Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
When Koshka and I returned to the bookstore, it was about half an hour before closing time. Koshka meowed insistently at me once we were through the doors.
“Oh, fine. Go play in the teen section if you want, but don’t let anyone adopt you this time, please.”
Koshka trotted off toward a rainbow-painted door that read Teens Only . He loved being adored and spoiled, and teen girls especially lost their minds over him. He’d been catnapped from the bookstore more than once. But that was fine. He was microchipped. And he always came home by dinner.
Alone, I took the stairs up one level. There was an extra pep in my step, the pride of a job successfully completed.
The stockroom of the bookstore looked like an innocent, friendly, slightly shabby yet charming office.
It had a few antique desks, a floral love seat, and a red Moroccan rug.
If you pulled back the large rug, you’d find a large rectangle painted on the hardwood floor for the rare occasions when we had to summon fictional characters into the real world (books are rectangular, which is why we use that shape for magic, not pentagrams).
We also had an altar in the stockroom, of course, which was actually just a big bookshelf covered in papers, books, and electric candles.
Real candles are nicer and spookier, but Book Witches do not mess around with fire.
Mentally, I prepared my report. Quickly and efficiently, I’d gotten Elizabeth Bennet back into her book.
I’d also performed a spell on the story to make sure she’d forget her brief adventure in reality.
Otherwise she would make a run for it again in a week or two, whenever she next was forced to be in the same room with the Bingley sisters, probably.
A job well done. I was certain I’d be greeted with cheers, champagne, at least a pat on the back.
Unfortunately, I was very wrong.
“You’re late,” Dr. Fanshawe said when she finally deigned to notice me.
“What?” I demanded. “Late how?”
Confused, I glanced around, hoping someone could explain what I’d done wrong. Penny stood up from her chair and shrugged. Poor old Professor Dodsworth also looked terribly confused, but maybe that was because he wore gray Dormouse ears. Even he was celebrating Mad Hatter Day, likely under duress.
“You promised you would have her in her book by the time the sun had set. You didn’t.” Dr. Fanshawe tapped a hardcover copy of Pride and Prejudice with a long, sharp fingernail.
“You were watching me?”
“Monitoring you,” she said and held up the book. “I felt it the moment Elizabeth Bennet was returned to her story, and it was two minutes after the sun had set.”
“Lizzy said—”
“You call her Lizzy?”
“She told me to,” I answered as I stood in the middle of the floor like a schoolgirl called upon the carpet. “But the book is back to normal. Check it.”
I held out the Words, Words, Words tote bag. Dr. Fanshawe wouldn’t take it, but Penny did.
“Elizabeth Bennet politely requested to watch the sunset,” I said. “It’s all she asked. Was that so wrong?”
“Yes,” Dr. Fanshawe said. “She is a fictional character. Fictional characters belong in books and nowhere else.”
“So I’m supposed to treat her like an escaped zoo animal?”
“Precisely. For her sake if not for the book’s. She could have been killed, drowned—”
“We weren’t swimming,” I said. “Believe it or not, I know what I’m doing. I’ve been a Book Witch for over a decade, and I’ve never lost a character yet.”
“I think she did a very good job,” Penny said. “The book is already fully restored.”
She brandished the copy of Pride and Prejudice from the tote bag, demonstrating that the blank pages now bore all the original text.
“See?” I said, pointing to the pages. “Who cares if I got her in two minutes late? She’s back where she belongs.”
“I care,” Dr. Fanshawe said, then held out her hand. “Give me your umbrella.”
“What?” I asked. I looked at Professor Dodsworth, but he only shrugged.
Penny stood up for me, however. “That seems quite unfair!”
“It’s only for the time being,” Dr. Fanshawe said. “Only until I’m certain you won’t be using it to attend Mr. Darcy’s wedding. Or planning your own.”
“What? I would never—”
She raised her eyebrow. “Never? We both know better than that.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, shamed into silence.
“If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times, Rainy March, that fictional characters belong in stories and real people belong in the real world. But for some reason you think the rules don’t apply to you.
Your mother never once gave the Coven any cause for concern.
Ellery did her work perfectly every single time.
I had hoped you’d turn out to be a Book Witch of her caliber, but I’m beginning to doubt that. ”
“Yeah, well,” I said, as I surrendered my umbrella to her, “you’re not the only one.”
After I’d retrieved Koshka from the lap of a tween girl who’d inexplicably renamed him Fuzzypants McGee, we headed to my car.
As I was unlocking it, Penny ran out the front door, waving to me to stop.
