Ain’t no inner monologue like a Sylvie Barlow inner monologue!
My fingertips brush against the wood, which is strangely warm to the touch, especially considering the ridiculously cold temperature of the store.
Not that I’m complaining.I’d rather be cold than sweaty any damn day.
“Yet I live in Texas,” I tell the counter forlornly, giving the carvings a pat.It’s almost like the carvings don’t want to be understood, don’t want to be noticed.
Which, again, is a sign of my overactive imagination.
I stand, taking my time to stretch, the backpack starting to strain my shoulders.There are a few bookshelves standing end-to-end in the middle of the shop, and the rest of my downstairs tour reveals a truly horrendous bathroom that will probably be my first order of business to fix up, along with what seems to be a mostly up-to-date electrical breaker box.
Not that I trust it.Nope.
I huff a laugh as I stare at the bevy of switches and mentally prioritize calling the contractor the finance bro told me I should work with.
My phone’s in my hand a second later, my finger hovering over my email as I try to find the relevant information.
Something slams overhead as I keep walking to the second-story stairs, and I tuck the phone back in my shorts pocket, tilting my head.
Well.I suppose that electrical issues wouldn’t take precedence over a raccoon or other animal living here.
Though I would have to be a real dick to evict any little creature in this Texas heat.
The stairs start in a dark corner of the store, and I cringe as I stare up at them.What if they aren’t sturdy?What if the wood is rotted through?Or worse, what if it’s riddled with termite damage and I fall into an absolute hellhole of insects?
Ew.
A faint but familiar mewling sounds, and all those anxious thoughts leave just as fast as they came (which cements my theory that I forgot to take my stupid meds).I rush up the stairs, urged to move by another plaintive meow.
There is an animal upstairs, the poor thing, and it’s a cat.
The stairs make a disturbing amount of noise as I run up them.
Okay.Fine.I don’t run.
I do a quick walk because I don’t want to break my neck and running up stairs isn’t one of my pastimes.
Yet.
“Here, kitty-kitty,” I say, holding still and looking around.
A shiver racks me, and my mouth twists to the side.“You know, kitty, it’s even colder up here.Which doesn’t make any sense, seeing as how heat rises.”
Something dark rushes by my periphery, but it isn’t until the blur slows and comes to stand on top of a lump on the floor that I realize it’s the cat I heard.
Green eyes regard me cautiously.
A floorboard creaks somewhere in the big, quiet building, and a deep feeling of unease settles in my bones.
I shiver again, and the cat’s black fur poofs out, arching its back and hissing malevolently.
Suddenly, I’m not so sure aboutanyof this.
The kitty paws at the lump under it, and my eyes adjust enough to the darker second floor to realize it’s a book.
All reason runs straight out of my head.
“Oh, no you don’t, kitty, we don’t use the potty on books.”Without pausing to consider cat scratch fever, or worse, rabies, I grab the black cat and tuck it under my arm like a football, then retrieve the book.
