Chapter 29
My sisters pick up the moment I FaceTime them, and I’m already bracing myself.
“Thank God!” Cait wails. “No texts! No nothing! We thought you fell off the mountain! We thought you died in a mountain murder cult!”
“Phone signal is spotty,” I begin weakly. Which isn’t true, but it’s not like she’s just going to show up and call me on it. “And I don’t always get notifications since that last update. But I’m fine!”
“We didn’t know that!” She throws up her hands. “Jemma said you might’ve gotten abducted by Bigfoot. Or eaten by bears.”
“There is a startling lack of Bigfoot around here, although there are several helpful books on the subject in the video store. And I haven’t seen a bear yet. It’s the turkeys that worry me.”
Cait’s in her home office, and Jemma is in her Instagram-ready studio apartment, surrounded by dying plants in cute little pots. I want to hug my sisters so badly it hurts.
“So what’s kept you so busy that you had us about to file a missing person report?” Cait asks. Her eyes are elsewhere, and I know that she’s probably using this time to zoom through her never-ending inbox.
“Let’s see. I’ve got someone building shelves for the bookstore. I joined the Chamber of Commerce. And I went to Walmart and started getting the apartment up to my standards….”
“So you bought a coffee maker,” Cait fills in, and I point at her and wink.
Jemma leans in. “Have you met anybody?”
“So many people! The couple who owns the inn, the entire Chamber of Commerce, the folks at the bar, the daughter and granddaughter of our grandmother’s best friend. Everyone has been very welcoming.”
“That’s not what I mean. Have you met any cute guys? Or girls?”
“Or local cryptids?” Cait adds.
“There aren’t a ton of young people in town,” I say, realizing how far I’m having to go not to lie to people when I’m avoiding the truth these days. “Or cryptids. We’re too far south for Mothman, unfortunately.”
“But you’re really opening a bookstore?” Cait asks. She finally focuses on me. “I bet you’re neglecting all the important stuff. You’re going to need a logo and a website. A color palette. A brand. What’re you going to call it?”
I take a deep breath. I’ve been going back and forth on this very topic in my head. Upscale or homey? Whimsical or serious? What kind of bookstore do I want? But the answer I’ve come up with is the simplest one.
“The Arcadia Falls Bookshop and Boiled P-Nut Emporium,” I say.
After a long pause, they both burst out laughing.
“Oh my God, Rhea, you cannot call it that. I won’t let you,” Jemma wheezes. “How would I even tell people? That’s mortifying.”
“More important, how would I fit all that on a business card?” Cait asks.
Judging by the reflections in her eyes and the click of her keyboard, I can tell that she’s already trying.
“Maybe Downtown Books? Or Mountain Books and Peanuts?” she suggests.
“Or even just drop the part about the peanuts.” Jemma’s nose wrinkles up. “Maybe drop the peanuts entirely.”
“The peanuts are nonnegotiable. The town would riot,” I tell my sisters, using my Big Sister Voice. “For the past decade, the peanuts have been the real moneymaker. So maybe if people keep coming in for peanuts, they’ll get comfortable enough to come in for more.”
“Booknuts,” Jemma mumbles to herself. “Shells ’n’ Shelves. B’s and P’s. Wait. No.” She grins, eyes alight. “Nuts for Books!”
And honestly, my jaw drops.
I…kind of love it?
“Short, simple, does twice the work,” Cait agrees. “And gives it a playful feel. Kinda homey. Very approachable.”
“Maybe I could have a squirrel mascot, or collect squirrel art,” I say. “Oh my God. I just remembered—there’s literally a taxidermy squirrel in the antiques market. You guys, I already have a squirrel.”
I don’t even realize that I’m doing it, but the little dictionary is in my hands, and I’m turning it over and over as the possibilities mount up. This all just feels so perfect.
“Now, Cait, I’m gonna need a logo. Classy but whimsical. Inviting. Don’t want to scare off the locals or make the tourists turn up their noses. It should be child-friendly, but like there’s stuff for the whole family. For everyone.”
“ is available.” Cait looks up, very serious now. “Pretty cheap, too. Nine bucks per year. Buy it?”
“Buy it.” I chuckle, tingling with delight. “Man, it sure is nice when one sister is an advertising genius and the other one is an influencer with great ideas.”
“I dunno,” Cait mutters as she works her magic. “Jemma did also suggest Booknuts, which is not great.”
“I meant people who were nuts for books not, like, books with, um, bits,” Jemma says. “Obviously.”
“Well, you know, Jem, the guy who came up with truck nuts is certainly raking it in. Maybe we have someone 3D-print book nuts, and—”
“I withdraw my support if testicles are involved,” Jemma says prissily.
