CHAPTER THREE #2
“Good to know,” I said. Corbin, I repeated in my head. Until then, I’d been thinking of him as Eyebrows. His particular set was shaped like a stormy rainbow. Tía Viv could’ve hidden a chisel somewhere in there.
Eyebrows—Corbin—appeared, minus the books. He pulled the cell away from his ear. “Delilah!” he said to the redhead, brightening. “You just get in?”
“A minute ago,” the girl—Delilah—said.
Corbin peered into the birdcage with the kind of wistful smile that made me feel like I was, again, missing something. Namely, a real, feathered creature. What was happening?
“Go up and see Rose,” he told Delilah. “She’s been asking if you’ve been by yet. Fresh oatmeal raisin cookies, probably still hot too.”
“Yes, perfect! I skipped breakfast.” She gave him a look. “Now get off the goddamn phone and ring this customer up.”
With a parting gesture, the girl and the mysterious cage disappeared into a side door. Corbin cut the call and wound around the counter.
“Hello. I was in a couple days ago.” I tapped my mismatched set of pink nails over the glass. “You helped me.”
Corbin pushed his specs up the bridge of his nose. “If you say so. There a problem?”
Perpetual distraction plus failing short-term memory. Noted.
“Not a problem, exactly.” I pushed the gold watch toward him. “I bought this from you, and I was wondering if you had any information about it. Like, who originally owned it, or anything about the person who brought it in?”
It took more seconds than necessary for Corbin to focus and examine the watch. His eyes narrowed from behind his round lenses. “Sorry, this isn’t from here.”
What? “But I just bought it two days ago. From here,” I stressed, nodding toward the table behind me. “It was right there with the teapots and stuff.”
“Miss, I’d remember a piece like this, and there’s no way we would’ve paired it with porcelain and silver. Now, maybe you’re mistaken, and you got this up in Eugene.”
I needed more Aleve. Was this just how Sacred was? Strange birdcages and half-present customer service and cascara ice cream, whatever that was? “You’re telling me you’ve never seen this watch before?”
Corbin squinted. “There’s something special in your voice. Kinda different.”
I rolled my eyes. Did he mean kind of Cuban?
Growing up in an immigrant family, traces of my parents’ thick accents had drifted into mine—had I just unearthed the issue with me and Sacred?
Was being Latina around here such an oddity?
The reason for my job search failure? Now, this, I would talk to Vivian about.
This was her second trip, and she hadn’t said anything about the way they treated people with a little island in their words.
“I’m from Los Angeles” was all I said. Sharply. “I know I bought the watch here. It had a little white tag and was marked fifteen dollars. I bet I even have the receipt.” I started digging in my bag, looking for the small piece of paper I’d thrown in so carelessly yesterday.
He shook his head, laughing. “Fifteen dollars for a solid-gold Vacheron Constantin? Spines and Pines is known for our stellar deals, but I’m no fool.”
I blew out a ragged breath and fished the receipt from my belt bag. “Look, the proof is printed right—”
And then I was the one to halt, my skin prickling.
I read the handwritten receipt. Leather notebook: ten dollars.
Snow globe: fourteen dollars. That was it.
Two items listed here, but three had been in my bag.
With tax, the total came to slightly under thirty dollars.
Yesterday I’d handed over two twenties and grabbed my change without noting the total at all.
I hadn’t even looked at this receipt before now. But the mind-altering evidence was clearly inked. There was no record of any watch purchase at Spines and Pines. And according to Corbin, no record of its prior existence here at all. I shoved the watch onto my arm.
My mouth filled with gravel, and panic rushed in. I tried to play it cool, though, smacking my forehead and plastering a smile on my face. “Oh wow. You’re absolutely right—sorry! I just finished finals, and you know, stress?”
“Do I!” Corbin said. “My doctor just put me on a new blood-pressure medication. I meant to ask Delilah if she could, you know, see anything about that.” He winked, but I didn’t catch his meaning.
I managed a cheerful wave, my breathing ragged and my head fogged with dizziness as I bounded out to the sidewalk. I braced myself on a nearby mailbox, hyperaware of the pressure of a gold watch that wasn’t supposed to exist. But it did exist. I was wearing the proof around my wrist.
One, two, set. I wiped beads of sweat from my brow and took a moment to recenter myself.
Even though my heart rate dipped, my head spun around the pieces of an inexplicable truth I couldn’t deny anymore.
The enchanted, out-of-place timepiece. The obliviousness of the shop owner.
The shifting receipt. My mind was not hallucinating.
These happenings belonged to the supernatural, but they were real.
My name is Penn.
Whether I’d ever see this ghost boy again, I didn’t know. But he had been real too.