The bookstore that Mrs. White owned, Bookends, was a cute little bookstore next to the coffee shop where Mark worked. The shelves were filled with old classic books, leather bound editions and books with handcrafted illustrations.
Deep leather armchairs were scattered throughout the store with reading lamps set on tables next to them and all the furniture was dark wood. An air of stillness filled the store, as if the books would whisper their secrets to her if she would just sit and be patient enough to listen.
Emma loved the bookstore from the moment she walked into it. As she stood by the counter waiting for Mrs. White, who she could hear moving around in the backroom Emma looked around enjoying the atmosphere of the store. After a few minutes Mrs. White shuffled into the room carrying a precariously stacked pile of books that was so high Emma could only see a tuft of white curly hair behind them.
Emma coughed politely.
“Oh! Hello, dear!” Mrs. White exclaimed, peering around the stack of books. “Just give me one second and I will help you.”
“Do you need any help?” Emma asked, looking on in concern as the stack of books wobbled and almost fell.
“No no dear, I’ve got it. I just need to put them down right…here!” Mrs. White said in a satisfied voice as she successfully slid the stack of books onto the counter. “Now, how may I help you?” She said briskly, brushing off her hands and peering at Emma with shrewd brown eyes.
“My name is Emma Rose,” Emma introduced herself, holding out her hand. “My mother Kathryn told me you were looking for someone to work in the store part time.”
“Yes, your mother called and told me you would be coming by today. It’s nice to meet you dear!” Mrs. White said, shaking her hand. “My name is Mrs. White.”
As they shook hands Emma couldn’t help but smile at the image that Mrs. White portrayed. She was a plump little lady with short, wildly curly hair that was pure white and warm brown eyes that shone with kindness. Her eyes held a certain shrewd intelligence though. She was the perfect image of what a grandmother should look like, the sort of woman whose picture would be put on the front of a bakery or pastry store. Emma liked her immediately.
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very exciting work,” Mrs. White said apologetically. “As you can see there aren’t usually many customers in the store at any given time and I can only pay you minimum wage.”
Emma shrugged and gave her a smile. “Minimum wage is fine, and as long as I’m allowed to look through the books I don’t think I would ever get bored working here.”
Mrs. White beamed. “I just love books, I don’t see how anyone could find reading boring but apparently not everyone agrees with me. Oh well, if you are a fellow book lover then I would love to have you work here. When can you start?”
“I can start tomorrow if you need me.” Emma replied, slightly surprised at how quickly Mrs. White had offered her the job.
“Perfect!” Mrs. White exclaimed, clapping her hands together sharply. “We will discuss what hours you will work and everything tomorrow, for today let me show you around.”
Emma grinned cheerfully, caught up by Mrs. White’s infectious enthusiasm. She followed as Mrs. White led her around the store, pointing out where everything was.
After they made the circuit of the main room Mrs. White took Emma behind the counter and showed her the backrooms where her office was and the room where she stored the extra books. At the end of the hallway there was a back entrance door that led to the access road behind the bookstore.
“The only time I ever use that door is to throw the trash bags in the dumpster back there, so that door remains locked for the most part.” Mrs. White explained. “Maybe I’ve read too many classic horror stories but that back access road just seems like the perfect setting for a murder mystery and that is one kind of story I would rather not have a leading role in.”
When they walked back out into the main room Emma noticed a small room separated from the main room by an open doorway with thick red drapes artistically framing the opening. She could just get the barest glimpse of a narrow staircase in the back of the room leading down somewhere she couldn’t see.
“What’s in that room?” Emma asked.
“What room?” Mrs. White asked, looking confused.
“The room right there through the red drapes.” Emma said, pointing to it. “You didn’t show me that area.”
“Oh right, that room.” Mrs. White said, as if finally figuring out what Emma was talking about. “That’s nothing special. I just keep a bunch of miscellaneous books in there.”
“What about the staircase?” Emma pressed.
“That goes nowhere, just an old room with a locked door that no one has the key to. This store has been in my family for generations and that key has been lost for at least the last three. I don’t even know what’s in that room.”
Mrs. White’s smile wavered a bit and she looked off to the side, away from Emma. Emma eyed her suspiciously, but she kept her expression open and her tone carefully even when she said, “If you ever get curious you could always call a locksmith to open it.”
“No dear,” Mrs. White said with a smile, meeting Emma’s eyes for a moment and looking away again, “I like the mystery of it. A locked door in the basement of a bookstore that has been owned by the same family for centuries, it sounds so eerie don’t you think?”
Emma laughed and shook her head. “You love old mystery and horror stories, don’t you?”
