This was one of those internal quakings. She’d had them before, the shiver of an inner knowing, a whisper of change in the air. But never anything earth-shaking. This one was a shout, a warning that her world had just tilted on its axis.
Then just as swiftly, the walls returned to their normal positions and the ground stilled.
Fate let go of the table. She felt different. Or maybe everything else had changed. Her surroundings looked flat, colorless and plain, like she was looking through a clouded lens. The air was thick, the ceiling too low, the swarm of people stifling. She stood still, unable to relate to any of them, dulled to the ruckus taking place in front of her. She shook her head. What was she doing here? These weren’t her peeps. She belonged with them about as much as Batman belonged in the Justice League.
As she stared past the milling heads, a pinprick of light penetrated her filmy gaze, opening her inner eye to a sheltered valley where rainbows curve over green, blossoming fields. As the deep gold of tulips and dewy leaves flashed bright in her mind, a spectral hook sank deep in her heart. The ghostly line began reeling her in, pulling her gently back to that meadowy wonderland she’d abandoned years ago.
She needed to go there. She knew where it was. Sort of.
Grabbing her purse, Fate stepped backward, edging along the wall until she reached the side door where her father stood.
Eustace bent his head, concern showing behind his scholarly glasses. “Don’t let this bother you, Doodle.”
Frowning, she glanced around. “Eustace, no baby names in public.”
“Sorry.” He smiled, not looking sorry at all. If he had it his way, he’d keep her twelve years old forever.
“I’m going to scram while the scramming’s good,” she told him.
A stickler for keeping commitments, he checked his watch. “Oh, this should’ve ended a half hour ago.” He looked at her, raising a brow in surprise, scrutinizing her in that thoughtful way. “Didn’t you say you could do this twenty-four-seven?”
“I’m pretty sure I said that at the beginning of the tour.”
“I’ll get the car.”
“No, that’s okay. I think I’ll take a walk, maybe grab the bus over to Jessie’s later.” Her stomach knotted with guilt. Why was she lying? She’d always been honest with him. He wasn’t strict in the usual sense. If anything, he was constantly coaxing her to get out into the world. He couldn’t seem to accept that she was perfectly content with creating her own interesting and much more entertaining worlds from the comfort of home with her favorite playlist inserted in her ears and her cat, Oz, batting at her pencil while she wrote and doodled. As far as she was concerned, the world could keep its harsh reality to itself.
Eustace smiled with approval. “Good idea. I’m sure your BFE misses you.”
Hearing her egghead dad trying to speak her lingo was about as mismatched as a hammer decorated with pink ribbons and rhinestones. “BFF. At least try to get it right,” she said, rising on her toes to give him a peck on the cheek.
“LYF. That’s one I never get wrong,” he said as she slipped out of the auditorium.
Darn, he had to go and make the guilt worse. She stopped, looking back over her shoulder. “LYF too…” She trailed off when she saw that Lana had recaptured her father’s attention. Annoyed, Fate turned on her heel.
The escalator was in sight when a forbidding form blocked her way. “Going somewhere?” a hushed voice asked.
“Foiled,” Fate muttered. It was the dreaded dark angel from her book, an androgynous character she’d always found unsettling. The angel towered over her with a crown of thorns resting on limp raven hair. Blood dripped down a painted white face with eyes darkened into disturbing hollows. Enormous wings framed the tall willowy frame and the long cemetery-gray gown effectively disguised the angel’s gender.
“Bathroom break,” Fate said, trying her best to appear nonchalant.
The dark angel stood very still, watching her with a stony, unreadable expression. “You’re leaving aren’t you?”
Was it that obvious?
The angel gave her a solemn nod. “I understand. You’ve seen through the illusion of this world now that you’re ready to move onto the next life. Not to worry, I will raze the landscape with a ruinous blaze and turn the world into a massive funeral pyre, just for you. But…”
“Yes, Anguish?” she said, going along with the role-playing now that she knew how far some people were taking it.
“Can you sign my book first?”