“Rainy,” she said a little breathless. “I’m sorry. I tried to argue with her but—”
“It’s not your fault. Thanks for trying anyway.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine, fine. Fine and dandy even,” I lied, straight to her face. I was neither fine nor dandy. I was, in fact, furious, frustrated, scheming, bitter, and a little bit grumpy. Not that I was going to dump all that on sweet, young Penny.
“No offense, Rainy, but you don’t seem dandy. I’m off work now. Do you want to get some coffee with me or some dinner? We could talk about it.”
“I better get home. Mrs. Turner said she’d save dinner for me. But thanks for backing me up in there.”
“Anytime,” Penny said.
Koshka jumped into his carrier, and I shut the door, then waved at Penny through the window.
But when I turned the key, my car only sputtered, refusing to start.
Could this day get any worse?
Which is exactly what I said when I opened my car door.
“Don’t say that,” Penny warned me. “Sometimes the universe answers yes.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have driven a fifty-year-old car onto Sunset Beach,” I said as I got out. “Engine’s flooded. It needs to sit for a couple hours. Come on, buddy,” I said to Koshka. “We’ll walk home.”
“Let me get my coat,” Penny said. “I’ll walk with you.”
“You’re the sort of girl who rescues worms off hot sidewalks, aren’t you?”
“You’re not a worm, Rainy. Unless you mean a bookworm. Although if you were a worm worm, I’d put you back in the grass and then add a little leaf on top of you like an umbrella,” she said, miming the act of putting a leaf over my head. “And you would do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Let’s not talk about me.”
“We could,” she said. “While I walk you home.”
“You’ll regret it,” I said.
“How far away do you live?”
“Six blocks.”
She grinned broadly. “I can most certainly walk six blocks.”
Five minutes later…
Penny sighed heavily. “You were right, Rainy. I regret it!”
“It’s only six blocks,” I reminded her, panting slightly myself. “Just…six blocks uphill.”
Fort Meriwether is a hilly town, so hilly that sometimes you’ll look out your window and see your neighbor’s house has shifted a few feet closer to the Columbia River.
And while a map may make it look like our house was an easy stroll from the bookstore, you need good calves, a funicular railroad, or a ski lift to get there.
“I’m still getting used to living on the side of a cliff,” Penny said. “It’s much flatter where I’m from, practically two-dimensional.”
“Can I suggest sensible shoes in the future?” I teased her. “You’re in Oregon now, kid. Practicality trumps fashion around here. See?”
I held out my foot for her to admire my waterproof hiking boots.
“Do those come in mauve?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’ll stick to my Mary Janes.”
“If you want, I could carry Koshka,” I offered. “Might help.”
“I like carrying him,” Penny said, giving Koshka a small scritch under his chin. “He doesn’t weigh much.”
Koshka, like his mistress, was mostly an indoor cat. He could’ve walked all the way home, but when Penny had volunteered to carry him? Well, Koshka never did say no to being lugged around by a pretty girl.
“You have a familiar, Penny?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation to harmless topics.
“I’ll get a dog eventually.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Oh,” she said breezily, “pretty little river town in the Midwest. Can’t even find it on a map.”
“What brings you out to the Pacific Northwest?”
“I have family out here. And I heard this was a very literary town with an active coven. I’ve only been here a month, but I like it!”
“I can tell,” I said flatly. “Have you met Medda Baker yet? The owner of the bookstore?”
“Not yet,” Penny said. Then she stopped and faced me.
“What?”
“I need to be very rude for a moment,” Penny said.
“Rude? You?”
“What did all that mean when you told Dr. Fanshawe you’d never use your umbrella to go to Elizabeth Bennet’s wedding or your own? I was so confused.”
“Long stupid story,” I said, toying with the ring on my left hand. “You know the Duke of Chicago?”
“Not personally,” she said. “But I know of his books.”
“So…he and I kind of had a thing.”
She didn’t bat an eyelash. “He is very charming!” she exclaimed.
“Very! I mean, very. ”
“What did you do? Go on a date or two?”
“Worse. We fell in love.”
She gave a dreamy smile. “Sounds lovely.”
“There’s nothing better in this world or any world than dating a fictional detective,” I said. “They always solve their cases. Every last one of them. So no matter what goes wrong…they can fix it. Being with Duke made me feel like no matter how bad my problems were…”
“He could solve them?”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“There’s no way for you two to be—”
“You know the Black and Whites,” I said. “Stories are for fictional characters. The real world is for real people. My own fault for falling in love with a man made out of ink and dreams.”
Penny glanced left, then glanced right.