“Why you are crying.”
I took another sip of tea. “Okay. Hit me. Why am I crying?”
“Your heart is broken.”
He said it calmly, matter-of-fact. Like this was something one commonly diagnosed when one was a very old spirit of a very old book.
I pulled my feet up so I sat cross-legged. “I just forced my not-boyfriend-demon-enemy to kill himself with a pair of scissors. So. That happened.”
“Are you sure?”
“That he stabbed himself? Yes.”
“Are you sure he was not your boyfriend?”
I sniffed and stared at the tea. “I wish he weren’t.”
“Why would you wish that, my dear?”
“Would be nice to skip the heartbreak.” I rubbed at my eyes. “Why did I do this? I know better. It never works out for me. Love isn’t made for me. And a demon? What was I even thinking? I didn’t want to fall in love. I tried really hard not to.”
I sat there feeling miserable while Harold sipped tea. Finally, he set his cup down and clasped his hands in his lap.
Harold concentrated for a moment, then leaned forward with Dad’s last journal in his hand. Nice trick, plucking it off of a random shelf in the library.
“I know you don’t want to read it yet, and I trust your instincts. But there is one entry I’ve marked with a ribbon, I feel might help you.”
I took the book, the weight of it familiar in my hands. All of Dad’s journals were about the same size and had the same bindings. But more than the physicality of the book, it somehow still carried some of Dad’s energy. I knew, as soon as I saw his handwriting, that I would be reading every word in his voice.
“I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Well, then. Let me find some cookies for this tea. And maybe a new read? We have some delightful additions I’d like you to meet.”
“Just the tea, I think. Thank you, Harold.”
He patted my hand, then settled back in the chair and positioned his cup in his left hand, like he always did.
I finished my tea, the silence of the room, the soft sigh and shuffle of the books all around me the only conversation I needed.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I had been awake for over twenty-four hours and it had been a hell of a day.
Harold moved Dad’s journal out of my hands. I would have helped, but my eyes were too heavy to open, my limbs impossible to move. He pressed his hand gently on my shoulder before the soft light clicked off, and all the spirits of words and thoughts and long-forgotten histories sighed and swayed into dreams.
Chapter 26
“A broken-down teapot. Really?”Xtelle pushed the offending vessel off to one side and sat down at the table across from me.
We were at the Blue Owl, the only twenty-four hour restaurant in town. I’d stopped by for lunch and was waiting on my soup and salad. Instead I got a demon.
“You can’t be here,” I said.
“True.” She smiled, and her eyes twinkled. “Can you guess how I am?”
I couldn’t smell the tea in my cup, nor the pies and bread the Blue Owl always baked fresh every day. The sound of people around us was unnaturally muted and the music playing over the system was wind chimes instead of country and rock.
“I’m dreaming.”
“Bravo.” She sat back. “You do catch on quickly, don’t you?”
