Chapter 2
Sylvie
“Shit biscuits on a stick,” I yell, crumpling over.
If this keeps up, I’m going to need blood pressure medicine. Hell, maybe I already do. I’m pretty damned high-strung right now.
Wait. Did I take my anxiety meds today?
Maybe that’s the problem.
Frowning, catching what’s left of my breath, I hit the pause button on my exploration of the bookstore and rummage through the backpack.
My meds are there, alright, but unless I count them, I won’t know if I forgot. It’s too late in the day, anyway. If I forgot and take one now, I’ll have a headache and trouble falling asleep.
Good thing I have my trusty melatonin with me, too. I shake the bottle for good measure, the gummies barely budging against the plastic.
It’s a little anticlimactic.
That settled, I nudge the backpack back over my shoulders and stand up straight, finally looking around the bookstore.
My bookstore.
Happiness and the warmth of pleasure surge through me, enough that even the odd chill of the place doesn’t unsettle me. It’s better for any leftover books that it’s cold and dry, though I hate to imagine the electricity bill on this place.
Wooden shelves line every wall, and I gasp as my gaze continues up, and up—two stories.
There were no pictures of this bookstore online, and while that was a tragedy two weeks ago, now it’s the best surprise ever.
A wooden railing lines a narrow walkway around the second-story shelves, and I turn around, in awe, without even a word to say to myself. The stained-glass window casts a rainbow light across the scuffed oak floors, and the overall effect is magical.
They creak as I shift, and my brow furrows because it almost sounds like that creak came from behind me.
“Old houses,” I say with an experienced tone.
An experience I currently thoroughly lack, but I know full well I’m about to get a crash course in owning an older home.
The bones of this place are beautiful, there is no doubt about that, but the shelves are mostly empty, dust is caked on so thick that it looks like no one has been here for years, and cobwebs drape across every corner.
And every light fixture.
And every nook and cranny.
It’s a lot of cobwebs. The spiders have been busy.
The dust bunnies are definitely reproducing at break-neck speeds, too. Good for them.
My nose scrunches, and another blast of frigid air hits the back of my neck.
“I need to get the AC turned down to a reasonable number.” Not that I want to. I sigh, rubbing the raised hairs on the back of my neck. “Or not. Or we can just blow through the air conditioning and write off the electricity bill.”
I’m pretty sure the finance dude said something about business write-offs. It’s a haze. I’ll have to look at the binder full of printed details I threw in the back of my truck.
One thing’s for sure, I won’t have to worry about the electricity bill, which is a welcome change.
Boob sweat and swamp ass begone!
There’s a dusty, empty counter wedged up against a wall, a corkboard behind it covered in what looks like faded newspaper articles outlining some disease outbreak from umpty-ump years ago.
I barely glance at the ancient yellowed pages.
Instead, I bend down, checking out the intricate carvings on the inside of the counter.
“Cool,” I say, then purse my lips and blow, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
Which was stupid, because now I’ve inhaled a ton of ancient dust and lord only knows what else. Coughing, I fan my face, like that’s going to do jack shit to help the dust dissipate.
Fucking dust bunnies and their procreation habits.
“First stop, cleaning supplies,” I say. That sounds fantastic, actually. A healthy way to burn off the anxiety of uprooting my life in circumstances so strange I’ve compartmentalized them to the point of throwing all the legalese in my actual trunk. Like a cadaver.
My eyes narrow, and I study the carved scenes.
Huh.
They seem to tell a story, but of what, I have no idea. Which sucks because I’m really good at telling myself stories.
Ain’t no inner monologue like a Sylvie Barlow inner monologue!
My fingertips brush against the wood, which is strangely warm to the touch, especially considering the ridiculously cold temperature of the store.
Not that I’m complaining. I’d rather be cold than sweaty any damn day.
“Yet I live in Texas,” I tell the counter forlornly, giving the carvings a pat. It’s almost like the carvings don’t want to be understood, don’t want to be noticed.
Which, again, is a sign of my overactive imagination.
I stand, taking my time to stretch, the backpack starting to strain my shoulders.
