Cormac Berrigan

The bell above the door chimed, but Cormac didn’t look up right away. He was shelving a box of older poetry—most of it in Irish, some in languages he didn’t recognize but somehow understood. The air shifted when the stranger stepped inside. One of the lamps flickered. A book slid halfway off the shelf, spine first, then paused mid-fall and settled back into place, as if reconsidering. The small brass clock on the counter ticked backward for three seconds, then resumed its normal rhythm.

Cormac turned slowly, brushing dust from his sweater. His gaze lingered—not in suspicion or even curiosity, but in quiet recognition of something.

“That one’s for you,” he said gently, nodding to the book that had moved on its own so subtly it could have been a trick of the light. “You don’t have to believe it. Most people don’t. But you’ll take it anyway.”