CHAPTER TWENTY

R UBY

Even after my late night with Torrence, I don’t sleep in. My world is full of too many interesting things now to waste time sleeping.

Rose’s door is still closed, so I tug on my boots and a sweatshirt, aiming for an early walk to settle my energy a little. But when I reach the back door leading to the woods, I freeze.

It’s wide open.

Obviously, the alarm isn’t set.

I know I was the last one in - and I know I closed, locked, and alarmed the hell out of this building after listening to all of Rose’s stories of weird shenanigans.

Forgetting about my hike, I hurry to close the door and lock up again. There’s a bit of mud and some leaves on the inside mat, but the store is quiet. When I pull up the camera app on my phone, I don’t see anything currently triggered.

No... there.

The history room camera log is full of saved videos. I don’t even bother to watch them, rushing straight into the room. I skid to a stop in the doorway, mouth hanging open as I take it all in.

“Oh hell,” I grumble, frustration rising in my chest. I didn’t hear a storm last night, but the evidence is here.

A window is completely broken, although at least it was one of the old ones we haven’t replaced yet. Glass and pieces of wood, branches and leaves - everywhere. Books fallen off the shelves, some of the pages even ripped away. Stooping down to look a little closer, I debate whether this looks like a break-in and theft.

But really, it just looks like a branch crashed through the window, and the wind did the rest. Bad luck, but not foul play.

Then again, there’s the back door. The wind couldn’t blow that open, not locked and alarmed. Something doesn’t add up between the two. I’m debating whether to bother the local cops again or check for missing books when I hear a scream.

Rose .

Racing up the stairs, I nearly collide with her in the doorway of her bedroom, where she’s wrapped in a sheet and staring wide-eyed back at her bed.

“What is it? Spider?” I spit out, my heart pounding. Rose hates bugs, and while spiders aren’t my favorite, I’m more than capable of smashing one for her.

“N-no,” she stutters, blinking down at me. Even barefoot, she’s got a few inches on me. “Ruby, I... I don’t understand.”

“Come here. Let me get you some coffee.” I coax her into the living room, wondering if maybe she just had a weird dream. She seems really out of it, moving like a zombie as I direct her to the couch. I quickly fix her a mug and curl up next to her.

“Tell me, Rosey.”

Her hands shake and a little coffee sloshes over the edge of the mug. She doesn’t even notice. “A... a dream. I thought it was a dream.”

“You had a bad dream?”

She shakes her head, cursing under her breath as more coffee drips onto the sheet she’s wearing toga-style. “It wasn’t. I think I was sleepwalking.”

“Fuck,” I whisper, my mind already flashing back to the open door. “You’ve never done that before, right?”

“Never. It was so fucking weird, Ru.” Rose seems to be coming back to herself more, even though I can tell she’s freaked out as fuck. I don’t blame her, either.

“Tell me,” I repeat, careful to keep my voice calm so she doesn’t get any more spooked.

“It was actually like this ghost story I heard about, in a local legends book. There was some woman, or whatever, they called ‘Sweet Dreamer’ and a lot of people went missing in the woods trying to find her, like a decade or two ago. She was singing, or calling my name. Something. Shit, I’m not telling this right.”

“Take your time, girl. Drink that coffee instead of spilling it.”

Rose pauses to take a long drink, and I can almost see the relief filtering through her as the caffeine goes down. She mouths a silent “thank you” and takes a deep breath.

“Okay. So, I found a book on local ghost stories in the shop. Most of it was trash, but there was this one story called ‘Sweet Dreamer.’ And I dreamed about the story last night, that I was walking in the woods, following the lure of this ghost or whatever. But... when I woke up, there was mud in my bed. Leaves. My feet are fucking filthy, Ru.”

Rose pokes her toes out from under the sheet to show me, and I frown. Yeah, there’s no getting around it. She was outside.

“Wow. Sleepwalking. Not to um, freak you out even more, but I was just downstairs and I think you left the door open. Like wide open,” I admit, and she blanches.

“What the hell,” she moans, gulping the rest of the hot coffee and wincing as it goes down.

