Warped (Maurissa Guibord)

She hefted it onto her hip and tried to wedge it in with the others. "Why," she said, giving it a few forceful shoves, "does the last one never, ever fit?" She gave up and rested the crate on the bumper.
    "Easy there," her father said. He took the crate from her and set it down with a grunt. His face was red from exertion, and he wiped his forehead with his flannel shirtsleeve. Jackson Brody had a square, solid face that, over the last few years, had drifted toward pudgy.
    "My wallet and I talked it over," he said, eyeing her. "You're never allowed near an auction again. You're a menace." He shook his head. "Must be all those teenage hormones."
    Tessa glanced out at the parking lot, where people were loading stuff into their cars. She swiveled back and gave her father a level look. "Okay. Dad? Remember that list of things you're not allowed to talk about? Add Tessa's hormones."
    "Right," her father sighed. "But the point is you can't act on every impulse you have, Tessa. It'll get you into trouble."
    "Yeah, I'm a real wild one, all right." Tessa put her hands on her hips. "Imagine," she said, making her expression stern. "I spent my Saturday going to an auction with my father and buying a bunch of old books. The president should work on a special task force for that one."
    Her father shook his head and smiled, as if despite himself. "You look just like your mother when you argue."
    Tessa smiled too, and dropped the pose. Sometimes she wondered if her father knew she liked hearing that, and said it just to please her. But she did have her mother's features: pale skin with mahogany dark hair and wide blue eyes that were slightly heavy-lidded, giving her otherwise ordinary looks an exotic touch.
    "Anyway," she said. "It was your impulse, not mine. You said you wanted them."
    "Not four hundred dollars' worth," her father said dryly. "I thought you and the old lady in front were going to duke it out there for a minute."
    "She looked pretty tough," Tessa said with a nod. "But I could have taken her."
    She climbed into the back and tugged one of the cardboard boxes in farther. "Besides," she called out. "It wasn't four hundred. It was three sixty-eight, including tax. Dealer's discount, remember? And I'm sure there's stuff in here we can make a profit on."
    " I can make a profit on, you mean," her father corrected. "The guy with the bookstore, remember?"
    "Uh-huh," Tessa answered absently. She tucked a loose tendril of hair, curling now from the damp, behind her ear and fingered through the books before selecting one. Plant Lore of the Middle Ages . The tooled-leather spine wobbled as she flipped the book open. She wiggled a slim finger into the spot where the endpapers gaped and prodded gently. "I can fix that," she said. She liked to fix things; she was good at it too. But she frowned when she saw that one of the illustrated pages had been marred with someone's notes and cross-outs. "Great," she muttered, replacing the book with the others. "Looks like we had a scribbler. In pen, no less."
    "No, I checked them over at the preview," her father said. "For the most part they're in good condition." He was staring at the wooden crate at his feet as he ran his fingers through his hair, sending the brown and gray mix into disheveled tufts. "You know, I really don't remember seeing this one then."
    Tessa glanced at it. "Me neither." She pointed to the mark on the crate's side in heavy blue wax. "But it's part of the lot. Number ninety-four. See? It's the one with that old tapestry thing inside."
    Her father nodded. "Yeah, well, it's not going to fit in the car. Let me go find some smaller boxes. We'll rearrange."
    He disappeared back into Cheever's. Meanwhile, Tessa went to the glove compartment and found a screwdriver so she could pry the cover off the crate. They'd nailed it back on inside. She wanted to get a closer look at the tapestry. It might look cool hanging in the back of the store.
    Tessa lifted off the plywood cover and wrinkled her nose as a dry, musty smell wafted up. Like crumbled dried flowers, or herbs. The tapestry was folded up and wedged in on one side, next to a stack of books. On top lay an old book. And not old as in used, Tessa saw immediately; old as in ancient .
    The cover of the thick black volume had some red rot, the flaking decay that could make old leather crumble to dust. It would have to be handled with care. And certainly not taken out here, in the damp. She looked at the clouds overhead, which