Seraphina - 25 Years Old
Night has a funny way of making ordinary things look guilty. Trees become people. Mailboxes become monsters. Garden gnomes become well… Garden gnomes.
Although Gerald insists, he’s much more intimidating after sunset. Personally, I disagree. He’s wearing a tiny red hat. It’s difficult to fear someone dressed like a Christmas decoration.
“You’re slouching again,” Gerald grumbled from his spot on the dashboard.
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
Frank sighed.
“She’s been slouching since Tuesday.”
“It is Tuesday.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re seven inches tall.”
“Height has nothing to do with posture.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Frank, who sat beside him wearing a chipped blue hat, sighed dramatically.
“Children,” he muttered.
“Can we focus? We have a schedule.”
See?
This is why people think writers are strange.
We don’t imagine people. We imagine conversations.
There’s a difference. A very important one.
Well, that and I have a few well how would you say screws loose.
I just call it better than the average human, we have an ability or so I say.
People call it eccentric. My mother called it “concerning.” My therapist called it “something we’d discuss next session. ” Gerald calls it half ceramantic.
Anyway…
You’re still here. Interesting. Most people would’ve run the moment Gerald started critiquing my posture. You stayed. Either you’re wonderfully curious… Or catastrophically bad at recognizing red flags. I’m hoping for the first one. Although, statistically speaking, it’s probably the second.
Gerald folded his tiny ceramic arms. He doesn’t really but I like to think he does.
“They’re judging you.”
“They’re not.”
“They are.”
“I can practically hear it.”
Frank sighed.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Gerald’s right.”
“Traitor.”
“I prefer realist.”
I ignored them. Mostly because they were impossible to win arguments against. You’d think being made of ceramic would make them less opinionated. It doesn’t. If anything, it makes them stubborn.
Since you’ve decided to stick around, I suppose you deserve a story. Not the whole story. That would be cheating. Besides, every good mystery tells you just enough to keep you interested and just little enough to make you suspicious of the wrong person.
That’s the fun of it.
Readers love solving puzzles.
You meet someone with shifty eyes? Obviously, the killer. Someone wears black all the time? Definitely hiding something. Quiet neighbour? Secret basement.
It’s adorable, really.
People always look where they’re expected to look. Rarely where they should.
Gerald cleared his throat.
“That sounded dramatic.”
“I write horror.”
“You wrote three pages describing a spoon once.”
“It was an important spoon.”
Frank nodded thoughtfully.
“It was a very unsettling spoon.”
“Thank you.”
People think writing horror means waiting for inspiration to strike.
It doesn’t. It means staring at a blinking cursor while drinking coffee that’s gone cold, wondering if your editor will notice that Chapter Twelve is three days late.
She notices. Editors always notice. Mine has developed a delightful habit of ending every email with:
Just checking in :)
No one who uses a smiley face that aggressively is simply checking in. They’re threatening you politely. Gerald smirked.
“You should’ve finished the chapter.”
“I was busy.”
“Doing what?”
I looked toward the object waiting by the front door.
“…Research.”
Frank followed my gaze.
“Research with sparkles?”
I looked at the bright pink suitcase.
“The sparkles were on sale.”
Gerald let out the kind of sigh reserved for people who had given up on life years ago.
“Of course they were.”
I smiled sweetly.
“Beauty comes in many forms.”
“It also comes with better wheels,” Gerald muttered.
“…Don’t remind me.”
I grabbed the glittery handle. It didn’t move. I frowned.
“Oh…”
I gave it another tug.
“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Gerald smiled.
“I told you to buy the black one.”
The suitcase was heavier than I’d expected.
Correction. Everything is heavier than expected if you are 5 feet nothing wearing heels in the middle of the night.
Don’t judge, I feel sexy shhh. I gripped the sparkly pink handle and dragged it across the gravel.
It scraped across the gravel with all the grace of a dying walrus.
Honestly…
Whoever invented plastic wheels deserves jail. Minimum sentence: Fifteen years. No parole. Gerald voted for life. I froze. Nothing. Just the wind and the moon. Good. I hated audiences. The moon looked enormous. Which was rude. The moon has absolutely no business judging me from up there.
“Remind me,” I whispered.
Gerald looked offended.
“About?”
“Never buy luggage with plastic wheels again.”
“I told you to get the black one.”
“The black one was ugly, the pink one had sparkles.”
“The black one had better wheels.”
He wasn’t wrong. I hated when he wasn’t wrong. The suitcase bumped over another stone.
Thunk.
I winced.
“Careful,” Frank whispered.
“I am being careful.”
“Clearly.”