I need to take charge here before she really freaks out. “It’s okay. I mean, I think it’s okay. I checked the cameras and there weren’t any uninvited visitors. I didn’t get a chance to look around before I heard you, though. Go get some more coffee, wash your dirty ass, and I’ll check for any trash pandas that might have sneaked in.”

Rose looks like she might throw up, but she shuffles back into our kitchen, and I zip down the stairs. A quick check of all the rooms shows nothing else out of place, and I’m breathing a little easier when Rose pads down the stairs in her sweats and slippers.

“All clean. Just some dirt from you, I guess.” I gesture to the mat by the door, but Rose is staring at her phone, looking even greener than before.

“Ru, I was fucking naked .” She turns the screen to me, and I watch the security camera’s video of my bestie’s bare ass - just a tiny thong between her and the night air - unlocking the back door and heading into the pitch-black woods.

“Whoa,” I manage. “I mean, you look hot, at least.”

“Fuck off,” she says, but it’s followed by a little smile, and I think she’s starting to relax. The whole thing is weird, yeah, but I don’t want Rose all stressed out and anxious over it. “If I do this again, we’re going to need a different kind of security system.”

“I’ll put a lock on the outside of your bedroom. My prisoner forever.” I cackle, rubbing my hands together as she shakes her head at me. She’s smiling bigger, though.

“I wonder what makes someone just sleepwalk out of the blue like that. Ugh,” she says, shuddering a little.

“Stress?” I shrug. “Maybe you were trying to find Arlo again?” My teasing falls flat as her face shutters, and I bite my lip. “Uh oh. What happened?”

“What a night. Goddamn,” Rose says, shoving her phone in her pocket. “I hope Torrence turned out okay, because Arlo is a fucking douche canoe. He bit me. Like, actually bit me hard enough to bleed.”

“Love bites?” I ask cautiously. Rose shakes her head, glaring.

“He went down on me. Good times were had. And then, like it was a normal thing, he sank his teeth right through my skin. There was blood, Ruby! And then the dumbass looked surprised when I shoved him away and left.”

“And I take it you hadn’t talked about the possibility of biting?” I ask lightly.

“No consent was given.”

I sigh. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you along. Your gut was good on him the first time around.”

Rose’s expression softens and she wraps me in a hug. “No, this isn’t on you. Don’t worry about it. I could have left after dinner, but I chose to drop trou, right? I’m a big girl.”

“Hey, no victim blaming. I give you permission to put him in the Hall of Shame file.”

Rose laughs at that, and I can tell she actually feels better when she starts tapping on her phone, updating the shared notes file we’ve kept for years, detailing every horrible date we’ve each been on. Maybe one day, I’ll publish them into a tell-all memoir, but for now, it serves to remind us that men come and go, but Rose and I are forever.

“Everything good?” I ask when I realize she’s stopped typing again and is just staring blankly down at her phone.

“That’s weird,” Rose murmurs, pinching at the screen. “Why is the camera feed all blurry here? When I come back in.”

I peer over her shoulder at the video that shows her returning from the woods, zoomed in on my naked bestie. “It looks fine to me.”

Rose wipes her screen with her sleeve and watches the video again, muttering under her breath. “I need some more sleep, I guess. Or coffee.”

“Coffee is always the answer, you know that.”

She sighs and flicks away the camera app, staring out the window at the forest.

“There’s more, though,” she says quietly. “Things I’ve been overlooking, or telling myself are nothing. But everything together? Something weird is going on around here, Ru.”

“What have you been hiding?” I ask, trying to go for a teasing tone, but it hurts a little. As far as I know, we’ve always told each other everything.

“I just... I didn’t want you to think I’m unhappy here. Because I’m so all-in for this. I love the shop, and I love living with you as much as we always knew we would.”

“But?”

“But this town spooks me. The woods spook me. That weekend you were gone, I heard all those noises in the shop, and nothing was there. Ruby, I found glass on the floor and no broken window. I fucking cut my fingers on a solid pane of glass - we both know that’s not possible. Add in the alarms acting up, and how I always feel like I’m being watched. I’m always checking over my shoulder for shadows. Now, with this sleepwalking thing? I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

Her words wash over me in a wave of pattern recognition, and even though I know Rose is bothered by all these things, I’m flooded with hope. I usually keep my obsession to myself, but Rose will understand. She knows what I’ve seen.

