Seraphina
JOEY
The clock above the workbench was old, its plastic casing yellowed by decades of cheap cigar smoke, engine grease, and summers that had been just a little too hot. It didn't tick.
It hummed.
A low electrical whine that had probably driven the first owner mad before everyone else simply stopped hearing it.
Funny how people do that, live with something long enough and eventually your mind edits it out.
Thomas Miller never noticed it anymore.
He sat in his cracked leather office chair with his spectacles slipping down the greasy bridge of his nose, counting the Friday tills one receipt at a time. His thick fingers paused every few notes so he could wet his thumb before separating another bundle of bills.
Slow, methodical, respectable. To this town, Thomas Miller was a good man. He carried the church banner every Founder's Day. He repaired the high school bleachers without charging the district. He donated blankets every winter.
People loved men who fixed broken things.
Especially when those same men quietly ignored the broken people.
To me...
Thomas Miller was simply the man who closed the blinds. Every Friday. Eleven fifteen. Almost precise enough to set your watch by.
Harold Vance would drag his wife behind the hardware store by her hair while the gravel scraped the skin from her knees then came the belt always the fucking belt, the belt was a heavy brown leather with a brass buckle.
Thomas always heard the first scream.
I know he did because that's when the blinds moved. One twist of the little plastic wand.
Blind after blind.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Until the window became a wall, then he'd turn his radio up not loud enough to drown out the screaming, just loud enough to convince himself he couldn't hear it.
It's remarkable...
...how many innocent people spend their entire lives helping monsters not with knives not with fists just with silence.
Silence is terribly underrated...
Thomas finally noticed me when my shadow drifted over the ledger. His head lifted slowly, those thick glasses magnified his eyes just enough to make him look permanently surprised.
"Oh..."
A polite smile spread across his face.
"We're closed, sweetheart."
Sweetheart, what an interesting choice of words
I smiled back not because I was amused but because sometimes the kindest smile is the one people never see twice.
"I know," I said softly.
My voice barely rose above the hum of the fluorescent lights.
"I've actually been waiting for you to finish counting."
He frowned.
"...Waiting?"
"Mm."
I glanced at the neat stacks of cash.
"You always finish before midnight."
His fingers stopped moving.
"Do I know you?"
"Oh..."
I tilted my head.
"No."
A small laugh escaped me.
"But I know you."
His smile disappeared.
I wandered toward the desk as though I were simply admiring the room.
My fingertips drifted over the scattered receipts until they found a cheap blue ballpoint pen lying near the edge.
I picked it up, rolling it slowly between my fingers, watching the fluorescent light glide over the scratched plastic.
"You know..." I said softly, almost thoughtfully.
"I've never liked accomplices."
I looked up and smiled.
"People always think the one holding the weapon is the worst person in the room."
I turned the pen again.
"They're usually wrong."
My eyes settled on his.
"The monster is honest, in a strange sort of way. They know exactly what they are."
I took another slow step forward.
"But people like you..." I whispered.
"You watch."
My smile never faltered.
"You hear every scream."
Another step.
"You know exactly what's happening."
I stopped beside his chair.
"And then you close the blinds."
His breathing changed. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
"Do you know what that makes you, Thomas?"
I leaned down until we were almost eye level.
"Not innocent."
I drove the pen straight through the back of his hand.
His scream exploded through the workshop, echoing off the concrete walls as the pen buried itself into the old wooden desk beneath.
The laptop snapped shut, the plastic coming together with a sharp, hollow clack that broke the quiet of the kitchen. I leaned back in my chair, the old wood answering with a soft creak beneath my weight. For a long moment I didn't say anything. I simply looked at the empty chair across from me.
Or...
Maybe it isn't empty. Maybe you're still there. Still following the words like breadcrumbs through the forest. I wonder if you've started looking over your shoulder yet.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
You know what's funny?
The question drifted into the quiet kitchen like steam from my untouched tea.
People are absolutely obsessed with fingerprints. Every television show, every cheap paperback thriller they all treat a ridgeline like a legal document signed in blood. They think a fingerprint solves everything
I reached into the ceramic fruit bowl and picked up a lemon, turning it slowly in my hands. The peel felt cool beneath my fingertips, the tiny pores catching against my skin.
That’s television. In the real world, a fingerprint only matters if you leave one somewhere investigators actually decide to examine.
Forensic teams don't have the budget or the hours to dust an entire house; they look at the primary transit points.
The doorknobs. The safe locks. The steering wheels.
Every detective show, thriller and true-crime documentary.
They all act as though a single fingerprint ends the story.
I picked up the small silver paring knife from the counter, the steel cold against my palm. I began to peel the lemon.
If only investigations were that tidy.
The paring knife slid easily into my hand into the skin.
Slice.
Turn.
Slice.
