The Lost Bookshop

Back in Opaline’s storyline, having escaped confinement, she returns to her bookshop. Matthew is gone, and everything is desolate because of the war, so she hides in the attic, where she has no heat and little food. Then a man enters the shop. He speaks with a German accent and introduces himself as Josef Wolffe. He explains that he sneaks in through an unlocked window to read sometimes. Opaline tells him that it’s her home, and he has no right to be there.

The next day, Josef comes again carrying several packages of candles and food that he gives to her, insisting that she shouldn’t be alone on Christmas Eve. She asks who he is and why he is there, and he explains. He’s a prisoner of war (POW) currently held at a camp by the Irish government. Because the Irish are neutral, they allow some POWs to leave the camp during the day to attend courses at Trinity. He often comes to the bookshop to read instead.

Opaline asks how he can fight for “that madman Hitler” (374), but Josef retorts, “[Y]ou think we had a choice?” (375). He says he’s not even German but Austrian. Then he leaves. Josef continues to leave small gifts of food or wood for fuel over the following weeks.

As Opaline regains her strength, she decides she needs to rebuild her life by retrieving the Brontë manuscript from Matthew and selling it to Rosenbach. She writes a tantalizing letter to Rosenbach about her discovery and then tries to find Matthew and the manuscript. Unfortunately, she learns that Matthew died during the German bombing in London, and there’s no sign of the manuscript. She’ll never be able to find it now and no longer cares.

Josef visits again and reveals that he’s a mechanic who repaired church organs as a boy. He helps repair broken toys and music boxes for her shop. Eventually, he’s repatriated, or sent back home to Austria. Only as he’s leaving does Opaline admit to herself that she loves him, and he loves her too. She concludes, “We felt like one person and I knew that no matter what happened, I had met my true soulmate, and maybe that was enough. Just knowing he was out there, breathing, living, would have to be enough” (382).

In the contemporary storyline, Martha and Henry note that A Place Called Lost doesn’t mention the lost manuscript, the thing Henry cares most about. They arrange to meet at the house to speak in person, and Martha laments the pain of “another bittersweet conversation where [she] would pretend that [she] hadn’t fallen in love with him” (384).

However, that morning Martha discovers that Madame Bowden is missing. She calls her mother in a panic, who again remarks that she hadn’t met Madame Bowden the day she came to visit Martha. Martha says she introduced her, but her mother insists that Madame Bowden wasn’t there. Henry arrives while Martha is still panicking. He’s about to tell her something but then thinks better of it and offers to help her clean as a distraction instead.

Martha suddenly shares all her concerns: Shane dying in the house, her mother revealing she was adopted, Madame Bowden having gone missing, her fighting against the thing she wants most because she’s afraid of being hurt. Henry asks what she wants most, and she responds, “[Y]ou” (388). They kiss, and Martha’s “entire life focused down to this point—like adjusting the lens of a microscope to find the one thing that matters most. Love” (388).

Lying together on Martha’s bed, Henry admits a secret: He has been inside the bookshop. He tells her that he saw the bookshop when he first arrived in Ireland. Martha reveals the tattooed story on her back. Then she shows him the photograph of Opaline and her embroidered skirt, showing that the words on the skirt are the same as the words of her tattoo. Finally, she says she thinks it’s Emily Brontë’s manuscript.

Back in Opaline’s storyline, she’s inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo to reveal the truth about her brother. She researches his service during World War I and the men he executed. Finally, she has evidence that he executed men without cause. She gives this information to a journalist. She also tries to give him the story of her incarceration, but the journalist notes that “any hint of mental weakness could tarnish [her] reputation and distract from the ‘real story’” (398).

She then confronts Lyndon at his home. He’s shocked to see her, believing that she’s still confined. She tells him that a journalist is about to publish his story in The Times, and his cruelty will be revealed to the world. He insists that the men he executed all deserved it. Finally, Lyndon reveals the horrible truth: The people who Opaline believed were her parents were her grandparents, and Lyndon is her father. Lyndon wanted to abandon her, but his father insisted that they keep her.