“We’re getting off track. When’s the grand opening?” Cait asks.
I grimace. This is the not-so-fun part. “I’m not sure. Now that shelves are going up and we’ve got a name, I guess I’ll go talk to Tina and Colonel about business stuff. Hopefully a couple of weeks?”
“Halloween,” Jemma says, as if it’s already decided. “With a party. It’s the perfect theme.”
“I’ll have some logo ideas over to you tonight. Do you have colors? Any kind of style? A favorite font?” Cait is grinning, a sure sign that my business, for at least a little while, will be her hyperfixation.
“The walls are bright white, and the wood will be honey gold. I want things to feel light and airy. Pastel rainbows, maybe. A mural. Quirky but aesthetic. But not too dull—no sad beige books for sad beige children. And not too old or frumpy or country. Like, the kind of Etsy store that makes you want to pay extra for pretty gift wrapping, you know?”
“Oh, Rhea, you have to let me come up and help style things, once you have stock!”
“I know, Jem.”
“And then you have to let me fix whatever Jemma does.”
“I know, Cait.”
“Rude!” Jemma complains.
“You guys…” I stare down at the tiny dictionary in my hands. “I have a really good feeling about this. For the first time, it’s like I can see the future I want. Like I’m finally the main character.”
“As long as the book isn’t horror or true crime, that’s great,” Cait says. “Just watch out for—”
“Shush!”
My sister goes silent as I turn to listen.
There it is again.
A knocking noise from downstairs. It doesn’t sound like a fist on the glass door of the video store, though. All the little hairs on my arms rise, and I pick up my phone and fetch the flashlight I bought at Walmart.
The knocking grows more insistent.
I hope it’s Hunter, but I know it isn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Cait asks.
“There’s someone knocking downstairs,” I say.
With my sisters still on FaceTime, I sidle down the darkened stairs.
I could turn on the light, but that would just reveal my position to whoever is down there.
When I step off on the bottom floor, the lights are off in the video store, with just a scant orange glow near the front window, the streetlamps casting their light through the dirty glass.
“Hello?” I call.
“Oh my God, we’re about to watch her get murdered,” Jemma whispers. “We’re witnesses!”
“I don’t think murderers knock,” I say. “It’s probably some crazy old coot looking for their nightly peanut fix. This place used to be open until ten, and as long as the door was open, it was on the honor system.”
“That’s a horrible way to run a business!”
“I know, Cait. Now shush.”
I shine the flashlight around the room, but it’s mostly empty now, other than piles of wood. All the tall, cheap shelves that used to divide the space are gone, either donated or tossed. There’s not really anywhere to hide, except under the counter or behind one of the closed doors.
When the knock happens again, I jump, and my sisters scream.
“What is it?” Jemma barks.
And I know, but I don’t tell her.
Because for one thing, I don’t want to get that awful choking feeling, and for another, she would think I had lost my mind.
Oh, it’s just the poltergeist in the storage room. No big deal. It just likes stacking chairs and mopping badly, but I don’t think it can open doors.
Yet.
That is what I absolutely do not say.
“Uh, we’re closed!” I call for my sisters’ benefit. “Sorry. Our grand reopening will be on Halloween.”
I’m not shouting at anyone, because there’s no one there, but it seems to work.
“Man, those people are nuts for nuts,” Cait says.
I take one last look at the door to the storage room. The doorknob twitches.
“No!” I say firmly, like I’m talking to a naughty dog.
Cait looks confused. “No?”
“He was shaking the door handle. Guess I need a bigger sign. And speaking of peanuts, do y’all know how that works? Do they come wet or dry, and how long do I boil them? Do I have to wash them first?”
I head back upstairs, and our conversation returns to more mundane topics before we wish each other a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck and end the call.
The knocking has stopped—I guess poltergeists respond to firmness—but I’m on edge for the rest of the night.
I was so busy asking Shelby about finding spells that I forgot to ask how to get rid of unwanted ghosts.
I add that to my to-do list, which seems to constantly grow despite how efficacious I’ve been so far.
As I lie in bed, waiting for the knocking to start up again, I know what has to happen next: I need Hunter to put the upstairs door back on its hinges.
I am well aware that the whole point of a ghost is that it’s incorporeal, but I’d feel better with at least two layers of protection between myself and anything that finds its way into the empty store down below.
I won’t go in the storage room again, and hopefully that means the poltergeist won’t creep up the stairs and bop me with a mop while I’m asleep.
If Maggie were here, I could ask her about it. How ghosts work, if it was here when she was alive, if it can hurt me, if I can get rid of it.
But Maggie is gone, and I am haunted in more ways than one.