Chapter 3
Tess
After placing the bottle out of the way beneath the counter to deal with later—I still didn’t quite believe the enchantment was real, but you never knew, especially in Dead End—I smiled at my new customers and happily rang up sales and took in a couple of pawn items for the next hour. I kept glancing at Spartacus, who’d tired of his morning battles and sat slumped next to the vase shaped like three drunk frogs having a singalong. I hoped my prospective employee was on time. Somebody who didn’t show up on time or even early for an interview wasn’t likely to be a good candidate.
At ten till eleven, my current employee and friend Eleanor Wolf showed up. I needed her to cover the shop while I conducted the interview.
Eleanor was in her early sixties, looked like your favorite neighbor, and could negotiate the bark off a tree and make the tree happy about it. My customers loved her, I loved her, and I knew I’d probably lose her after she got married.
“How’s the wedding planning going?” She and Bill Oliver were soon to be married, an event which would require me to wear a hideous pink-meringue-cake dress.
I held back a sigh.
The things we do for the ones we love.
“Wonderful! But I won’t bore you with the details. Except, we got Zane the cutest little ring-bearer suit!”
Zane was her grandson, and she adored him with the heat of a thousand suns. I’d been forced to … um … been lucky to see maybe a million pictures of him since Eleanor’s son, Dave, had adopted him.
While she chattered on about wedding stuff, I gave myself a mental smack. I was being uncharacteristically snarky about a friend, if even only in the privacy of my mind. Maybe the confrontation with Ace had left me in a bad mood. I needed to shake it off and not bring a bad mood into the interview.
At exactly eleven o’clock, Tina Probst walked into the store. She was nineteen years old; I knew from her resume. She had long black hair in thin braids, warm brown skin, and gorgeous hazel eyes. She looked nervous, but she was dressed appropriately for an interview in neat jeans and a buttoned white long-sleeved shirt, and she wasn’t wearing a ton of makeup or jewelry, which would have worried me because working in a pawnshop is not a white-collar job. We clean. We deal with dusty inventory.
She was more nervous than the job interview alone would merit, which made sense. I’d first met her when she was helping her boyfriend Jimmy try to shoplift from my store. She’d since dumped Jimmy and moved in with her grandparents, who lived on the outskirts of Dead End. I’d heard from the grapevine that she was a nice kid who was doing well and trying to get her life back on track. When she’d stopped by to ask about my Help Wanted notice in the Gazette, she’d looked like she had no hope I’d even agree to an interview. But I’d appreciated her gutsiness in trying, and I’d surprised both her and myself by saying yes.
Now, we’d talk, and we’d see.
“Hello, honey,” Eleanor said, giving her a warm smile. Eleanor’s sunny personality was one of the many qualities that made her so perfect in the job. People couldn’t help but love her.
Tina waved and bit her lip.
“Tina, I’m so glad to see you. Come on into the back with me,” I said. The girl hesitated, but then followed me back into the kitchen.
“Coffee?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, let’s chat.” We sat at the small table, and I picked up her resume for something to do. I’d already studied it and contacted her references. She’d been completely honest about the six-month gap in job history from when she was following the ex around the country. Other than that, she’d graduated high school with good grades and worked at a couple of convenience stores. The managers at both stores had said she was a hard worker and good with the customers. She’d left the first place because the owner sold it and the new owner only wanted to hire his family members.
The second place she’d left to follow the boyfriend. That manager had asked me to tell her she could come back anytime. To me, that was the highest form of praise, so I was leaning toward hiring her. But the interview would be the true test. Before I could ask her anything, though, she took a deep breath and spoke up.
“First, I want to apologize again for … before. And, in case you’re wondering about my terrible judgment, Jimmy isn’t a bad guy. He just made bad choices after some hard luck. But I broke up with him. I’ll never be involved in stealing anything again,” she offered in a small voice, looking down at the table.
“I’m glad,” I said briskly. “I think jail would be awful. Let’s get started. I talked to your references. Mr. Chopra said to tell you he’ll have you back anytime you want a job.”
Her tense face relaxed into a smile. “He is the nicest man. I hated leaving that job, but … Well. Enough of that. The past is the past. Now, let’s talk pawnshops.”
“One of my favorite subjects!”
We chatted for maybe twenty minutes, but after the first five, I knew I’d give her a chance. She was smart and sounded pretty knowledgeable about customer service. She also expressed what I believed was a sincere interest in learning about antiques.
“I think I have what I need,” I finally said, glancing at the clock. We were busy on Fridays, and I’d left Eleanor alone to handle everything for long enough.
“Oh! But—okay.” Her shoulders slumped, and I realized she’d misunderstood.
“No! I mean, I have what I need to offer you the job.”
Her eyes widened with delight. “Really? I get the job?”
“Really. Again, though, it’s just part-time. You understand that, right? And I can’t offer benefits for the most part, but I will give you paid sick days and vacation days. We’ll get you paperwork on that. I’ll give you some Dead End Pawn shirts to wear to work, too.”