“Oh. Sure.” Relieved, she scribbled a nice message inside. The dark angel stepped aside and she hurried onto the escalator. She made it to the top and continued through the vast atrium toward the main entrance, hoping no one else would catch her sneaking out.
As she neared the entrance, the sounds of the busy street outside urged her on. Fate pushed through the doors, breathing in the smell of car fumes and rain on fresh asphalt like it was ocean air. Falling into a run, she hailed a cab.
•
After showing proof of payment because she couldn’t tell her driver where to go exactly, he became surprisingly tolerant with her vague request to head north on Interstate 5.
They were less than an hour from the Canadian border when the tugging in her chest yanked hard to the left. Fate grabbed the back of the driver’s seat, pointing into the dark. “Borys. There. Take this exit.” Almost two hours of driving had given them plenty of time to chat and get on a first-name basis. She knew all about his wife and their eight children.
As he swerved off the highway and followed the overpass, she felt the unrelenting pull grow stronger than ever. There was no question anymore that her destination was near. She was on autopilot now.
When Fate directed him to turn onto an obscure road leading to what seemed like the very outskirts of civilization, he slowed the car. “Are you certain?” he asked in his thick Polish accent. “Looks like it goes nowhere.”
She didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on the lit edges of the road. As the headlights grazed over a broken-down tractor, she watched for the weather-beaten paddles of the windmill farther up. Her heart thudded with a joyful ache when she saw it. “Once you pass over the covered bridge, go right,” she said, her voice but a whisper.
Borys turned his head as if to speak but remained silent. The cab bounced over the rickety bridge’s warped planks. As they passed through the wooden tunnel Fate held her breath, her muscles tight with anticipation. She felt like she was entering a time portal into her past.
On the other side thick brambles and tall grass crowded the dirt road, blocking her view of the outlying tulip fields. They would be in bloom about now, a golden blanket woven together by bands of April Moons, Apollos, Goldstars and Yellow Giants. Her grandparents had given her mother the field as a birthday present, allowing the eight-year-old to pick all the bulbs. She’d chosen only yellow, selecting them by interesting names alone. Fate had grown up making the trip to Gran’s with Eustace every April 3rd to celebrate the birthday and memory of the mother she never knew. But Gran, widowed by then, filled the hole, telling stories about her mother’s childhood––always starting with how her precocious daughter had described the annual bloom as the time of year when sunbeams fell in the back yard just for her. The best birthday present ever.
As the car turned right, Fate sat straight, watching the high beams illuminate a large brick building a half-mile down the lane. She could hardly believe her eyes. Fables Bookstore. She was amazed she’d found it. The last time she’d been there was when she was ten and totally clueless about directions.
“I should take you home now?” Borys asked.
His voice brought her back to the moment. “No, that’s okay. I’ll get out here.”
He shifted in his seat, turning to look at her with some effort since he was a heavy man. She avoided his troubled expression, ducking her head to search for her credit card. He handed her the terminal so she could pay. She passed it back with a hundred-dollar tip folded
on top.
“Oh, too much!” he protested.
“You deserve it. You have the patience of a saint.” She climbed out.
He gave her another look of concern.
She feigned a carefree smile. “It’s perfectly safe. I own the building.” She wasn’t lying. She’d inherited the bookstore when her grandmother had died seven years earlier, though she hadn’t returned since. The pain that had always kept her away was already flooding in. She shut the car door and waved goodbye.
As Fate stood in the pitch-black watching the lights of the cab disappear, she felt anything but safe. Not because of the inky darkness wrapped around the secluded vale or absence of close neighbors. But because the inexplicable compulsion that had propelled her there was terrifying.
She had lost her mind. Why else had she talked Borys into leaving without her?
Yet here she was, standing in front of the century-old bookstore, where she’d spent all her childhood summers burrowed deep within its vault of stories––tumbling down a rabbit hole with Alice, skipping along the yellow brick road with Dorothy’s gang and flying to Neverland with Peter. Indeed, Fables Bookstore was where she’d first started writing her own adventures.
