Page 20 of Ella and the Enchanted Bookshop

Only when something important happened.

Did this book… Did Margaret think my life was a fairy tale?

The only reason I was willing to even keep the thing in my room was because it was from Margaret. My father had told me once that Margaret had been watching over me since I’d been born. And she’d watched even more closely after my mother died, and even more, to the point of being pushy, after my father passed. If I had anyone left to trust in this world, it was her.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the book once more. If there would be any day to add part of the story…

It would be today.

And sure enough, my heart nearly stopped beating when I found that another two-page spread had been added.

There was an image of a lovely smiling maiden with a basket in one hand on the side of a field. Her dress and apron were dirty, as was the kerchief tying back her hair, and her face was smothered with ashes. And yet, she looked happy. She might have been blushing, even.

And beside her, astride a dark horse, was a prince. At least, I assumed he was a prince. A gold circlet sat on his head, and he was wearing a suit of armor.

Even more amazing, however, was that he was smiling too.

The maiden and the prince.

After staring at it for several minutes, unable to comprehend what it was that I was seeing, I quickly shut the book and put it on the table beside me.

See? I told Margaret in my head. The book is wrong. If Asher is the prince, I’ve already met him.

But today, a voice in my head whispered back, sounding a lot like Margaret’s, you really got to meet him.

Unfortunately, she had me there.

Fear and joy made me tremble slightly as I put the book back and turned off the light. Not so much because I had a potentially magical book by my bedside. To a point, I’d gotten used to that. But I trembled because I wondered if I dared hope… if I dared dream that I had truly met my prince.

10

The Pumpkin Festival Parade

My stepmother returned the next afternoon. And I could tell as soon as she walked in the door that she was not happy.

She stomped into the kitchen–a somewhat impressive feat, seeing as she was wearing four-inch stilettos. “Did you seriously turn Ron off the property?”

“Good afternoon to you, too,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

“Ella, I’m not in the mood. Did you or did you not–”

“I politely asked him to leave. But as he was being belligerent and refused to exit the premises, my next student, who had arrived early, decided to assist.” I took another sip. “I’m not sure why you’re upset. We talked about this. I’m not teaching him again.”

“Well, now he’s given us a one-star review on the town website, and our average has plummeted.” She glared at me.

I sighed. “Look, I’ll ask our other clients to review. I know the seniors will do it if I help them log into their accounts. And if I explain the situation to the mothers in the homeschool group, I think they’ll be more than happy to.”

Casey pursed her lips, but I could see that my plan wasn’t lost on her. We’d always had a hard time getting people to review our small business, and I knew now that she was thinking about all the reviews people might post if they thought it would help us.

“Make sure you do,” she finally said before shaking her head. Then she stopped and looked at me again. “By the way, who was the student that ran him off?”

“Oh, the new one,” I said, deciding to remain vague. “He could see that Ron was making me uncomfortable. And he didn’t actually run him off. Just… made him uncomfortable instead.” As I said it, I couldn’t help the twitch of my lips as I remembered just how irate Ron had been.

But Casey didn’t smile. “Because that’s what we need to hear from our students. That our other students make them uncomfortable.”

“Ohhh, as long as they’re only making your stepdaughter uncomfortable, it’s okay.” I nodded. “Got it.”

Casey gave me a glower that looked like it could melt steel, and for a moment, I thought I was sure to get some sort of retribution. But then, to my surprise, she only studied me for a moment before putting her purse down on the counter. “Remind me, what day is your new class beginning?”