Jack gasped dramatically and Elliot laughed.
‘Bye!’
‘Goodbye forever, Elliot! We are no longer friends!’ Jack called behind him, but Elliot could hear the laughter in his voice.
‘See you tomorrow, Jack!’ he said with a wave, heading out into the warm spring sunshine. He had to get to the library.
Alex from the bookstore had agreed to meet him there so he could pick their brain about town history. He’d learned at various town meetings that Alex, while one of the younger residents of Dream Harbor, seemed to know an awful lot of its lore. And after going down some inn-history rabbit holes, Elliot wanted to know more.
Alex was already there when Elliot arrived, sitting at a table by the windows surrounded by several small stacks of books. Their short lavender hair was bright in the sunshine.
‘Hey, Elliot,’ they said with a smile when he approached.
‘Hi, thanks for meeting me.’
‘Always happy to help a fellow history buff.’
Elliot slid into the chair across from Alex, ready to dive in. He never got tired of this, digging into the past, uncovering how people used to live, wishing he could go back and see it with his own eyes.
‘So, this is a particularly fun one,’ Alex said, pushing a thin book across the table.
Elliot picked it up, turning it over in his hands.
Dream Harbor History. Pretty straightforward.
‘A former mayor wrote that back in the nineteen-thirties, and it’s filled with bizarre stories,’ Alex said, their face lit up with the same excitement Elliot felt. ‘I’m not sure how accurate anything is, but it’s certainly an interesting look into one of our illustrious leaders.’
Elliot flipped it open to a dog-eared page in the middle, reading a few paragraphs before he realized what he was seeing.
‘Wait a minute, this mayor thinks he’s clairvoyant.’
‘Yep!’ Alex said with a laugh.
‘And so does our current mayor…’
‘It’s a whole thing, actually. Multiple mayors throughout the years have claimed to have premonitions, dreams, future-telling abilities. There was even one that read people’s tea leaves as a side hustle.’
‘You’re kidding.’
Alex shook their head. ‘I would never joke about this.’ They were grinning and Elliot couldn’t help but laugh.
‘That’s wild.’
‘That’s Dream Harbor for you.’
Elliot was still chuckling when Alex passed him another book. ‘This one has more about the inn. It was one of the first buildings in town and it’s one of the few original buildings still standing. The flower shop is one of the others.’
‘Really?’
Alex nodded. ‘That string of buildings—The Daisy Chain Flower Shop, the ice cream parlor, the pet shop—they’ve all been here from the start. Right around the middle of the eighteenth century. Of course, it housed different businesses at the time.’
Elliot looked at the page Alex had opened to. An old black and white photo of Main Street from about sixty years after the town was founded was in the center of the page. It was probably one of the first photographs of the town but Main Street looked eerily familiar, other than the dirt road and horses. And there it was, the building that would become Daisy’s flower shop. He wondered if Daisy wouldwant to see this. If she’d want to hear about what he’d found.
He might have to visit the flower shop and find out.
ChapterTen
Her mother was rearranging the flower shop again.
