36.
It’s Sunday, soHunter isn’t working. The bookstore is absolutely silent, everything exactly where and as it should be. The office door is open, and I almost walk inside, but…
I don’t want that door to slam closed again, not while I’m in there alone and not expecting anyone to stop by until tomorrow morning.
“Not today, poltergeist,” I say, gazing into the enticingly empty room.
In response, all the drawers pop out of the desk and land on the floor as if daring me to come inside and fix it.
“Not today,” I repeat. “But nice try.”
This pretty much clinches it for me: I have to get rid of the ghost, or at least calm it back down. I wouldn’t mind a nice Mrs. Mac floating around or a friendly see-through dog curled up by the door, but this ghost threw a chair at me, and only one of us has anything left to lose. I know Hunter is helping his grandmother on the farm today, so I guess I’ll just hang out in my apartment with Maggie and wait until I can talk with him tomorrow. With him around, I’ll be braver.
My grandmother and I curl up to watchDrop Dead Gorgeous,which is one of her favorites. It’s calm and companionable, and we laugh at all the same things. She hops around and I scritch her head, and when it’s over, she tells me all the silly things Tina said and did, and it’s the best time we’ve ever spent together, mainly because we haven’t crossed each other’s boundaries or talked about anything serious. Sharing a salad with her at dinner reminds me so much of my old life with Doris, but Maggie seems like she’s relaxed, like she’s actually being herself around me.
“I still don’t get it,” I say as we munch on raspberries. I eat mine one by one with a fork, but she tears into them with her beak, smearing her face with gory red. She looks like a parrot serial killer, but I don’t tell her that.
She looks up. “Get what?”
“Why did you make plans with Diana to become a cat? Did you just want a few more years? I could see Lindy planning her life in a cat body, but not you.”
Maggie chews, red juice dripping. “I got some bad medical news a few months ago. Something terminal. I…I wasn’t ready to go. So I figured I could cast my spell and get a few more years out of life. Diana had a little money, and we wanted to travel. It’s a lot cheaper, when you’re a cat. Wouldn’t you want to hang around with your best friend just a little longer?”
I look at the parrot who used to be my best friend, Doris. “Yeah, I guess I get that. And it’s pretty normal, fearing death.”
“To be honest, I didn’t even know if the spell would work. But, well, if you’re dead, it’s not like you know any different. Getting to come back and meet you is…” She looks at me, her red eyes dilating. “Honey, it’s better than anything I could’ve hoped for. I loved Diana like a sister, but it hurt knowing I might have grandkids out there and I’d never get to meet ’em. And here you are,just as strong and smart and beautiful a child as anybody could hope for. A little pushy and nosy, but—”
“No, don’t say anything else. I preferred the first part, when it was complimentary.”
“But you’re just perfect, is what I was going to say. I can’t wait to meet your sisters, even if they can’t know who I am. When are they coming to visit?”
I take a deep breath. “I told them to come up for the grand opening on Halloween. If they showed up now, they’d want to rearrange everything, and I need to do this myself. For me. Exactly the way I want things done.”
Maggie bobs her head. “It’s empowering, owning a business. I remember what it felt like when I opened the video store. Everybody thought I was crazy. But back in the eighties, that shop was the place to be on a Saturday night. Kids would cruise by with the windows down and music playing, waiting for a parking space. I would decorate for Halloween and have a movie character costume contest. At Easter, I would hide little egg tickets in the movie cases, and the winner got free candy.” She sighs. “It was hard, watching my store die. And not just because I got slow—but because movies changed. People used to love the feeling of coming to a movie rental place. It was part of every date or party. Netflix and chill, my fanny.”
“I know it’s hard to watch things you love change,” I say carefully. “But maybe that’s just part of the natural life cycle. I’m keeping some movies, but I think…I think the store could go back to being a destination, you know? People will come here for dates. Kids will come to study. Maybe we can do a book-character costume contest. Or use your Easter egg tickets in the books.”
Maggie’s crest goes up. “Oh, honey. I’d like that.”
“Witchiness doesn’t have to be the only legacy, Meemaw. I’mgoing to give Arcadia Falls a new destination, a new place to gather, just like you did.”
“But you’ll still have the peanuts, right?”
That makes me chuckle. “Yes. Or else I think Barb would put out a hit on me.”
“The peanuts are a real moneymaker,” she agrees.
Before I settle in for bed and long after Maggie has fallen asleep, I read the spell Farrah gave me and gather all the ingredients from the apothecary cabinet. I’m glad Maggie is back, and we’re getting along well, but I still don’t exactly trust her. We haven’t mentioned it again, but she doesn’t want me to find that grimoire, which makes me want to find it all the more.
The next day, I greet Hunter with a kiss on the cheek and a cup of coffee made the way he likes it.
“I could get used to this,” he rumbles. He drinks it standing up, too full of energy to settle down at all. I wish I had a better segue into what I want to discuss, but I’m sick of cohabitating with a poltergeist who doesn’t even pay rent.
“While you’ve been working on the shelves, has that poltergeist bothered you at all?” I ask innocently.
His brows draw down, and he uncrosses his feet like he might have to fight. “No. Why? Has it been botheringyou? Is it riled up again?”
I almost feel guilty burdening him with my problems, but isn’t that what a partnership is? Two people who solve their problems together?
