Chapter 1 #2
The girl’s heavy boots clunk against the floorboards, the sound exploding in my ears. She approaches the desk, her mouth opening and closing as she struggles to find the right words. I understand – she’s not alone in being intimidated by Heathcliff.
But there’s something else in her eyes and in her heart – a familiarity, a sense of coming home. Above my head, the floor creaks, even though the floorboards never creaked in that spot.
It’s as if she recognises the bookshop, and it recognises her.
I register her thoughts. I see them as if they’re my own, but they’re flickers – muddled thoughts of a faraway city she wishes she could return to, a friend who betrayed her, and a fear that consumes her.
Mingled in there are memories of this very bookshop at another time, with another, familiar proprietor, and of her joy at hiding in dark corners and discovering fantastical worlds within the pages.
She loved this bookshop once. My heart flutters as I put together the details. She is… she's the one he told us about.
"We're closed," Heathcliff mutters, not even looking up from his book.
Can’t he sense it, too?
She frowns. “Your sign still says open.”
“Well, flip it over for me on the way back out.”
“Um, sure. Mr Earnshaw, was it?” She waves at him.
Look up, you idiot. You have to see her.
I’m ignoring you, Heathcliff snaps back in his thoughts. I’m ignoring both of you. Get out of my head.
The girl lowers her hand. “I saw the job ad you posted on the Argleton app, and I wanted to—”
“App?” Now his head snaps up, those black eyes of his regarding her with suspicion.
A flicker of something like curiosity, like desire, wavers in his features before he scrunches up his nose and curls his lips back into a sneer.
If Heathcliff sees what I see in her, he’s doing his best to ignore it. “What the devil is an app?”
She looks perturbed. “Um… you know, an application for your phone, so you can get the bus timetable or talk to your mates or—”
“Don’t talk to me about phones,” Heathcliff snaps. “People spend too much time on their phones.”
The girl babbles as she whips the hand holding her phone behind her back. “Oh, I agree. I mean, phones should only be used for calling people. And checking social media. That’s it. I would never read on mine. I mean, studies have shown it can cause long-term eye damage and—”
“No matter how long you keep talking, it’s not going to change the fact that we’re closed. What do you want?”
“I’m Mina Wilde. I’m applying for the assistant’s job.” She digs a large envelope from her purse and holds it out to him. “I’ve got my resume in here for you with all my qualifications and—”
“I don’t need that. If you want the job, tell me why I should hire you.”
Heathcliff, please, you have to look at her—
“Right, well…” Mina flicks her eyes over Heathcliff and bites her lower lip.
Lust rolls off her in waves. Of course. Heathcliff treats her like crap and it makes her want him.
I’d read enough romance books now to know that’s the way it always works.
The surly, grumpy, possessive villains always get the girl.
I’d never read a book where the cute heroine falls for the quiet, feathery, harbinger-of-doom raven boy.
“If your answer is to gape at me like a bespawling lubberwort,” Heathcliff growls, “then you can take the job and shove it where the sun don’t shine—”
“That’s not my answer.” Mina’s cheeks flare with heat. Her voice takes on a hardened edge. “I was just collecting my thoughts. You should hire me because I’m a hard worker. I’m punctual. I have some retail experience, as well as design expertise, so I can do graphics and window displays—”
“I don’t care. Why do you want to work here? No one wants to work here. That was the whole point of the ad.”
“Um… I guess I used to hang out in the bookshop all the time as a kid. I know where all the books go, and I’ve personally helped Mr Simson fix that till on at least two occasions.” She points to the ancient till where I’m now perched.
Heathcliff, don’t let her leave, I beg him telepathically. She’s the one Mr Simson told us about, the one we’re supposed to wait for. I’m sure of it. If you pull your head out of your ass for half a second, you’ll see it, too.
“And… um, I have all sorts of useful skills,” Mina continues, her words tumbling out as she fights to regain control of the interview. “I have a fashion degree, so that’s probably not useful. But I am a millennial, so I can do the store’s social media. I could build a website—“
I don’t see it, Heathcliff shoots back at me, studying her features through his sneer. She wants to build a website. I’m not having a website—
Oh, just hire her already. She’s pretty.
