9. Helene
Helene
An hour later, I’m still anxious and squirming.
The black-haired man takes up too much room in my head, room better spent thinking about how to organize the shelves to make both Barnes and me happy people.
At least he’s well on his way to something happy-adjacent thanks to his initial call with the insurance company.
The door clanks, followed by a curse.
I glance up sharply from the bottom shelf near the collection of drinking horns, a check of the grandfather clock showing noon. “Audra?”
Another clank, another string of swear words, and then, “Can someone help me? My crutch is stuck on one of those stupid jugs.”
I race up fast enough to go lightheaded. The entry is clogged with odds and ends, fine for a normal person to maneuver, but not a young woman with mobility aids.
“I didn’t realize how late it was,” I say, helping her extract her crutch.
She’s red-faced and sweaty, her curls pulled behind a checkered leather headband cracked by age. “Yeah, well, you have chores to do. You’re busy.”
“You had Laverne drop you here?”
I nudge a hand to Audra’s back and pull up short. She hikes herself forward on her crutches toward the step stool we push to the side of a barrister’s bookshelf for occasions like these.
“I thought it would be better to keep you company than sit in the apartment alone and wait for your break,” she replies.
“You might as well get some work done. You know how Barnes feels.” Together, we recite, “If you’re here, you’re working.”
The knot is back in my chest but having Audra here soothes it. Until—
A prickle of awareness shoots up my spine. Someone is watching me. I stall at the desk. The road is packed, the tragedy yesterday drawing crowds, but none of them take notice.
Finally I spot him. There. On the other side of the street. A man stands with his face shielded by shade, a high collar brushing the back of his neck.
And I felt him before I saw him.
Run.
That’s the right instinct and my first one under general circumstances. Unsettling dudes checking you out this way will lead to final girl syndrome, if you’re lucky. If you’re not, you're a skin suit.
I...
Don’t want to run away.
Not like I should. Not when something hits me with a punch to the gut and a voice in my head that doesn’t belong to me. There you are. It’s you.
I’m stared at. Studied. His eyes are on me, and I’m...safer? No. Safer is stupid.
There are no creepy vibes coming off him, only the eerie tingle of hair lifting, the way anyone’s would, being watched.
“Helene? Are you listening to me?”
Audra’s question comes from a distance. Without blinking or tearing my gaze from the man, I hum in my throat.
“I said I hope you don’t mind. I brought the bag. I thought, well, I felt like we needed it. I’m not returning it.”
Her voice swells with defiance.
How did she know?
How did she not?
Still staring at the strange man with his tawny skin, I reach into the satchel she holds out for me. “I'll need you to pay Esmerelda for these.”
"Sure." She stretches the word like taffy, sticky and unbelievable.
Another reading. Another answer to a question I have no clue how to ask.
When I drag a glyph from the pouch, it’s Eihwaz (?)—death, rebirth, the axis between worlds.
I break the standoff to study the stone, running my thumb over the gold engraved symbol. “This is weird as hell.”
First Thurisaz, then Perthro, now Eihwaz. Why can’t I put together a complete picture?
Why does the rune, and the man, bring another tremor?
At Audra’s questioning noise, I toss her the sigil. She holds it up to the light and shoots me a confused look but says nothing.
“Some dude,” I explain. “He’s looking at me.”
“Makes sense. People always watch you. And me. But for different reasons.”
They do. They stare at her like people do a car wreck.
Audra throws the rune back, and I catch it with hardly a look behind me.
“I’m going to talk to him.”
“It’s a hell of a way to use your lunch break.”
“A friendly conversation.” My hand wraps around the doorknob but by the time I pull, the man is gone. “Oh. I guess not. The problem solved itself.”
“He probably saw the look of deadly intent in your eye and turned tail and ran. A deer caught in headlights,” she jokes.
“No.” My voice goes soft. “I don’t think he’s the kind of person to run.”
Now I’m getting reads on people. The next thing will be seeing auras, the way Mom started to see them around the time she was pregnant with Audra.
Soon I’ll start hanging sigils of protection on all the windows along with hex bags. I can’t let myself go down the way she did.
I have to be there for her, whatever happens.
“Doesn’t matter, anyway.” I turn to her with a grin and shove the rune into my pocket with the other. “Now get the log books while I do inventory. I think we—”
The door opens, and we pivot in unison at the garish floral print. Seal and Bunny wave me out of their way.
“Candlesticks,” Bunny says in lieu of hello. “Barnes said he was getting new ones in.”
