The bell over the bookshop door chimed like it always did. Today, the bright, happy sound felt like someone poking a bruise.
Felicity pasted a smile on her face and turned the sign to CLOSED even though it had already been a day of quiet so thick she could hear the dust settling.
Spring had reached Willowbrook in name only. The mountains held on to their chill, keeping most folks indoors and making the streets feel emptier than they should this time of year. And with the interstate exit still shut down, the trickle of travelers who used to wander in—stretch their legs, fall in love with her shop and leave with a paperback or a handmade mug—had dried up completely.
No early-spring weekenders with rosy cheeks. No curious tourists stumbling upon her window display and lighting up like they’d found a secret.
Just her.
Just locals she already knew and loved, doing their best to keep her small bookshop afloat—as if they could buy her entire store one paperback at a time.
Her books.
And a silence that felt heavier every day.
Her two employees had already finished cleaning up the shop for the day and sat around the table near the window. The sky beyond was what Felicity called Wyoming gray—the color of promised precipitation, but at the same time, a color that didn’t commit.
Rina had brought her famous lemon bars on a pretty dish, and Mina was busy winding twine around a glass jar to upcycle it into a lantern for their next “Books and Crafts” night.
Mina looked up from her project. “You look like you need tea.”
Felicity caught herself before she blurted:I need a miracle.
“Tea is good.”
Rina handed her a mug of tea brewed on a hotplate in the back room of the shop. The ladies weren’t more than a handful of years older than her, but they mothered her the way they mothered everyone in town. Usually it made her feel like she was part of a little family held together by the love of books and imaginary worlds.
Today it made her feel scraped raw.
Rina reached for a lemon bar. “How are we looking?” It had become a ritual for the ladies to ask the status of sales for the day, week, month. But each day, week, month that went by, things looked bleaker.
Her throat worked, and she let the steam from the tea whisper over her face, breathing in the comfort. “Not better.”
“We’ll get more bodies in here for the next event,” Mina piped up, gluing down the edge of the twine. “We can post on the town Facebook page again. Folks loved the last Books and Crafts.”
Felicity’s gaze slid to the chalkboard sign leaning by the counter.
BOOKS & CRAFTS
Read, Rest, Renew.
Theme: Self-care through stories
Craft: DIY Tea Blends
Donation: $5. All proceeds to the Black Heart Ranch Therapy Program
Felicity drew a sip of tea into her mouth, barely registering the chamomile blend her sister Honor had made for her last time she popped in.
“I talked to some people in the coffeeshop yesterday. They all showed interest in the event,” Mina said.
Rina nodded. “What we do here matters.”
Felicity smiled because what they did mattered. But the bell hadn’t rung enough this month or the last or the one before that.
“Too bad the light bill doesn’t accept handmade tea blends as payment.” She joked to lift the mood, but her words dropped a heavier weight over all of them.
Rina settled a hand on Felicity’s arm. “It’s just the traffic. Once that interstate exit is fixed—”
