Half mortal, half god.
And your wish will be fulfilled.”
Epilogue
“I’m looking for something intriguing. Romantic but a little bit dark and exciting. Maybe a little, um—” a giggle broke out, immediately muffled and disguised with a cough, “dirty. Erotic. Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.” The voice was low, whispered like a secret into my ear.
Yeah, aren’t we all looking for that, lady?
Wait. What the fu—
“Miss? Excuse me?” the voice whispered louder, closer.
Then something was poking me in my arm.
Are the gods poking me with sticks? Do I get to live out the rest of my eternity as a half-mortal half-god being poked and asked dumbass questions in a—
I took a deep shaky breath.
The scent of books filled my airways.
This would be my Hell, wouldn’t it? Living out the rest of my existence in a bookstore with no light, while people poked me and interrupted my reading alone in the dark for the rest of time.Fuck my existence. They better give me a flashlight at least.
“Miss? Are you okay?” the voice asked again. This time it grabbed hold of my arm and shook it hard. Not the voice, the hand—
A hand.
My eyes flew open, light and sound filled my senses. The golden rays of an early morning sun poured through the front windows. People stood around, dozens of them, leaning against shelves or sitting on the rug with books open, reading. Somewhere in front of me, the sound of the espresso machine hissed with the frothing of milk, and the smell of it wafted past me, mixing with the intoxicating aroma of the fanning pages of books.
I was in the bookstore.
My eyes darted to the window. Yes, I was in the books store. I read the sign four times out loud to make sure.Spirits and Words. I was back in my grandmother’s store! I was upside again.How long was I gone? How did I get another chance?
“Um, excuse me?” Again someone was jabbing the hell out of my arm.
I spun around, smiling a bit too frantically, but really I didn’t care what the lady thought—I was alive!
“Right! Romantic, dark, exciting, with some erotica mixed in. Come over here,” I said, pulling her gently into the romance section. “There are so many books that have all those things.” I started pulling out book after book, piling them into her open arms. “Okay, you could start with these!”
Then I almost tripped over myself trying to get away. I seriously power walked to the register and slammed my hand down on the counter. “Terry Ann!” I called out, frantically.
Terry Ann’s head tilted up, and her eyes crinkled happily when she saw me standing there. “Good morning, Rainey dear. How are you feeling, better?”
She remembered my name.She never remembered my name.
“I’m fine. Great, even. What day is it? What’s the month?” I lunged across the counter to the small digital calendar we kept near the register and turned it to face me. The small clock on the top read 9:15 am, and the date staring back at me below the time was October seventeenth. My birthday.
I was gone for a year? On my last birthday, Addy died. The first time I was in Ravenswood I was there until January and now—now it was October once again. I lost an entire year of my life.
A whole freaking year.
A flush of panicky unease flooded through me. It’s been a year and the world I’ve lived in for most of my life has gone on without me in it.
“Oh, that’s right,” Terry Ann chuckled, patting my hand softly. “It’s your birthday today, isn’t it?”
I stared at her, numbness spreading from my shoulders down to my feet. Maybe if I didn’t think too much about it, I could forget the fact I lost a year. I’ve lost much more important things in this situation, time was the least of all of them.
“I thought you were taking off today, dear.” She smiled at me sweetly. “Go home, read a nice book.”