“Ah, yeah.” I clear my throat. “He did. I haven’t had a chance to stock them yet.”
“Candlesticks and Poe.” Seal lets out a throaty groan of pleasure that has Audra shuddering. “Please tell me you didn’t sell my Poe yesterday.”
My smile thins and warps. “No, we have plenty.”
Those two used to live on a cruise ship together. It was their way of traveling the world without having to pay for flights. But when Bunny suddenly developed an inner ear infection that made her seasick, they disembarked in New York and crept their way up the east coast.
Now the two old spinsters are our problem.
Not a problem, I correct. Local color.
The grin remains pinned in place when Seal shrugs out of her winter coat and thrusts it into my face, along with the reek of mothballs.
Bunny crowds close. The entryway is too small for a group of people. I’ll have to get some of the books and oddities out of the way so our older patrons, and my sister, don’t trip.
Keep busy, I tell myself. If you’re working, you’re not thinking. Or remembering.
“Did you hear about what happened at the Longship Festival yesterday?” Bunny’s eyes light beneath the folds of skin and the weight of peacock eyeshadow.
Seal elbows her. “Ninny. She was there. She had a booth. She saw it.”
“All of it?” The two of them are formidable opponents.
Both women only come up to my breasts and I’m not tall. The tops of their blue curls form a weightless cloud as they herd me out of the aisle until my spine presses to the barrister’s bookshelf.
“The town is positively buzzing with news of the attack,” Seal informs me. “Some are saying it was a hoax. A way to drum up business.”
“Mass hysteria.” Bunny provides the flourishing final sentence, and they pause.
Waiting for an answer from me, since I was there.
“What actually transpired, Miss Blake? Was there trouble? Or was it what they’re trying to pass off as a weather event?” Seal pushes.
I distance myself to hang their coats on the wobbly rack in the corner. “It happened so fast, everything is a blur.”
Bunny scoffs. “We’re not accepting drivel instead of facts. If we're hungry for slop, we'll watch the news. Tell us what really happened."
“You know we weren’t able to attend.” Seal taps her thigh. “Bum hip kept me from going up and down those hills. Hell of a place to host a Festival, if you ask me.”
“It’s the only area in town large enough for it, and they can’t exactly hold the rowing contest in old man Kimbel’s field, can they?” Audra quips from her stool.
Seal sniffs and says, “No one likes sarcasm, my dear.”
“There isn’t much to tell.” I present my arm out to gesture for the women to follow me. “And I’m sure the council is already working hard to get it cleaned up. Weather event. It came out of nowhere and destroyed the booths.”
I nod decisively.
Of course the town is buzzing. Too much happened for it to be quietly swept under the rug the way people want. But I can’t give the women what they want. I won’t say anything.
We’ve been scrutinized daily because of the situation with Mom. And Audra being in a wheelchair? Forget it.
We’re trying to go about our lives.
“Ladies?” I step aside to let Seal and Bunny totter past me, then slide my attention toward my sister.
She clenches the log book in her hands and shrugs like she can’t be bothered.
The women leave with their pocketbooks lighter, having dispensed with their exact change, and a collection of Poe poems divided between them. I’ve promised to deliver the candelabra in tarnished silver to their apartment when I close up for the day, since the women have errands to run after this.
“And don't fucking come back,” Audra calls to the clanking of the sign against the door.
“They’re eccentric,” I correct her, counting out their wrinkled bills and sliding them in the right slots in the register.
“They’re gossips, and you know it. They only came in here because they heard about what you did yesterday. And did anyone ask you how you were? No. Not once.”
“No one knows what I did.” Hell, I don’t know what I did.
My muscles are loose and limber rather than tense. After a fight like the one I had, wouldn't my body feel it? This physique isn’t made for running. Or physical activity beyond my twice a month free class.
Mom's training.
I shake the thought loose and crush it underfoot.
Audra limps back to her stool and settles with a flounce of fabric from her peasant blouse. She hauls the books onto her lap, finding the appropriate page and marking it with a jab of her finger.
“Don’t tell them.” Her voice goes soft. “Any of them. Don’t say a word to any of these vultures. They don’t understand.”
She’s right. I bend to grab a box Barnes dropped off and rest it on my hip.
“I know,” I reply. “You have things handled here?”
“You mean against the hordes of villagers who want to talk about us? Yes, I think I have it covered. And if any of them get too frisky then I’ll beat them with my crutch.”
“Or the hardbacked Mark Twains over there. They pack a wallop.”