Page 38 of Ella and the Enchanted Bookshop

“I’d always planned to come back,” I said, grabbing the feed scoop.

“Don’t worry about that. I already did it.”

I paused for a moment, trying to gauge her attitude before putting the scoop back and reaching instead for the broom. This time, she didn’t object when I started sweeping.

Usually, the less Casey and I talked, the better we got along. But this silence was heavy. Almost suffocating. I could feel her resentment boiling beneath the surface, but I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with it.

There was a temptation to feel bad for her. After all, I’d been gone for an entire week. But I tried to shrug that temptation off like an ill-fitting coat. I was her stepdaughter–the daughter of her late husband. And even if I wasn’t her own blood, she should have wanted to protect me. She should have been concerned about my illness. A good woman–a woman like Margaret–would have done her best to take care of someone in her household who was ill. There was no reason for me to feel bad about needing help, I realized with a suddenly powerful conviction.

Besides, as she liked to remind me, this ranch wasn’t even mine anymore. The responsibility for it should fall on her.

Finally, I finished sweeping, the oppressive silence only getting heavier by the minute. So I tried again.

“I’ll wipe down the saddles–”

“I already did it.” She still didn’t look at me as she spoke. “There’s pizza inside. Go in and eat dinner.”

I stared at her, not sure I’d heard correctly. Had she just told me to go inside and eat dinner? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard those words come out of her mouth. Now that I thought about it, I’d survived largely on a steady diet of frozen egg and turkey sausage sandwiches and protein bars for the last few years just because there was barely any time to sit down and eat. And now she wanted me to go inside before her and eat pizza?

Well, if she wanted me to eat dinner, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I thanked her quietly and went inside. And sure enough, there was pizza in the fridge. And it hadn’t all been eaten.

As I sat with my pizza, I checked my text messages to see if Asher had sent anything new. When I saw that there were no new notifications, my heart fell a bit. He’d stopped texting three days ago. Margaret said he often did things like that.

“Part of the job,” she’d told me.

And I understood that. But it didn’t mean I liked it.

Sighing, I closed my messages and began skimming the job postings around town. There weren’t a whole lot of positions available. The city wasn’t large, and I would need something that could support at least half of a rental payment and the bare minimum for college tuition, books, and food. I didn’t own a car, so that at least was simple.

But even if I did get a job and moved in with my cousin, as she’d invited me to do countless times, where would I put my horse?

Casey didn’t utter a single word to me for the rest of the night, and by the time I’d climbed into bed, I’d decided that I could easily handle this kind of life. If Casey always worked this hard, I wouldn’t even feel the need to leave.

My book didn’t show any new changes, but then again, I hadn’t expected it to. I hadn’t made any new shifts in my story. Instead, I’d gone back to my old way of life.

But not for long, I promised myself as I turned out my light. Soon, I would be living life my way.

Casey continued on that way for the next week. I was still allowed to teach lessons, and I did some work in the barn. But she fairly chased me out every time I tried to stay late to finish this or that project.

I was more than fine with this, though. It gave me the time I needed to fill out job applications online, and for the few that wanted physical copies, to deliver them by hand. I also began to quietly sort through my belongings, which were mostly already in my room. At one point, I had thought of the whole house as mine. The pictures. The paintings. The books.

But then my dad had made the decision to marry Casey, and I had been made more than aware over the course of the last few years that I was living on someone else’s property. That would make it easier to say goodbye, though, I thought with a good deal of sadness. There would be less to say goodbye to.

Unfortunately, packing also made it easier for me to lose things. I lost the book I was reading one day only to find it in a box I’d packed two days later. I also misplaced my wallet, several snacks, and my left sneaker. The worst, though, was when I lost my phone on Friday.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized to the manager of a local craft store the next day. She had asked me to log into their application dashboard and fix part of my application. “I don’t have my phone with me, but I can do it as soon as I get home.”

I shook my head at myself as I left the store. Of all the things to lose, how had I lost my phone?

I was still pondering this when I got home to find said phone on my bed. Beside it was a note from Jaelyne.

I found this in the kitchen. Mom said to leave it in here for you. Harper says I should charge you a ransom for returning it. What’s a ransom?

I rolled my eyes and smiled as I read the note. Relief pounded fresh in my lungs, though, as I swiped the screen to see how many notifications I’d missed.

But, of course, it was dead.

With a sigh, I prayed that Asher hadn’t tried to call while I was missing it, then I plugged it in and went out to the barn to help with nighttime feeding. It wasn’t until it finally powered on again that I developed an even uneasier feeling than I’d had before.