Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Lucy picked up the book and flipped steadily through the pages.
“If Will is mentioned in here, even as a side character, he doesn’t seem to come up a lot,” she said after a minute.
“I see a lot of Jared, a lot of Bright. Maybe Will is here, but it would be very interesting if he weren’t.
” She went back to the beginning, paused on one of the first couple pages. “Interesting dedication.”
“‘For you.’ Yeah. I read it.”
“It said ‘For you’?” Lucy asked, her eyes laser focused on Emmy’s face now.
“Yeah. I remember because I thought it was a little hokey. Why?”
“Read it again,” Lucy said, and slid the book across the table.
Emmy placed her fingers on the page to hold it open. She read the dedication. Blinked once, hard. Read it again.
For someone else
“What the fuck does that mean?” she demanded.
“I told you the book appeared to be used,” Lucy said slowly, like she was working out some answers on the spot. “I’d say you’re not the first one who took a trip through it.”
Now the tears that sprouted from Emmy’s eyes were angry.
“So it just… what? Sucks random, helpless women into a romance universe, dangles their one true love in front of them, and then yanks them back? Why? What’s the point of that?
” Emmy swiped at her eyes, then turned her glare on Lucy. “What is the goddamn point?”
Lucy didn’t flinch at Emmy’s ire. She simply drummed her fingers on the table, her head tick-tocking back and forth a little as she thought of how she wanted to respond.
“You’ll get frustrated if you keep asking questions and I keep telling you I don’t know,” she said after a while.
“Especially since you’ve equated ‘psychic’ with ‘omniscient,’ which I am not.
So let me hit you with all the I-don’t-knows at once.
” She began to count on her fingers. “I don’t know who wrote this book.
I don’t know if the book was ordinary once, and someone other than the author enchanted it.
I don’t know if the book itself has taken on a kind of sentience of its own.
I don’t know if the magic within the book is benevolent or malicious.
Is that it?” She looked up at the ceiling, tilted her head. “I think so.”
“You’re saying someone did magic to the book. Like a spell. Abracadabra, wave the magic wand.”
Lucy looked back at Emmy with a perplexed expression.
“Not ‘abracadabra’ necessarily, but words can have power. Not waving a magic wand, but certain gestures or actions can take on great meaning. There are forces and energies in this world that can be tapped. It takes a certain amount of belief. Or faith, you could say. With that, some people can manifest things. Can make their wishes a reality.” She raised a sardonic eyebrow, leaned her head on her fist. “You can’t tell me you’re still skeptical.
Not after all you’ve been through. What did you think pulled you into the world of a novel? Too much salty food before bed?”
“Okay, yeah. Fair enough. It’s just… a lot to take in.”
“Let me ask you something. Did you really think there was only one psychic in the world, and that you happened to meet her? You didn’t wonder, not for one second, what else is out there that you’ve never thought to believe in before?”
She hadn’t, Emmy admitted to herself. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that the existence of one psychic definitely meant that there must be others out there. She wouldn’t admit it, though. Her pride had taken plenty of hits lately, and it wasn’t ready to handle another one.
“There’s something else,” Lucy said quietly. “It’s not quite an I-don’t-know.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not sure why or how this book found you, or why it feels it is no longer for you, as the dedication indicates.
But I find it interesting that Will doesn’t appear to be in it anymore.
” She paused again, this time to let her words sink in.
“If he’s not in the book, I’d be interested to know where he is. ”
Hope felt more dangerous than heartbreak in that moment, but Emmy felt it swell inside her despite her attempts to remain neutral. “But he wasn’t there. When I woke up, he wasn’t there.”
“That’s true. You didn’t manage to get him out of the book. I guess I’m wondering if he was ever in the book to begin with. Or maybe it’s better to say the book character you fell in love with only existed because the book… took inspiration, we’ll say, from reality.”
“You’re saying… Will might be here… somewhere. The real Will.”
“‘Might be’ is all I can offer you,” Lucy told her. “It’s something you should think about.”
“Why?” Emmy asked. “Why would it trap me like that? If Will is here somewhere, and I’m destined to fall in love with him or whatever, why not just let me?”
“You ask good questions.” Lucy drank some water, the ice cubes clinking gently in the silence.