“Rosey, you know what all of this could be, right? Magic . Just like when I was a kid - there’s something magical here in Clearwater. I knew it!”

Rose gives me a funny look. “But... I don’t know. It’s probably just my paranoia.”

I lean forward and grab her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I think you should trust your gut more. Does it feel like it’s all in your head?”

She scowls and shakes her head. “It better not be. But magic? Really? There has to be an actual explanation for it.”

I flinch a little at the annoyance that’s crept into her voice, confused by her reaction. Rose doesn’t believe in magic like I do, but she’s never said anything negative to me.

Does she think I’m silly for still clinging to what I saw? Childish?

“But how cool would it be?” I tease lightly, smiling at her, silently begging her to be open to the idea. “If there really is something magical in the woods - or someone?”

Rose gives me a hurt look I don’t understand at all and stomps into her room without looking at me. I follow slowly behind, hearing her turn her shower on, but then she’s standing in the doorway, hands on her hips and glaring at me.

“You know, Ruby, sometimes I just wish you could forget about magic and try to see things from my perspective. This is fucking scary, okay? I was naked in the goddamn woods in the middle of the night. I called the cops when you were gone - that’s how scared I was. I know it’s one of your special interests, but even if magic were real, I wouldn’t want any part of it, if it’s evil and dangerous.”

And with that, she closes the door between us, just short of slamming it.

My stomach is churning with anxiety as I work to unravel why she’s mad, what social cues I’ve missed. We never fight, and I freaking hate it. I shouldn’t have brought up magic, even if it makes sense to me. Rose is scared, and I should be making her feel safer, not bringing up more questions. And I haven’t even mentioned the broken window and mess from the storm yet. I should have-

The bell from the front door echoes up the stairs, faint but audible. Now what?

“Rose, someone’s at the shop door. I’m going down,” I call, in case she can’t hear it over the water. We still haven’t opened yet, and worry picks at my brain as I grab a sweater to toss on over my pajamas.

The worry edges toward real concern when I reach the front room and see a police officer standing on our front porch.

Shit - what if someone saw Rose and complained?

“Good morning,” I call, hurrying to disarm and unlock the door.

“Sorry to disturb you so early,” the older cop says, handing me a piece of paper with two faces printed on it. Footsteps echo behind me, and I turn to see Rose peeking out from the hallway, wrapped in her robe. Her eyes widen when she sees the police officer, and she hurries to join me, looking over my shoulder at the paper I’m holding.

“Good morning to you both. I know your store hasn’t officially opened yet, but the force is out checking with everyone in the area. Have you seen either of these young women?”

I stare down at the two smiling faces on the paper, and my stomach sinks. This can’t be good.

“I don’t recognize them,” Rose says, her voice faint. “Are they missing?”

“Unfortunately, ma’am, they are. Reported two days ago, and the chief has decided to bump it up to missing persons.”

I shake my head. “I haven’t seen them. We haven’t had any customers yet, and we’ve been so busy remodeling that we’ve only gone a few places around here. Just a couple of restaurants.”

“One of you is Rose?” he asks, and she raises her hand in an awkward finger-wave.

“Two of our officers spoke with you last week about some supposed break-ins. Anything new on that?”

I can almost hear the wavering in Rose’s mind before she says, “Nothing new. The alarms were tested and haven’t picked up anything else weird.”

I stop myself from looking at her, because I will definitely not be able to keep a calm face. Not with the weirdness we were just discussing upstairs.

“And you’re both new in town, right?” The officer scans the shop behind us, probably taking mental notes on the changes we’re making.

“Yes, a few weeks ago,” I confirm. “We’ve been here in the shop most of that time, getting it ready.”

The officer looks like he wants to come in and look the place over, but he doesn’t ask, and I don’t offer. “The young women were last seen together at the restaurant called Goblin Market , two nights ago. Their social media accounts were updated with these pictures, and phones were last pinged in the building. Do you know the place?”

I nod, something sour curdling in my stomach.