“I do, they wrote them so much better back when there was no explanations for what went bump in the night beyond pure imagination.” Mrs. White said with a sigh, walking Emma back to the front of the store.
“There is still some mystery in the world,” Emma said helpfully. “Science hasn’t explained everything.”
“Indeed it has not.” Mrs. White agreed. “And for that I am very grateful.”
Mrs. White and Emma reached the front desk and the end of Emma’s tour.
“Well!” Mrs. White said, clapping her hands together. “Now you’ve had a tour of the store, if you come back at the same time tomorrow we can get started with all the boring work details.”
“That sounds great.” Emma agreed. “I will see you at five o’clock tomorrow.”
Emma waved as she walked out the door and headed to her car. When Emma was out of sight Mrs. White walked into the small back room and stood next to the staircase that Emma had noticed. Staring down at it Mrs. White murmured. “How did she see you?”
Emma sat in her car for a moment and thought about what waited for her at home. Morgan would probably be sulking in the television room already. Steve had decided Morgan needed to come home for family dinners during the week. Part of his attempt to save what little bit of humanity was still in her, assuming there had been any there to begin with.
If Emma went home now she would have to listen to Morgan talk nonstop about Jason. Just the thought of it made her feel physically sick. Emma already knew it had been a mistake to let Morgan chase her away at lunch. She wasn’t going to let Morgan rub her face in her mistake, even if that meant driving around town aimlessly to avoid going home.
As Emma sat lost in these thoughts she was abruptly pulled back to reality by her ringing phone. Emma reached into her purse with one hand and snagged her phone, flipping it over to see who it was. A picture of Amy filled the screen.
“Hey Amy.” Emma answered the phone. She leaned back in her seat and rolled down a window to let some fresh air into the car. “What’s up?”
“Are you done with your after school work thing?” Amy asked, her tone making it apparent the ‘work thing’ was merely an inconvenience, like detention but less interesting. Emma rolled her eyes. Amy had a fantastic mind for details when it came to gossip but anything as mundane and boring as a job interview was just glossed over.
“Yeah, I just walked out.” Emma answered as she turned on the car and started messing with the radio. Something in front of her
car caught her eye and Emma looked up to see a tiny…fairy? Emma squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that she was just seeing things but when she opened them again, there it was. It was flitting around the windshield wipers of her car, poking at a leaf that had gotten stuck.
Emma leaned closer to the windshield to get a better look at the creature. It looked like a tiny boy. It wore tiny little pants that were ripped and ragged at the bottom and no shirt. Something was strapped against its back, held in place by a broad leather strap that crossed his chest and buckled just beneath his collarbone. Dark wings sprouted from his back. Not the delicate gossamer wings that fairies in children’s stories had that looked whimsical and beautiful. These wings had black spines swirling in intricate designs through a translucent black membrane. At the top and bottom of the wings the spines curved up into sharp dagger like points. Along the sides of the wings the dark spines thickened into a bonelike form. She watched the fairy use the spike at the bottom of its wing to stab the leaf and drag it out from under the windshield wiper.
“Perfect! You should come over right now. I already asked my mom and she said you can stay for dinner.” Amy said cheerfully.
Emma watched the fairy in shock, afraid to move in case she somehow caught it’s attention. “Uh huh.” She said to Amy distractedly.
The fairy grabbed the leaf off of its wing and opened it up to look at the inside of it. It tilted the leaf one way, then another, studying it carefully. Almost as if it was…reading it? Emma thought that’s what it was doing anyways. Suddenly the fairy cocked its head to one side as if it had heard something.
The fairy paused, listening to the noise Emma couldn’t hear. Then it threw the leaf aside and leapt into the air, its wings snapping open to catch the slight afternoon breeze. The wind caught the fairy and in seconds it was out of sight.
“Hello? Emma? Stop playing with the radio when we’re talking, you aren’t that good at multi-tasking.” Amy admonished.
“What?” Emma said, refocusing on the conversation. “Oh, right. Sorry. What was the question?”
“Dinner. My house. Tonight. You’re coming.” Amy said. “And I can still hear the radio.”
Emma made a face but she turned the volume down. She paused for a moment, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she considered her options. Go home to Morgan taunting her all night or go over to Amy’s and have a delicious dinner.
“I’m on my way over.” Emma said, turning the key and starting the ignition. She looked around the parking lot carefully for signs of any other fairies or strange creatures but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Great! We have a lot to talk about.” Amy exclaimed.