“Let’s go with a hypothetical. Hypothetically, you never met me, never bought the book, never fell in love with Will in a fictional world.
You’ve been going about your life as normal, and today, tomorrow, next week, you meet Will.
He’s attractive and open to starting a relationship.
How would you respond? Would you feel ready to take that step with him? To be vulnerable again?”
Emmy sat with that for a while, turning it over, trying to remember the person she’d been only a few days ago (in real time). If Will had reached out, tried to get close to her, would she have let him in? Or would she have run in the opposite direction?
“I guess it’s my turn to say, ‘I don’t know.’”
“Something to think over, then,” Lucy said with a decisive nod. “Do you want to keep the book? Or should I?”
Emmy looked down at the image of Jared and Bright on the cover. It wasn’t her book anymore, apparently. It had told her as much. And she didn’t see herself reading it. Not now, not ever.
“Can you keep it?” she asked Lucy. “But not in your store. Can you keep it up here?”
“Sure.” Lucy scooped it back off the table.
Emmy stood when Lucy did, then felt her eyes go wide as a thought struck her. “Don’t read it!”
Lucy laughed lightly. “Why not? What if I want to find true love?”
“I… I can’t explain it. It feels wrong to have someone else read it right now because I don’t know the ending yet. The real-world ending.”
“I’ll keep it safe and unread. Promise.”
“Thank you. For everything. I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”
“You’re forgiven,” Lucy said, and Emmy could tell she meant it. Just that easy. “Let me walk you out.”
They went back down the stairs and out into the store where Selene was restocking a shelf of multi-pronged sex toys. Emmy swore she saw four prongs on one of them. That was too many prongs, wasn’t it?
Lucy stepped outside with her and put a hand on her arm.
“I hope you find your answers. I hope your love is waiting for you somewhere. But if you get frustrated, I want you to know you can come back here. I can try another reading. Pro bono, since the last one led to a little more chaos than I’m comfortable with. ”
Emmy laughed at that. “Thanks for the offer. May’s wedding is right around the corner, and I’d like to concentrate on being happy for her. Afterwards, maybe I’ll take you up on the reading.”
“Deal. Enjoy the wedding. Tell May to come by sometime and tell me about it. I’d love to see pictures.”
“That won’t be a hardship for her. I’ll tell her.”
*
Work was gloriously boring. Emmy used her downtime to process her conversation with Lucy.
She wanted to see Will again. She wanted to believe she would.
But she hated thinking that her happiness depended entirely on whether a magical work of fiction was on the side of good or evil.
Unfortunately, she leaned heavily toward the evil possibility.
Hadn’t the damn thing put her face-to-face with true love and then spat her out without him?
And then, as if it hadn’t already put her through enough, it had dumped her!
For someone else.
Not just evil, but rude. Childish. Petty. Conniving.
Emmy was still trying to think of more insulting words when the front doors slid open, meaning she had to put her customer service face back on.
She returned to the front desk with a falsely cheerful smile that froze on her face.
Her jaw dropped just a little and then she stayed like that, a deer in headlights.
Apparently, the forces and energies in the world weren’t quite done screwing with her yet.
“Okay… you definitely know who I am,” said the blonde woman who approached the counter. “I don’t know if that makes this easier or harder.”
“I… um…”
Yes, she recognized her. Andrew’s girlfriend wasn’t wearing makeup, and she was in a comfy-looking black hoodie with her hair tied back in a messy bun.
She looked quite different from the polished image Andrew had presented on social media, but Emmy recognized her just fine.
The problem was, she had no idea what to say, couldn’t fathom why she was there.
“I’m going to admit to the creepy part first. I stalked you on social media to figure out where you worked. Andrew wouldn’t tell me.”
“That’s okay. I stalked him on social media, which is why I know who you are. I guess we’re even.”
“I’m not so sure about that, but I’ll take it.
” She looked as awkward as Emmy felt. “Look… you don’t owe me a damn thing, but I’m going to ask you to meet me sometime.
Just to talk. I have a couple questions, and…
it would ease my mind if you’d answer them.
I’m sorry. I know this is weird. If you want me to go, I’ll go. ”