The yellow peel curled away from the fruit in one long ribbon.
People spend hours worrying about gloves.
I continued, my eyes tracking the movement of the steel.
They buy those thin latex ones or use dish-gloves from the supermarket, thinking they’re being clever.
But gloves create confidence and confidence makes people sloppy.
If you wear gloves, you don't notice when your elbow brushes a dusty doorframe, or when a loose fiber from your sleeve snags on a rough wooden latch. You think you’re invisible, so you stop watching your moves.
I dropped the long yellow curl onto the table, the naked fruit white and weeping in my hand.
If Joey were real... she wouldn't wear gloves at all.
No. The smartest killers don't hide every fingerprint.
They leave thousands of them. They touch shopping carts at the feed store, coffee mugs at the diner, pens at the bank counter, receipts at the pump.
They smear their skin across every common surface in the county grid until their DNA is part of the local air.
Because then... How do you prove which print matters?
How does a detective prove that the ridgeline on the counter wasn't left when you were just buying a pack of gum?
I think that's why readers love detectives so much because detectives make chaos feel organized. They gather tiny pieces and somehow convince everyone that those pieces only fit together one way.
I looked up.
They don't. There are fingerprints everywhere. On the cupboard, the kettle, shopping trolleys, café mugs, library books, door handles and the steering wheel of your own car.
If someone wanted to write a mystery, fingerprints are wonderfully dramatic…but reality is rarely interested in drama.
I placed the naked lemon on the chopping board.
Thankfully…
I laughed quietly.
I'm just an author.
Silence settled between us then I tilted my head.
Right?
"That,"
Gerald gasped dramatically from the top of the breadbox, clutching his tiny ceramic chest,
"Is possibly the worst legal advice I have ever heard."
I blinked.
"It was fiction."
"It was almost fiction, It was entirely too believable." he corrected, pointing an accusatory painted finger at me.
"There's a difference."
Frank sighed from his place beside the stove, where he'd somehow managed to look bored despite being made entirely of ceramic.
"Oh, leave her alone."
"I'm trying to save her."
"From what?"
"A deposition."
Frank looked at him.
"You're worried she's going to be subpoenaed?"
"I'm worried one of these readers is going to misunderstand her artistic intent!"
Gerald shouts back.
Frank rubbed his little forehead.
"If someone misunderstands artistic intent that badly, Gerald…”
Gerald quickly pitched in.
“They'll end up on the evening news.
Frank rubbed his little forehead again, shaking his little ceramic head.
“They'll stop reading after chapter three."
Gerald scoffed.
"I've met readers."
"So have I."
"They're unpredictable."
"They're readers."
"They're dangerous."
Frank smiled.
"No."
He looked toward me.
"Only the comment sections are."
I couldn't help smiling. They'd probably still be arguing after I was gone some things never change.
I carried my empty teacup to the old cast-iron sink and turned on the tap.
Cold mountain water rushed over the porcelain, carrying away the thin amber ring the tea had left behind.
I didn't use soap. Tea never really needed soap.
My thumb traced the inside of the cup until the glaze felt perfectly smooth beneath my skin before I dried it carefully with the linen towel hanging beside the window.
Three folds always three.
I opened the cupboard and the cup slid back into its place not beside the others exactly where it belonged. I nudged it ever so slightly until the handle lined up with every other handle on the shelf.
Parallel balanced satisfied.
The little things matter.
People laugh at that…
Until they don't.
My eyes drifted toward the maple knife block sitting quietly beside the chopping board. The paring knife rested exactly where I'd left it. I drew it free. The steel caught the kitchen light for just a second before I turned it over in my hand.
I opened the utility drawer and lifted out my whetstone. It felt cool and reassuring against my palm. I sprinkled a little water across its surface before resting the blade against the stone.
Shhhk...
The sound floated through the cottage long even.
Comforting.
Gerald and Frank stopped talking.
Only the knife kept speaking.
Shhhk...
Same angle, pressure.
Again.
Shhhk...
There's something strangely peaceful about sharpening a blade.
It forces you to slow down to pay attention.
You can't rush precision. People think sharpening is about making something dangerous, it isn't, it's about respecting the tool enough to care for it before it needs you using the corner of the dish towel, I wiped away the thin grey film the stone had left behind.
The blade reflected my face perfectly, no scratches, no distortion. I slid it carefully back into the maple block.
Click.
Every knife stood in a perfectly straight row exactly where they belonged. I rested my fingertips lightly against the polished wood. Outside, the last of the evening light had disappeared behind the pines, leaving the kitchen wrapped in soft blue shadow.
I've always believed well-looked-after tools last the longest. Wasn’t that an old saying or something. The little things matter.
I smiled.
People usually don't notice them...
Until it's too late.
I switched off the kitchen light.
Anyway...
I'll see you again.
Goodnight.