I take a step forward. Then another.
And then there's thesmell.
Cream cheese garlic buns, fresh from the oven. My stomach clenches. Peppermint hot chocolate layered underneath, and beneath that, old paper and leather, the kind of smell that makes you want to curl up and never leave. It's the olfactory equivalent of a weighted blanket. It'sunfair,is what it is.
The floorboards creak softly under my feet, but it's a friendly sound. Awelcomesound. Like the shop is acknowledging my presence.
Okay. That's a weird thought. Shops don't acknowledge people.
But this one...
I turn slowly, taking it all in. There are armchairs scattered throughout the space, mismatched but somehow cohesive. Velvet and leather and worn brocade in burgundy and forest green and midnight blue. A fireplace dominates one wall, flames visible behind the grate even though I can't remember hearing them when I came in.
Small tables hold stacks of books and ceramic cups and candles in brass holders. A glass display case near the counter catches my eye, filled with objects I can't quite make out. The light doesn't reach inside the case. Intentional, again. Whatever's in there, the shop doesn't want me looking too closely. Not yet.
And on the wall behind the counter, painted in elegant gold script:
Hewhay's.
Just that. No subtitle, no established date, no clever tagline. Just the name, illuminated by a single beam from somewhere above, like a title card in a film.
Whoever owns this place knows exactly what they're doing.
I look around for that whoever. Someone to ask about...I don't know. Anything. Whether they're open. Whether I'm allowed to be here. Whether this place is real or if I've wandered into a very elaborate fever dream brought on by emotional distress and low blood sugar.
No one.
The shop is completely empty.
A bell sits on the counter. Brass, tarnished with age, the kind with a little button on top. I walk over and press it.
The chime that comes out is strange. It doesn't fade the way bells normally do, diminishing into silence. Instead it seems to swell, filling the space, sinking into the walls and the books and the very air before finally, gently, dissolving.
I wait.
Nothing.
I press it again. Same strange chime. Same swelling silence. Same lack of shopkeeper materializing from a back room.
"Hello?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended. I clear my throat and try again. "Is anyone here?"
The fire crackles.
That's the only answer I get.
I should leave. I know I should leave. This is the part of the horror movie where the audience is screaming at the girl to get out of the creepy house, and she never listens, and then something terrible happens, and everyone in the theater is likewell what did you expect, you walked right into the obviously haunted bookshop.
But Hewhay's doesn't feel haunted.
It feels like a crème brûlée. Caramelized and golden on the surface, all that careful presentation, but underneath there's something richer. Denser. Something you have to crack through to find.
Which is maybe the creepiest thing of all, when I think about it. But I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about anything. I want to sink into one of those velvet armchairs and disappear into a book and forget that Marilyn Yuson exists, thatHeart exists, that my whole life is a series of small surrenders I keep making because I don't know how to do anything else.
The bookshelves seem to lean toward me.
That's not possible. Obviously. Bookshelves don't lean. Bookshelves are inanimate objects made of wood and nails and probably some kind of industrial varnish.
But these bookshelves...they want me to look at them. I can feel it.
