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“So, is Halloween officially ruined for you now?” Sera sets a box of books down beside me on the counter, and I peer inside, wondering what she’s ordered. With her, it’s whatever she’s personally interested in at the time. Not what might sell, and I can see that this is no different than any of the other times.
There arebird booksin the box. No one comes to an independent bookstore in Solen City, Washington, to buybird books. Hell, I can’t help but think even the big stores only sell a few of them a month.
But here we are, I guess. And now I get to find a way to pushbird bookson customers who probably want romance or fantasy. Maybe I can offer them as a buy two, get one free deal.
“Uh, kind of,” I admit, picking up one of the top books to confirm that the box is bird-related through and through. Jays, cardinals, and robins pepper the cover of a very bright, very helpful-looking book on identifying what lives in a person’s backyard, but it doesn’t change my opinion on how abysmally these are going to sell. “I mean, I’m not nearly as into Ghostface andScreamas I was last year.” It’s been six months now, and I still wake up with leering masks and knives that stand vertically in wooden countertops swimming through my dreams.
It’s safe to say I’m not over my whole ordeal. No matter that the police have assured me it’sfine, that they know who it was andeverything is fine.
I don’t feel fine.
But I’m working hard to change that. Since I’m notdeadand all, I figure it would be a good idea to try to do better about living life like I want to.
And get another tattoo.
“Why bird books?” I ask, looking up at my boss. My eyes are starting to hurt from reading most of the morning away, and I wish I’d brought my glasses with me to work instead of relying on my contacts all day. “Do you evenlikebirds?”
“I like birds.” Sera sounds affronted and puts her hands on her hips. She stares me down as if daring me to question the statement, though the effect is lost by the curling wisps of brown hair that float in front of her face, having long escaped their place behind her ears. “Ilovebirds.”
“Since when?” I’m not afraid of any kind of pushback or punishment for my words. Sera is my best friend, even if she is ten years older than me, and she knows by now that I’m joking, even though my brows are raised over hazel eyes, and my expression is incredulous.
It’sherbookshop, anyway. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop her from becoming a birds-only bookseller if she really desired to do so.
She shrugs off my question and plucks two of the books out of the box. From there, she goes to the new arrivals table, and I wince to see her pick up two dark romance books she’d gotten in just weeks before to push to the side in order to put her bird books to the front.
Those are never going to sell.
“So ifScreamis out, that leaves you with every other horror movie, at least?” Sera offers, and I don’t remark on the fact that we haven’t really talked about this since it happened. I haven’t exactly wanted to, as things stood, though now that she’s bringing it up, I do feel as if something inside me is thawing, just a little bit.
The trip wasn’t all bad, after all. It was just the last few minutes of it that ruined Halloween and all associated celebrations for the rest of my natural-born life. No biggie.
“True.Texas Chainsaw Massacreis still in my back pocket for when I don’t need to sleep,” I tell her, laying my arms on the wooden countertop. There’s no one in the store except the two of us, but that’s pretty normal for a weekday at two in the afternoon. The only times we see any kind of rush are on the weekends, or sometimes later on a Friday night. Though for us, a rush is three people.
“Have you thought about doing any more game tournaments?”
I like video games, and I enjoy crushing the ego of teen boys who think a twenty-five-year-old girl has no chance in hell of beating them. But since everything that happened in San Diego, I’ve had a hard time being quite as interested. I’ve had a hard time with everything, honestly.
But I’m turning it around, damn it.
“Oh, no. I don’t think so. The next vacation really might kill me,” I laugh, trying to keep the unease out of my voice. “I don’t think I can survive another visit from one of my horror movie icons.”
The next one might well be wielding something scarier than a knife, after all.
“It wasn’tallbad.” She smiles at me, straightening a row of books laid out on a table.
I could help her, but she wouldn’t appreciate it. Half of her job is going around and doing things like this because Sera loves to have her hands all over the store and loves to touch up invisible flaws or line things upjust so.
It’s one of the most endearing things about working for her in this little, hole-in-the-wall bookshop that gets most of its customers from the coffee shop next door.
Not that I mind, of course. I love the occasional drifting smell of coffee that makes its way through the open door sometimes. And Iadorethe coffee I get twice a day from the shop, especially since they give us a discount for being their neighbors.
“It wasn’t all bad,” I agree. “The convention was fun, mostly. Except for that guy. And…” I trail off, another thought hitting me.
With everything else on my mind, I’d almost completely forgotten theotherperson I’d met at the convention.
While getting a milkshake, I’d turned around to see someone IswearI knew when I was a kid. His face, his shock, and the way his lips had parted when he’d seen my face had looked so familiar, and with that kind of reaction, I was sure he knew me too.
So I’d asked, even remembering his name on the spot.Isaac.
