Page 89 of Love at First Fright

A tabby cat dozed on the counter, curled into a perfect circle.

I couldn’t help myself. On my way past the pet section, I snagged a packet of salmon‑flavoured treats. Bat wouldn’t mind a minor deviation from his shopping list, surely.

At the counter, a middle-aged man with a woolly cardigan and kind eyes looked up from his newspaper crossword. “Can I help?”

“Actually… I’m looking for a few specific things. Chess pieces. A white knight and two black pawns.”

The man scratched his chin. “Chess pieces. Well, we’ve got a full set somewhere, I think. You can’t just buy the bits, though, obviously.”

“I guess I’ll take the whole thing, then.”

His eyebrows rose slightly, but he nodded and disappeared into the back room. While he rummaged, I wandered the aisles. Colouring books and pencils turned up easily enough—Disney princesses and mandalas. If they weren’t to Rosemary’s taste, she could always eat the pencils.

Books proved more challenging.

The fiction section sprawled across four towering shelves, organised by some system known only to the gods of charity shops. Romance mixed with thrillers. Literary fiction wedged between self-help guides.

Then I spotted them. The entire Outlander series, all eight massive volumes lined up like soldiers. Time travel. Romance. Scotland. These had to tick at least some of Lady Grimthorne’s boxes. Plus, the TV actor on the covers was droolworthy enough to make me pause, so hopefully the interior would satisfy Her Majesty.

I hefted the stack into my arms.

Now, Bat.

What did a dead emo kid want to read? I had no idea. He’d mentioned music constantly, so maybe biographies? But the biography section consisted of three books about Churchill and a memoir by someone who’d climbed Everest.

Science fiction, then. Space operas lined half a shelf—thick doorstoppers with embossed covers showing spaceships and distant planets. I grabbed a dozen or so. Even if they weren’t his thing, at least they’d keep him occupied for weeks.

My arms ached by the time I staggered back to the counter. The man had returned with a battered chess set, the box held together with sellotape.

“Right.” He surveyed my haul with undisguised amusement. “Let me ring you up.”

The till beeped. And beeped. And beeped.

Numbers climbed on the ancient display screen.

Forty pounds.

Sixty.

Seventy-five.

My stomach tightened.

“That’ll be eighty-three pounds even,” the man announced cheerfully.

“Really?” I couldn’t help but squeak.

He shrugged. “The chess set is an antique. The pieces are hand carved.”

Bollocks.

I handed over the cash, my wallet suddenly a tragic amount lighter. Now I’d have to buy part of the food shopping on my own card. My overdraft was already hovering somewhere around its limit, the bank having sent me three increasingly stern letters about it.

But oh well. At least Bat was going to be very happy with me.

Why do you care about some random ghost?

Because the happier he is, the more he’ll help me, I shot back at my own brain.