Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Emmy let out a frustrated breath as she searched for a spare binder.
She had to have one. She loved binders. Just as she loved the colorful tabs and dividers she could use to separate them into different sections.
Yet a thorough search of her desk, her nightstand, and even some of her kitchen drawers turned up no binders, no tabs.
It had been such a perfect plan. She’d spend the morning getting started on rewriting her notes, finalizing her business plan, organizing and color-coding everything.
Then she’d go see Lucy. Then she’d go to work.
Somewhere in there, she imagined she would take some time to burst into tears.
But the main game plan was simple: Distract, distract, distract.
And now she couldn’t find a damn binder.
The kicker was, she knew if she went to buy more, she would immediately find a million of them in the freezer or something.
Oh, well. She’d use everything eventually.
Emmy was like a kid in a candy store when she was surrounded by office supplies.
It took a lot of self-discipline to ignore all the highlighters, the rainbow-colored binder clips, and the dry erase boards.
She pretended she had blinders on as she took her small bundle of supplies to the front of the store.
There were a couple people in line ahead of her, and she couldn’t help scanning the impulse-buy shelves. Just to have something to do.
That was when she saw it.
A small display of flashlight keychains.
Was this a sign? Or was she so desperate for a sign that she was ready to believe fate had sent her a flashlight?
Either way, it felt wrong to walk away without taking one. She chose the blue one.
By the time she reached the register, she’d named it Barry.
*
There were several people browsing the various displays and shelves in Lucy’s shop when Emmy walked in.
She was a little impressed that the store was doing such good business on a weekday morning.
Lucy stood at the cash register, ringing up two college-age girls.
Emmy hung back, waited for the transaction to finish.
Once the girls had left, Emmy stepped forward.
She watched in utter astonishment as Lucy’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, God. Can you give me a second?” Lucy asked, holding up a hand. “I just need to… block some of this out.”
Emmy waited while Lucy took a few deep breaths, blinked back the tears, and visibly pulled herself together. When she got the go-ahead gesture, she approached the counter.
“What happened?” Lucy asked, her voice quiet, and so full of pity that Emmy nearly teared up herself.
“I was hoping you could help me figure that out.” She slipped the book out of her purse, placed it on the counter, and slid it across to Lucy.
“Is this the one I sold you?”
“Sort of.”
“You didn’t like it?”
Emmy studied Lucy’s face, but saw no signs of deceit. She seemed interested, a little confused, but neither concerned nor smug. “I spent weeks inside that book.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Is that your way of saying you liked it? Or didn’t like it?”
“No, I mean… I went inside the book. Or it pulled me inside. And I lived in there.”
Lucy gave her a weary look. “Are you trying to mess with me or something? Are you that angry that I gave your sister a reading?”
Emmy stared for a moment. “You really didn’t have anything to do with it. You didn’t know it was magic when you sold it to me.”
Lucy made a frustrated sound. “I don’t have time for this. Do you mind?”
When she reached to take Emmy’s hand, Emmy simply shrugged.
Lucy laid a hand on top of hers, frowned, and then picked up Emmy’s hand to hold it sandwiched between both of her own.
Her eyes flickered back and forth, almost like she was in a waking kind of REM sleep.
Emmy waited. Finally, Lucy released her and looked at her with shock.
“You’re not—” She stopped herself, her gaze sweeping her shop, no doubt noticing there were plenty of people around to overhear their conversation. “You’re not bullshitting me,” she said in a hushed voice. “You went through something.”
“What did you see?”
“I didn’t see… not the way you mean it. I could tell you weren’t lying to me, and I got flashes of some emotions, some images. I’m better at looking forward, not back. You really thought I sold you some kind of magic romance novel?”
“You did sell it to me.”
Lucy waved her hand in a quick, impatient motion. “I sold you a book. I didn’t know it was possessed or whatever.”
“Is it? Possessed, I mean,” Emmy clarified.
“How should I know?”
“You’re psychic!”
A couple heads turned.
Lucy massaged her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Do you have to be somewhere?”
“Not until this afternoon.”
“Can you come upstairs to my apartment so we can talk in private?”
“Sure.”
Lucy looked over at a young woman with long, black hair and a pentagram tattoo on the side of her neck. “Selene, I’m going to grab a cup of tea with my friend. Can you mind the store for a bit?”
