Page 7 of Rewitched

LATER THAT DAY, Belle pushed her thumb into her forehead in an attempt to stimulate the wilting brain on the other side of her skull. The three-o’clock haze was kicking in, the pixels of the computer screen blurring in front of her eyes as she catalogued copies of a shiny celebrity autobiography in the stock cupboard. The need to procrastinate was seizing control. Sentences were crashing into the ends of each other, hanging precariously off the end of her computer screen. Caffeine would probably help. Or chocolate.

She kicked back on the wheels of her chair and spun to glance out of the stock-room and onto the shop floor, hoping to spot an unsuspecting colleague who might volunteer a snack run.

Her line of sight was invaded by an enormous autumn wreath. An army of vibrant reds, oranges and golds marched towards her periphery, Monica’s tiny height and chestnut hair struggling somewhere behind it. Belle maintained that her colleague was the coolest person she’d ever met, covered head to toe in a patchwork of colourful tattoos, as well as a constant rainbow of paint swatches all over her clothes and fingers, residuals from her art coursework. She was something of a mythical creature to Lunar’s youngest customers, who always left gleefully covered in the never-ending supply of stickers that were drawn from the pocket of Monica’s apron.

“Where do we want this, Belle?” Monica asked, holding the wreath at arm’s length. “It smells a bit weird.”

“It probably just needs airing out,” Belle said uncertainly. “It’s for the front door, there should be a hook in the big box, too. Actually, make sure there’s no mice in—”

“Belle Blackthorn. How’s my favourite wonder woman?”

Monica’s face, poking through the hole in the foliage, plummeted as she clocked the man to whom the roaring voice belonged. Suddenly overtaken by the urgent need to decorate as quickly as possible, she shrugged apologetically as she made a swift exit. Belle shot her a scowl that she hoped effectively communicated the meaning of ruthless traitor. Training her face to the picture of professionalism, she leapt up.

“What can I do for you, Christopher?”

Without bothering to get any closer or even to glance up from the pager in his hand, her boss shouted across the bookshelves. As always, he was oblivious to the many heads nearby that had turned in frustration at his lack of volume control against the peaceful hum of the shop. His corporate presence in Lunar always felt wrong, unnatural and jarring, like the full-body jolt that shakes a sleeper from a dream. Belle bolted through the shop to meet him in an attempt to lower his volume, knocking over a stack of magazines in her haste, with apologetic half-smiles to the customers.

“Mind jumping onto this call with the bank for me, darlin’? Got held up at the gym this morning, so haven’t had a chance to read the files that Mum dug out. Waste of my time anyway, to be honest. Not showed up today, has she? Wish we could all be bloody part-timers,” he guffawed.

Belle felt the anchor of her stomach plummet.

“You’re all right to step in, yeah? It’s the big one, they’re not happy,” he continued loudly.

“Well, no. I mean, yes. I can. But I’m just in the middle of a stock check, and we’ve got the author signing this evening, so there’s a lot to—”

“Brilliant, thanks, sweetness. They’re expecting you. I’ll be back later.” Having landed the reply he always knew that he’d hear, Christopher had already started to retreat to the personal office that he’d somehow wangled on his arrival, sacrificing their old staff room for his own private space. At no point had he looked up at her from his pager during their conversation.

Belle’s eyebrows almost reached her hairline. “You’re leaving? Have you got any notes? What’s it about?”

She mentally ran through her immediate to-do list. Working her usual shift, obviously, but the children’s entertainer wanted to discuss the Halloween party, too. Although she couldn’t think about that until she’d finished the personal reading recommendations with customers that were booked in for the afternoon. Jim’s performance review was pencilled in for sometime around five o’clock, and that had already been pushed back last week. Then there was double-checking those numbers that Violet had requested and a visit booked in with a potential new supplier for the stationery corner. Belle had wanted to give some time to an idea she’d had for evening craft classes, too.

Christopher obnoxiously batted his hand to dismiss her, his shirt straining across his chest. “You’ll be fine, kiddo, you always are. Something about predictions, might be a few investors listening in, the big family names that Mum won’t want to disappoint. Just run them through the outlook for the quarter. Fire any feedback over to me to handle, but if you could let them know about the drop in profit across the board. They won’t like that one. It is what it is, yeah?” Still looking down at his pager, he shot her a dismissive thumbs-up over his head while walking away.

“Yep.”

“Oh, and do something about all that orange crap in the window, yeah? It looks like a jumble sale. What were you lot thinking? Get the financial stuff on display, business autobiographies, entrepreneur guides and that. A bit of aspiration for the blokes who need it.”

“Really? Your mum gave it the thumbs-up,” Belle said quietly, trying to swallow the bitterness in her voice. She had spent days putting the suitably spooky window display of Halloween horror reads together, inking the lettering on the glass and hanging the paper decorations. She had forced Ari to carve several large pumpkins with her, making the entire flat stink of gourds in the process. They’d carried them all the way to the shop in a collection of bulging bags to sit them amongst the scariest reads she could think of on a bed of dried grasses, along with a scattering of plastic black cats, bats, rats and a handful of witch hats for good measure. It looked particularly perfect when the sun went down, the windows giving out a warm glow against the chilly evenings.

Christopher snorted. “The woman’s lost it, so that sounds about right. This place is a joke. I keep telling her she’s wasting money on all this novelty nonsense. I want it gone by the time I’m next here, no arguments.”

Once he was out of earshot, Belle retreated to a quiet corner of the shop and promptly booted the display board to her right with feeling, making a woman reading just behind jump a foot from her armchair. Belle apologised hastily, then knelt down to pretend to tie her lace as she fixed the damage with a disguised flurry of Turbamentum Reversio sparks. She crouched against the nearest shelf, picked up the last of the scattered drawings and papers and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Monica sidled over and leaned above her, offering out a steaming mug as some kind of consolation prize. Herbal teas were her cure for all and were always accompanied by the biscuit tin, too. “He’s an arse. Sorry for abandoning you.”

“You’re a turncoat, but I won’t hold it against you.” Belle accepted the mug gratefully. “Once again, we step up to do every part of that man’s job for him, and somehow he still manages to ruin everything.”

“No, you step up to do it for him. We step in to help when you look like you’re about to go insane or land yourself in prison.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like he’s on all of our salaries combined while hoodwinking his lovely mum, out of office three times a week, mocking the bestsellers, mistaking the authors for the postman, all while taking credit for anything we’ve ever created and simultaneously turning this wonderful place into some kind of corporate wasteland. Oh, no, wait, we are in fact in hell. And it’s all my fault.”

“Maybe. But look on the bright side,” Monica chimed. “At least he’s moved on from talking to us directly from the neck down. Now he stares at the pager instead, which is a huge improvement in my mind.”

Belle scowled.

“Just think. We could have been existing in a Christopher-free world with you at the helm if you’d accepted Vi’s offer. We might even have Mrs. Abbott’s cupcakes back on the coffee cart again,” Monica said, chancing a lack of tact as she glanced gingerly at Belle.

“Thank you for that.”