Emma paused, frowning. It always worried her when Amy said things like that. Half the time it meant Amy wanted to tell Emma every piece of gossip she had heard that day but the other half of the time Amy wanted to talk about Emma’s life. Emma didn’t know if she felt up to that, especially since things had started getting even weirder lately. Their conversation a few weeks ago when she had confessed to Amy that she felt like she was being watched was one thing, it was a completely different thing to tell her she was seeing fairies reading the leaves caught under her windshield wipers.
Hanging out with Amy was better than facing Morgan, so she told Amy she would see her in a few minutes and hung up. With any luck something had happened for Amy to obsess over that would distract her from focusing on Emma’s life.
Later that night when Emma got home she quietly snuck past the television room where Morgan sat watching one of her ridiculous reality TV shows, and the kitchen where Kathryn was busy cleaning up after dinner. Emma breathed a sigh of relief when she got to the stairs and no one tried to stop her, she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
After dinner Amy had regaled Emma with the tale of how Brad had asked her to formal. Emma had been excited for her friend but she just couldn’t get into dress shopping that night. Ever since that run in with Tyler at the coffee shop she had been feeling strange, and it was just getting worse.
Emma had just slipped into her room when her phone went off in her purse. Digging it out of her purse she checked to see who the message was from. It was from Mark. “How did the rest of your day turn out?”
She quickly typed, “Fine.” And dropped her phone on her desk. Walking over to her bed she let herself fall backwards onto it with a groan. Fine. That’s what her life always was. That’s all she could ever let people see. Sweet Emma Rose was always fine, everything was okay, nothing was ever wrong. Emma was getting tired of just being “fine”.
She heard her phone go off again as Mark replied but she didn’t look at it. The truth was that she wasn’t fine. Something was wrong with her. Or rather, she amended ruefully, something besides the usual was wrong with her. She gazed at the ceiling of her room, a plain white expanse with only the light fixture breaking the monotony.
Her head felt strange, like it was too full and her hands itched to do something, but she didn’t know what. Emma didn’t like it when things changed and she didn’t know why. She wasn’t a control freak, but when it came to her own mind and body unexpected changes worried her.
Her mind. Emma must be losing it. That was the only explanation for that creature she had seen earlier. That fairy hadn’t been some shadow, and it certainly didn’t look like a figment of her imagination. Emma had clearly seen it right in front of her. But no one else in the area had noticed it.
Unless someone had called it. From the way it had turned its head like it had heard something, Emma was fairly certain that’s why it had left the way it had. Emma thought about the way the fairy had been analyzing the leaf like it was some sort of message until she realized that she was thinking about it like it had been a real thing. Emma shook her head at herself.
The line between what was real and what was imaginary was becoming so blurred she was afraid it wouldn’t be long before she couldn’t tell the two apart. Emma stared at the ceiling, thinking about what would happen to her when they finally officially declared her insane.
She didn’t know how long she lay there staring at the ceiling thinking of everything and nothing, but eventually she made herself get up and go over to her desk. No matter how she was feeling right now; life would continue on tomorrow and that meant she had homework to do.
The next morning when Emma woke up she felt strange. There was a buzzing in her head that wasn’t a noise but a sensation, like a vibration within her brain. Emma groaned and squinted at her clock. 6:00 shone back in bright blue numbers. Emma frowned, she wasn’t supposed to wake up for another thirty minutes. Emma tried to roll over and go back to sleep but it was no use, the buzzing in her head wouldn’t let her.
Giving up on sleep Emma stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water in her face hoping that would clear up her head. Emma stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked the same but different somehow, like something had changed but she didn’t know what. The cold water helped a little bit, the buzzing receded until it was only faintly present. Since she was already up Emma decided she might as well start getting ready. Emma quickly brushed her hair and even did her make-up, finishing just before Kathryn called her down to breakfast.
At breakfast she ignored the slight taunts Morgan threw her way. Emma didn’t care about anything Morgan said, she was too distracted by the buzzing in her head and the fact that no matter how much she ate she was still hungry. Two large omelets, three slices of buttered toast, an apple, and two glasses of orange juice later Emma finally got up and took her plate to the sink. She turned around to find Kathryn, Steve, and Morgan staring at her.
“What?” She asked, self-consciously folding her arms across her stomach, which still wasn’t full.
“Nothing,” Steve replied carefully, “We’ve just never seen you eat so much before.”
“You are normally such a delicate eater.” Kathryn added. “I didn’t think you were capable of eating that much.”
>
“You’re a freak.” Was all Morgan said, brushing past Emma to put her dishes in the sink.
“I was just really hungry today.” Emma replied defensively. When Kathryn and Steve continued to stare at her, and even Morgan was eyeing her strangely, Emma blurted, “I have to go to school now.” And she quickly made her exit.
The Forgeron Legacy Page 7