The Miskatonic Manuscript (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens Book 2) by Vin Suprynowicz

all these … leaves. She buys these plastic bags full of hedge clippings and then she calls them all by different names, as though she can actually tell them apart. Then she eats them.”
    “I’m going to send you to a couple. He’s a physical trainer, she handles diet. This is not about making you look like the body-builder on the back of the comic books. They’re going to size you up. It helps that you’re not fat, but you’ll need to set aside an hour a day in the gym, at least every other day, building up specific muscle groups. Maybe 90 minutes; they’ll know”
    “They’ve got a humping machine at the gym?”
    “Not exactly. But even building up the arms and shoulders and abs can help. And they’ll probably put you on protein shakes, lots of fiber, raw fruits and vegetables, salads.”
    “Aaah!”
    “Stop that.”
    “She eats all these things that haven’t even been cooked. Then she expects me to eat them, too. I don’t even know what half of them are. Did you know there’s a type of mustard that’s, like, leaves? Sheactually likes yogurt! I’m surprised she doesn’t mix it with mare’s blood for fortitude like the Mongol hordes. Maybe she does. Who eats yogurt but some octogenarian beekeeper living in a dung heap somewhere deep in the Caucasus? And what the hell is ‘pita bread’?”
    “These are the sacrifices we have to make, Les. You want to go out like H.P. Lovecraft, at 47? Look up ‘anti-oxidants’; look up ‘long-chain fatty acids.’ You have to build up your strength for what’s to come.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “We’ll discuss that another time. Let’s get you through the current crisis.”
    “You clearly implied something worse is coming.”
    “Les, we’re getting into some pretty personal stuff. It’s really not my business whether you’re doing anything about birth control.”
    “Well, she never mentioned it, so I naturally assumed … oh my God.”
    “You assumed what?”
    “You don’t think …?”
    “Whether she’s thought it all out or not, it’s pretty clear Marian’s body has decided it’s time to get to work on a kind of built-in biological mandate.”
    “It’s like a nightmare.”
    * * *
    “Marian, how are things?” Matthew asked after he’d recommended Les go lie down for awhile. Skeezix had hauled the mail up the hill from the post office and she was opening some book-sized boxes that had come in.
    “Good, as far as I know. Better, actually. That Phantom Tollbooth arrived.”
    “Advertised as 1961? You e-mailed him, right?”
    “I e-mailed the seller to specify we were ordering only because he listed as ‘1961.’ He wrote back that it was on its way.”
    “And?”
    “I was puzzled for a minute, because it’s clipped to the bottom of the front flap, see?” Buyers giving a book as a gift would often clip off the price, meant to be interpreted as “I’m not bragging about how much I spent on you,” which was silly, since everyone knew pretty much what a new book cost, anyway. But on American books, as opposed to British, the price was usually printed at the top of the front flap. If someone clipped off the bottom of the front flap, they were usually clipping off not a price but the words “Book Club Edition,” three words which could cut the value by a ton.
    “Actually, I think on Phantom Tollbooth —” Matthew started.
    “So I found out. The price on the firsts was printed at the bottom of the flap. Besides, it’s a full eight-vo in a full cloth blinding, no deboss, so it’s not a book club. And the jacket has only the author and illustrator blurbs on the back, no reviews.”
    “No later printings mentioned?”
    “No,” she smiled.
    “Congratulations! First printing in a first-state jacket.”
    “Yes,” Marian chortled a little.
    “For which you paid?”
    “Thirteen dollars.” They both observed a moment of respectful silence. Truly the world could be a wonderful place, inhabited as it was by such