Book Scavenger: Chapters 33-42

“We want that book,” he leered.

She did her best to look indifferent and bored.

After that, she tried to work in earnest, and, therefore, she didn’t hear James come back.

His anger and annoyance was so palpable, Emily forgot for a second that they were pretending.

She’d expected something shabby and brown, like Mr. Remora’s briefcase, but this was a tidy Victorian with a bright purple shop on the ground level and green stairs with prim white banisters leading up to the front door.

Mr. Quisling had been adamant that Emily give up the book, that it was returned to Mr. Remora ASAP.

Mr. Remora was small and wiry and balding, and at first glance he looked anything but intimidating.

“Of course I do. Not the specifics, per se. But he’s been babbling about armchair treasure hunts for years, asking me to locate this or that book so he’d have a complete collection of the genre.”

Using her and James’s secret code, she wrote out her plan, but made an effort to act like she was trying to recall the pretend cipher she was conjuring up.

A guy with a stubbly beard and tousled brown hair slid aside the velvet curtain and walked out, barefoot and in jeans and no shirt.

“‘To remember Robert Louis Stevenson: To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little, to spend a little less—to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence—to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered—to keep a few friends but these without capitulation’—what does capitulation mean?”

“‘To remember Robert Louis Stevenson: To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little, to spend a little less—to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence—to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered—to keep a few friends but these without capitulation’—what does capitulation mean?”

“‘To remember Robert Louis Stevenson: To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little, to spend a little less—to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence—to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered—to keep a few friends but these without capitulation’—what does capitulation mean?”

Matthew finished reading the inscription: “‘Above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself. Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.’”

Matthew finished reading the inscription: “‘Above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself. Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.’”

She thought she’d be jumping up and down with excitement, but instead she felt trepidation.

Some claim he came about this by devious means and that Poe did not personally appoint him, but the fact remains that it was Rufus Griswold who was given access to the works of Poe and published a posthumous collection of his writings.

Some claim he came about this by devious means and that Poe did not personally appoint him, but the fact remains that it was Rufus Griswold who was given access to the works of Poe and published a posthumous collection of his writings.

Mr. Remora waved his arms, the strands of his hair flopping erratically.

“Garrison Griswold was a fraud! He touted a deep love and respect for literature, but did you know he once used a first-edition Dashiell Hammett as a coaster? A coaster!”

A herd of elk had walked down the mountain road onto the main street in the village, meandering past stores as if they were souvenir shopping.

He sat in a wheelchair, striped in Bayside Press colors, and admired the golden hare medallion still on display around the bust of Poe.

While Mr. Griswold had been in a coma, there had been a security breach at the hospital, and people feared his life was still at risk, so he had been secretly relocated.

“I remember encountering those two men in the BART station, and then the next thing I know, I’m waking up a month later in a strange place with an incredible headache and no recollection of how I got there, or any awareness of how much time had passed. Jack has been filling me in on all that transpired. And, boy, has a lot transpired.”

“I’m setting the record straight about my, er, vitality this afternoon, but after all you’ve been through I wanted you to hear the news directly from me first.”

“I hope you enjoyed my literary treasure hunt, despite Mr. Remora’s antics,” he said.

“I’m not sure anyone knows. Rufus’s lies and fabrications weren’t fully revealed until long after his own death, so he never had to explain himself. He and Poe had a contentious relationship, to be sure. Toward the end of Poe’s life, there was a woman they were both friends with, and so some speculate there was a love triangle in play.”

“When I discovered the Poe manuscript, an idea clicked for me. I had long been a fan of Poe’s short story ‘The Gold-Bug’ and thought it would be fun to emulate the treasure hunt.

“I was going to say hyperfocused. I get so intent on orchestrating my plans and keeping them a secret that I suppose I have a tendency to stop observing what’s really going on around me.”

I even had Mr. Remora sign a nondisclosure statement to assert that he would not divulge information he learned or claim ownership of anything in my possession.

Not to mention, I compensated him for his work. Compensated him very well, in fact.

“This is Raven. My virtual assistant. She’s a computer program designed to assist players in the scavenger hunt.”

“That’s why she kept saying the same thing over and over whenever we wrote ‘The Gold-Bug,”’ James mused.

One fall day Emily Crane and James Lee, two San Francisco middle school students, found what they thought was an innocuous copy of an Edgar Allan Poe book abandoned in a BART station.

Little did they know that this book, a reprinting of Poe's short story “The Gold-Bug,” would lead them on a wild scavenger hunt across San Francisco, culminating in the discovery of the manuscript for the very novel you now hold in your hands.