too many decades. Rain tapped softly against the front windows. Somewhere deeper in the store, a jazz station fought a losing battle against static.

Peter looked up from behind the counter.

“Got another one for you.”

He said it before I even made it halfway through the door.

I smiled.

“Morning to you too.”

Peter disappeared beneath the counter and returned holding a hardcover wrapped in a cloudy plastic sleeve. He handled it the way priests probably handled religious relics.

“The 1968 printing.”

I took it carefully.

Stand on Zanzibar.

John Brunner.

The dust jacket was worn but intact. The corners showed honest age rather than abuse. Even through the sleeve I could see the paper had yellowed exactly the way old paper was supposed to.

“Before they changed the cover art,” Peter said.

“They changed it three times.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

Peter folded his arms.

“You want to bet?”

I looked at him.

“No.”

“Smart man.”

He grinned.

Peter was one of those rare bookstore owners who somehow knew the publication history of every book that had ever passed through human civilization. If he didn’t know something, it was only because nobody had discovered it yet.

I turned the book over.

“Where’d you find it?”

“Estate sale.”

“How much?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Then why did you buy it?”

“Because I knew you’d want it.”

That was a fair answer.

I had been collecting books longer than most people kept hobbies alive.

Not valuable books.

Not necessarily rare books.

Specific books.

First editions.

Early editions.

Odd printings.

Books before they were revised.

Books before someone decided they needed fixing.

I liked originals.

A first edition wasn’t just a book.

It was evidence.

Proof that at one particular moment in history, somebody had believed those exact words belonged in that exact order.

Peter slid a receipt across the counter.

“You know normal people buy e-readers.”

“Normal people watch reality television.”

“Fair point.”

I paid him.

The book disappeared into my messenger bag.

“You read it yet?” Peter asked.

“Three times.”

“Then why buy another copy?”

I looked around the store.

“Same reason people collect wine.”

“You don’t drink wine.”

“You know what I mean.”

He nodded.

I headed for the door.

“See you next week.”

“You say that every week.”

“Because it keeps being true.”

The bell rattled again behind me as I stepped back into the rain.

The coffee shop next door occupied what had once been another bookstore decades earlier. The owners had knocked out the wall separating the buildings but left the original brick exposed.

Most people came for coffee.

I came because nobody minded if I sat for hours reading.

The barista already knew my order.

Large coffee.

No sugar.

No conversation required.

I took my usual table beside the window.

Rain streaked the glass.

Traffic rolled past outside.

A dog tied outside a hardware store stared at absolutely nothing with the intensity of a philosopher contemplating the universe.

I pulled Stand on Zanzibar from my bag.

For a while the world disappeared.

That had always been the magic of books.

Not escape.

People called it escape.

They were wrong.

Books weren’t about escaping reality.

Books were about comparing realities.

Every author built a model of the world.

Every reader carried another.

The interesting part happened where they disagreed.

I read for nearly an hour before the first interruption arrived.

It came from my phone.

A text message.

From my sister.

The message contained a single sentence.

Do you remember Grandpa’s horse?

I stared at it.

Then laughed.

I typed back.

What horse?

Three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Finally:

The horse he kept behind the house when we were kids.

I frowned.

Grandpa never owned a horse.

Several seconds passed.

Then another message arrived.

Yes he did.

I stared at the screen.

For a moment I simply assumed she was joking.

Our grandfather had lived on a quarter-acre lot in suburban Ontario.

He could barely fit a lawnmower behind the house.

A horse would have been difficult to hide.

Wrong grandpa?

I sent.

No.

Another pause.

Then:

You fed it apples.

I read the message twice.

Then three times.

A strange feeling settled into the back of my mind.

Not confusion.

Something smaller.

Like finding a picture frame hanging slightly crooked on a wall you’ve walked past every day for ten years.

I called her.

She answered immediately.

“Tell me you’re messing with me.”

“What?”

“The horse.”

Silence.

Then laughter.

Not nervous laughter.

Confused laughter.

“Dan, what are you talking about?”

“The horse.”

“Grandpa’s horse.”

“There wasn’t a horse.”

Another silence.

Longer this time.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Seriously.”

“There wasn’t a horse.”

“Dan.”

The tone in her voice shifted.

The way people talk when they’re worried someone has forgotten something important.

“We rode it.”

“No.”

“You fell off it.”

“No.”

“You broke your wrist.”

“No.”

“I was there.”

I leaned back in my chair.

Rain tapped softly against the window.

My coffee had gone cold.

Across the room somebody laughed at something I couldn’t hear.

Normal sounds.

Normal people.

Normal afternoon.

Yet a small knot had formed somewhere inside my chest.

Because my sister wasn’t joking.

I knew her well enough to hear it.

She genuinely believed this.

“Send me a picture.”

“What?”

“A picture of the horse.”

Another pause.

“Fine.”

The call ended.

Less than thirty seconds later a text notification arrived.

I opened the image.

The photograph was old.

Faded.

Probably taken sometime in the late eighties.

A small brown horse stood beside a fence.

A young girl smiled beside it.

My sister.

Maybe eight years old.

Maybe nine.

I zoomed in.

The fence looked familiar.

The shed looked familiar.

The yard looked familiar.

It was our grandfather’s house.

I knew it immediately.

I also knew there had never been a horse there.

My stomach tightened.

I zoomed in again.

There, beside the animal, stood a skinny teenage boy.

Awkward.

Tall.

Dark hair.

Sixteen years old.

Me.

Holding an apple.

I stared at the screen.

The photograph remained stubbornly unchanged.

The horse remained exactly where the horse was apparently supposed to be.

The coffee shop noise faded into the background.

The rain faded.

Everything faded.

Because I remembered that day.

I remembered the weather.

I remembered the fence.

I remembered the apple.

I remembered standing in that exact spot.

I remembered everything.

Everything except the horse.

And for the first time in my life, I found myself wondering whether memory could lie.

Or whether something else could.

I closed the book.

Outside, rain continued falling across a world that suddenly felt a little less familiar than it had an hour earlier.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, somehow, one of us was remembering the wrong history.

I just wasn’t sure which one.

Yet.