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Chapter Four
Gran’s shop felt empty, like a husk of the place that had meant so much to me before. After getting back, I’d received the paperwork to show that she’d left her occult shop to me.
I hadn’t gone in, though. The keys had sat on my kitchen counter for weeks, and eventually, I’d realized I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Still, nothing could have prepared me for the crushing feeling of loss when I walked into the shop.
Everything was exactly the same and yet different. The shelves hadn’t changed, and the products lining them remained the same, yet I couldn’t seem to feel whatever had been there in the past—that sense of home.
Instead, it was empty. It seemed as hollow as the place inside my chest, the warm feeling I used to get when I thought about Gran.
Maybe I should have called Troy to come with me. Having someone else would have been nice, would have given a sense of back-up.
However, I’d opted out of it, not wanting anyone to witness just how deep this hurt was. They’d seen me at less than my best—such as when I had turned into a reaper to save them—but this was different. Each time the men had tried to help shoulder the burden, I’d turned them down.
Besides, Kase was busy going through some sort of werewolf withdrawal, Grant was dealing with guild complications and I had no idea where Hunter was.
I’d gone from having four men who were always on my heels to just the one, and I couldn’t believe I would ever have said this, but I missed having my boys around…
There had been a family then, a feeling that I belonged. Now, only Troy remained, which made me laugh since he’d been the one to constantly pull away.
Maybe he’d overcome the nonsense in his head.
My foot caught the corner of a shelf, and I ended up sprawled out on the hard tile floor.
I sent a hard glare at the inanimate object, because how many times had I walked this shop? I knew every inch of it, so what the hell?
A discoloration on the floor caught my attention, as did the scrapes in the linoleum behind it. It showed someone had pushed that shelf from its normal place. Not far, only about six inches, but just enough that I didn’t notice and fell flat on my face.
As I lay there, my chest aching from the fall, face to face with the dust sitting beneath the shelving, I couldn’t stop the laugh that started inside me.
Gran did this.
There was no real question of it—she was the only one who worked in the shop, the only one who could have moved that, and it wassoon brand for Gran to have done it.
I remembered when I’d come in one day, years before, frustrated by the constant spirits who refused to leave me be. I’d had one following me for days, a man who’d liked to cat-call me while also making sure to point out every woman who looked better than I did.
Gran had made me a cup of tea and had me sit at the counter with her. She’d said that frustration happened when we fought the inevitable, when we focused on what should be and not what was. It caught us and made us land on our face.
And that was what she’d done. She’dknownshe wouldn’t be coming back, that the shop would end up going to me, and she’d moved that one shelf to put me flat on my face.
She was telling me that I had to stop fighting, that I had to stop expecting things to be like they’d always been and to open my eyes.
Even now, even after she was gone, Gran was still giving me the lessons I needed in the most obscure and painful way.
And it helped me not feel quite so alone.
* * * *
I sipped my tea while I sat on the floor of the back office, folders spread out around me and papers piled up. Somehow, the tea tasted better, like it always had when Gran made it.
Or maybe I just felt more grown up? Like I was finally the sort of person who drank tea? Or it was possible I was exactly the same but more determined than ever to fake it, as if that would suddenly make Gran proud of the adult I’d become?
Still, drinking that didn’t make sense ofanythingI’d found. The more I pulled out of the desk and cabinets, the less sense any of it made.
She had invoices for things like a barrel of sheep testicles—suddenly, I thought back to and worried about the times she’d made me snacks—one for ley line rerouting and yet another for a trunk of nightmares.
Was that a usual unit of measurement? How did one buy nightmares, and even if they could, how would they fit into a trunk?