He also reveals that Opaline’s baby survived birth and he sold her to a childless couple. However, he’ll never tell her where or how to find them. Opaline realizes that she’ll get nothing else from him. As she walks out of the door, she hears a gunshot and a maid screaming as Lyndon dies by suicide. Opaline thinks, “I could let this awful series of events become my new story […] or I could let it die with him. It was a choice I would have to make every day for the rest of my life” (408).

In the contemporary storyline, Madame Bowden still hasn’t returned, and Martha suspects that she never will. She also realizes that she can read Henry again, proving that what blocked her before wasn’t love but her denial of her feelings. She reads the last pages of A Place Called Lost, including the words, “You have always held the key to this special place, but now you are ready to unlock the door” (410) and “Are you ready to cross the threshold and claim your birthright?” (411). She suddenly feels powerful, steady, and “ready to take ownership of [her] life” (411).

When Henry awakens, she asks what he initially came to tell her. He informs her that he found records of Opaline’s baby, proving that she didn’t die but was sold. Her name was Rose, and her adopted parents were the Clohessys. Stunned, Martha tells him, “[M]y grandmother was adopted by a couple called the Clohessys” (412).

Henry and Martha conclude that Martha’s grandmother was Opaline’s lost baby. Furthermore, Martha inexplicably has Emily Brontë’s manuscript tattooed on her back. They know this can’t all be a coincidence. Henry’s mind jumps immediately to writing about it in his thesis, and Martha reveals that she can read his thoughts. Henry tries not to be unnerved by this.

Remembering more lines from A Place Called Lost, Martha thinks they can now find the bookshop and starts leading Henry up the stairs. As they go, they talk about Madame Bowden. Martha suggests that apart from Shane, they’re the only two who have seen and interacted with her. Even Martha’s friends at her birthday party say they never saw her. Henry wonders if she was a ghost.

They climb the stairs and crawl through a tiny door into the attic. Among the boxes is a note in Madame Bowden’s handwriting that reads:

I have played many different characters in other people’s stories. Your story was my favourite and this chapter shall be your finest yet. In order for something to exist, you must first believe in it. Invite your heart to see what your eyes cannot. Follow your path and bring the scholar, I like having him around (417).

Martha believes Madame Bowden hasn’t truly left at all. They then find another door and a spiral staircase leading downward. Martha comments that the spiral staircase feels like the tree roots in her basement apartment. They reach the end and see a light.

Back in Opaline’s storyline, she writes a children’s book, A Place Called Lost. She believes that if she keeps her heart open, her daughter will eventually find her. Someone knocks at her door, and she finds Josef standing in the snow. He tells her that he has come to help her “repair some of the old music boxes that were in the attic. Anything that is broken” (422). Opaline hugs him and tells him that his arrival has already fixed what was broken. She tells him that her baby is alive somewhere. Then Josef hands her a gift: a rare copy of David Copperfield, with an inscription from Alfred Carlisle on the front page. It’s her father’s book that she sold when she first ran away from home.

In the contemporary storyline, Martha and Henry don’t find the bookshop at the bottom of the strange stairs but rather a servant’s passage back to her apartment. However, Henry isn’t disappointed, saying that he has “already found everything he wanted” (425). That night, Martha dreams of a man handing her a key and a woman saying that she has been waiting for her.

When she awakens, she discovers that the tree growing in the ceiling is gone. She climbs stairs that read: “strange things are found…” (426). At the top of the stairs, rather than the house, she finds Opaline’s bookshop. Martha speculates, “Maybe it was I who was lost all along and not the bookshop” (427). While looking around, she and Henry find a stained-glass window with the design of a woman in men’s trousers holding hands with a soldier.

Martha finishes telling her story to the boy in the bookshop. He asks her if it’s all true, and she swears that it is. Henry walks into the shop and kisses Martha, calling her “Mrs. Field” (431). They never found Emily Brontë’s manuscript, but it’s safely hidden in the “vault of an Irish bank, just waiting to become a part of someone else’s story” (431).