There are a few bookshelves standing end-to-end in the middle of the shop, and the rest of my downstairs tour reveals a truly horrendous bathroom that will probably be my first order of business to fix up, along with what seems to be a mostly up-to-date electrical breaker box.
Not that I trust it. Nope.
I huff a laugh as I stare at the bevy of switches and mentally prioritize calling the contractor the finance bro told me I should work with.
My phone’s in my hand a second later, my finger hovering over my email as I try to find the relevant information.
Something slams overhead as I keep walking to the second-story stairs, and I tuck the phone back in my shorts pocket, tilting my head.
Well. I suppose that electrical issues wouldn’t take precedence over a raccoon or other animal living here.
Though I would have to be a real dick to evict any little creature in this Texas heat.
The stairs start in a dark corner of the store, and I cringe as I stare up at them. What if they aren’t sturdy? What if the wood is rotted through? Or worse, what if it’s riddled with termite damage and I fall into an absolute hellhole of insects?
Ew.
A faint but familiar mewling sounds, and all those anxious thoughts leave just as fast as they came (which cements my theory that I forgot to take my stupid meds). I rush up the stairs, urged to move by another plaintive meow.
There is an animal upstairs, the poor thing, and it’s a cat.
The stairs make a disturbing amount of noise as I run up them.
Okay. Fine. I don’t run.
I do a quick walk because I don’t want to break my neck and running up stairs isn’t one of my pastimes.
Yet.
“Here, kitty-kitty,” I say, holding still and looking around.
A shiver racks me, and my mouth twists to the side. “You know, kitty, it’s even colder up here. Which doesn’t make any sense, seeing as how heat rises.”
Something dark rushes by my periphery, but it isn’t until the blur slows and comes to stand on top of a lump on the floor that I realize it’s the cat I heard.
Green eyes regard me cautiously.
A floorboard creaks somewhere in the big, quiet building, and a deep feeling of unease settles in my bones.
I shiver again, and the cat’s black fur poofs out, arching its back and hissing malevolently.
Suddenly, I’m not so sure about any of this.
The kitty paws at the lump under it, and my eyes adjust enough to the darker second floor to realize it’s a book.
All reason runs straight out of my head.
“Oh, no you don’t, kitty, we don’t use the potty on books.” Without pausing to consider cat scratch fever, or worse, rabies, I grab the black cat and tuck it under my arm like a football, then retrieve the book.
Which, unlike the skin-and-bones cat, is about as heavy as any book I’ve ever held. My fingertips tell me it has a tooled leather cover and thick, deckled edges, and my biceps tell me I’m going to have a hard time holding the book and the cat.
The cat, however, squirms from my grip, landing on its feet, as graceful as a, well, a cat.
I roll my eyes at my terrible simile and file it under reasons I’m not a writer.
To my surprise, the cat rubs itself around my ankles, purring like a motor, and takes a few steps away, then looks back and mewls again.
“What is it, Lassie?” I ask it, then cringe at myself as the cat stares at me with those wide, unblinking fluorescent eyes. “Terrible joke. I’m sorry.”
At least now I have an excuse to talk to myself, and I brighten a little, clutching the huge, heavy book to my chest.
The cat’s tail curls like a question mark, and I find myself following the tiny black creature to a door marked “Private, no admittance.”
“You found my apartment,” I tell the cat, pleased. “Good job, kitty.”
The cat paws at the door, yowling frantically.
“It’s okay, buddy.”
The cat hisses and I startle, then frown at it. “That’s not nice. No hissing at me.”
Behind me, the floorboards creak, and the cat lets out a deep, no-nonsense growl, then rushes between my legs, tail fluffed up like a pipe cleaner.
“It’s just the house settling, kitty,” I tell it, ignoring the feeling that something is there, something I can’t see.
I’m not going to let my imagination give me nightmares, even if I didn’t take my meds. I have the cat, I have my melatonin, and I have some serious cleaning to wear myself out on.
I put my hand on the doorknob, which is annoyingly, impossibly cold.
I open the door to my new apartment, excited to see what I’m working with—and scream.