All the sweet memories rushed in, making her yearn for a time long gone.
The clouds shredded thin, allowing enough moonlight to give her a better look at the building. It looked more like the granary it had originally been with its stark façade and entrance and windows boarded over. The sign, which had been made to look like a giant book with Fables written on it, was gone. Had someone stolen it? This worried her. She could easily imagine someone taking it as a unique piece of art for display in some metropolitan apartment. She stared at the worn letters painted over the brick, which spelled out Bookstore in all caps. The quaint, old-fashioned flourishes that once surrounded the sign now looked bizarre without the book to complete the design.
It made her angry and sad to see the place looking so forsaken. Fables had been loved by generations of loyal customers throughout the county. Not to mention all the tourists who came to visit the historic bookstore on their way to the quaint countryside getaways peppered throughout the valley.
Her stomach knotted with guilt. Why had she promised her grandmother she’d run the bookstore someday? Maybe because she’d thought Gran would always be there, creating the perfect haven for fellow bookworms. But Fate didn’t know how to do that. Especially since the heart and soul of Fables Bookstore had died with Gran.
A brisk wind swept past her, rustling the brush and trees with a mournful moan. She shivered, feeling small, wanting more than anything for her grandmother to run out, wrap her in a blanket and take her inside where a cup of hot chocolate and a good book was waiting.
The pull to go inside the bookstore was overpowering. But she remained rooted to the spot. She may have been lured there by a sudden burst of nostalgia, but now she felt like a fish caught on a line, struggling to swim in the opposite direction while the hook dug deeper. How could she go inside without Gran being there? She couldn’t. Just thinking about it was too painful.
A fat raindrop smacked the top of her head. The moment she looked up, the sky dumped a torrent of rain in her face. She shrank under the deluge. Within seconds her hair was plastered to her head and her clothes were drenched.
Glancing up, she blinked into the pelting rain. “Really?”
Knowing she had no other choice but to surrender to this untimely force of nature, she ran around the corner looking for the delivery door. Thankful it wasn’t boarded over like the front entrance, she fished in her purse for her keys.
Fate froze just as she was about to put the key in the lock. Strange that she hadn’t taken the key off the ring after all these years. Then again, having it there had helped her pretend Gran was waiting for her at the bookstore. She was a pro at pretending, always had been. But there was no room for that now. Shoving the key in, she turned the lock and pushed the door open. It was time to grow a spine and face why she’d come back to roost like some absentminded homing pigeon.
Chapter 2
THE MUSTY ODOR OF DAMP PAPER filled the dark interior. The moment she stepped inside, the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. Clicking on the tiny flashlight attached to her key ring, Fate directed its modest beam at a cluttered storeroom. Without stopping to scrutinize anything in particular, she navigated her way through a maze of boxes, bypassed a door labeled Janitor, and slipped past a panel of green velvet curtains.
As soon as she entered the main floor, another wave of nostalgia hit her. She’d expected the place to be empty, but it was just as she remembered. The cozy reading nooks still contained the comfy wing-backed chairs, though there was nothing inviting about them now. Under the cold, meager beam of her flashlight they looked as gray and forbidding as tombstones.
She pointed the light at the rounded cashier’s counter, her chest tightening, her eyes stinging with tears. She could almost see Gran standing behind the counter, sorting through piles of books or looking up over her reading glasses with that lopsided smile and eyes twinkling with childlike wonder.
Sniffing, Fate blinked to hold back a flood of tears, but they escaped, rolling down her face unchecked. She looked away, unable to bear the overwhelming sadness and turned her attention to the rows of towering bookcases filling the large, open interior of the bookstore. They were still brimming with books. Wiping her eyes, she walked over to a bookcase filled with classics. She ran her fingers over the spines before pulling out a random book. It was Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. A shower of paper dust fell from its warped hardbound cover, drifting to the worn cedar floor.