“Huh?” The girl glances over her shoulder, wondering where the voice had come from. I glare at Heathcliff. He has to believe me now.
She can’t hear you, birdie. She’s just picking up some sound on the street. Stop making this—
I like her. I bet she’ll bring me treats. Berries, smoked salmon, maybe even a mouse.
The girl peers over her shoulder again. “Who’s there?”
She heard me! She heard me! I dance along the till, flapping my wings in Heathcliff’s face.
We don’t know that. Heathcliff claps his hand over my back, pinning my wings to my sides. Bastard. He whips his head around to look behind Mina. But of course, there’s no one there. Instead, he settles for a little light gaslighting (he is a villain). “Who are you talking to?”
“You didn’t hear that? I think that raven just said that I’m pretty.”
I told you so! I scream, tapping the till with my beak.
Heathcliff’s eyes narrow. He reaches out and clamps an enormous hand around my beak. You’re a wanker. “Don’t be ridiculous. Ravens don’t have opinions. You didn’t leave the door open, did you?” He glowers at Mina. “We’re supposed to be closed.”
“No. I…” Mina’s shoulders sag. “I guess I’ll just be going now. Thank you for your time and—”
“You start tomorrow. We open at nine. Be here at eight-thirty, but don’t let anyone else in. If you’re late, the bird gets your first paycheck. Welcome to Nevermore Bookshop.”
Yes, yes! I moonwalk along the till. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, Heathcliff says inside my head. Don’t tell Morrie I’ve gone soft on you. And you’d better be the one paying up on his ridiculous bet.
Deal.
It’s worth losing ￡100 to have Mina Wilde in our lives.
Mina’s smile is a beam of sunlight in the gloomy shop.
She thanks Heathcliff profusely and hurries outside, probably thinking to get away before he changes his mind (wise).
She bangs into a table in the hallway and knocks over several books, but she’s too excited to notice as she races out the door and down the street.
Heathcliff heaves himself up and trudges into the hall to lock the door behind her.
I suck in a breath and force my shift. My skin itches and prickles as the feathers retract – a creeping irritation that I can never scratch away.
Fire leaps through my veins as my internal organs and systems adjust themselves.
Bones snap, sinews twist, and by the time Heathcliff returns to the main room, I sit, naked, on the edge of his desk.
“Get your bare arse off my book.” He tries to snatch it from beneath me, but he doesn’t want to touch me. I bet if I were Morrie, that would be different. “I didn’t need your song and dance about her.”
“Clearly, you did.” I wriggle against his book a few times before sliding off and sinking into the velvet chair opposite the desk. An icy draft blows up through the broken windowpane, caressing my pale skin. I relax into the discomfort. After that visit from Mina, a cold blast does me good.
“Well, I’ve hired her, so you got your way.” Heathcliff picks up his book by pinching the corner and holds it as far away from his body as he can. He makes a face as he drops it into the rubbish bin.
“Mr Simson told us she’d come back – the girl who loved the bookshop.
I saw flickers of her thoughts. She used to come to this bookshop as a child.
She even remembers Mr Simson. Her love for this place just radiates off her.
And she could hear my thoughts. I’m telling you, she’s the one we’re supposed to protect. ”
“She doesn’t look like she needs protecting.”
“I don’t think you’re the best judge of that.” I hug my knees. “There’s pain in her past, a lot of it. I think she needs friends.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Heathcliff growls. “Well, don’t get your feathers ruffled over her. The minute she meets Morrie, she won’t be concerned with either of us.”
“It won’t be like that.”
“It’ll be exactly like that, and all the better for it.
Morrie will fuck her and forget her. I’ll get some peace again, and you’ll stay in the attic, moping and out of my sight, so you don’t get all excited and shift in front of her, lest she calls the authorities and some government researcher ends up eating raven pie for supper. ”
I nod, but I’m a million miles away, lost in the memory of Mina Wilde’s sunshine smile and haunted eyes. My heart swells. Mina Wilde, welcome to Nevermore Bookshop. I see you. I want to be your friend.
I hope… I hope you see me, too.