“Um, yeah. We’ve been there a couple of times,” Rose says, and we exchange loaded glances. “We were there last night, actually. For... for a double date.”

The cop narrows his eyes and flicks his head in the direction of the restaurant, although you can’t see it from our shop. I know Rose had to say it, but I suddenly feel like we might become suspects because of it.

“I’ve been told the place was closed the last two nights. But you were there? And you didn’t see these girls?”

“No,” I say quickly. “I mean, yes, we were there. But it was just the two of us, the owner Torrence, and his friend Arlo. They were closed, and the rest of the building was empty, as far as I know.”

“And you’d been there before? Did anything look different? Suspicious?”

Rose and I both shake our heads, and she adds, “No. It all looked normal, just like it did when we went before, when they were open.”

“And I was on the rooftop with Torrence after dinner. We were watching the moon,” I explain, feeling silly. Then I think about how I woke up alone, and a shiver runs down my spine. I barely know him and Arlo, and new people are even harder for me to read. I could have missed anything.

The cop reaches for the photo, finally looking like he’s ready to move on to another interview.

“Well, thank you both for the information. We’ll be in touch if we have more questions. Call us if you think of any details that might be relevant. But be careful. This isn’t the first time young people have gone missing around here,” he warns, and my eyebrows shoot up.

Holy hell. That is definitely not good. I lock up carefully after they leave, and by the time I look back at Rose, she’s got her worried mama-bear face on.

“I’m so sorry, Rosey-” I begin, but she waves her hand impatiently.

“You really need to stop hiking alone at night, Ru,” she blurts, and guilt squeezes my stomach.

“I know. I will, promise. Maybe those girls just stayed overnight with a couple of the hot servers, and they’ll turn up soon,” I offer, wishing I could believe it. The photos had reminded me way too much of Rose and me, going out together, walking home alone, and never worrying about a thing.

“Seriously, Ru. That ghost story about the people disappearing might be tied to an actual killer who was never caught. Don’t go by yourself. At least take me.” She grimaces at the thought, and I give her a tiny smile, desperate to fix our fight.

“Or, I could use it as a good excuse to spend more time hiking with Torrence. He could fight off anyone who comes after me, and then I can give him a thank-you kiss.” I wink at her. She rolls her eyes, but I think her anxiety is lifting a bit.

“Unless he’s the reason those girls are missing. It sounds a little too much like that ‘Sweet Dreamer’ story.”

I frown, my brain rejecting the warning in her voice. “But he’s only been living here a few years, and you said that was like, twenty years ago. Besides, he’s way too worried about his restaurant - I’m surprised he even made time for the date last night.” Something in my tone must tip her off, and she narrows her eyes at me.

“Wait. What happened on your date? Mine was shit - please tell me yours was better.”

“It was definitely better,” I assure her, stalling. I don’t want to tell her that Torrence kind of just left me for a work problem. His business really does come first. But in the end, I tell her everything, even the weird encounter with Arlo. Because that’s how we are, and I don’t want to return her secret-keeping with any of my own.

“I don’t love that he left you alone up there. It’s problematic in so many ways,” Rose murmurs as we pad back upstairs to our kitchen. She pours another full mug of coffee and settles at the little breakfast nook. “But you still want to see him again?”

I sigh, understanding the truth should embarrass me, although it doesn’t. “Yeah. It’s hard to explain, but there’s something about him that draws me in. I want to get to know him better before making any judgments.”

“You mean you want a little more action,” she teases, and I wiggle my eyebrows at her, glad the mood is finally lightening.

“Slow, girly. I’m taking it slow.”

“I’m starting to think I might need to follow your example.” Rose downs half the mug, wincing again at the temperature. “I need to do some spreadsheets or heavy lifting or something. Blank my mind. Are we still on for soft opening tomorrow?”

“Hell, yes.” I’m already bouncing in my chair, excitement swirling through me at how close we are to the real beginning of this dream. “Let’s forget all about boys and concentrate on books.”

“And besties,” she says, reaching over for a fist bump. I meet it, so relieved our little fight didn’t linger.

No matter what weirdness the world brings us, at least I’ll always have Rose.

“Oh, by the way,” I say, trying to play it casual. “We need to order another window.”

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