Perplexed, she stared at the husk before checking several other volumes. They were all crumbling. What could’ve caused this? Books, no matter how dusty and neglected, simply didn’t disintegrate as if they’d undergone some sort of weird time warp. She suddenly had the heebie-jeebies.
Shivering from a mixture of nerves and wet clothes, she glanced around, disliking the shadowy corners keeping the dead spaces hidden from view. As she stared into the dark, her skin prickled with a sense of being watched.
Fate pointed her flashlight into the blackest regions of the store. The light bounced off a framed poster, which she recognized as the Moonlight Rider, then grazed over a whole series of old fairy tale posters she knew well. When the round beam moved across a bookcase off to her right, she held still as something darted from the light.
It looked like a gray cat jumping from one shelf to another, except its movements seemed more halted than lithe. She knew it couldn’t be the former bookstore cat. Oz lived with her now.
“Here, kitty, kitty…” She started to follow, but an appalling stench stopped her and she was quick to make an about face. No doubt this was where the stray was leaving its unsavory victims to rot. And if the cat was feral, she was best to leave it alone.
A metallic clanking sound came from the front of the bookstore. She swung around, grabbing at her chest, adrenaline shooting to her heart. She wasn’t alone. Pointing her flashlight in the direction of the noise, she froze in place, unsure if she should run away or investigate. Running felt best, but she could hear the rain beating against the roof. It was really coming down out there.
Turning off the flashlight, she tiptoed forward. Peering around a bookcase, she spied a faint light casting flickering shadows against a wall lined with windows. She smelled smoke, thick like smoldering paper. Or books. She frowned. Who was burning books in her bookstore?
Roused by sudden indignation, she moved to the next bookcase and peeked around the corner. The contents of a metal wastebasket burned high with crackling flames, its light revealing the vandal. He stood in front of the Fables sign, where it leaned against a stairwell leading to the second floor. Relieved to see the sign had been moved inside, she fixed her eyes on the intruder.
He was a tall dark outline against the fire, his back to her and a huge iron key in his hands. She puzzled over the
key, certain she’d never seen it before.
She shrank into the shadows, nervous about what to do next. A confrontation might be dangerous. He could be a creep. But she couldn’t just let him do whatever he liked in her building. What if he burned the place down? She dug inside her purse, feeling for the phone. When she found it, she made her way to the back of the store, dialing 911.
“Damn, no signal,” she whispered. Now she was really stuck.
Knots of panic and frustration formed in her stomach. Why was this happening? She wanted out of there. She wanted to be home. “Start dealing,” she told herself. Taking a deep breath, she dropped the phone and flashlight in her purse, searching for the small can of pepper spray Eustace had given her. She pulled out a vial of perfume instead. Great, the mace was in her other purse.
“Fake it,” she murmured as she snuck to the front of the store. Relying on the element of surprise, she stepped into the light, the pink cylinder aimed, finger on the trigger. “Hey! What’re you doing here?”
He dropped the key, whirling around in alarm.
“Don’t move, or you’ll get a face full of hurt!” she said, trying to sound tough, while keeping her arm steady. But she was wet and cold, and couldn’t stop shivering.
He stood motionless, his face cast in darkness. She couldn’t tell what he might do, and the longer he remained silent the tenser she became.
“You gave me a fair fright,” he said at long last. “I wasn’t expecting to be discovered.”
The unexpected lilt of his Scottish accent threw her off. “Yeah?” she stalled, unsure what to say next. “Well, I wasn’t expecting to find my place broken into.”
Keeping the perfume pointed, she eyed the inviting flames, her frozen limbs craving the warmth. Raising his hands in surrender, he stepped aside so she could move close to the fire. Giving him a wide berth, she kept her eyes trained on him as she sidled over to the metal wastebasket. She glanced at its contents, quickly returning her gaze with a disapproving frown. “There’s something deeply wrong with people who burn books.”
Fate's Fables Special Edition: One Girl's Journey Through 8 Unfortunate Fairy Tales (Fate's Journey Book 1) Page 2