“If either of you would like to help…”
Both gnomes stared at me.
“We are ceramic,” Gerald said.
“A convenient excuse.”
“It’s literally our defining characteristic.”
Fair. I reached the trunk of my car and clicked the key fob. The lid lifted. Finally, I rested my hands on my knees and caught my breath.
“Horror authors,” people liked to say, “must have fascinating research habits.”
They’re right. Last month I spent three hours reading about blood spatter. The month before that I learned exactly how long fingerprints survive underwater. You’d be amazed what the internet lets you search without asking questions. Research. That’s all it was.
You know who would’ve loved this? Dr. Temperance Brennan.
Unfortunately, she’s fictional. Which felt selfish, honestly.
If fictional detectives and forensic anthropologists could stop solving murders for five minutes and come help me, I’d really appreciate it.
Booth too. Mostly because he could carry things.
Oh Bones, she’d know exactly what to do.
Or, at the very least, she’d tell me facts and things.
Then she’d explain it using words I’d have to Google.
But no one was here. Hopefully… I hooked my fingers beneath the suitcase handle.
“One…”
“You’ll hurt your back,” Frank warned.
“Two…”
“Lift with your knees.”
“Three.”
With a grunt, I shoved the suitcase into the trunk. It landed with a heavy
THUD.
I stood there breathing hard.
“Well,” I said.
“That could’ve gone better.”
The night answered with silence. A throat cleared behind me. Every muscle in my body froze. Gerald froze. Frank froze. Even the wind seemed to think,
“…Well, this isn’t ideal.”
Slowly.
Very slowly.
I turned.
“Need a hand?”
Oh. That was inconvenient. Very inconvenient.
Well. That’s…
That’s not fair.
Nobody should look like that under a streetlight. Streetlights are supposed to make everyone look tired. He somehow looked like he’d been professionally lit by heaven itself. Rude.
Gerald sighed.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m literally just standing here.”
Frank leaned forward.
“Your eye is twitching.”
He stood beneath the flickering streetlight; one hand tucked into his coat pocket.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair that looked like he’d forgotten it existed.
The kind of face romance authors describe for three pages.
Unfortunately for him… He landed in the wrong web.
Oh well that’s too bad. He nodded toward the trunk.
“That sounded heavy.”
There it was again. His voice.
Smooth, deep, and rich enough to make my brain forget every coherent thought I’d ever had.
Not honey no honey was too sweet. This was whiskey.
The expensive kind that sat in crystal glasses and burned just enough to remind you it was there.
A voice that settled low in your chest, warm and dangerous, the kind that made perfectly sensible women do remarkably stupid things.
Whoever handed that man a face like that and a voice like this clearly enjoyed watching women lose all common sense. I wasn’t saying I’d lost mine, but it had definitely wandered off for a minute.
“It was.”
“What is it?”
I smiled.
“Books.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Books?”
“I’m very committed to literacy.”
For a second… I thought he might smile. He didn’t.
I walked closer smiling, probably looking like a psychopath.
“I don’t think we’ve met.”
“No.”
“You live around here?”
“I do now.”
“Huh.”
Not suspicious. Not weird at all… He extended his hand. I took it. Warm, firm and steady. Oh… Oh, no. What have you done? You don’t even know it yet, do you? One handshake. That’s all it took. Congratulations. You’ve just become my newest obsession.
You poor, poor man.
“Detective Elias Reed.”
Well.
That complicated things. I had a strict rule about falling for men.
Don’t.
Especially if they carried a badge. Rules, however, had never been my strongest quality. I wonder hmm. Elias gave me one last polite nod.
“Well… I’ll let you get back to your books.”
Books. Right. Those.
“I should probably do that.”
“You should.”
He smiled.
It wasn’t a big smile. Just enough to make one corner of his mouth lift. Honestly? That felt unnecessary. If he was going to smile like that, someone should’ve warned me. He turned and started walking away. I watched him go. Still watching.
Still…
Watching.
Gerald cleared his throat.
“He’s gone.”
“I know.”
“You are aware that continuing to stare after someone leaves is generally considered unsettling?”
“I’m appreciating the scenery.”
“He’s a person.”
“Exactly.”
Frank sighed.
“I give it… three days.”
“Three days until what?”
“You “accidentally” learn his favourite coffee order.”
“I would never.”
Both gnomes looked at me.
“…”
“…”
“…Probably.”
Gerald groaned.
“I’ve seen this movie.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I have and it ends badly.”
“I haven’t even done anything.”
“You’ve imagined your future children’s eye colour.”
I gasped.
“I have not.”
“You were about to.”
“…Brown.”
“I rest my case.”