“Part-time is perfect! My grandparents are helping me go to college. It’s online, so I only need to go to campus a few days per semester, but I’ll need time to study. They won’t let me pay them rent or anything, but I want to buy my own books and pitch in on groceries. The shirts would be helpful, too. Thanks!”
“That’s great! We’ll absolutely work around your schedule. What are you studying?”
“I’m actually going for a double major in history and business.”
“I love history. Talk to me about anything you study, if you want. I mean that. But now I need to get back to it and help Eleanor.” I stood and smiled at her. She jumped up out of her chair and, before I could stop her, grabbed my hands in excitement.
And then I had to watch her die.
* * *
It was nighttime. We were in a large bedroom, and two people—a man and a woman—were asleep in a king-sized bed. As usual in a vision, I couldn’t move from my spot in the corner of the room, and of course I couldn’t speak. I’d once tried to call out, but it didn’t work. I was only ever a silent spectator.
The man turned over in his sleep and put an arm around the woman’s shoulders. I saw a wedding ring glint on his hand. Both of them were very old. I looked around, wondering where Tina was, but then the woman in the bed let out a sort of sighing gasp and sat up, her hand, which also wore a wedding ring, going to her chest. She turned to her husband and grabbed his hand, waking him.
“Honey?”
“I think it’s my heart again,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you so much,” he said, sitting up and frantically reaching for his phone. “I’m calling 911.”
But it was too late. Tina smiled at him, and then she was gone.
* * *
“Tess?”
I opened my eyes to see a many-decades-younger Tina staring at me in alarm.
“Are you okay? You went funny for a second.”
With almost no effort, I smiled at her. “I’m fine. A touch of vertigo, I think. My sinuses have been acting up,” I lied. One thing I never, ever do is tell the people in my visions anything about them. Nobody should know how or when they’re going to die, and I haven’t been alive long enough to know if they all will come true or not.
I’d had so much—too much—proof that they would come true, dating back to the first time a vision struck. But maybe they wouldn’t all come true. After a few of the particularly terrible deaths I’d seen, I had to cling to that hope.
On the bright side, I’d learned over the years to control the physical reaction I had to the visions. To the peaceful ones, at least. The scary and dangerous deaths were harder on me, but they all used to be so intense that I would collapse. That’s one reason I didn’t touch people. Mostly, though, I didn’t want to know how anybody was going to die.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Perfectly fine. I just need lunch. Can you come in Monday morning and do the paperwork with me? You can start Tuesday.”
“Yes. Absolutely. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!”
I finally got her to stop thanking me and go on her way, and I got straight to work helping with the Friday rush. Just before noon, things slowed a bit, and Eleanor studied my face.
“What happened?”
“I hired her.”
Eleanor sighed. “Softy. Okay, I’ll help train her and keep an eye on her.”
“Thanks. You’re the best employee I’ve ever had.”
“I’m the only employee you’ve ever had. Until now. But quit trying to distract me. What happened? You’re pale.”
“I saw her die,” I admitted.
“Oh, honey.” Eleanor hugged me, which was absolutely fine, because I’d hugged her before and never seen her death. The rule seemed to be I only saw deaths the first time someone touched me, if I saw them at all. Some people were, thankfully, a closed book to me.
“It’s not … awful? Or soon?” Eleanor knew I didn’t talk about the visions, but this was close enough to home. I wasn’t surprised she’d asked.
“No. Neither of those. It was peaceful, and she was loved.” I moved away, finished discussing it, and got on with my day.
“I wish the gloves idea had worked,” she said, for the hundredth time.
“Me, too.” Years ago, when it all started, I’d been sure if I could just wear gloves all the time, I’d never have to see another death. The idea was sound, but in practice, it was horrible. Wearing gloves in Florida, where it was too warm for them most of the time, made me even more of an oddity than I already was. I’d felt distanced—isolated—from people, even though I’d had no intention of touching ninety-nine percent of them, anyway. So, I’d ditched the gloves and taught myself to be more careful. I’d figured out the “rules” of my curse as I’d gone along, and I did the best I could.
It was enough. I had friends and family and I had Jack.
It was enough.
“We need lunch,” Eleanor said. “Pizza?”
“How about sandwiches? After all, Lauren’s Deli was business of the month.” I grinned at her and took cash out of my purse. “Would you mind going to get them? I have some paperwork to get to here.”
After the highly eventful morning, the afternoon was blissfully normal. We ate lunch, waited on customers, and took in a few wonderfully non-magical items in pawn.
“If only every day could be like this afternoon,” I said when we were locking up a little early at five.
Eleanor patted my arm. “Better days ahead, sweetheart. Better days ahead.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
Jack had texted me he was picking up pizza to take to Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike’s for dinner, so I drove out to their house, counting my blessings on the way. I sniffed my wrist where the “enchanted” perfume had almost worn off—realizing I hadn’t told Eleanor about it yet—and laughed at myself. Jack always called me a softy, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.
There were worse things to be.