Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

There are cultures in which it is believed that a name contains all a persons mystical power. That a name should be known only to God and to the person who holds it and to very few privileged others. To pronounce such a name either ones own or someone else's is to invite jeopardy. This it seemed was such a name.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread the white pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.

People whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer from an appalling obsession with personal integrity.

Our clients' faces, with the customary outward paleness and inner glow of the book lover.

For it must be very lonely being dead.