Chapter Fourteen
The sun felt new on my skin, refreshing, as I walked with Maggie. Something about being back with her made me feel more at home, even if I’d been home for a week now.
Just out of the gate, we turned onto the cobblestone path as a flash of red erupted in front of us. Maggie threw out an arm and released a late half-scream half-gasp, but I just held out my hands as the rallow flew overhead. A letter dropped from its talons into my palms.
“The hell?” she squealed, but I didn’t look up to see her wide-eyed confusion. Maggie knew about rallows, but they don’t have them in Old Ashton. “Gods. I am never getting used to that. The one you sent with your letter about gave me a heart attack dropping into the shop.”
I unrolled the parchment, equally dazed, and it made more sense as the words “debt reminder” revealed themselves. Just below that, a countdown. Twenty-three days left.
“Everything okay?” Maggie’s voice saved me from a panic. Well, postponed my panic.
“Yeah.” I tried to sound reassuring as I folded and shoved the notice into my pocket. “Just a reminder that I owe them money,” I said, pretending my chest wasn’t aching. “Let’s go.”
Maggie met me by my side, and we continued our walk. Small talk passed between us, but unfortunately, my mind was elsewhere. But I only had Maggie for a limited time and had much to show her. Ignoring my growing worry, I filed it into future Reece’s problems. There were a lot of problems there.
“You see that house right there?” I pointed. “The one with the yellow door?”
She nodded.
“They used to host the best birthday parties for their kids. I always went, even though I hated them.” Rich people who moved to a small town thought they were better than everyone, paid people to do whatever they wanted because they could afford to.
My friend shrugged, wiggling her hair off her shoulders. “Seems about right for you.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended.
Scanning the town, the farther we traveled in, the more I tried to find a decent memory out of all the boring ones.
“We went to secondary school at the tower over there.” I pointed to the stone pillar with three classrooms, where school occurred inside and outside in the fields.
She frowned at that one. “You really did grow up in the sticks.” Maggie glanced back and forth between me and the ivy-covered brick building. I guess I hadn’t noticed the cracked corners and worn-down fence. “How many kids fit in there? Ten?”
I threw a side-eye her way and left it. Maggie grew up in Old Ashton; their school towered three stories—for the higher grades.
Maggie swatted the hell out of my arm, stopping us dead in our tracks. Gasping in pain, I glared at her to see her dropped jaw and utter shock. “Is that an aurora canine?”
Following where she looked, I’d be damned if there weren’t an aurora canine.
They weren’t common pets, but nobody could deny that onyx-purple coat, the mane around the face with hidden voltage.
Aurora canines are a bit like dogs, but extremely territorial and protective.
Their fur conducts bolts of static shocks to use in defense if needed.
Named after the witch that accidentally created them, they actually belong to a family of four, each hiding a different magic within their mane: voltage, flames, ice, and shadows. I’d never seen the others in real life.
Because of their ability, they aren’t allowed in many areas in towns like Old Ashton. Which was why Maggie still had her nails sinking into my skin. “Yes.” I pulled her finger daggers from my flesh. “I guess we do have some things here in the sticks that Old Ashton doesn’t.”
She tossed me a look but remained glancing over her shoulder as the aurora canine passed us by.
“You see that barn a couple pastures back?” I asked, distracting her.
There it stood, barely visible through the trees and fields.
“Laken and I went to a party there once, until it got busted and we hopped fences all the way back to my house.” I grinned at the memory, bringing a shame to my words.
We weren’t the smartest teenagers. Maggie noticed it, too, judging by her light chuckle.
“Oh, and there’s a river not far where we—”
“I don’t need to know what you did in the river,” she interrupted, rightfully so. Some memories are better left untouched, I supposed.
Moving through Honey Brooke with her, I looked at every place around us and realized almost all of my memories involved Laken and lacked my father.
Laken and I had done everything together back then.
He’d worked at Goldie’s Market for a while, and I remembered waiting on the cobblestone for him to get off.
I remembered sneaking out of my window to go to the river.
I remembered his parents grounding the both of us.
I remembered it all.
And I remembered when I lost it all.
“Oh my Gods!” Maggie’s screech startled me from my carriage-wreck thoughts. “Is that Wilson’s? The library you told me about?”
The distance between us and the pink awning closed. “That’s it, the famous Wilson’s library.”
A hand wrapped around mine and yanked me all the way to the door, where we barged in and found Wilson himself not even bothering to look up.
He’d put out more plants since the last time I’d visited, their leaves dangling over the shelves.
The scent of books and leather remained heavy in the air, unbothered by Maggie storming in.
Maggie, I noticed after coming seconds from slamming into her, stood frozen by her amazement as she watched books flutter above.
Blush flooded her cheeks and her eyes rounded with the kind of gaze a child has after seeing magic for the first time.
A pink-leathered book landed in her hands, and before I had the chance to read the title, she’d flipped it open and walked toward the other end of the library.
Chuckling to myself, I tapped Mr. Wilson’s desk as I passed. “Hello, Mr. Wilson.”
“Reece,” his old voice whispered. “Your friend seems to be enjoying it here.”
So he did notice. “She’s exploring while she can.”
He smiled. Wilson loved newcomers. He loved people falling in love with what he offered. “That’s all any of us can do.” He returned to his readings.
Though I’d been here a thousand times, I wandered the aisles and waited for something to catch my eye. Being more of a mood reader, I didn’t typically come in with a plan. I preferred to roam until something found me instead.
It took reading the blurb of several books for my nerves from earlier to calm. Truthfully, I felt thankful to be surrounded by endless books and my best friend. I needed that break.
A break from Laken.
And a break from thinking about him.