“Gotcha covered,” Selene replied, smirking a little.
Emmy picked up the book and followed Lucy to a door at the back of the store. Lucy unlocked it, allowed Emmy to walk through, then locked it behind them. They went up a narrow flight of stairs to another door, which Lucy also unlocked and then locked again behind them.
“Your employee definitely thinks we’re about to have sex,” Emmy informed Lucy as she looked around the cozy space.
“Yes, probably,” Lucy replied. She slipped out of her shoes and left them by the door, so Emmy did the same.
The apartment was cute, clean, and homey.
She had expected a lot of velvet cushions, crystals dangling from windows, beaded curtains, and maybe a cauldron on the stove.
Instead, the decor ran to simple and homey.
The colors were bright and inviting, the kitchen a little cluttered.
There wasn’t a beaded curtain in sight, and the windows were covered by standard-issue slatted blinds.
“I save all the commercial trappings of professional psychics to the shop,” Lucy said in answer to Emmy’s thoughts.
It was unclear if she’d read her mind or simply guessed what she’d been thinking based on her expression.
“Would you like some coffee? Tea? Pop?” She opened the fridge, scanned the contents. “Never mind. I don’t have pop.”
Emmy thought of Will teasing her over that word. Everything was going to remind her of him, wasn’t it? For how long? How long would hearing people talk about soft drinks make her heart hurt?
“Maybe some water,” she said quietly.
Lucy poured two glasses, brought them to a small, round table. “You’re hurting again. I’m sorry.” She placed the water on the table. “Let’s see what we can see.”
Emmy joined her and set the book down. She sipped water and tried to breathe through the worst of the pain in her chest. Lucy ran her fingers over the book, opened it, flipped through it, closed it again, laid her hand on it.
Emmy focused all of her attention on that, on the surprisingly smooth and soothing motions, like a dance of hands, fingers, and pages.
“I do feel something,” Lucy told her. “I felt something when I sold it to you, too. It was almost like it was alive. I started talking to it, didn’t I?”
“Yes. I made fun of you for it.”
“You sure did.” Lucy paused to take a drink of water. “It feels different now. Still alive, but… sleeping? Dormant?”
“What does that mean?”
Lucy smiled wryly. “You’re still waiting for my eyes to roll back in my head and for a thousand voices to sing from my open mouth, delivering answers to all your questions in terrifying harmony, aren’t you?”
Emmy shrugged petulantly. “It would be nice.”
“Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. I’m psychic, yes, but I’m not some kind of all-knowing, all-powerful time and space wizard.”
“So you can’t help me at all?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lucy replied patiently.
This time, when she put her hand over Emmy’s, it was a gesture of comfort and nothing more.
“I had to put up a lot of mental blocks before I could stand to be near you. You’re not just hurting.
What you feel is anguish. My heart breaks for you. I want to help.”
Damn it. She was so sincere, so full of empathy and understanding, that Emmy wanted to weep. Again.
“Will you tell me about it?” Lucy asked. “I only got vague images when I read you earlier.” She paused, smiled as if listening to a voice only she could hear. “You already told May. That’s good. Would you mind going over it again?”
“It’s a long story,” Emmy warned her.
“I’ve got time.”
She went through it much as she had done with May, but Lucy interrupted more often to ask clarifying questions.
At least she didn’t have any emotional fits over Emmy’s epiphany regarding Andrew.
At some point, Lucy took out her phone and typed into it.
When Emmy faltered, Lucy gestured for her to keep going.
“Just taking some notes.”
“Oh. Okay.”
While she picked up the thread of the story, in the back of her mind, Emmy felt like she was at a doctor’s office getting an evaluation.
It was all very professional and clinical.
That helped a great deal, as she was trying to keep her emotions out of it.
Best to stay detached. She still had to get through a shift at work after this.
“It’s clear that you didn’t lose any time while you were in the book.” Lucy looked back at it, tapped the cover as she thought. “You didn’t read this version?”
“No. I almost did. I didn’t notice it had changed at first. I wanted to go back in, go back to Will, but I… I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been right. I just… closed the book. I left him.” Emmy blinked furiously as the guilt ate at her. “I told him I wouldn’t leave him.”
“I think you can forgive yourself for that one. You didn’t choose to leave him. He would have known that.”
The words were true enough, but Emmy felt like the worst kind of traitor.